How's your year going so far? Good, I hope. :-)
It's the 10th of the month (!), and although I'm not getting all the things done that I wanted to (I always overestimate just how much I can do in a 24-hour period), I'm pretty happy with progress in general.
We've made some progress on the house (no matter how much I may want to play with my beads, the house takes priority over everything else!). The insulation contractor finished work yesterday, so it's ready for inspection tomorrow. The drywall contractor tracked down the best price he could for us for the drywall we need, so that'll be ordered today. The carpenters (have I mentioned how much we love these guys?) finished the siding on the front gable, finished the back deck, finished the soffit over the carport, and did the trimming around the deck posts. It looks AWESOME! We just have to wait for some more deck lumber to finish the front deck, since the supply place sent the wrong material.
One thing we're both really excited about is finding the wood flooring we're going to use. We thought we had that picked out months ago, but after seeing the space and thinking about it more we decided the #2 hickory would be too busy - all those knots and variations in color would be a little over the top. So we went on a quest to find something more sedate and possibly something a little less expensive than the original $5.95 per square foot price. Off we went last week to begin the new search...
On Thursday, we found an engineered flooring made of maple that we both liked, at $4.65/square foot. Not bad. But we weren't thrilled with the engineered flooring, since it's only 1/2" thick and Pat built the stairs based on using 3/4" flooring. Not a huge deal, but we really wanted the 3/4" stuff to help stiffen the floor overall, since it's such a big space.
On Saturday, we continued the search at Lumber Liquidators and found some select maple flooring, 4" wide and 3/4" thick, that we liked. At $4.09/square foot, it beat out Thursday's find; but we decided to try one last place.
So on Monday we went to visit one last place. The last place we visited was the Asheville Hardwood Center, which was actually the first place we had visited months ago, but we were going in with something different in mind - prefinished flooring vs. unfinished (part of the $5.95 cost was having the floor sanded, stained, and finished with three coats of polyurethane). We walked in the door of the Asheville Hardwood Center and started looking at the prefinished flooring. Right off the bat we were disappointed to see that the prices were all higher than the $4.09, but then we started talking to the sales guy... after he heard what we were looking for, he pointed us in the direction of some 5" x 3/4" select hickory that was marked down to a special price because they had limited inventory. The price $3.25/square foot!!!! Woo hoo!!!! They don't have quite enough for us to do the whole floor, but they have some 3-1/4" stock that's also on sale, the same wood and finish in a narrower width, so we'll have a room that where we alternate the sizes. We're so excited about being able to save all that money and still get what we want that we can hardly believe it. (The picture here is from the flooring manufacturer's website.)
Now on the beady side of things, even with all the house stuff going on I've been beading away and also working on getting some more patterns published. The pattern for Diametric is available here on my blog and also in my Etsy shop.
If you purchase patterns here on my blog, you'll find that the prices are lower (yay!) and that they're available for immediate download - no waiting for me to email them to you. Payment is via PayPal, so you're safe and secure. :-)
I'm working on getting at least one or two more patterns published by the end of the week, so stay tuned.
I've also been beading. Surprise surprise. I actually began the year by recreating two of my popular pieces, both bead crochet ropes.
Ondine 
is a 70" long bead crochet rope made from size 10/0 and 11/0 Czech glass beads with a picasso finish. I love love love these beads! They have such gorgeous colors, and the finish on them makes them look like semiprecious stones.
This is the third version of this particular colorway, and as I do with many of my ropes, I alternated between patterned sections and sections made from just a blend of the four colors of beads.
One of the other new pieces I've made is a recreation of Mulberries and Heavy Cream. The beads in this rope are soooo pretty! They're size 8/0 Czech glass seed beads in a creamy offwhite that resembles the finish on a pearl and a slightly metallic looking deep burgundy with a single facet. There's such sparkle and shine!
This rope, like its predecessor, is crocheted in sections of pattern. There are five different designs , from spiraling stripes to tiny diamonds, speckles, and a couple of others I'm not sure how to describe.
At 58" long it can be worn in a whole bunch of different ways, and with all the patterns it can look different just by moving a different section to the front.
