Annual Holiday Wreath, 2020 Edition

Every year I decorate a large wreath with a collection of beaded beads and pendants. I like to start by putting them in a big pile.

Sometimes I like to organize them by design or style. This year I loosely organized them by color.

Seeing all of these pieces together is a nice reminder of what I've done over the past few years. A couple of seed beads in a small piece doesn't always feel like a big accomplishment, but when you do that over and over again over a long period of time, the results really add up!

If you'd like to decorate your own wreath, make sure to exclude any piece that contains sterling-silver plated seed beads, as the silver will tarnish more quickly if it sits on a fresh wreath. Or do as I do, and decorate your wreath, take a picture, and then remove those pieces immediately afterward.

I hope that you and your loved ones have a peaceful and safe holiday season. 

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New(ish) Pattern and Kits: Yukiwariso Necklace

I released a few new patterns in this past year. This one is the Yukiwariso Necklace.

This light and delicate necklace gets its name from hepatica japonica, a rare woodland plant native to Japan which produces a beautiful variety of early-blooming flowers. Designed for the Japanese publication Bead Art & Embroidery, this necklace features a light, airy style that embodies Japanese beaded jewelry.

The full pattern is 16 pages long and contains 47 full color illustrations and photographs. It's an advanced beginner project, so if you're just getting into beading, this is a great third or fourth project to try. 

Kits for this project are available in five colorways, and contain all the beads and findings needed to stitch the complete necklace. 

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Snowflakes and Hearts with CRAW and PRAW

Over the past couple of months I released a couple of patterns using CRAW and PRAW. Lately, my designs seem to use either shaped beads and two-hole beads, or just seed beads. These designs are firmly in the seed bead camp.

Snowflake Pendant

You need only a handful of seed beads and a needle and thread to stitch the Snowflake Pendant. This pendant features several units of CRAW and PRAW stitched side-by-side to create the finished snowflake. The concept behind this pendant actually goes back to my original experiments with PRAW, though I only recently managed to show how to stitch these units side-by-side.

Large and Small Snowflakes

The pattern shows how to stitch the finished snowflake pendant as well as smaller and larger variations. You can also use just one color of seed beads for a sleeker look. The full pattern is 19 pages long and contains 66 full color illustrations and photographs.

Peace and Double Hearts

My next creation with these stitches is two-in-one design. The Peace and Double Hearts Pendants use the same CRAW and PRAW stitches to create two types of beaded hearts. One is a heart within a heart, and the other is a combination of a heart with a peace sign.

The Peace Heart came about after I combined Gwen's Sweetheart Pendant with Marcia's Peace Sign pendant. It was actually the last piece of beadwork I created before Sophie was born, but it took me a while to carve out the time to write its pattern.

The full pattern is 30 pages long and contains 128 full color illustrations and photographs. I classify both patterns as advanced as I don't cover the basic CRAW stitch in detail. However, if you are experienced with CRAW and you're up for the challenge of stitching these shapes, these patterns are for you!

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Shimmer River Earrings

Life with an infant has left no room for dangling earrings. So I adapted a pair of Shimmer River components into post earrings.

Life with an infant = more post earrings. #beads #beading #beadwork #earrings #crystals #swarovski #miyukibeads #beadorigami

A post shared by Cindy (@beadorigami) on Feb 18, 2018 at 2:44pm PST

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Shimmer River Bracelets

A few months ago I made a new set of bracelets, the Shimmer River Bracelets.

The Shimmer River Bracelets feature a whole bunch of Swarovski's "shimmer" fallback crystals, along with either Toho's Demi Round seed beads or Miyuki's Spacer seed beads. These thin beads are available in two sizes and are half the width of traditional 8° and 11° Japanese seed beads.

I've noticed differences between Toho and Miyuki brands before. True to form, there are subtle size and color differences between Demi Round and Spacer beads too. But I was able to use them interchangeably in this design.

When I first set out to stitch this design, I wanted to show off the crystals without covering them up or overshadowing them with other beads. This design was actually my first attempt at this idea, but then I stitched another bracelet that used and exaggerated different beaded elements. Unfortunately, the crystals were lost in this second attempt, so I circles back to my original idea. Sometimes simplicity is better and less is more!

It works up so quickly that I stitched it in five different colorways!

The beading pattern for this bracelet is appropriate for advanced beginners. The pattern is 12 pages long and contains 37 photos and illustrations.

Kits are available in all five colorways pictured, and contain all the beads needed to stitch the finished bracelet (extra crystals and beads are included so you can make a bracelet longer than those shown here).

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Astral Spore Pendant

My newest beading pattern is now available.

The Astral Spore Pendant features the new Quarter Tila Bead in this very tactile, geometric pendant. It uses four colors of Quarter Tilas and a whole bunch of bugle beads and round seed beads, and it's hollow and self-supporting so you can see right through it. This beading pattern is an advanced design, and it teaches you how to weave the finished pendant.

Like the Succulent Topiary Pendant, this design uses the geometry of an icosiedodecahedron, which is like a dodecahedron but with 20 extra triangles. In this design I've embellished each of the 12 pentagons so that they stick out from the base. I've also attached a tassel-like set of matching fringe containing Czech etched dagger beads in colors that just make me swoon. The whole design reminds me of something from astronomy, like a comet, but I already have a design that has "comet" in its name (I'm going to run out of names someday!). But it also reminds me of a grain of pollen, so it's the Astral Spore Pendant.

This is actually my third attempt at stitching a geometric design with Quarter Tilas; the first two attempts were a little smaller, and the smallest one was harder to stitch than this design. The pattern contains a few photos of the smaller attempts.

The beading pattern is 24 pages long and contains 70 photos and illustrations. Kits are available in the three colorways pictured, and contain all the beads needed to stitch the finished pendant.

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Succulent Topiary Pendant

I wrote a new beading pattern.

The Succulent Topiary Pendant features a whole bunch of shaped beads all woven together in a geometric floral pendant. This advanced beading pattern teaches you how to stitch the finished pendant.

When I set out to stitch this design, I wanted to play with some Tulip Petal beads that had been sitting in my stash for a couple of years. I didn't intend to use so many shapes to stitch these little beaded flowers and bits of greenery, but as I worked I found that a collection of Rizos, Gekkos, drops, and Spiky Buttons complemented the floral Tulip Petals. Oddly enough, by the time I finished the flowers didn't look much like tulips, but they do remind me of cactus flowers.

It's a relative of the Tila Garden Pendant. Both designs use shaped beads and Tilas on their edges, and both have dodecahedral symmetry, but the Tila Garden uses the geometry of a standard dodecahedron while the Succulent Topiary uses that of an icosidodecahedron. You can think of it as a dodecahedron with 20 added triangles. The Succulent Topiary Pendant is also quite a bit bigger.

The beading pattern clocks in at over 20 pages and 60 photos and illustrations. Kits are available in two colorways and contain all the beads needed to stitch the finished pendant.

Thanks for looking!

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