Just This Once

I absolutely do not intend for this to turn into an overlong chronicle of the limitless cuteness of my new kitten, but she's still a novelty, and already reigning queen chez moi.

Honestly?

I thought I'd bought a new bread basket. Apparently not. It works much better as a fort from which to launch attacks against unsuspecting pom-poms or feet or plants, or even her tail.

Who knew?

In the interest of making her transition into our family as smooth as possible, quite a bit of time was spent Not Beading, though I did manage to finish one of the two outstanding class samples.

This incarnation of the technique is on a 2-stitch/4-bead herringbone rope, and the leaves are spaced about half an inch apart, but it could equally well be applied to a thicker or twisted rope with more leaves. The leaves are added as the rope grows and avoids the tedium of what can feel like twice the effort: one pass to build the base, and another pass to add embellishment.

I don't believe that these bear more than a passing resemblance to leaves actually found in nature, but I think that judicious use of multiple colours could help somewhat. If it matters. I make a very neat little increase to insert the beads that will be the base of the leaf, but which could probably just a easily grow into some other shape; a flower (ish thing), a tassel, some nameless shape.