Spent time away from beading this Summer to spend some quality time with my beautiful Grand-daughters and visiting my home state, Ohio. One of the best places to see is the museum at Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. The museum has three airplane huts full of planes from the earliest Wright Brothers plane, planes used in war time to our modern day airplanes. It was the best place to explore and enjoy all for free. Here is a link to more information: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/
While in Ohio I did manage to visit a couple of bead shops Ally Beads in Milford, Ohio and the Bead Circus in Lebanon, Ohio. I found a lovely Sardonyx at Ally Beads and cute earring kits at the Bead Circus.
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| Ice Cream Sundae Earrings |
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| Fairy Princess Earrings |
Since returning home I have been trying to catch up on my beadwork and projects for the Seedbeadersters Bead Alongs.
The Seedbeadersters Bead Along for June/July was to choose a project from one of the popular bead magazines. I selected the Dragon Dance Bracelet designed by Csilla Csirmaz from Beadwork Magazine the April/May 2012 issue. The beads I used for the bracelet were 3mm Cubes in a Muted Clay frosted finish #F463K, size 8 Hex beads in a Brownstone iridescent #648, size 11 seed bead in Jade Sheen opaque luster finish #431, size 11 seed bead in Metallic permanent finish Red Brick #489, size 15 seed beads in Glazed Ginger #5 and Silver-lined Gold #3, Charlotte’s in 24K Gold plate, and 6mm Crystal Pearls in Bordeaux.
The stitch used to make the bracelet was flat Herringbone. I have made other Herringbone pieces and did not feel making the bracelet would be a problem. Not so. The biggest issue with making the bracelet was the amount of beading thread which showed between the beads and fitting the 6mm Pearls into the inside curves on the bracelet. To solve these issues I made minor alterations to the design to allow for fit and composition. The bracelet shape is a wave. Two sections make one complete wave. The inside curve of the wave is designed to be made using two colors of size 15 seed beads. I replaced one of the size 15 colors with the size 11 in the Jade Sheen color, thus increasing the size of the inside wave. The original design used a size 11 and a size 15 coming from the cubes along the outside curve of the wave. I prefer not to have a lot of thread showing when I bead so I changed the design creating a turnaround using the two colors of size 11 seed beads and the Gold Charlotte bead; this added a dragon spine look to my bracelet. To increase the length of the bracelet for my wrist size I added one more row to each wave section. The original design used 3 full waves to make the bracelet, for my bracelet I needed four full waves and a half.
I will probably make this bracelet again for my Daughters and I think I will try replacing the size 8 Hex bead with a regular size 8 seed bead since Hex beads are known to cut through beading thread.
Here is the picture of my finished bracelet.
In August the Seedbeadersters project was the lovely "Sparkle, Dash and Dot Bracelet" designed by Carol Cyphers from her book Mastering Beadwork. The bracelet is made with the Dutch Spiral technique and has a branched fringe closure. There is also three part video tutorial for this bracelet on You Tube made by Off the Beaded Path with Carol Cyphers’ permission.
Part 1 shows how to make the basic bracelet, parts 2 and 3 show how to make the closure.
The beads for this bracelet include size 11 seed beads, size 8 seed beads, and 4mm Crystals. Substituting Czech glass rounds or pearls for the 4mm Crystals leads to many different color variations as can be seen in the bracelets made by members of the Seedbeadersters.
Here is the photo of the Dutch Spiral “Sparkle, Dash and Dot Bracelet” I made.
Seedbeadersters Sparkle, Dash and Dot Bracelets Photo
September’s project is a Flat Herringbone stitched bracelet “Herringbone Sparkle” designed by Ruby from Ruby’s website http://www.rubysbeadwork.com/. This is a beautiful bracelet and I can’t wait to see all the different color and bead variations the Seedbeadersters will create. I have finished mine but will be making two more and saving them for Holiday gifts.
It won’t be long before the Holidays are upon us and I need to get moving on creating my annual ornaments and gifts for Christmas.
I have managed to finish one ornament cover, “Christmas Hope” and have a couple more ideas bouncing around in my noggin. Here is a picture of my “Christmas Hope” ornament cover and I am off to another project.
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