Congratulations Wolf!!!

The winner of the EtsyBeadweavers Fire and Flowers Challenge is Wolf of DantesSpirit.

Beautiful piece!!! I cannot even imagine the hours that must have gone into it!!!

and a HUGE thank you to all of you who voted for my piece Blazing Flowers

It came in 2nd!!!!! yeah :-) THANK YOU!!!

To see see the rest of the result please visit http://www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/

Water Progress - none / NEW Purple Flower - Work in Progress - part 1

OK.... I just can't come up with anything for the Water piece and I really like it, so I don't want to mess it up by rushing it... it has now joined 2 previous bead embroidered pieces that I like but have not figured out what to do with yet.... so rather than pull my hair out, I decided to leave it and start something else.

In my efforts to advance with this piece I started playing around with making different chains in turquoise and white.... and one of them, a white crocheted one I really liked but not for the Water piece, so it inspired me to start a new piece using shades of purple/lilac beads and white, which I rarely use but summer is coming and what better than crisp white clothes!!! I have to mention that yesterday it was about 37-38 degrees Centigrade here, so crispy white is all I could think of to mentally try and stay cool :-)

1. 2. 3.

By now it was getting really late at night... I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to glue all the components down... and then went to bed exhausted but exited for the morning to come so that I can start beading on this piece :-)

4. 5. 6.

Morning has come and I like it!!! a lot!!! :-) which makes it an excellent morning :-)

Then I start beading round the petals.... mental note to myself: I hate the repetitiveness of beading the same thing over and over again.... next time reduce number of petals :-)

7. 8. 9.

Come back in a few days and hopefully :-) this will be finished :-) no, I mean it!!! it will be finished!!!! :-)

Happy beading everyone! :-)

Water - work in progress - Part 2

It was all smooth sailing... I was really enjoying the progression and the way the design was developing.... but then.... I realised, after having beaded around the whole motif, that I placed one of the large beads in the wrong place!!!!! probably less than 1 cm, but that one cm makes all the difference to the rest of the pattern working. So after a LOT of hmming and phuuffing, and trying really hard not to cry :-) I realised that I had 2 choices... scrap the whole thing and start afresh, or cut the offending bead and its surrounding, re-stitch it in the right place and strengthen all the beads around the area to make sure that none would fall out. # 2 shows the problem and the arrow points to where it should have been. # 3 shows the newly placed corrected bead, the red dot marks where it was.

1. 2. 3.

I have to say, the thought of giving up came across my mind at least every five minutes... I wasn't sure how to carry on, what colour, what bead, what stitch, what pattern. I kept on taking breaks, I kept on looking through all my bead books for inspiration, still nothing!.... the only thing I was 100 % sure about was that I really liked the colour, so I decided to carry on with the turquoise seed beads, but I wanted to give it a lot of texture to contrast the bugles and the other lines, so I tried a new method (see # 5) and I individually stitched each bead, rather than in rows, I stitched them in all directions filling in the spaces as I went along. I'm very glad I did this I think it works really well.

4. 5. 6.

Now comes the hard part.... I'm really, REALLY stuck!!!!! The piece outgrew my original plan, up to now it measures c. 4" x 4", so now am not sure what to do with it!!! should I make it bigger, should I fringe it, should i scrap it? I honestly don't know... for now I'm leaving it and carrying on with other small projects, but I do want to finish it!!! I love how it looks! I just don't know what to do with it!!! arghhhh!!! :-)

Come back soon to see how it all ends :-) and if you missed part 1, here is the link: Water - work in progress - Part 1

And in case you haven't yet you can still go and vote for this month's EtsyBeadweavers' Fire and Flowers challenge. Go vote for your favourite!
http://www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/

Water - work in progress - Part 1

I cleaned up my beading table.... I rearranged all my beads.... and as I said, new colour combinations have entered my thoughts.... I guess it's a logical progression from the Fire and Flowers challenge (voting currently taking place http://www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/)... the exact opposite... in colour, in temperature, in mood.... it extinguishes fire but provides life to flowers :-)

Here is my progress so far.... yet to be named, as I'm still unsure where it's going....

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

This morning I went to the post office to pick up a package of cabochons that I ordered from JadeDogBeads. Within the package I received were these lovely Vintage Glass Pointed Oval Cabochons and they were the beginning of my colour selection.

Blue is one of my favourite colours and especially turquoise... I love turquoise!!!! and as summer approaches, you will see just how much I love turquoise.... there is always a period just before summer that all I can think is turquoise, so I usually end up making everything with some turquoise inside... in an almost obsessive way :-)

I started playing around with the white cabochons... and all I could think of is fish swimming around, so I angled the cabochons... just to try something a bit different.... we'll see how it develops...

Come back in a few days to see this piece progressing and of course the finished piece :-)

again, a quick reminder: voting is taking place at http://www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/. Don't put it off less than 6 days left! vote for your favourite!

Wall Flowers

Last post for today... Here are 2 pieces inspired by my entry (Blazing Flowers) for the EtsyBeadweavers' April challenge Fire And Flowers. Voting started a few hours ago... Go check out the wonderful entries and VOTE for your favourite :-) http://www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/

In the meantime here are my Wall Flowers, made over the week-end on my bed :-) for more details on them please go and check out my shop http://www.triz.etsy.com/

Wall Flower Choker

Wall Flower Bracelet

What I did today :-)

This has been a long time coming.... and today, I decided, after having spent the last few days beading on my bed... not too comfortable... to finally do a proper clear up of my beading table... and the truth is, I couldn't do that without rearranging all my bead boxes.... I can't believe I acutally did this but I actually took all my beads out of the containers, layed them on my dining table and colour co-ordinated them all back into the containers... and I'm glad I did, because there were so many beads I forgotten about and others I never used simply because they were placed next to a less than complementary colour, rather than one that shows it off.... colours change so much just by placing them next to other colours... so I discovered these new (for me) colour combinations that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of putting together.... but ultimately I'm so happy to have my table back... I'm so happy to be able to see the table top... but most of all I'm so happy I now know where all my beads are :-) I'm so looking forward to sitting down at my table tomorrow morning and start something new and fresh.... no clutter, just endless possibilities :-)

just look how lovely it looks now!!! :-)

even after I've put all my stuff back on the table :-)

I'm so proud!!! :-) Can't wait to start beading first thing tomorrow morning!!! :-D