Getting Back in the Groove

 I'm not sure what's been happening for the past month or so, but I've been feeling as if I have zero creativity and have been getting nothing done, not even sketching out ideas because I had none. It's an uncomfortable feeling, not having my head buzzing with ideas.

A friend from Portland has been in town for the past few days, and so I made her the earrings and bracelet from Thursday's post, but then she bought more stuff and requested matching earrings and bracelet.

One of the necklaces she bought was a kumihimo rope with long magatamas alternating directions along two edges and I honestly wasn't sure what I'd make to coordinate with it since I've never had any luck doing anything except kumihimo with the long magatamas.

First I made a spiral rope, stitching each loop to the previous as it looked messy.

 Then I saw a picture of a necklace and used part of the motif to make earrings.

Not bad except I didn't use the same seed beads as in her necklace and besides, the earrings needed a dangly whatsit and oh hey! I could join them in alternating directions to make a chain and so her set was completed.

 She'd bought another kumihimo necklace in which I placed mushroom button beads along one edge and as I prepared to make a matching bracelet, I saw to my horror that I no longer had ANY of the seed beads used in the necklace. None. And the earrings were giving me fits. I generated quite a pile of wiggly thread.

At length I gave in and did minimalist seed beading with a little basic wirework, and she was (luckily) charmed by the earrings. Honestly, I'd still like to do better, but that will have to wait until after she has a bracelet. (The bead store is open on Sundays. I now have suitable seed beads for the matching bracelet).

 And then I played and generated the germ of an idea using the large (12mm) two-hole bead studs (and also some small ones, but those are easy as they're the same size as two-holed tile beads).

 The chaton isn't seated neatly enough and the stitching required to secure it is very awkward, so I'll have to change something there. I also kinda hate the dark copper drops between the green pyramids because as you can see, they flop over.

The back's pretty though.