There are some more finished pieces sitting here waiting to be photographed so they can make their debut... Since we're still living in the "dark" house until the new house is finished, it's still a challenge to find just the right light for photographing finished work.
Time to head out for some shopping. On today's list? We need a 12' ladder. Because apparently, we just can't do what we need to do with the 4', 6', 8', 10', 16', 28', and 32' ladders we already own! Sheesh.
It's fun to try new things with bead crochet, and I've been doing just that. I have so many beautiful beads in my massive stash that I have no end of inspiration - just not so much time, particularly now that we're in the midst of building a house.
Today I thought I'd show you some of my most recent bead crochet pieces and tell you about the new adventure I'm taking with one of my bead crochet heroines, Judith Bertoglio-Giffin.
One recent piece is Sawtooth Salsa, crocheted from some of my all-time favorite beads - Czech glass seed bead with a picasso finish. These are so gorgeous in person, and the size 11/0 beads make a wonderful rope (in this case, the ends are joined to create a continuous loop that can be worn as a necklace or a bracelet).
In case you're wondering where you can find these beautiful beads, check out my friend Shannon's Etsy shop: beadsandbabble
Tell her I sent you (I don't get anything for that, but it's always nice to know how people found you online, don't you think?).
Although I don't use a lot of them in my work, for some reason I have a big container filled with faux pearls (just can't resist adding to my stash, I suppose). I guess I've always figured I'd find a place for them, and I have used some; but then the idea came to me to try crocheting a graduated necklace using an assortment of different sizes.
And so was born Luscious, made from a few hundred of those faux pearls in creamy off white, very pale peach, and a lovely shade of blue. This piece had a few challenges, as working with the different size beads and the sheer heft of the faux pearls kept causing the piece to unravel. I'm not one to give up easily, though, so I figured out a solution to the unraveling.
The beads in this piece range from relatively tiny, about 1/8", to some pretty substantial pearls that are more than 1/2" in diameter.
I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, and I don't think anyone would ever guess it's bead crochet. It sure doesn't look like the lariats and necklaces I've made before.
Having crocheted with my favorite Czech seed beads and then with pearls, I thought it was time to play around with some of my other favorite beads: Japanese delicas. These little cylinder beads are absolutely wonderful for peyote work, and they give a completely different look to a bead crochet piece.
I'll admit I was being a bit lazy when I strung these... rather than designing a pattern and using a bunch of different colors/finishes of the delicas, I decided to just add some 2mm jasper rounds, spaced about 3/8" apart along the entire length of the piece. And although I was a bit lazy, there was still some counting involved in stringing the more than 5600 beads this required!
This is called Sand and Stone, for the sandy color of the satiny pale gold delicas and the natural jasper stones that spiral around the rope's entire length.
And now it's time for another bead crochet adventure. When I saw Judith Bertoglio-Giffin's Urban Stripes String Along post on Facebook, I just had to join in the fun. Judith is providing the patterns for seven 6" long sections of bead crochet, so at the end of the adventure all the participants will wind up with a 42" long rope (presuming everyone's using the same size 8/0 beads Judith is using).
You can still sign up to play along, but you have to hurry. The deadline to sign up is tomorrow. Details are on the Bead Line Studios blog.
She's already posted the first part of the pattern, and I've done what may be the most difficult task: choosing the beads! Luckily I had just ordered some size 8/0 beads, and they're perfect for this project.
Now it's time to get started stringing the first part of the pattern... and I'm thinking of doing a variation on the design using some size 10/0 delicas, because I think they have kind of an urban feel.
Where are they? Have you seen them? Help me look.
Even in the short amount of time I've spent with my little sister (long story, which you can read here), I heard these words several times. She has glasses, and she's notorious for putting them down somewhere and then forgetting where they are.
Well, now she has no excuse.
After I told her I couldn't locate those little rubber thingies for the ends, she gave me an old lariat she had so I could cut them off of it.
Since this will be used a LOT, I decided that bead crochet would be the way to go. It's sturdy and very flexible and comfortable to wear, and this one is pretty slim since I used only five beads around. The beads are the Czech glass picasso finish ones I like so much, this time a mixture of five or six different blends I had in my stash. Even though they're from different colorways, they blend beautifully.
