Rose Vine Necklace

Focal Bead by Toastie Beads

When I was at the craft show I mentioned in my blog yesterday, I found this lovely gem of a lampworked bead. I've never really felt much fondness for lampwork before then - yes, I've admired the pretty colours and such, but I've always found them terribly expensive. I can't say how much the glass canes, and fuel for the torch and all the other bits and bobs cost - I've never seen the raw materials for sale anywhere. This one, however, grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. I had to have it. Talk about impulse buy.

Thankfully, my imagination, a quick trip to the somewhat-local bead shop, and a healthy dose of courage, I dove into some freeform netting. I was hoping to get an open, organic-feeling necklace that would still support the weight of the bead. I picoted a few leaves into the mess, and actually found 3mm firepolish beads that nicely echoed the colours on the focal, so I dotted them around as well. Check out the overall shot, and a close-up of of the sides below.

PS - Thank you, Anna, for the impromptu photo shoot today after school!

Craft Fair Etiquette

I went to one of the many craft fairs that are going on during this season. I'm trying to get into the craft circuit in my local area, and this one was a good one to check out. There were two other jewellery artists there - strung, and one lady who had a large variety of things, which included some beadwoven work.

I recognised each and every last piece she had on sale. Sandra D. Halpenny, Maria Rypan, and other designs that I knew came from recent issues of Bead and Button and Beadwork. While I know that Ms. Halpenny routinely gives permission for purchasers of her designs to sell their creations at local craft shows, I know that copyright issues have been of an interest in the above magazines of late. Even though permission was given, shouldn't the beader of a piece give acknowledgement to the designer of a piece, regardless?

Bead Artists I admire: Sandra D. Halpenny

I realized that it has been a long time since I updated by blog. Things got crazy-busy at my school this past month, and I let this slip. My apologies.

Although this is a blog about my own beadweaving adventures, I thought I'd do a few entries on Bead Artists who have had a genuine influence over my work, whether they know it or not.

The first person who comes to mind would be Sandra D. Halpenny. Living in Ontario, Canada, her online web presence has reached beaders worldwide. Her for-sale patterns consist primarily of net-weave variants (and oh, what variants they are!), and peyote, but don't be fooled. She has entered many a contest as a beadweaving professional, and it's not just net-weave! She was one of the first Bead Artists I discovered, first through her free patterns. As a beginning beadweaver, I found her instructions extremely clear, both written and in her diagrams. The diagrams were so complete, I hardly looked at the text after a while. It was her designs that really let me enjoy beading and start to treat it as a meditative exercise.

I highly recommend Sandra's patterns for any skill level - I truly believe that whether beginner or advanced, you will find some quiet joy in completing one of her patterns. To let you know I put my money where my mouth is, I have purchased almost all of her e-books available on her site, and they have given me endless hours of beading enjoyment. I have not completed all of the patterns I have purchased, else I wouldn't be experimenting with anything else!

Sandra, thank you for sharing your talent with the rest of us!

Calla Lillies

For some reason, I have been obsessed with Calla Lilies. I really like the flower, and I've been wondering for a long time how I could possibly interpret them in beads. In searching the internet, I haven't really found anyone who has tried to use bead weaving stitches to create one. Ever since I picked up Diane Fitgerald's "Shaped Beadwork", I've been really been crunching the brainpower on it.

On Thursday, I had picked up the latest copy of Beadwork, and on the final page, there was a contest advertised: Beadwork VII: The Beaded Earth. I was suddenly inspired to try and bead the orchid from one of my previous posts (ambitious, much?). While sketching out a few ideas, I finally came to some realization how to actually bead a Calla Lilly.

So, this is prototype one. It's rather pretty, but somewhere in the back of my mind says that its a snowdrop and not a calla lilly. A friend who was over shortly after it was finished said that it was missing the bend-y back sides and wider flower petal. Back to the drawing board.

The picture really doesn't do it justice. You don't really seed the curl of the sides or the tip, but this weas just a quick picture to get it out there. I'm not sure how I feel about this one yet. My thinking is not done yet, I'm still not completely satisfied with how it turned out, so I will keep experimenting.

