Sea Grass Pendant and Necklace with Cultured Sea Glass Beads

Last week I shared a process photo of my Sea Grass pendant in this post.  The fringe is nice and stiff and sticks out in an arch around the lower half of the beaded circle.  I was inspired by the wonderful cultured sea glass shards sent to me by ZnetShows (it's been fun watching them set up their booth at Tuscon) and a photo of Button Sedge from the book Archipelageo: Portraits of Life in the World's Most Remote Island Sanctuary. 

Fimbristylis cymosa, Button Sedge or Mauʻu ʻakiʻaki

Once I finished the pendant, I broke out my sketchbook and started playing with different ideas to turn it into a necklace.  Did I want a polished look with a beaded rope, or a more organic finish working with more of ZnetShow's sea glass beads?

I decided to stick with a more organic design.  Originally in my sketch, I'd envisioned some additional lines of freeform beading snaking up along and around the sea glass, but decided I liked the cleaner lines.  Here's the finished piece:

I added some dyed red stones as accents, echoing the deep red seed beads in the fringed pendant. 

Hot, Hot, Hot or Not, Not, Not

Welcome back to my ongoing series on the elements of design.  Today, I'm continuing to look at color - focusing on Color Temperature and Undertones.

Color Temperatures working around the color wheel

Sunny yellows, red hot, cool blue - every color has an associated Color Temperature.

Working around the color wheel, those in the red to yellow range are warm.  While the blues, greens and purples are generally regarded as cool colors.  Seems simple enough, right?

Well, it gets a little more complicated than that, unfortunately.

The Color Temperatures on the Cusps Fluctuate.

That's right - red-violet and yellow-green are sometimes warm and sometimes cool.  Because they're stuck halfway between the warm and cool colors, they don't really know which family they belong to and shift their apparent color temperature dramatically based upon who they're paired up with.

Just to be ornery, they'll tend to take the opposite Color Temperature from the majority.  Kind of like reverse camouflage.

So, if they're paired with warm colors - lots of reds, oranges and yellows, they'll seem cool.  Snuggled in with cool blues, greens and violets, they suddenly turn up warm.  

Check out the lime green beads in my samples at right - they're the same in both photographs.




Then there are Undertones.  Here's where we get into cool and warm hues of the same color family.   

Looking at the swatches, which red would you describe as warm? cool?

Varying the undertones can create Temperature differences even within the same color family, such as the red sampler above.   Brick Red is quite warm, with strong orange undertones, while Alizarin Crimson is a cool red with strong blue undertones.

This is one way to increase interest in monochromatic compositions.  Undertones can also explain why different hues of the same color simply don't seem to go together. 

This week, take a look at some of your bead stash and try to identify the undertones of the various hues - do they tend to be warm, cool or evenly mixed? 

Two and a Half Months - NW Seedbeaders

This past Sunday was the NW Seedbeader's Group; one of my absolute favorite days of the month.  Last month I taught my Corset Beads, and this month several people brought their finished beads back for me to see and share.  I just love seeing what other people do!

Ellen Lambright added an extra row of triangle beads to each edge

I find these little beauties hard to photograph because it always seems like the eye can see so much more of the whole than the camera can capture.  I tried to compensate with multiple camera angles and shots!

Constance Miteo-Johnson's reminds me of a 4th of July UFO

Connie's triple rows of drop beads created a fun, elliptical effect which reminded me of UFOs and pinwheels. 

Aren't Bonita Kroon's colors striking? 

Bonnie plans to combine her corset bead with the N'debele rope Deanna Raabe shared for this month's program into a larger piece.  She was playing with different ideas for adding splashes of the brighter orange and gold into her rope. 

N'debele rope by Tamera Mickelson with lamworked focal

Tamera Mickelson brought this necklace as another sample of N'debele rope, made with size 11 triangle beads.  One of the keys seems to be making sure you get the triangle beads with the sharp, rather than rounded, edges.

And since I didn't have time to do any photography last week, I invited people to bring back their completed amulet bags from June.

Vicki Nelson's amulet bag

Bonita Kroon's "Geek" bag

Bonnie called hers a "Geek" bag because she discovered it's perfectly sized to hold a thumb drive.  How cool it that?

So there you have it; three month's of Seedbeaders' meetings. 

The Ingredients for Bead Soup

Have ingredients, time to start working on the recipe

I absolutely adore receiving packages in the mail!  And yesterday's package from my Bead Soup partner Judy Riley was one of the best! 

I loved the way she packaged it - all done up in a bright summery party bag.  It even matched my summer table cloth!  And inside what did I find but over a half dozen individually wrapped packages.  The little kid in my scrambled forward and began tearing into the little guys.  It was a feeding frenzy at my house.  Luckily no one was there to see me as paper went flying and I chortled and crowed with each package I unwrapped.

So pretty!  You absolutely rock Judy!  Thank you!  Isn't that stone focal gorgeous?  I love the deep blues, and how they're offset by the cream and red/browns.

This is going to be so much fun!  Now I have a little over a month to come up with something (and to finish out several extant projects as well).

Lori Anderson is giving this Bead Soup mix away to one lucky person

In the meantime, Lori Anderson, our amazing Bead Soup hostess, has posted a giveaway to her blog.  The thing is, the giveaway is actually FIVE separate give-aways rolled into one.  First there's this lovely Bead Soup mix, with items from her stash and donated by several other amazing artists.