And the best thing of all? She likes it! She really really likes it!
The funniest part? When she was talking to me about her new glasses holder, she needed her glasses to look at it more closely so she could check out the finishes on the beads. And she couldn't find her glasses! Where were they this time? HANGING ON HER SHIRT.
She cracks me up. (love ya, Bev!)
Do you ever think about where your beads have been? I hadn't given it much thought until recently, when I took a bead crochet project to work on while we drove from North Carolina to Kentucky.
I like coming up with names for my pieces that have some kind of meaning, and I was trying to think of a name for this bead crochet lariat as we crossed over the mountains separating North Carolina and Tennessee. And then I began thinking about the journey these beads had taken...
This is just the part of the journey I know:
- The beads are Czech glass (picasso beads), so they began their lives somewhere in Czechoslovakia.
- I purchased them from a wonderful Etsy seller named Shannon Ferguson (aka beadsandbabble), and she lives in California.
- Shannon shipped them to me, so they wound up in North Carolina (not sure how many states they traversed as they made their way here).
- And then they traveled with me on my trip to London, Kentucky... out of North Carolina, across Tennessee, and into Kentucky.
And that's just the seed beads! I have no idea where the little ceramic cubes I used for the fringes originated.
But this piece, which I have named "Over the Mountains," is well traveled. :-)
Where have your beads been?
I can hardly believe it, but I finished the bead crochet rope I started yesterday! From there to here in lots and lots and lots of easy steps. :-)
It was simple, really.
Or maybe not.
I guess it all comes down to your point of view.
After numerous conversations with the customer to determine what she wanted, the process began with the sorting of beads. Since the size 8/0 picasso beads I was using were a mix, I had to remove three of the colors from the mix, leaving me with six colors for the rope: black, royal, teal, dark red, olive, and honey. The length of the rope was determined (45"), and the request was to use all the colors throughout the rope, but to have the dark colors "fade" to light and then back again to dark. That meant coming up with custom blends of the two sets of colors. Lots of counting. And then lots of stringing, as you can see from yesterday's post with the picture of the strung beads.
And so begins the process of crocheting. One initial row of six slip stitch with a bead in each stitch, join the ends, and then...
1 - Insert hook under the thread to the left of the first bead.
2 - Slide down a bead from the strand of strung beads.
3 - Yarn over (or in this case, thread over).
4 - Pull hook through, making another slip stitch with the newly added bead in place.
Repeat THREE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTEEN TIMES.
Voila!
The last step to be completed is the join, seamlessly attaching the ends of the rope to make a loop.
And now I think it's time to do some peyote stitch!
:-)
I'm still behind on my peyote cuff designs, but that doesn't mean I haven't been playing with beads!
My beading needle has been temporarily set aside so I could play with another piece of hardware: my crochet hook. Using more of the picasso beads from Beads and Babble, I created this piece with a diamond pattern that looks so much like a snake that people were "eeking" when I posted the picture on Facebook.
You can see the beads I used for this in the background. Although I know a rope without a pattern would have been equally gorgeous, I just couldn't resist this.
There are two sets of diamonds that travel the length of the rope, and it really does look like a snake. I'm not sure what kind though.
The project I'm just starting is a custom bead crochet rope that also uses the picasso finish beads (they're gorgeous!!!), this time the size 8/0 ones. The request was for a 45" long rope that has different color sections that blend into each other. That required that I first sort the beads, so I spent awhile picking up the different colored beads from the mixed hanks I had and dropping them into little paper cups. It's a good thing I have OCD.
And now they're all strung. Three thousand four hundred twenty four beads. 3424. All carefully blended and strung so the rope will go from dark to light and back again.
Time to start crocheting. :-)
I still haven't given up hope on catching up on my peyote cuff designs. There are patterns to be done and bracelets to be beaded, so stay tuned.
I'm going to be playing catch-up this week. I was so busy that I didn't get my new peyote designs for weeks #18 or #19 beaded. I created the designs, though, so I'm working this week on getting them ready to show off.