Wish me luck!

Toronto Bead Oasis Show

I think if I went every year (let alone to the Spring AND Fall shows), I'd be in serious trouble.

Anna (the newest convert to the evil empire of bead addiction!) and I went to the Toronto Bead Oasis show at the Metro Convention Centre on Saturday (18th). We decided to go for the opening (10:00 a.m.) so that we had time, and hopefully beat the crowds. Well, beat the crowds we did, but we also had to get up early on a Saturday (we teachers covet our little sleep-in time) to catch the 8:40 train.

It was almost ridiculous how much time we spent there, but it was so much fun. Because we had gotten there so early, many of the vendors were willing to chat. I was especially tickled to find Maria Rypan at her booth. She is the author of some of my very first beading books (and I highly recommend them) and the one who really started to open up the beading world to me. I loved seeing all of her newer designs, and I finally picked up the hast book of hers that I was missing, so I can truly say I own all of her books. I'm hoping she's planning a new book with her new designs soon.

I spent most of my time (and my money!) at the NLM Glass Arts booth. They have all the lovely seed beads a body could want. I like the Toho seed beads - all the regularity of a cylinder bead with the fun texture of the more rounded seed bead. I managed to find a number of matte colours in the Southwestern palette I was interested in. I'll be able to try a couple of those Southwestern-inspired projects I took pictures of on my trip home.

There was so much there. A few of us joked that there should be an 'Overwhelmed at the Bead Show' corner. We spent over an hour just touring all of the booths the first time. Going back, over two hours passed before we even glanced at our watches. All the shiny beads, crystals and gemstones had us completely captivated. If you're a beader in the Toronto area, I highly recommend you going to check out this show. It's a real treat.

Guilty Pleasures

Hubby and I returned from our trip back east (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, respectively) and have finally cleaned up the mess that living out of our car/tent for three weeks made of us and our gear. (ok...hubby did all the cleaning. Loves to hubby.)

I've been reviewing all the photos I took. I'm not a big photographer, but I took a lot of photos on this vacation...of flowers. We went to this wonderful garden on two occasions, and I was snapping photos like mad. I'm not a flower person, I don't even have any plants in my apartment. So why all the flower photos?


Colourways. I was looking at all the natural colour harmony for ideas for colour schemes for future beading projects.

I also photographed a few ornaments and cross-stitches I found in Doug and Pam's house...I saw all the neat and pretty patterns and wondered how I could replicate them in beads.


Obsessed just a little?

(I'll keep how many hours I spent with graph paper sketching things out to myself. Let's just say I've got this really cute cholker-necklace idea brewing that's going to need fresh colours - and a trip to the bead store!)

"My" Design?

I'm sure this is a question that every 'hobbyist' or 'amateur' beader asks themselves at one point - what constitutes an original design, and what is simply a small modification of the original? What is original vs. 'inspired by' and is there really a difference? What is a stitch technique, and what is someone's hard-won original work?

Some answers are easier - if you make a piece stitch for stitch, colour for colour from a magazine or book, you're copying! It's certainly not original. Change the colours, but keep everything else? Still copying in my book. Different colours does not an original design make. Change the stitch a little...probably still copying!

So, my discussion piece is above. Stitch - circular flat peyote. No one's got the right to claim that one as exclusive! It's the colour placement - in a recent issue of Beadwork, in my favourite "Seed Bead Style" section, there was this circular flat peyote piece that placed colours in such a way to make them look like they were swirling. Neat! I thought. It's diagonal peyote designs for round things!

In the artist's example, she created a bracelet with her circular flat peyote pieces stitched side by side. I had just completed the main body of "Geometry Experiment #1" (see earlier posts) and was into let's-see-what-happens-if-I-interlink-things stage. The result was above - "Green Gordian" (after the knot). I played with the bead count and made smaller circular peyote pieces to add some dimensional interest. I did a peyote toggle clasp, as in the magazine design.

Is this bracelet "my" design?

