The show I'm doing in a couple of weeks requires me to make kit samples and fill kits, and instead I spent my beading time this past week (which was somewhat limited) making the long skinny part of this lariat.
I made the ends last weekend, and it's taken four or five full Fresh Air podcasts, as well as odd half-hours here and there to stitch the length.
I've always enjoyed colour-fade necklaces, as it reduces quite a bit of the tedium. Instead of doing the same thing every stitch of every row, the colour pattern is a series of little milestones. Inchstones. This is my recipe when switching from colour 1 to colour 2:
I start with ten rounds of colour 1, then work one round alternating colour 1 and colour 2 (*), one more round of colour 1, then four rounds in which I first alternate colour 2 with colour 1, then alternate colour 1 with colour 2, then repeat these two rounds once, then one round with colour 2, and finish with a round in which I alternate colour 2 with colour 1 before working the next ten rounds with colour 2.
(*) When I say "alternate", I mean in herringbone stitch I pick up one bead of each colour for each stitch in the round, so this scheme works equally well when working more stitches around than just the two that I used.
If you (like me) find you have gobs and gobs of beads from a very narrow section of the colour wheel, some darker, some lighter, some matte, some shiny, some iridescent, it can be fun to order these similar colours, placing the most similar colours adjacent to each other, and then working a fast colour-change necklace, working perhaps three or four solid rounds between changes. You still have a necklace that's basically one colour, but it's just that bit more interesting than a solid colour.
At least, I think so.
In all fairness, I wasn't a total slacker.
I did complete one kit sample in a new colour, which I kinda love.
I also worked on instructions for the class I taught on Tuesday.
I didn't quite finish the sample, but it was instructive, I think.
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