A Change in Pattern

After a few years of selling patterns for my peyote designs on Etsy, I've finally decided to change my pricing policy to what it seems that the majority of pattern sellers do:  THE 3 FOR 2 PROGRAM.

So after a morning of editing, all 60 of the peyote patterns I currently offer in my Etsy shop are now available under the new pricing structure.

This change doesn't affect the pricing of the patterns offered here on my blog (there's a tab at the top of the page that will take you to the patterns), where the prices are already lower (and where the patterns are available for immediate download).

Wonder what else I can do today that's productive.

Oh yeah.

We have a house to build!

The next "pattern" I'll be working on is laying out the cultured stone for the fireplace.  I have 270 square feet of wall to cover, and about a ton of stone to move.  Beads are much lighter.  :-)

What Happened to April?

The days, weeks, and months are just flying by.  At least that's how it seems around here.  The house is consuming lots and lots of our time, even though it feels like progress has stalled a bit while we wait for the wooden beams to be finished and installed.

So what happened to April?  Well, income taxes took up a lot of time in the first couple of weeks.   Of course I waited until almost the last minute to do everything.  Every year I tell myself I'm going to be more prepared and not have to sit there crunching numbers in a spreadsheet for hours on end; and every year I sit there crunching numbers in a spreadsheet for hours on end.

There were some beading projects that I finished during the month, including one very special project for a lovely Frenchman who wanted something for his girlfriend's birthday.  He had definite ideas about the design and the colors, so it was a real pleasure to create this set of ropes for him.  They won't be presented to the recipient for another few days, and he's promised to let me know how she likes her gift.  For my part, I was thrilled to meet someone who put so much thought into a gift -- and he did all this more than a month before her birthday!

That's not the only beading project I finished during the month.  Because I was so busy with working on the house, I found it easier to work on bead crochet projects than anything else.  Once the beads are strung, a task which can take anywhere from 30 minutes up to a couple of hours, I can start and stop multiple times during the making of a rope without having to worry about where I am in a pattern.

Here are a few of the pieces I finished during the month (I finished several more, but some are still waiting for their pictures to be taken).

Blue Jean Baby

 Yes, this one was named with the Elton John song running through my mind.  I designed this one with picasso finish Czech glass beads (size 8/0) in denim blue and caramel, with the caramel beads placed to resemble stitches.  It's crocheted on royal blue silk thread, so it has a wonderful drape and heft.

Braith

I really like finding interesting and/or descriptive names for some of my pieces, and the name Braith means "speckled" in Welsh.  Created from matte opaque white, shiny opaque orange, and white-lined gray seed beads (size 11/0), part of the rope is speckled -- just a blend of the three types of beads -- and part of the rope is a series of patterns.  I just love these colors together, don't you?

Petina

The name of this piece is kind of a play on words...  "patina" is a "fine coating of oxide on the surface of a metal," and I think it's illustrated here by the combination of turquoise/olive beads mixed in with the dark silky copper beads.  Rather than name this piece "patina," though, I opted to give it the name of one of my favorite high school teachers.

Let's Do the Twist

It's been awhile since I made one of these twisted bead crochet bracelets, but I decided to have some fun.  This one is made in my own favorite colors using matte finish black and white beads of varying sizes.  Looking a bit like a Cellini spiral, it's really fun to watch the spirals develop as I crochet -- the result of using beads in three different sizes.

I took a break from working on the house today, having spent eight hours spreading mulch yesterday.  Crocheting beads is soooooooo much easier than spreading mulch!  :-)

My First Choker!

Really? My first choker? With all the beadweaving I've done in the past few years, I'm actually surprised myself that I haven't made a choker. I've made pendants that are on wire or chain chokers, but never a beadwoven one.

Until now.

I recently had a special request from a customer who wanted a choker to match the Rastafarian Topography cuff.

After we talked for a bit about size and color placement, I created a whole new design meant to coordinate with the original design, pulled out beads in the same colors as the cuff, and started beading.












In order to make sure the choker would fit properly, I made it slightly smaller than the customer's neck measurement and used a length of copper chain and a lobster clasp that will allow her to adjust it to a comfortable length. No one wants a choker that's too loose -- or worse yet, too tight!


And just to fill out the ensemble, I decided to make a little pair of earrings to go with the cuff and choker.




The customer has already received her matched Rasta set and says she loves them... a good thing, since she's planning to wear them for a very special occasion - her daughter's wedding!

:-)

And Suddenly It's March!

I knew this was going to be a busy year. The housebuilding project continues, and although it's no surprise that it's time consuming, it is a surprise that I barely manage to fit in anything else. In past building projects, I've been less concerned with the decision making about design because we were just building spec houses and weren't planning to live in them. When you're going to live in a house, though, it seems like the choices take more time and more thought.

