Mummy's Makes: An Adventure In CRAW

So recently Mummy has become a bit of a CRAW addict!  She's been making some gorgeous necklaces, some abstract, others more conventional, all gorgeous!

I totally love this cross that she made first.  That single silver element in the centre is just perfection!  It is available in our Etsy Shop here.

Then came this beautiful Aztec looking design in shades of metallic pink!  This one is my favourite beause I just love the shapes she's made with this versatile stitch, even though pink is seriously not my bag!  It is available in our Etsy Shop here.

Ooooh, or maybe this one is my favourite!  I can't decide!  Love this geometric abstract pendant.  The colours are so retro and the shape makes me think of art deco.  Also available in our Etsy Shop here.

RAW Heart

Mummy's proper on one with creating new patterns!  After the stars and seeing the Sweet Hearts that Sabine Lippert made, Mummy decided that she could shift the techniques that she learnt on using the sizes of the beads to for the shapes onto cubic RAW.

Off she set, with a simple desire to make a heart.  Rather than using sizes, she decided to continue with the way she was going on the stars and used numbers of beads instead and this is what she came up with:

Isn't it the loveliest and most deceptively simple looking thing you've ever seen?!  On the side like this you can see the inner CRAW construction and the fact that she went with matte bronze along the inner side of the heart and shiny bronze along the outer edge, a perfect complement to the silver lined emerald.

The heart was simply hung on a silver chain using a jump ring through one of the units.

Pretty work Mummy

Red Many-Horn

As you will know if you read my blog, Kate McKinnon is curating a new book called Contemporary Geometric Beadwork (buy it here) that is a sister to Jean Power's absolutely incredible Geometric Beadwork (yes, I will be talking about that in my next post!) 

Kate has invited beaders all over the world, of all abilities, to get inspiration from the pictures she's posting and has given people who have pre-ordered heads up on various techniques and designs and then send her pictures for the book/eBook/website/facebook.  After seeing the Horned Melon by Kate I was fizzing with inspiration and absolutely itching to do a rendition in shades of red.

I started with the M-RAW bangle base that Kate gave pre-orders and decided that I would have seven horns to start with.

As the horns got bigger and bigger, the cuff just wanted to twist and bend and fall down into odd squares.  This, for me was utterly exciting because I didn't know how far these structures could be pushed before they became unfeasable...

After 25 rows on one side of the horn, I was worried about whether I would have enough silver lined red delicas rather than being worried that the horns would become unstable.  I'm quite a tight beader and definitely think 50 rows per horn side is achievable, if a little impractical for a cuff!

I started to decrease but for the first few rows, the cuff showed absolutely no signs of behaving and turning into an actual cuff rather than a beaded 'form'!

However, a few more rows and a little manipulation and the cuff started to take shape.  

I made the opening of the cuff 14 beads larger on this side by decreasing down 24 rows rather than 25 as I knew that it would end up being quite a large cuff and that a bit of forearm would need to be accommodated!  There's nothing worse than a gorgeous cuff that only skeletons can wear because it's too small!

In this picture you can see that I'm beginning to add a row of RAW so that the cuff is symmetric:

And then I started to make some wings using colour lined chocolate cherry delicas.  Well, at least when I started they were going to be wings!

In this picture you can see that I made the darker red wings/horn beginnings start their shape right in the centre between the large horn.  This is because the original idea was to make two sides of wings and join them at the point row in the same way as I did the Pink Pinstripe Ruffle Cuff...

But they wanted to be horns as well!  These horns are 14 rows per side (I think!), so that they don't stick out as much as the bright red horns.

I edged the opening with two rows of the silver lined red to give it a bit of a more polished finish.  And then  started again on the other side...

All finished!  Please excuse the rather rubbish pictures - I took them the evening I finished it and it was about 11 o' clock at night! 

All in all, it is a truly vicious cuff that makes me think of warrior queens and Japanese anime characters and superheroes all in one!  I love how BIG it is and how spiky it is and above all, I love the colours.

UPDATE: Someone asked in the comments what this cuff looks like on.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of me wearing it but I do have a picture of my son, Xander, wearing it!  Yes, it clashes with his top but he said he felt like a superhero so I let him wear it for a bit :)

Jean Power's Honeycomb Bracelet

Mummy decided to have a quick make and this was the result:

 

Yep, the Honeycomb Bracelet by the utterly fabulous Jean Power! I know this piece is stunningly fast and very satisfying to make, not just because it makes up so quickly, but because it can be delicate and romantic, such as the one Mummy beaded here, or it can be dramatic and dangerous in other colour schemes.  I made one in deep reds with blood red large beads around the outside and it was so completely different looking to the one that Mummy made that it just shows what a chameleon pattern it really is.  And and absolute bargain at only £3!!!

