Work in Progress Wednesday - Bead Soup Teaser

This Saturday's the final Bead Soup reveal of the summer.  I'm working with the wonderful collection of beads sent to me by my partner Judy Riley. 

Thought I'd do something a little different and show you where it is right at this very minute.  Currently, it reminds me of a tangled octopus.  What do you think? 

Good news is I have two more days to work on it!  Curious how it's going to turn out?  Check back on Saturday to see. 

Gotta go now - time for more stitching!

A Tale of Two Tassels

This week has completely gotten away from me!  I'd contemplated on Monday.  So much for posting every day this week.  So, here's my quick and easy method for creating a pair of small tassels.

1. Wrap embroidery floss and metallic embroidery threads around a plastic card (an old bus pass in this case).  Tie off the middle on both sides with additional embroidery floss (this is the top cord).
2. Cut the threads away from the card along the two edges using a small pair of scissors or Xacto knife.
3. Holding the top cord in one hand, comb the skirt threads into some semblance of order and wrap the neck a couple of time. Use an embroidery needle to stitch through the neck to make it more secure, then stitch down through the center.
4. Wrap the tassel in paper like you're rolling a cigar, with the top cord sticking out one end and the tassel's skirt ends sticking out the other.  
5. Pull the tassel until the shortest threads are just visible beyond the paper.  Trim the ends neat and tidy with a pair of sharp scissors.

Decorating the Neck

Here's where I admit to one of my faults - I'm great at taking pictures at the start of a project.  But the further into it I get, the more likely I am to be caught up and forget all about my camera.

So, using right angle weave and netting, I stitched up a beaded collar for each of the tassels.  Working around the tassel is frustratingly fussy as my beading thread likes to catch on the tassel, so I do as much as I can working flat - first two photos.
Then I join the two ends of right angle weave around the neck and finish the netted skirt.  It takes a lot less time this way.

And then I added them to my necklace, which is finally, at long last, finished!

And there was much rejoicing on the home front.  This piece was a lot different than my usual work and took a while to tell me what it needed.  But I really like the finished results. 

Oh, one more note with the tassels, I didn't want the top cord to show, so once I was done beading the necks, I threaded the top cords back onto my embroidery needle and stitched the ends down through the center.  Then covered the still visible cording with bead work. 

If people are interested, I could work up the pattern for the beaded collar; its really pretty simple.

When is Done, Done?

Thought I was about done with this necklace almost two weeks ago.  It almost worked, but not quite.  I liked the idea of using the machine wrapped cording and the washers to suspend the cabochon.  But they felt too skimpy in comparison to the weight of the concrete and beading.  And the washers twisted more than I liked. 

So I hung it from my project board and thought about it for a little while. 

First change was to make another machine wrapped cord, red this time and braid it in with the black, with a few knots for texture.  Then I added a beaded tassel to weight the washer and help it lay straight.

This was better, but the right hand side still didn't work. Hmmm...

Time for lots of sampling - made several different beaded tapes or cords and tried them in place.

 Here's where it stands as of this evening.  Looks better on than laying here on the beading cloth.  But is it actually done?  I'm wondering if it needs a tassel or two hanging from the middle washer to the right to balance the one on the left.

Think I'll have to look at it again tomorrow before I decide.