Case in point: Flooring. We were quite proud of ourselves last year when we went to the Asheville Hardwood Center and picked out flooring. We chose #2 hickory in 3", 4", and 5" widths (I really like the random widths), and the only choice that remained seemed to be whether we would install and finish it ourselves (a daunting task, with 2400 square feet of floor to cover!) or have it done by them. After the house progressed further, we started to question our choice: Is #2 hickory, which is really knotty, going to look too "busy" for the space? We have one giant space that's living room, dining room, and kitchen combined, with no walls, and we feared it would just be too much.

So off we went last month to track down something a little calmer. First we went to a local flooring place, where we found some prefinished engineered maple flooring that we both kind of liked. The price was a little less than the #2 hickory, so that was nice; but the flooring was only 1/2" thick and we had planned on using 3/4" (not a big deal to some, but it changes the stair riser height at the top step).

Not completely satisfied with that find, we decided to try Lumber Liquidators. There we found some prefinished maple with just a clear coat, and it was even less expensive; and the good news is that it was 3/4" thick solid hardwood. Looks like we're on the right track, right? We even asked the sales clerk to haul out a box so we could see the board lengths and get an idea of how well the boards would fit together. The maple solved the "busy" problem because it's very plain, with almost no knots in it and very little grain pattern.

Just for kicks and grins, we decided to head back to the Asheville Hardwood Center to see if they had any prefinished flooring. After looking around for a bit, the sales guy told us he had some prefinished 3/4" hickory, 5" wide, that was discounted because they had a limited quantity. What?!? That sounds perfect! We looked at the display in the store and decided we couldn't pass it up; so we ordered it. It was delivered to the house about a month later (we asked them to hold it while the drywallers were working), and just last week we opened some of the boxes to look at it.

Argh! The pieces of flooring in the boxes we opened (about ten boxes, so we'd have a good sampling) were almost all in the 12-18" range! That's going to look like CRAP. Out of all the boxes we opened there were only four or five pieces that were 30" or longer. So we called the sales guy back and told him the problem. The good news is that he came and looked at the flooring, completely agreed with us that it wasn't acceptable, and then sent the truck to come pick it all up. That's some great customer service.

But now we're back to not having flooring. One more trip... back to Asheville Hardwood Center (because the sales guy told us that he could give us a good price on some select hickory), and I think we've FINALLY chosen what we're going to use! Select hickory, 4" wide, unfinished (they'll install, sand, and finish with three coats of polyurethane). Whew.








That flooring adventure is just ONE of the things that's taken a ton of time. Add to that the selection of paint color (who knew there are so many shades of offwhite!!!), buying a paint sprayer (and then having to take it back to get a new one because the first one didn't work!), learning to operate the paint sprayer, trying to figure out how to build the bookcase that will double as the stair rail, working on deck railing designs (we've already gone through about ten iterations of railing design, and we might have actually figured that out now), finding tile for the showers... it seems endless. It's fun. But it seems endless.

So in between all of those house things, I did manage to get a little beading done. After hours and hours of work, I finished this piece, Brushed Gold. It's a custom bead crochet rope made from more than 10,000 teeny tiny size 15/0 Czech glass beads with a 24k gold finish. It's soooooooo slinky! I'm not sure I'd tackle a project like this again, but it was kind of interesting to work with the tiny beads.


And more recently, I finished a bead crochet bracelet, Shinju Sage. The faux pearls are so pretty, and it's really fun to string a bunch of different sizes and shapes and then see what develops as I crochet.


Now it's time to go do some more painting. We're about halfway finished with the walls and ceilings in the house, and we've gone through 25 gallons of primer so far... (we finally did select a color: Vintage).

Perfectly Coordinated

I love a challenge, especially when it's presented to me by someone looking for something ultra special. That's why I was so excited when I was contacted last month with a request to create a set of three bead crochet ropes to coordinate with this lovely dress that had been purchased from Anthropologie.

The dress has a simple, classic style, with a bold plaid design in navy, olive, and cream. I was given lots of leeway in the design of the necklaces, as the only criteria was the length (37") and the number of ropes (3).

I immediately envisioned a set of ropes made from beads in these same colors, and I set about to design a bead crochet pattern that would mimic the bold plaid in the dress. My plan? One rope in olive and cream, one rope in navy and cream, and a third rope using all three colors. That would allow the person wearing the dress to wear the two 2-color ropes as necklaces and wrap the third rope around her wrist for a perfectly coordinated bracelet. I love versatility!





So off I went to work on the pattern, as I anxiously awaited the arrival of the beads I would need. I planned to use Czech glass picasso finish size 11/0 beads for the olive portion, but I needed to order some opaque pale cream and some matte metallic dark navy. Although I have some picasso finish beads in navy blue, I didn't think they were quite dark enough to go with the dress, and I thought it would be nice to have some matte beads in the ropes for extra contrast and texture.

