Happy walpurgis!

It's walpurgis night, valborgsmässoafton, today. One of the many days said to be a festival celebrating spring. And we've had some fab warm weather here today -- I think the whole country has -- with nothing but sun, blue sky and singing birds. A perfect valborg and a really great warm spring day (we had over 20 degrees in the sun).

Of cause the weather meant me and my sis went for a walk with our cameras. And Julle. Here's some of the photos I took earlier today, though not all as a headache is keeping me from editing and posting as many pics as I'd like. (No worry, an aspirin and I'll feel better in a few hours and it's not like I was going to any bonfire or party tonight anyway.)

Happy Walpurgis night!

Pulsatilla vulgaris

Just a quick pic of the common pasque flower that's blooming at the moment.

Crash, boom, bang...

...is not exactly how it sounded, but it felt just like something that would've sounded like that. I managed to break yet another fragile vintage glass flower on wire. I was just picking out some of my faux pearl drops and glass flowers on wires for a photo that was going to illustrate a future post on my other blog and noticed the wire was bent. I was just going to gently straighten it out. Not a good idea! The frail opalescent floral crumbled like a dried flower in my hands (covering my fingers in glass fragments -- ick!).

Luckily I have a few left, but that's the third one that has broken. One broke in storage (yes, that's bad storing on my part!) and another broke just like this one in my hands. So fragile. I don't think I dare use them in jewellery because of this...

If you wonder what a whole flower looks like, see my photo below.

Another twin bracelet -- revisited

So fairly busy this weekend too -- and my camera batteries were dying, just as the sunlight behind the rain clouds -- but still wanted to show the second version of the bracelet I showed earlier this week. The size of the seed beads were perfect, but the colour scheme was slightly messy and made the actual design hard to see so last night, before falling asleep, I made a new version using bronze-lined twin beads, golden seed beads and crystal rose topaz luster fp (apparently I did have a third colour in that size! Who knew...).

Because I used a different size seed beads, I had to alter the number of beads for each "wave". Below, you can see my trial strip. The first second (without fire-polished beads) was made using three seeds on each side, just like I used in the first bracelet, which fit perfectly with the fp's. Here it didn't work at all. So then I tried five seeds per side/wave -- because I prefer odd numbers and primes to even numbers -- which resulted in a really wavy pattern. So, lastly, I tried something in between and that is the version I stuck with for the final bracelet. The "five seeds waves" would probably work better if I used round beads instead of fire-polished, which -- despite the name (they are called round -- aren't fully spherical.

WIP: another twin bracelet

Actually, I'm slightly too busy to be blogging today, but I wanted a break and I've had fun doing a new bracelet (still in progress) that I wanted to show.

This is another really simple pattern. My own, evolving from trial and error, but probably not unique as I just let the shape of the beads determine the design. Beads as usual a mix of what I had at hand: seeds and twins from the prize I won and fp from my own stash (this and light hyacinth was the only colours I had in the right colour -- size or colour, you can't get both...) It's not finished, but at this point I began thinking about different directions the design could take: should I add the fire-polished beads as intended or leave it "bare" or just add beads to one side? The last alternative would probably be better for a collar/choker necklace than a bracelet.

Here's a really crummy pic of what the bracelet looks like lying flat. You can see the different design options I mentioned, from beads on both sides to no beads.

I'm also thinking about how different the design would look if I had used fully coloured beads instead of colour-lined. The lining makes it look almost like an open space in the middle. Just as in the lace bracelet I showed earlier. It would be fun to make a second bracelet using coloured beads too, just to see the difference. In such a bracelet the shape of the twin beads would be more visible instead of the meandering line that is the main focus of the design here.

A different colour combo would also make a huge difference. What would happen if the seeds and twins were the same colour? Or if using different colours of fp? Or just a huge "confetti" bead soup? All interesting questions, but I'm not sure I've got the right size, colour and amount of beads to try many variations at the moment.

Funny, looking at the pics, I almost think it looks like those herringbone "wave" bracelets. But much simple (at least for a newbie) as it's mostly stringing, not stitching.

Anyway, feedback always appreciated. Which version do you like best? And what do you think of the design overall?

Ice pearls

I can't say that the textured glass pearls sometimes known as "ice pearls" have every been my favourite beads. It's often been the opposite. I've actually used them twice: once for an objet d'art where I used round red ice pearls as wild strawberries strung on a straw of timothy-grass (see this post) and for a summer sea themed bead embroidered brooch (here) where the beads had just the right colours and shine (and it was for a contest so I needed to use beads from the shop, which limited my bead choices).

Anyway, while I've almost always disliked the beads, like with so many things I've still got a few of them in the evergrowing stash, having beaded for years now. In this case, the ice pearls came from two bead mixes I got ages ago. Just recently I sat down and sorted the beads -- having searched for the crackled glass beads in the mixes to illustrate a blog post -- and put them all in neat little piles, one for each bead type/shape. And I must say the colour combo in the ice pearl pile ignited a spark.

The are still not  favourite beads, but at least now I feel interested in doing something with them. They inspire me, which ice pearls have only done once before (the brooch doesn't count). Wonder what it'll be: I only know I want to create something.

That's a good reason to hold on to beads you might not like that much. One day you might discover something in them that you never saw before or you find something else that could use those half forgotten beads, tucked away behind the more attractive ones, to complete the design. You just never know.

Bead blog recap weeks 15-16

I'd didn't forget it this time. It's a new round-up of my last two weeks of blogging at my other blog, Manekis Pärlblogg. This time you'll find everything from how czech glass beads are made and the latest contests to pearl glossaries and frog closure necklace projects.

Enjoy!