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!

What I've Been Working on

I haven't posted anything about my own work for a while, largely because I seem to be much better at starting than finishing things right now.  As I packed up my bead box for the day yesterday, I grabbed a snapshot and thought I'd share a few of the things that I'm working on right now.

I am always amazed at just how many projects can fit in one medium sized box.

Slowly shading towards magenta

The top row mostly holds the beads for my latest Lacework bracelet, which shades from Quinacridone Magenta to Pthalo Turquoise.  The bracelet itself is nearly half way along and is hiding under the beads.  It doesn't have a name yet, though the colors in their little baggies remind me of Mardi Gras. 

Extra thread wound on card to keep it from tangling

 I have supplies for two, maybe three projects in the next row.  There are my wedding fish, so named because they started life on the way to my cousin's wedding.  I'd selected the beads to make a bridal lacework bracelet, but somehow fish emerged again.  I still have enough beads left over for that bracelet, however.  And then I'd have a bracelet with matching fish! 

 I also have this awesome cabachon that my friend and fellow seed beader, Shelly Gillman made last summer during my open studio evenings, working with concrete and resin.  My captured cabochons class is coming up in just over a week, so I thought I'd make a new sample. 

The strand of beads on the side is my test strand - what I think I'll be using.  More than I'd normally use to simply capture a cabochon, so this may well turn out to be a complete necklace, not just a pendant.  We will see what happens as we stitch.

And that's just half of the box! But it seems I've run out of time for writing - Wormwood's shouting for his breakfast and it's time to get going. So there's a little look at what I have cooking. Soon I'll have more to share.

Studio Wednesday

The problem with having too many ideas in my head is it's far too easy to jump from one project to the next, working on whatever seems like most fun in the present instead of what I ought to be working on.   Like my Lacework Bracelet pattern, which I plan to revise, adding in two new sections, then convert it to Kindle format as well as PDF.  Thought I'd use it as a test project to see what exactly is involved  in the conversion process.  (By the bye - when I revise/expand upon an e-pattern, I'll send the new revisions to anyone who has purchased the pattern within the past year, in the same format as their original purchase).

But have I worked on it this week?  No!  Instead, I keep finding myself working on the pattern for my Fancy Goldfish.  And since I don't have much else to share right now, I thought I'd share a couple pics of my work in progress.

Testing out my instructions and diagrams

All of the illustrations are designed in illustrator, and I start out typing the text into work because it's easiest to edit in that format.  Once I know that everything works, I'll start putting the two together, adding captions and designing page layouts.  But right now, we're very much in the pattern testing stage where I'm trying to follow my own instructions word for word.  Not the easiest thing for me!

Getting ready to add the dorsal fin

My test subjects

And tomorrow morning, I'll try to snap some good pics of my current school of fish.  But this is what I have for now.

Latest Works in Progress

Bracelet started in yesterdays class

Had a smaller class yesterday teaching Freeform Ruffles at Fusion Beads with only six students.  One of the things I love about the store is that as long as a class has four students, they let it run (at least for their local classes - not sure what they do with out of town intructors).  The smaller class size is really nice because I feel like I have more time to give each student individual attention.  

Since it's a freeform class, everyone gets to decide what type of project they want to make; they all chose to start on bracelets.  With six hours of class time, I warned that they'd likely be able to complete a smaller project like a pair of earrings or pendant, but would only get a good start on a larger project like a bracelet. My dream is to one day teach this as a two-day workshop.  The first day we'd cover the basic technique and structure, the second would give us time to look at all the various nuances of finishing a piece.  The design work that you don't really get to until you're well into the project.

Lamp worked bead by StudioJuls

Since I only had one day, I had to cram it all in to the time available.  Hopefully in an organized fashion.  I can only stitch so fast in a class setting, so right now I have several different works in progress I put together to show various stages of construction (in addition to the samples that will never be more than samples).  

Besides the bracelet I started in class, I have a pendant/brooch that's somewhere in the mid-stage of construction.  It's designed to show adding a focal bead, building alternate bead paths with bridges, and softening the blunt ends of the peyote stitch.  The focal bead is by Julianna Cannon of StudioJuls. I stung it with size 8 beads to either side, solving one of the potential problems of incorporating lampworked beads into seed beading.  Their larger center holes tend to swallow the smaller size 11s whole. The colors for this piece are drawn entirely from the focal.  While in the final design the blue/green/lavender will dominate, I'm drawing some darker lines first with the dark chocolaty, matte beads for contrast, though for some reason they look much lighter in the photograph.  Hmm...

Nearly finished

And I have this bracelet that's just a hair's breath away from completion.  I need to add the button, but before I do that, I need to decide if it is really and truly done.  Do any of the sections need more ruffling?  Do I want to add an accent edge of the shiny red rust beads to the central red ruffle?  Do I want to add a new bead bridge and potentially a whole new ruffle to the narrow edge (at the left of the square beads in the photo below)?  Or do I like the contrasting widths along the length of the bracelet?  It's the perpetual question of when exactly is an abstract piece 'done' and there's no definite right or wrong answer to any of them except that a paper clip is not an acceptable closure.

Trying to decide if the ruffles need more ruffling

Today and tomorrow, I'm focusing on earrings - two more days of my earring challenge and I'm so far behind it's just sad.  Can I complete 31 designs in 31 days?  It's not looking good, but we'll give it a shot.   Then, come February, I think it will be time for focus on several UFOs, including these three.