Shame these colours don't really suite me though!!  :(

Mummy's Medallion

Another of Mummy's pieces for this post!

A few months ago, Mummy and I decided to take a bit of a road trip up to The Bead Shop in Nottingham.  I needed some of the 27mm Swarovski rivolis and a couple of cosmic squares for my beading lesson and couldn't wait for the postage, Mummy wanted some drop beads to make Ayshe by the fabulous Sabine Lippert, so I took a day off work and we drove up together.  

I picked up what I needed and Mummy picked up the drop beads that she needed.  Unfortunately they were Indian drops so weren't quite uniform or perfect enough for the Ayshe pattern, which was a shame.  However, on went her Thinking Cap and she came up with this design:

I love how it makes me think of a Bollywood Saturday Night Fever!  The colours are fab and it really looks superb on. 

 Here you can see that Mummy used a bail thought up by the ever-fabulous Jean Power, and see that the herringbone rope is chequered.

And here you can see how Mummy beaded the pendant.  Goodness knows what her bead path is in this (in fact I'm not even sure Mummy knows!) but this little blighter is very sturdy and really holds it's shape as well as staying perfectly disc-like.  Very talented Mummy!

Showcasing Mummy's Work

As you've seen, I mainly seem to do big and bold beadwork.  My Mum, however, is a much more delicate beader.  Her work has a timeless elegance and a grace that I simply cannot emulate - no matter how hard I try!  I thought that in this post I would showcase some of her work so that you can see how different it is to mine.  Her choice of pattern, her palette and the style is ephemeral and daintily beautiful.  We are complete opposites in our beadwork and I adore pretty much everything she does.

This piece was from a pattern (unfortunately I can't remember where she found it) and I love how she used a creamy seed bead with that warm amber colour as the accent.  It's delicate and lacy and just so elegant.

This was another piece that she made from a pattern, and even though she's done it in haematite and black glass, she still makes it look so delicate and feminine.  This necklace looks blooming gorgeous whenever it's worn!

A choker this time, in a modified Right Angle Weave.  I'd have been tempted to do this in all black but she conjures up the Renaissance with her colour choices.

This was her first ever cabouchon!  How unbelievably neat is that?!  She thought the delicacy of the rose quartz would be lost on a beaded rope so instead she found some pale pink organza ribbon that matched the cabouchon perfectly and used that instead.  It tied at the back in a large floppy bow and is ultra femme.  

This was made from a pattern from The Bead Shop kit that she bought a few years ago.  The beads that came with it were much more vibrant but she loved how the pattern flowed so she made it in silver and amethyst.  It looks so delicate but is actually pretty robust! 

Mummy's very lucky in that she can go from being uber glam to being right in there with block colours and chunky cuffs!  This was a pattern in one of the beading magazines we buy (either Beadwork or Bead & Button) and she absolutely adored it as soon as she saw it.  The closure on the original pattern was with Margaritas but she wanted to echo the Art Deco drama so used gunmetal cubes for the closure instead.  Personally I think this works better than the original pattern!

And then we go right back to old school Victorian beadweaving.  She's a bloody marvel!  I love this pattern so much because it sits at the base of the throat, collar length, and really makes you feel like a princess when you wear it!

This is another of her cuffs made using elements from Jean Power's Freeform Cuffs and then framing the beads.  I love how subtle her colours are and how they blend and complement so perfectly.  Her refined use of colour is what I am most jealous of.

And then once in a while she will make a real show stopper like this Gothic Reticule.  We are lucky that in Leicester we have a huge selection of fabric shops and The Golden Mile, which is host to not only the most beautiful and ornate jewellery shops, but also a delicious array of Indian fabric shops selling the most exquisite silks and saree material.  Together we trotted off down there to gasp at the opulence and she bought this fine silk fabric with which to line the reticule.  

And then she made a bridal one in a slightly different pattern.  Unfortunately this picture doesn't even begin to to do this reticule justice, nor does it show the detail of the tiny brick stitched hearts around the top. 

Finally, Mummy at her most simple.  A plain peyote tube hung with haematite arrows and slid onto a neck wire.  Gorgeous. 

So there you have it.  This is all the work of my fabulous Mummy.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I always do.  We are polar opposites - I think that just adds more depth and fun to our beading adventures in that we can look at the same component and dream up completely different ways and styles to use it!

