Inspired by: The Flowering Trees of Summer

Dutch spiral stitch sent me searching for my first beadweaving class nearly two years ago. I enjoyed that first project, but hadn’t returned to the spiral stitch again - until this week. With the twin goals of using up my bead stash and taking Heather Powers’ Inspired by Nature challenge (this week featuring trees), spiral stitch seemed the perfect fit. It’s a great stitch to create something entirely unique, and it uses up lots of beads!

My inspiration for this piece was the Golden Raintree my sister brought home from school one fall afternoon. My dad planted it at the top of our driveway where it welcomed us home with a canopy of golden yellow flowers in late-spring and summer and sprays of orangey-pink pods in the fall.


Bead & Button recently offered a free download pattern by Alicia Shems which featured a double-spiral design with delicas on one side of the spiral. Thinking delicas would result in a necklace that would lay a little flatter, I adopted Alicia’s technique to my own style and bead stash, and set out to capture the glory of the Golden Raintree in beads.

I don’t know whether it was the versatility of the spiral stitch, the thrill of working with such lush colors, or the memories of all the family events captured under the shade of our own Golden Raintree, but this week was great fun at the bead table. Thanks again, Heather, for continuing to challenge us creatively. To see more tree-inspired designs, visit the Inspired by Nature group on Flickr.

The Bold and the Beautiful: Tetrads

Lisa Kan’s Marrakech earrings have been flagged in my Sept. 2009 Bead & Button magazine ever since it hit my mailbox. I decided it was finally time to stitch them up in a tetrad color scheme, one based on a slim rectangle.

I selected two colors side-by-side on the color wheel, chartreuse and yellow-green, in muted tones, along with their complements, red-violet and purple. Lisa’s pattern was such fun to stitch, as the three-dimensional triangles magically formed and combined into the lower basket of the earring. Overall, a very soft and romantic, beautiful color palette.

In the second tetrad, I used the same chartreuse and red-violet. But this time, for Diane Fitzgerald’s triangles, I used these two colors in nearly pure hues, combined in a bolder square tetrad palette (all four colors spaced evenly around the color wheel) with blue and red-orange. Much more vibrant and playful.

Now that I’ve finished Margie Deeb’s Color Theory class on craftedu.com, it’s time to learn about seed bead colors and finishes. See how the blue delicas pop against the edges in the single-layer earring at the bottom of the photo? When the second layer is added and they’re zipped up with another row of red-violet in the finished earring, they recede significantly. Time to learn how to choose both color and finish to get the effect I want. Luckily, there’s a class for that!

Carnelian and Silver

A Labor Day slip on a small puddle of water left me with a mild back sprain, and in a horizontal position for an entire week. My doctor allowed me to sit or stand for 15 minutes each morning and evening! Of course, I dedicated those precious vertical moments each day to literally inch along on my silver and golden raspberry herringbone rope.

Finally on my feet again, I finished embellishing the necklace this afternoon.  The accent strips are done in right angle weave and filled with pearls, crystals, amethyst and carnelian rounds, and matte metallic fire polished beads. Beautiful fall colors to complement the carnelian and sterling silver focal. The herringbone rope design is Maggie Roschyk’s cover piece from June’s Bead and Button magazine.