Four more give-aways from Lori Anderson

Then she's giving away copies of her two books - her upcoming book on Bead Soup published by Kalmbach Books, and her ebook on the art and craft of blogging, Follow the Path.  Lori's is one of my favorite blogs, with it's mix of humor, beads, and peaks into her life, mind and heart.  I know that there's a lot I could learn from her to improve my own blog and will definitely be picking up a copy of her ebook if I don't happen to win it on Friday. She's also giving away a Bead Soup tote bag and a Mystery Soup of her own creation. 

The drawing's this Friday, July 13th.  Hop on over to her blog if you'd like a chance to win.

A Regifting Give Away

At last month's general meeting for the NW Bead Society, Kendra Bruno, Executive Director for the International Society of Glass Beadmakers gave a fun lecture combining a bit of the history of glass beadmaking, along with overviews of the past and present focuses of the ISGB itself, including a wonderful slide show of their two of their most recent traveling art exhibits. 


As part of her talk, she gave a way catalogs for both of the exhibits,  Trajectories focusing on the art of the glass bead and Convergence, which focused on contemporary jewelry design with glass beads.  These catalogs are gorgeous eye candy.  But the truth is, I already have a copy of both.  Oops! 

So I thought I'd pass them along so that someone else might enjoy them too. 

a sneak peak inside the Convergence catalog

two gorgeous pieces after my own heart from the Trajectories catalog

If you'd like a copy, let me know by leaving a comment.  I'll do a random drawing next Wednesday, May 16th. 

Spring Classes

Twined wire egg basket by Maryiln Moore

Signups for Fusion Beads' spring classes started Thursday. I stopped by Saturday to sign up for Marilyn Moore's Egg Basket: Oval Twined Wire Bowl, but got caught by their in-store sale. Most of their strands of shaped glass beads are 40-50% off through the end of the year, youza! I definitely failed my willpower roll and left the store with a lovely packet of beads, perfect for more lacework bracelets and accent beads in my freeform peyote. I did not sign up for the class - now I'll have to wait until after the holidays and hope there's still space. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Glacial Ice, lacework bracelet by Karen Williams

In the meantime, I do have three classes of my own on their spring schedule. I'll be teaching Freeform Peyote Ruffles again on Sunday, January 29th, where students can choose to make a pair of earrings or brooch, or start on a larger project such as a bracelet.  Then on Tuesday March 6th, it's my Lacework Bracelet working with random right angle weave. Both classes filled last fall, so we'll see how they do this time around.

Store bought cabochons from Fusion Beads

And I'm teaching a new Beaded Bezel workshop, where we'll capture a cabochon shaped object using a combination of regular and random right angle weave and peyote stitch. This is a variation on my Captured Cabochon, with the back worked in random right angle weave, which leaves lots of room for artistic interpretation. The back becomes a special surprise for the wearer, or you can make the cabochon completely reversible, so you end up with two entirely different looks from one pendant. Or you can incorporate the captured cabochon into a larger piece, as I did with my Red Crest and Hunting Fae necklaces.  Enough possibilities?

My original samples for this class all used my handmade cabochons, but they suggested that I also make some samples using cabochons that Fusion Beads carry, so there are now a wealth of samples for this class. The catalog only shows two, and then only the fronts, so here's a little more:

Two backs: Lillypilly pendant and stone cabochon

Original samples, both cabochons & stitching are mine

Cabochon backs, @ bottom right to be used in larger project

Time to Start Cooking

Bead Soup ingredients from Kimberly Roberts

Delayed by Irene's little tantrum, my Bead Soup ingredients finally made their way to my doorstep Friday afternoon.  Sent from Kimberly's studio on the island of Abaco in The Bahamas, they whisper stories of warm blue waters and tropical beaches as if there were no such thing as hurricanes or storms.

My first thought was run to the beach to photograph them in their natural environment, then I imagined losing the lampworked beads in the sand and squelched that idea.  No lost beads for me!  Not these beauties.

Most of the pieces are Kim's original work, including:

Fused glass focal by Kimberly Roberts

Beach glass with silver bezels and a glass/silver clasp by Kimberly Roberts

Lampworked beads by Kimberly Roberts

Now I have just under two weeks to come up with something equally fabulous to showcase these lovelies.  The Bead Soup Blog Party, September 17th, is fast approaching! 

An Embarrassment of Riches

My Moms conspired (with Dad's help of course), to deliver what I sincerely hope is a good portion of Lynnie's bead stash when Dad & Mom drove out to Seattle for the cruise. (I have heard rumors that this may just be the tip of the iceberg).

Somehow it doesn't look quite so impressive in this picture, with all the baggies of beads spread across my cutting table. But trust me, they were plenty! It took most of my limited time in the studio the later half of September to get them sorted into my stash, while trying not to drool over all the wonderful colors. Yummy!

Sorted into - who am I kidding - the additions very nearly doubled my stash. And I've never considered myself to be lacking in supplies.


And to top it all, despite my fondness for bead shopping, much of my 'pre-September' stash also had Lynnie's stamp on it. She introduced me to beading on our first meeting - and not too much later, she gave me a tray of beads, which seemed like untold riches, and which I still have.

Originally, I used the beads simply to decorate my art quilts & fabric embroideries, but slowly I began making more and more complex jewelry. Twenty years later, I swear this tray is like the fishes and loaves - I've used the beads for so many different projects, and yet I'd say most of the containers are still well over half full. They're all Japanese seed beads, with a nice rounded shape and huge thread holes, so they're a dream to use.

Thank you Lynnie, for my extravagance of riches! And for introducing me to beading in the first place.