Finally the beads arrived, and I strung and crocheted as fast as I could in order to finish the ropes by the deadline -- the dress and ropes were to be worn to a Baptism, and I didn't want to disappoint!

And here are the ropes, just as I planned (luckily, I didn't make any mistakes in stringing the 200+ bead repeat in the pattern, so I didn't have to do any unraveling!). I'm so happy with them (and I've since received word that the recipient loves them). :-)


I was also asked to make earrings to coordinate with the dress and the ropes, so I made a couple of prototypes so the requester would have a choice. Ultimately I used tubular herringbone to make these loops from the same beads in the ropes, again mimicking the plaid pattern in the dress.


It was great fun creating something so special! And now I must get back to crocheting those size 15/0 24k brushed gold charlottes I mentioned in earlier posts.

Bead Crochet Insanity

Don't let anyone tell you any differently. Size matters, particularly when you're talking about beads.

My last post showed off some of the beautiful beads I just received, purchased for a custom order. The request I received is for a 90-100" long bead crochet rope made from these gorgeous 24k brushed gold size 15/0 beads. And I thought I was all set for the challenge, having pulled out some of the size 15/0 beads I had on hand so I could see just how much of a challenge the rope was going to be.

Surprise #1? The 24k gold beads have smaller holes than the other size 15/0 beads I had. No problem. I just switched to a super skinny needle (yes, I know some of you would know what size needle, but I don't know - I just know it's really skinny and bendy, and smaller than a size 10). A little more tedium in picking up the beads because the needle's so thin, but no biggie. Right?

Surprise #2? The 24k beads themselves are smaller. They're labeled as size 15/0, as are the others I used, but there's a significant difference in their size. See what I mean?


There they are next to each other. I just used my size 12 needle to pick up some of the red size 15/0 beads I used before. There are 19 of the red beads on there, and it takes 27 of the gold beads to span the same distance. The gold ones are 30% smaller. Sheesh!

I'm still not willing to back down from a challenge, though, so here's where the "Bead Crochet Insanity" comes in. I'm busy working on the custom bead crochet rope using these teeny tiny 24k brushed gold size 15/0 beads. I've strung 10 grams of them onto my thread and, with the help of my cheapo magnifying glasses, am crocheting away. The rope itself is only slightly more than 1/8" in diameter (it's crocheted with 5 beads around). I feel like I'm crocheting with grains of sand. But I will persevere. The rope is going to use 500 grams of these little beads.

Yep.

Insane.

Good (and Tiny) Things Come in Small Packages

VERY good things come in small packages. Especially when the packages contain beads. And most especially when they come from my Etsy friend Shannon.

I hadn't really begun this year with the intent to purchase beads. After all, I have millions of them. Seriously. Beads of just about every size imaginable, in every color imaginable. POUNDS of Delicas. And even more seed beads, all recently sorted into bins by color.

But that all changed when I was contacted by someone who asked me if I could create a very special bead crochet rope using size 15/0 beads (eegads!). Initially the request was for silver and black, but with the notoriously unstable finishes on most silver beads (even the real silver ones are susceptible to tarnish), I went on a quest to find some uncommon beads. Something beautiful. Something rich. Something awesome. And my very first place to look was in Shannon's shop, beadsandbabble. That's where I saw these drop-dead gorgeous 24k brushed gold size 15/0 charlottes (beads with a single facet). Don't they look delicious???



Well, I promptly sent the link to the potential customer to see what she thought, and apparently she also fell in love with them because she changed her mind about the silver and black rope and opted to have a rope made just from these. One loooooooooooong rope. Did I mention that these are size 15/0? That's small. Very small.

Since I don't like starting a custom order without having at least an inkling of what I'm about to tackle, I decided to take out some of the size 15/0 beads I have (remember that massive collection I mentioned?) and make a rope. You can see here how the size of this rope, which is made with hematite and metallic red, compares with ropes made from size 11/0 beads and size 8/0 beads (both of these ropes happen to also be made from beads I bought from Shannon's shop). These ropes are all crocheted with five beads around. What a difference! The rope made from the size 15/0 beads is only slightly more than 1/8" in diameter. Whew!

The next big dilemma was availability of the chosen beads. I contacted Shannon to see how many of the size 15/0 24k brushed gold beads she had on hand and also to see if she knew how many beads there are in a 5-gram package, and it turned out that I would need almost 50 grams of these little beauties for the rope length requested. Holy moly.

Now the awesome thing (well, one of them) about Shannon is that rather than just tell me she didn't have enough of the beads, she contacted her supplier and put in a special order so she could meet my needs. And in today's mail, I received a BIG package with a bunch of SMALL packages inside. Lots and lots of beady goodness, including the 50 grams of beads I need for the 24k gold rope. :-)

But first... I need to finish another project, a set of bead crochet ropes using [relatively huge] size 11/0 beads in a design I developed to coordinate with the pattern in a picture sent to me by the customer.