Still Here, Just Quiet

I really wanted this green beaded bead to work because I love the definition that the O ring beads give, so I tried again but it was still sloppy, even when I filled in the spaces. I like the triangular shape of the twin beads with the O rings but it just wasn't viable.

 Eventually I cut them up. Both of them.

Made a pair of earrings but I hate the colour combination. It looked lovely when I laid the beads out on my white table but sewn up it's garish and icky and clashy.

 I made the beaded beads I was noodling with a week or two ago into a necklace. Each section requires its own start which I don't like too much (I'd rather be able to keep on stitching using the same thread without weaving in and starting again) but it would be too unpleasant to stitch that way. Convoluted that is.

 It's lightweight (for such a chunky necklace) and colour choices could dress it up (metallics, monochrome colour schemes) or down (more contrasts, bright, daytime colours) so I think it's pretty versatile.

Even though I hate the earrings somehow I thought it a good idea to start making a pendant with the same set of beads.

I don't know why.

This is similar to the pendant I made last week, except instead of a cubic base it has a truncated cube (imagine slicing each corner right off, leaving a triangular face) so there's a chaton on every four-sided face and a cluster of seed beads and fire-polished beads on the triangular faces and it has a more interesting texture and shape (and is a little bigger) than the cubic one.

Hideous colours though.

 I had made a few of these beaded beads a few weeks ago but the thread path was horrible. The beads at the top of this post that I cut up had a lovely rhythmic thread path that I could use for these beads so I made a few, and a few more that I neglected to photograph.

 The one with the super duos (on the left) is so easy to get right in terms of tension but it doesn't have a very interesting texture, the two-hole lentils (in the centre) aren't bad (both in terms of texture as well as getting the tension right) and I love the ones with the triangle beads but if you don't stitch really tightly they can easily be sloppy.

It's all to do with the shape of the two-hole beads: both the lentils and super duos have curved cross-sections but the triangles are flat-flat-flat.

I spent hours and hours this weekend working on a design and getting frustrated and using scissors liberally and then I switched course and as if by magic, these beaded beads happened.

The rectangular blocks are actually the edges of two-hole tile beads which are stitched through one hole to make the basic shape, stitched through the other hole to stabilise the shape, and then embellished.

Less embellished (or embellished only on four faces), they'll fit on a rather fat chain, but as shown they can be strung like any other bead (or beaded bead).

Hmmm, I wonder if I could do something similar with the brick beads?