For My Friend

I did finally get a bracelet made for my friend, Teena. I used a seed bead mix of pinks that I got from Nancy Dale of Ned Beads and gorgeous lampwork beads from Janet MacDonald of Singingwoods. I'm pleased with the way it came out, too. But here's the sad thing.

I have no where to send this!  My lovely old friend has been flooded out of her house by the Susquehanna River, and the National Guard is not allowing people to return to their homes. And, once they do allow that, she cannot go near the place. Chemotherapy causes the immune system to be seriously compromised and a house full of mold and dirt and wet mildewing things is not for her!  They are considering not returning at all.  But just selling the land and moving. I can't say that I blame them! They managed to get the important stuff (family photos mostly) up to the 2nd floor, but the basement & first floor are full of water.

I called her & asked if she was waiting for the plague of locusts and she was actually able to laugh. I'm not sure I would be if I were in her shoes.

So here's her bracelet. I guess I'll just hold onto it for a little while.

Monday Wish List

Wish List for today:


Well, it's Monday again. How did that happen so soon? Wasn't yesterday Monday? No. Okay. If you say so. But with Monday comes Copper Diem's Wish List. Here's my contribution.

Alicia's Beads has these great polymer beads in wonderful colors. Here's a sample:






BeadSwede Supplies has some really cool toggles. I love the enamel ones and the S-clasps with different wire wraps. Very cool and colorful!



I'm not usually one for heart-shaped anything or pink for that matter. But I'm working on a project for my friend Teena who has cancer and this toggle is going in my shopping cart! I hope it's the right color of pink.


And finally:


And, being the greedy girl that I must be (see above), these are patterns and jewelry from Mikki Ferrugiaro, one of the wonderful Bead Mavens. I love her work but can't afford her patterns right now.







One of these Mondays I'm going to post jewelry that I love by all the talented jewelry artists out there (e.g., Lori Anderson, Nancy Dale, Mandy Duffy, Amy Freeland, Shirley Moore, Kristen Stevens, and Cindy Wimmer to name a just a few), although I don't know how I'll ever pick just a blog post's worth of samples. I have lust in my heart for so many of the things these amazing women have created!!

Fast F-A-S-T Peyote

I'm not sure if everybody who does peyote stitch knows this or not but recently a friend (who is way more advanced in this beading business than I) said she wanted to learn how to do it. So I thought maybe others would want to know, too. Here's your guided tour. Please forgive the blurry photos. Also, I'm sorry I have pictures with black beads but that was what I was working with at the time.

Start the same way you always do in even-count peyote, which as you know is your first and second row. Work two more rows of regular peyote as you would normally do, one bead at a time.

Then, pick up the same number of beads that you started with. In my example, I used 30 beads for the first & second row, so I picked up 30 beads at this point. Bring the needle up and around to the first bead at the top -- an "up" bead. Put your needle in that up bead pointing down toward the bottom of the work.

Then skip one bead on your beading thread and put the needle through the next one on that thread and then through the next up bead on the work. Repeat all the way down.

Finish by putting your needle through the bottom bead on the thread. You’ve just completed two rows of peyote stitch in less than half the time it would take to do it bead-by-bead – the usual way.

I’m sorry my pictures are of black beads and not great quality but hope you can see the slick way this works.

I’m really grateful to Melinda Barta (and Interweave) for the video on peyote stitch that Melinda did. I used to have such trouble starting a peyote project but the way she explains it (and shows it in the video) has ended all that frustration. She’s brilliant! And I’m also really grateful to Deena at Spring Beads in Spring, Texas. I took a beginning peyote stitch class there and after the class, Deena came into the classroom and showed us this Fast Peyote. I always use this w/ peyote projects now because it just makes it all go so much faster. I love peyote stitching, too, now that it is (1) no longer frustrating to start, and (2) fast.

What I'd Rather Be Doing

I have a freelance job. It's usually not terribly time consuming but lately? Oh, brother. I've been working all the time. I do research for a publishing company in DC so I can work in my pjs or schedule things to suit me most of the time. Lately I've had more work and have been working daily (oh, no!!) -- and long days at that. And my beading time is gone! GONE! I have no energy left at the end of the day but I will soon. I hope!

Here's some things I've done but all pre-blog:

Some cubes from a Jean Power tutorial.



And lots of peyote stitch bracelets. Here's a sample of ones I did w/ cube beads:







I have a stack of things I want to do. But earning some money has to be number 1 for now! Thanks for sticking around!