Some beady things

I was a very busy girl while I was away, and I'm working my way round to taking pics and blogging them. (Don't hold your breath too long as you may have noticed I'm rubbish at doing that bit!).

So, to start off with, here're a few beady things I knocked up to amuse myself - bracelets so far (the earrings went horribly wrong and I left them in a box to sulk on their own). By the way, beading while sitting outside where the light is good has its drawbacks when it's windy. Small beads and windy conditions don't go together, just so you know.

This one I'm calling "Dawson's Diamonds". We had a famous comedian here in the UK called Les Dawson, and he was a master of playing the piano badly - not easy to do deliberately and still make the tune recognisable. So.......these "diamonds" were "deliberately" made to look wonky, so there. And, they weren't as easy to get wrong as you may think.

For anybody interested in beads, this was an odd-count peyote stitch using size 11 seed beads, and edged with a mix of size 15 and size 11 beads. I'm not keen on odd-count peyote as you always get one edge more rigid than the other because of the "turn" you have to do to make it work. Any beaders with any helpful hints on that - your advice would be much appreciated!

These are some bracelets I knocked up for the dreaded "C" word prezzies for my sisters. I've yet to track down some nice 2-strand clasps here in the UK that aren't all fancy and fuddy duddy looking. Hmmm, might end up making my own with toggles - we'll have to see what I can find.

For the beaders again - it's a right-angle weave with embellishment. Can't say as I'm too chuffed with R.A.W as I can't get a regular shape to my weave, but overall I'm quite chuffed with them as I've never had a go at this stitch before.

Finally, this one will be for my Mum - she chose the colours. Now all I need to do is remember how the heck I made the fastening on the last one I did in this stitch, so I can finish it off! This one is done in St Petersburg stitch - easy to do but very effective I think.

Beaded cuff bracelet

When the strong wind calmed down a bit, I managed to make this too (I rarely sit inside if the weather is nice in Portugal!). I've never done this stitch before, and although I used the wrong thread so it's not as rigid as it should be, I really enjoyed making it.

This was made using Peyote stitch in a mix of cylinder seed beads and ordinary seed beads in a combination of sizes. If I can find the right "thread" here in the UK without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it, I want to have another go in a different combination of colours. I might do a "matte" version too just to see the different effect you can achieve

Beaded bracelet

I was making this the other day and my Mum saw it. She said she really liked it, so I've managed to finally finish it and will give it to her for her birthday in March. The beads are only about 2mm across, and the needle is so fine I have to take my specs off to thread it :-)

Shell bracelets

I finally got to meet my friend Joy last week - we'd only ever spoken on the 'phone, and we had a really nice day. Got some strange looks in the pub with a table full of soaps & fragrance oil bottles but hey, we're soap addicts so we don't care. Anyhow, she very kindly gave me some kits to make up bracelets from shell buttons and here they are.