The Eyes Don't Have It

My latest beading (that I've completed, not what's still in progress) seems to have been all about ears.

Earrings.

All orders, all for one person, and I'm not even close to done yet, as I still have two necklaces to make.

I spent an awfully long time coming up with an earring design suitable for this necklace.

What you can't see from the picture is that the focal bead is very small - perhaps half an inch in diameter. The toggle clasp is about a third of an inch. Tiny tiny tiny.

I tried dodecahedra using size 11s.

Ick. They looked messy.

Ditto icosahedra. These are among my go-to beaded beads.

And then it came to me: Panspora beaded beads using 11s.

The copper panspora bead is the size I usually make them, using size 6 beads. I've also used 8s, but the 11s are rather miniature, somewhere bigger than a quarter of an inch but not more than a third of an inch in diameter. Because I'm a human being programmed to go all squishy over tiny things (such as kittens, puppies, seed pearls and marinated baby octopus) I'm completely in love, and made two more pairs of earrings with disproportionately large ear wires just because I love the contrast.

And see? It doesn't have to be configured as a cube (or cuboctahedron) : it can be built as a funky little tube too! The basic unit is a square which rather limits the shapes that can be built with it, and it's not flexible like right angle weave, so it's not really suitable for chains or ropes (and besides, it's so slow that I'd lose my mind even making a bracelet for a newborn, but still.

Tubes.