Pictures Oops

I am not a photographer, so I'm learning as I'm going. In my busy attempt to photograph all my work, I didn't really think much about resolution. Knowing I was publishing to the web and that I didn't want huge file sizes, I shot in VGA mode...then I got the brilliant idea of printing my pictures so that I could take a gallery of my work with me to any craft shows I did.

Ick. It works for web, but nothing else. I'm now looking at re-shooting the whole deal.

Now Album(s)

As my picture collection grows, I've started copying items to different Albums in order to make things easier to locate. Currently, I have Rings, Necklaces, and Bracelets, in addition to my main Album. Just follow this link to all of my public Albums.

Picasa Web Album

While I'm trying to get my work re-photographed and posted, everything is going is my Picasa Web Album. Feel free to have a look at the photos!

Geometry 3

Same basics as my first (below), but I decided to try and get some sort of design out of it. Pentagons lend themselves very easily to star-type patterns. All seed-beads, not cylinder beads. It gives it different texture, as you don't get the little building-block 'click' of cylinders. I think it gives the fabric a bit more personality.

Geometry Continues

So after my 'Geometry Experiment #1', I ended up going to my kinda-local bead store with a co-worker of mine, whom I had newly hooked on beadweaving as well. (Yes, Anna - I am evil.) Diane Fitzgerald is a beadweaver/designer/artist extraordinaire, and when I saw her latest book, Shaped Beadwork, the debate lasted about 12 minutes, but I picked it up.

I am VERY glad I did. While this particular design isn't in the book, the basic instructions for the pentagon and isosceles triangle shapes were. Creating all of the shapes and stitching them all together took a very long time. I'm very happy with the outcome, however. I already have all sorts of plans for this design...especially about how to miniturize it. It's about 2" x 2" all told. I puffed it up by squeezing the sides, then dipped it in Future Floor Polish. It keeps its shape quite nicely now!

Geometry Experiment #1

For years, I've been hooked on netting and all of those possibilities. (If you think netting just creates diamond-patterns, check our Sandra D. Halpenny's site!) I've been curious to try different things, so after I found the instructions on how to make the triangles you see here in yet another magazine, I decided to give it a shot. After all, it was peyote, and I started with peyote.

Hooked! This was so fun to make. The square is me trying to see if the same 'formula' could be applied to other geometrical shapes with straight sides. It was very tight, but it worked. I'm going to be tweaking the bead count a bit and see if I can't come up with something more flexible.

The design was random, and totally mine! The chain is simple, cross-woven strands, with the occasional beaded bead to pull in the dark bronze colour a bit more. The tubes are six beads tall and four beads wide, and the tiny beaded beads are covered 'flying saucer' shaped plastic clear beads I've had kicking around for years. My first attempt at doing beaded beads too! Thanks to Jeanne for helping me figure out what kind of chain would work with this. Clasp is a beaded peyote toggle and peyote loop.

Bracelet design by Sandra D. Halpenny (I think. I`ll have to check and update.)

Purple cylinder beads, 4mm Firepolish (my addition to the design), strung on 4lb clear fishing line. Lobster claw clasp (not pictured.)

Seed Bead Stitchery Introduces....

Me! I am a beadweaver who lives (currently) in Oshawa, Ontario; part of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). I was introduced to beadweaving by my friend Bonnie in High School, where she taught myself and Heather how to make little peyote amulet purses. I'd pretty much given it up not long after that, making the occasional purse for a friend or relative - nothing terribly fancy.

About three or four years ago, I thought about beading, and on a trip to the local library, looked up to see if there were any books on the subject. Thus became an obsession - beadweaving. I loved learning about all the different stitches that you could do, loved all the different shapes and sizes of the beads...

But the mighty mighty seedbead had me hooked. Those tiny, coloured rounds of glass. Many of my friends and co-workers wondered why I didn't go cross-eyed trying to work with them. Not saying that I didn't, on occasion. I found beadweaving so relaxing. Sitting on my couch with a trayfull of beads...heaven. (Except when I got a knot in my thread.)