Monday Miscellany - The Day Job, New Necklace

Today through Wednesday I'll be attending a conference in San Francisco, related to the day job, so I won't have much time to make anything or share much here. Since it's relatively close to home, I won't be staying at the conference hotel and that means getting up early each morning to get ready and drive up to the city. Because I'm not a morning person, it'll be a challenge. I'll still try to get something posted, but apologies in advance if it's not up to my usual output.

I've been working for a few days on a triple strand necklace with rhodonite beads and pendant. I had to re-work it several times (thank goodness for Scrimps!) but I'm pretty happy with the final piece.

(click to enlarge for detail)

At first I didn't have the spacer bars in it, but I didn't like the way the lower strand hung with the heavy pendant so I dug out the 3-hole spacer bars and re-strung the whole thing. Then I had to play around with the lengths of each segment to get the right curve in it.

The thing about this work that is quite different (for me) is that it's almost entirely rhodonite stone - no silver spacers or beads which I would normally add. I just wanted the colors, textures and shapes of the stones to be the focus.

Here's the clasp - I've had this for quite some time waiting on just the right piece for it.

Hope you took some time to read the Sunday Wanderings post - don't miss them every week, add yourself to the followers list or subscribe via RSS.

Hello from North Carolina

Hi again - I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while, and also that I didn't mention what was going on (and I wasn't supposed to, anyway), so I thought it was time to clue everyone in. My son has been on deployment with the Army in Iraq since October of '07 and he's finally home!

I've been in North Carolina, where he's based, first waiting for him to get back, and now hanging out with him until my flight home this weekend. I didn't know until the day before he arrived exactly when he'd be home, so I came early and planned a 10 day stay. I'm glad he got back at the start of the trip so we'd have more time together!

His girlfriend is also here, so I've got a bit of free time when they're out and about. I didn't bring any beading supplies with me (I had to bring a large suitcase full of my son's stuff from home and there just wasn't room for 10 days worth of clothes and beading stuff in my personal suitcase), so last weekend, I visited two local stores, Michael's and A. C. Moore for supplies.

I wish there were A. C. Moore's in California - their supply of Beadalon components was fabulous, plus a number of brands of beads I don't see back home, either, to say nothing of the wide selection. I admit, I went a bit crazy, but mostly I stocked up on things I'd never seen before and wasn't sure I'd find again - like a bunch of 'Quick Link' pieces, Scrimps for memory wire and tons of new eye- and decorated head- pins.

Here's a necklace I've been working on in the evenings and finished last night. The circle links are from the Beadalon Quick Link collection, the pinched silver beads and the small rings framing them are from the Bead Gallery collection, and the blue faceted glass discs are from the Blue Moon Color Collection. The necklace is 24" long and finished with a Beadalon EZ-Lobster clasp.

I'll be here thru Saturday, so I'll probably make another necklace or two, and post about it before I head home.

Copper and Peach Moonstone Work in Progress

I've started work on a new piece in pale peach moonstone, iridescent very light peach glass seed beads, and two sizes of copper beads. I love the color combination and the way the moonstone glows. My copper Scrimps and wire guardians came just in time for this one and I'll be re-stringing some other things I've done in copper and had to use regular crimps and crimp covers with.










I plan to do quite a bit of photography this weekend and re-list a number of pieces on Etsy - after I've gone to the fabric store and gotten some background fabrics. I've been using scarves and clothing as drapes - sometimes they work, sometimes not. I think solids with sheen or texture would be best, so I'll probably get some satins and maybe velvet tomorrow while I'm out gathering some items to send to my son who is deployed with the Army in Iraq.

Productive Beading Day!

This evening I finished a couple pieces I'd started yesterday and made a new lanyard and a new bracelet. The first one came about because of a message I got on Etsy. Someone had seen one of my pieces but wrote to ask if I would be interested in doing it in different colors because she wasn't fond of pink. We wrote back and forth for a bit so I could get a good idea of what she'd like. I finished it and posted it this evening. Here's a preview shot (I think the ones I do for the Etsy listing are nicer, but I took this one to show the potential buyer how it looked - she liked it so I finished it and put it up):












I liked the idea so much I made another one (below), but with only two colors. They are both done with eyepins and chain in antiqued gold tone, faceted smoky quartz colored glass beads, black glass beads, amber colored glass beads (in the first one) and small smoky quartz beads that are actual smoky quartz. I really like that stone, not quite brown, not quite gray. These are definitely great for eyeglass leashes.













Below is the one I made tonight. It uses the same small smoky quartz beads and the larger faceted glass smoky quartz colored bead (it's really amazing how perfectly the color matched). It's made as a badge lanyard necklace, so the center bead would be at the back of the neck when worn with a badge and then later I can turn it around and wear as a necklace.













The next one is one of the reasons I love having lots of beads and tools. I have this light blue sweater I was going to wear today (and did) and I wanted an eyeglass leash that complemented it, so I grabbed my eyepins and chain, nippers and round pliers and made it in about 30 minutes.












Finally, I was looking for inspiration by going through my beads and saw these aqua glass, slightly twisted ovals that I bought a few weeks ago but hadn't decided what to do with them. I had also bought some very pale yellow quartz beads at a local bead shop that I hadn't yet figured out how to use. Here's a bracelet - I'm going to to a lanyard necklace in this design tomorrow night. One of the things you might be able to see better on this design is how I use a "scrimp" bead and a little metal "thimble" to finish off my piece rather than simply crimping. I like using the scrimp, it's always uniform in shape, and holds things together really well. The thimble keeps the wire from rubbing on the clasp and fraying (the stringing wire I use has a nylon coating which eventually can fray).











Well, that's it for tonight. I'm looking forward to making that matching piece tomorrow!