Of Birds and Bedes

Celebrating her soon-to-be-released book, Heather Powers is inspiring us all by nature, and this week’s challenge was to design something feather or bird related. I turned to National Geographic and quickly found this tantalizing tail feather, compliments of the Golden Headed Quetzal. Gorgeous colors that I happened to already have in my stash.


My nature-inspired triad of green, purple and orange began with a kumihimo neck strap finished off with some Inca Rose rounds, Unicorn glass donuts, and a ceramic and sterling silver front-clasp in the feather’s predominant blue-green.

The large focal is Rachel Nelson-Smith’s Oothecal Bede pattern, a right angle weave beauty from Seed Bead Fusion that allowed me to bring in another touch of the accent purples and oranges. The focal is finished with a Stuart Abelman art glass bead in a stunning purple with silver accents. Dangling from the tip are three silver feathers.

Thanks to Heather for the challenge. To see other designs, click over to the Inspired by Nature Flickr group.


Beading My Stash – project one finished!

Beading My Stash

A tempting e-mail arrived in my Inbox yesterday: an invitation to Atlanta Bead Company’s warehouse sale, only days away! I remembered all the goodies I brought back from last year’s event and then it hit me. Where are all those irresistible bead buys now? Ninety percent of them are still in their plastic bags, waiting to be tumbled out on my bead mat and brought to life.

I’ve given myself a challenge. For the rest of the summer, the next 60 days until Labor Day, I am going to create exclusively from my bead stash. Beginning with this tray, all culled from my existing stash and waiting to answer this week’s Inspired by Nature challenge from Heather’s HumbleBead blog. Due Sunday! Yikes!!!

Making the Leap

Travels over, I finally have the chance to share some photos of our beading adventure in Idaho last month, where I had the opportunity to make the leap from student to teacher and introduce the art of beadweaving to a roomful of women. Jan Wasser, Vicki Quirk and Nadrah Strong from the Spokane Bead Society made the trip to Coeur d'Alene to share in the teaching duties.

Threading needles seemed to be the biggest challenge for our new beaders. That, and starting the first row of ladder stitch!



Nadrah Strong assists with needle-threading. We all loved her feather hair extensions!



Jan Wasser shares a tip.

Needles threaded. Foundation row in hand. After that, it was pure fun!

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!

Dreamy Orange

This wrap bracelet, in her favorite color, is going out to granddaughter Delaney, who celebrates her twelfth birthday this week. It reminds me of the orangeade, made fresh every day, that magically recirculated in the beverage machines at the Woolworth’s lunch counter when I was 12. My sister and cousins and I spent many a summer afternoon on those red leather stools gazing dreamily into the mirror behind the counter, planning our futures.


Psychologists tell us that orange is the favorite color of the lively, the curious and fearless, the planet’s big dreamers! Happy birthday, Delaney. Here’s hoping all those dreams come true!

Off to Idaho

Pink and gray. I rarely wear this color combination, but since I packed an open knit gray vest and pink tee for my upcoming trip west, a new accessory was needed. My outfit called for a cuff, and the current issue of Bead & Button featured a quick and easy solution - Donna Pagano Denny’s RAW Beauty bangle on page 30.

I chose a nickel seed bead base, with a soft and subtle crystal combination of black pearl, crystal, light peach, and light Colorado topaz. Pleased with the look of the first embellished strip, (Donna offers the option of ending the bracelet there), I’m glad I continued on with the pattern, because I love the structural look and feel that the addition of a second layer brings to this design. And the double-loop closure is a wonderfully clever finishing touch!

I will return to this pattern again. Although stunning with crystals running down its spine, I can see lots of design potential using gemstones, cubes, drops. But not right now. Last-minute accessory finished. Suitcase packed. Off to Idaho!

Bead Soup Double-Up

Had great fun with The Bead Mavens’ Bead Soup Double-Up. The focal in my bead soup, from Mandy at Beads for Brains, handed me my color palette – warm browns and the full gamut of my favorite blue-greens. The moment I saw the egg-shaped pendant, I knew I would create a fringed tassel with it.


After experimenting with several neckstraps, I settled on one inspired by Christie Dunn’s Autumn Renewal design (Beadwork, Sept. 2009.) Square-stitched and freeform peyote sections of seed beads and crystals connect the lampworked discs and butterscotch spikes and diamonds. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found these Grace lampwork discs swirled with the same dark and light teals as the pendant!

Since it’s a rather heavy focal, I made a small loop at one end of a piece of 14-pound Fireline to hold the fringe, strung my focal beads, pulled the fringe up through the focals and created a larger loop to connect with the loops at the end of each strap. After securing with a crimp tube, I realized I didn’t have a decorative cover large enough to slip over the crimp. With the deadline looming, I square-stitched a 4-bead-high collar to match the strap ends, snugged it against the crimp, connected the ends, and problem solved! It gives a nice finish to the focal. I may never use a decorative crimp cover again!

Thanks so much to the Bead Mavens for sponsoring this event and to Mandy for gifting me with a great selection of beads. Check out all the design results in the Bead Soup album on the Mavens' blog.