Beadweaving Tutorials

Lazy Daisy - New Tutorial Now Available

Tutorials (click image)

In the past two months I haven't been beading as much as I wanted, since I spent most of my free time in preparing beadweaving tutorials. I have completed writing three tutorials so far and already listed them for sale. A new tutorial for a bracelet design (with a new method) is in the works and will be available in a few days.
Creating the instruction and illustrations files is hard work, but the feedback I get from satisfied buyers is worth all the time and efforts put in it, plus it also allows me to connect with new beaders from around the world, which is really fun! So I do enjoy preparing tutorials, but I wish it would have not taken so much time to finish them.. I have ideas in my head for some new designs that I can't wait to start checking, so I decided to take a little break from tutorials after I finish the one I am currently working on ... ;)

Thank you everyone who answered and commented on the poll about tutorial preferences! The preference ratio of 70% for illustrations and 30% for photos was kept all along the time the poll was open.

Urban Nights Bracelet

This is a new bracelet called Urban Nights, made with Swarovski crystals and Delica beads and with a gorgeous, sparkling clasp from Claspgarten.

In this bracelet design I use a combination of stitches (square stitch and fringe stitch) to do odd-count flat peyote stitch. The pattern for this bracelet is available in my shop.

The photo does not do justice to the Delica # 251 beads I used for this bracelet. They have beautiful metallic finish in different hues of gold that really shine. Beautiful color!

Bead Dreams 2010 Competition

After more than two weeks of waiting, which seemed like forever to me, yesterday evening I finally got a notification from Bead & Button about my first try in entering the Bead Dreams competition. I am disappointed, because my entries were not accepted... *double sigh*...
Congratulations to everyone who did make it to the finals! I can't wait to see all the pieces and I am sure each and everyone is a stunner! :)

I submitted two entries: The first is "Jerusalem" - a beadwoven necklace, made with seed beads and Swarovski crystals, and the other one is "Growing from Within" - a wire-wrapped necklace with Swarovski crystals.

 Jerusalem, Beadwoven Necklace

Growing from Within, Wire- wrapped Necklace

I didn't have too many high hopes as for the wire wrapped necklace (I have started working in wire wrapping only recently, but I thought I should give it a try), but I did hope that my beadwoven necklace would enter the finals.

I had the whole night to think about this experience. I realize that although I spent long weeks in designing and working on these two pieces (especially on 'Jerusalem') just to find out that they didn't make it to the finals - I don't regret trying to enter. I have learned a few important things about how to approach and plan a work for this kind of challenge and I have tested again my ability to work under time pressure (the wire wrapped necklace idea was born less than a week before the deadline). But good as this experience may be, it doesn't take out the sadness about not being accepted.

I remembered that Louise Hill, who is a creative, honorable, award winning bead artist and also a friend wrote about this rejection on her blog about a year ago. I read it again and it helped putting things in proportions... I remember Louise's words that she once wrote to me (reffering art in general) - don't let the rejection define who you are and what you do. Well, I am trying hard not to let this rejection influence me, my motivation and my creativity (I am almost done designing the last variation of a new beaded cabochon I have been working on in the past few days, so I am not letting this stop me now). I am not going to let this rejection change the way I feel about beadwork. I will keep creating what I love, whether in beadweaving or in other medium, and I will always try to do the best I can to be able to call my works "mine".

And I even think I would still like to try again next year. But in the meantime, as I said, I have a few projects in the works to finish (to be followed by tutorials). It's always been easier for me to "digest" unpleasant information or to think about problems while I'm beadweaving... and the Bead Dreams rejection is not an exceptional... ;)

Oh, and I want to say a big Thank You to each and everyone of you who took the time to answer the poll about tutorials here on my blog! About 70% of you said they'd prefer to have illustrations and that is exactly what you are going to get... a lot of them! ;) Thanks again!

Oriental Lace Bracelet

Thank you everyone who took the time to answer the poll on the right side bar here! I really appreciate it!

This is my new bracelet I named "Oriental Lace" . I was once asked how I got to think of my designs -  the idea and inspiration for this bracelet design came from a beautiful fabric pattern I saw in Interfilier article about fashion trends for Summer 2010.

Image from Interferier.com

I fell in love with the pattern and just had to create something similar in beadweaving.
It was time consuming, as always, when it comes to designing something new, but as much fun playing with different beads size in different stitches until I found the right way to stitch the desired pattern. I then spent some more time stitching a few samples in different colors, improving ans simplifying the beadwoven pattern until I found the one that worked best. I just love this process!

Twisting and Bending Wire

OK, so this is harder than I thought. While working on this cuff, I realized that wire working requires a lot of thinking about structure and construction beforehand.
I tried to work in the same way as I, in many cases, work in beadweaving - creating a base and then add more materials as I go along and build the design. Implementing the same process with wire could have worked (I think) if it was a free form wire cuff, but in this case, it didn't work well.

I built a frame around the focal bead and then connected more pieces, one at a time. I should have measure and cut all the pieces first and then connect them with another piece of wire in order to have a symmetrical body. Another thing I learned is that I should have used thicker, harder wire for the foundation (the wire here is dead-soft 20 gauge). I also had problems with creating the closure after the whole body was finished - another thing that I should have thought of beforehand and resulted in an awkward finish.
Although I spent more than 5 hours working on it, struggling with the wire and pliers, and it didn't came out as I envisioned it, I learned a lot of things through the process, which is most important.

I have so much more to learn and practicing to do and I'm excited about it! The only bad thing I can tell about this new work is that my fingers are aching from all the twisting and bending...