So what was keeping me so busy? Well. House plans, for one thing. We're getting ready to build a house, and there's a lot to be done to prepare. My husband and I have been working on the plans for so long, but there are always things we want to change (and as much as I hate making changes to the plans, it's much less expensive for us to change drawings than it is to move wood and windows around later). The drawing here was last week's version of the front elevation (it's a one-story house with a walk-out basement). It's different now. We just decided today that we wanted to have a French door at the front, with windows flanking it, instead of the row of windows in this version. It'll be nice to be able to walk out the front of the house onto the deck (which wraps around two sides).
We also had to start getting bids on materials and labor, for the things we're not going to do ourselves. The windows and doors have been chosen, the siding, the woodburning stove, and the stone for the hearth and the posts outside the house. We'll have the foundation and framing done, as well as the plumbing, electrical, drywall, and HVAC; and we'll do the siding, the stonework, cabinets, trim, interior doors, and all the finishing touches. It's a LOT of work, but it's fun. And when we're finished we'll have the house we want.
In addition to working on the house plans, I was working on some custom orders for beadwoven pieces. I finished two ndebele ropes (one of which was a Mother's Day gift and the other wound up in my Etsy shop):
This is Neptune's Twist, created from transparent teal, transparent turquoise, and transparent amethyst colored beads with an accent row of transparent clear beads with an AB finish.
When I finished it, I thought it looked like ocean waves, with the colors and the flowing curves.
It was a Mother's Day present for one of my husband's aunts.
And this one is called (simply) Turquoise, Lemon and Lime Twist. It's made from opaque beads in bright sunny yellow, turquoise, and lime green, with an accent row of a mixture of yellows, blues, and greens. Very summery.
This one is in my Etsy shop. It started out to be a custom order, but I didn't have enough of the same beads to make it as long as was requested. That happens sometimes.
And the most recent custom order is this piece, called Salsa. I was asked to make a bead crochet rope, and the customer sent me pictures of a rope she had seen that she really liked. That rope, which was made by Claire Kahn, used gemstones in beautiful shades of deep coral red, turquoise, and sand.
So off I went on a hunt. Although gemstones are readily available, I wound up finding these gorgeous picasso seed beads in an Etsy shop called Beads and Babble, operated by Shannon Ferguson.
Shannon had several listings for picasso beads, and even before I heard back from the customer about whether she liked these, I had ordered them (as well as a bunch of others).
The beads arrived, and they are just as gorgeous in person as they were in the pictures.
For the rope, I used eight beads around and alternated sections of the Salsa mix with sections of the dark red and the turquoise beads (which I also ordered from Shannon). These beads are TINY, even smaller than some other size 11/0 beads I have, so it took me awhile to finish this piece. It was worth the wait, though. I love the way it turned out; and it will soon be in the customer's hands.
And I've already ordered more beads from Beads and Babble. I mean, come on! How can you resist beads that look this delicious?!?! :-)
** If you visit Shannon, tell her you found her through my blog. She's really really nice, her shipping is free, and her beads are wonderful. I'm sure I'll be shopping there again.
So on Monday we went to visit one last place. The last place we visited was the Asheville Hardwood Center, which was actually the first place we had visited months ago, but we were going in with something different in mind - prefinished flooring vs. unfinished (part of the $5.95 cost was having the floor sanded, stained, and finished with three coats of polyurethane). We walked in the door of the Asheville Hardwood Center and started looking at the prefinished flooring. Right off the bat we were disappointed to see that the prices were all higher than the $4.09, but then we started talking to the sales guy... after he heard what we were looking for, he pointed us in the direction of some 5" x 3/4" select hickory that was marked down to a special price because they had limited inventory. The price $3.25/square foot!!!! Woo hoo!!!! They don't have quite enough for us to do the whole floor, but they have some 3-1/4" stock that's also on sale, the same wood and finish in a narrower width, so we'll have a room that where we alternate the sizes. We're so excited about being able to save all that money and still get what we want that we can hardly believe it. (The picture here is from the flooring manufacturer's website.)