What To Do With All Those Leftovers: Bead Soup

Over the years I have become very lazy when I finish a project and usually end up putting all the leftover beads in a little bag and then just leave them in my drawer of randomness!  I know I should sort them all out and get the beads back in their original boxes but that just seems so dreary when my head is already full of the next project!

So I decided that I would start working my way through these small bags of 'bead soup' and see what kind of things I could make to use them up - I can't extol the virtues of bead soup projects enough! 

These two necklaces were my first attempt at getting rid of those bead soup bags.  I started with a peyote base of random seed beads and just kept on embellishing until I couldn't fit a single bead more on there.  I like the brown and green one more than the silver/red/black one but they both helped use up those pesky leftover beads.

This one was another bead soup leftover bag but just in red.  I decided to make a simple Potowatomi chain in red seed beads and then embellished the toggle and loop clasp so that it would hang at the front.  All the fizz helped disguise the clasp and used up some pretty ugly beads at the same time!

 This one was a slightly different kind of leftovers necklace, in fact these seed beads were left over from the necklace at the very top of this page!  I threaded a few beads on jump rings and then linked the jump rings to each other to make a cascade.  It's not something I'll ever do again though because opening and closing all those blooming jump rings hurt my thumbs!  I now have a huge respect for people who can sit and make chainmaille!

 This was a small bag of shell spacer beads that Mum had left over.  She thought they looked like Nestle's Smarties so made a simple peyote band with a picot edging and randomly added the shell beads.  Gorgeous isn't it?

 Another leftover soup necklace.  I don't often use gold in my beading but was bought a load of gold and brown beads.  My sister had this and said she wore it out with a posh evening frock and it looked fabulous.

 Then I had a few more of the golds and browns left so I gave them to Mummy and she made a cuff. 

 This cuff was an experiment that went horribly wrong!  There is nothing I like about this cuff at all!  The bead soup didn't do justice to the amazing focal bead so it didn't last long - it was cut up and the beads were put back in a bead soup bag for another day.  I include it only to show that not every bead soup project works!

 These three cuffs are all made on the same theme - plain silver peyote base with a picot edge to complement the larger beads in the embellishment - perfect for when you don't have a huge amount of bead soup left!

 Another red embellished cuff.

And finally, possibly my favourite of all my bead soup necklaces.  This one was given to my Nanna, along with some matching but not the same earrings (of which I didn't take a photo).  I love the bright purples with the deeper, richer iris beads and then every so often seeing a silver sparkle crystal poke out.  The movement of this piece and the jumble of beads makes me laugh every time I see it because it really does force you to look at it and then follow the beads all the way round.  It's a very chipper necklace and I know that Nanna wears it often.

Wedding Jewellery

The summer just gone one of my staff got married and she asked me to make her wedding jewellery, as well as gifts for the bridesmaids.  We sat together and drew up some ideas and she had a good root through my finished pieces pile so she could get some ideas as well.  She had four bridesmaids, each wearing a different colour of the same dress apart from the head bridesmaid (which was her Gran!).

This is what I made for the bride to match her bouquet.  It's a slightly enlarged Ring Nebula made with Swarovski Indicolite faceted rounds and tiny size 15 beads.

I simply popped it on a silver chain with a silver heart clasp for her.

For the bridesmaids I made simple beaded beads with large Swarovski faceted rounds and the used different colours for the lace overlay.  My exceptional Mum came up with the pattern for this beaded bead and it is completely self-supporting.

Here you can really see the deep ruby overlay.

And this one in teal.

For the Gran maid of honour, she wanted me to make another of the Ring Nebulas as a brooch:

This time I used Light Amethyst Swarovski faceted rounds.

It was wonderful making wedding jewellery and I was so happy to be a small part of making her wedding day be what she wanted it to be.  All of the bridesmaids spoke to me afterwards and said how much they loved their jewellery and one of the girls commissioned me to make a few pieces for her.  Luckily she has quite bold taste so I really was able to let rip for her!

I made this asymmetric double spiral princess length rope with scores of firepolished beads and Swarovski crystals, as well as aventurine and amethyst chips for her.

In this view you can really see the spiral and how the colours peep out of the monochromatic bead soup soup.  It is definitely not a stitch for beginners!  It took quite a few stop and starts for me to get into the flow but once I got the rhythm of the stitch, it grew really fast .

This summer I have been asked by another of my colleagues to make her wedding jewellery.  I can't wait to see what she has in mind!  I'm hoping it'll be something really opulent and over the top! or maybe something refined but quite the statement like this:

This was another piece of wedding jewellery made by my Mum.  She is so delicate in her work and is everything I strive to be.  She is a huge inspiration to me and I hope one day I will be as good as she is.