New Pattern: Fiberoptic Dodecahedron Set

I finished the pattern for the Fiberoptic Dodecahedron, and it's now part of a set of designs available on my website at beadorigami.com.

Fiberoptic Dodecahedron Set

The cornerstone of this set, the Fiberoptic Dodecahedron Pendant, came about as a variation of the Fiberoptic Duo Beaded Beads. However, the core of the pendant has such a complicated thread path compared to that of the beaded beads, so much so that I felt that it needed to be written out in its own pattern. In the course of designing this pendant, I also found that a matching beaded bead can be made from 11° and 8° seed beads, so I included the instructions for this beaded bead too.

The pendant is surprisingly sturdy, especially since it's completely hollow! Its holes are big too, at about 5 mm in diameter (you can drop a stream of 4 mm bicone crystals clear through it), so it can easily fit on beading wire, a chain, or a cord. But after a suggestion from Marcia DeCoster (her all-knowing bead wisdom truly knows no bounds), I've been experimenting with stringing them on silk ribbons:

Fiberoptic Dodecahedron Pendant

Finally, I liked the little stars on each face of the pendant so much that I figured out how to make them into matching earrings! The instructions for the earrings complete the trio of designs in this pattern.

Fiberoptic Star Earrings

The complete pattern is for advanced beaders, although I included a ton of illustrations, so anyone familiar with reading beading patterns should be able to follow it. If you're new to using SuperDuos or other two-hole beads, you might want to try the Fiberoptic Duo Beaded Beads first before attempting the Fiberoptic Dodecahedron Pendant. Fortunately, this pattern does have something for everyone; the earrings are at the Advanced Beginning level!

Fiberoptic Dodecahedra

The pattern for the Fiberoptic Dodecahedron Set is available exclusively at beadorigami.com if you'd like to make your own!

Coffee and Tea Caffeine Pendants

I wove three new Caffeine Molecule Pendants and listed them in my Etsy shop. Two are in coffee-themed colors, while another is in a nice green tea! Click on the links below each photo to learn more about each pendant:

Beaded Caffeine Molecule Pendant - French Roast - Sold Out!

Beaded Caffeine Molecule Pendant - Blonde Roast

Beaded Caffeine Molecule Pendant - "Matcha" - Green Tea

If you'd like to bead your own caffeine pendant, a pattern for the Morning Coffee Molecules is available at my website!

Bead & Button Show Class Update

A reminder that registration is open for classes at the 2013 Bead & Button Show, and the classes are filling up! The Friday session of my Tila Garden Pendant class is already full, but there's still some space in the other session on Sunday. I'm teaching a total of six classes at the show (click on the images for registration information on each class).

The first class that I'm teaching is the Raindrop Flower Necklace. In this six-hour class, you'll learn how to make three different kinds of beaded beads with drop-shaped beads, as well as a very flowery teardrop beaded focal that can also stand alone as a pendant!

Raindrop Flower Necklace - Thursday, June 6, 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM

The next class is the Tila Garden Pendant, where you'll learn how to weave tila beads and shaped seed beads into your own little miniature garden. This advanced project uses quite a bit of geometry, but it's so satisfying to wear once it's done!

Tila Garden Pendant - Friday, June 7, 8:30 - 11:30 AM Sold Out!

and Sunday, June 9, 9 AM - noon

The night sky-inspired Cosmic Nocturne Pendant uses Swarovski crystals, round and shaped seed beads, and either twin or SuperDuo beads all together in this self-supporting, hollow pendant. This layered, tactile pendant is such fun to wear because its look changes depending on how it's strung, and since it can be strung through about a dozen different openings, you can customize how you want it to look when worn!

Cosmic Nocturne Pendant - Friday, June 7, 1 - 4 PM

The Ice Queen Necklace uses 17 individual Pagoda charms for a beautiful statement piece. You'll learn not only how to make these eclectic little charms, but also how to use redundant thread paths to strengthen the beadwork. The class kit actually comes with enough materials to make 20 Pagoda charms, so students can elect to make a slightly longer necklace, or a necklace of the same length plus a matching pair of earrings! Last year, many students completed the matching pair of earrings in class.

Ice Queen Necklace - Saturday, June 8, 9 AM - noon

Finally, the Sparkling Compass Set is perhaps the most versatile of the classes that I'm teaching at the show. It's a class for all levels of beaders, where you'll learn how to make the Sparkling Compass component and weave it into earrings, a bracelet, and a beaded bead! If you're a beginner, you would probably want to start with the earrings, and you'll be able to finish at least one of them and probably the pair in the class. Advanced students can elect to skip right to the beaded bead. The class kit contains materials for all three pieces, and it even works with rizo beads too!

Sparkling Compass Set - Saturday, June 8, 2 - 5 PM

More information about class registration, as well as general show information can be found here. I'd love to see you there!

Fiberoptic Dodecahedron

It feels like a while since I blogged about what I've been up to, which makes me feel like I'm not accomplishing anything. I've actually been working on several projects at once that are in varying states of completion, and not all of them are quite ready to show to the world. One in particular is quite ambitious, and it's evolving from rather esoteric, science-nerd origins into a whole lot of crystal bling. I'm interested to see what it will look like when it's done! But I don't quite want to let it out into the world until then...

In the meantime, I think that I am ready, however, to show this:

It's a dodecahedral version of the Fiberoptic Duo beaded beads, so it's a Fiberoptic Dodecahedron. It's actually my fourth attempt at this design. If you purchased the Fiberoptic Duo pattern, you might have noticed another version of this beaded bead in the "Variations and Inspirations" section at the end of the pattern. This newer version includes crystals on the inside for a subtle sparkle (but is a "subtle sparkle" really possible?), Also, the seed beads in the lace overlay of this beaded bead make nice little stars!

It's hollow but self-supporting, and surprisingly strong.

Oh, and I also made a watermark for my photos.

Origami Interlude: Immortelle

For this month's Origami Interlude, I folded a piece designed by Lukasheva Ekaterina of Kusudama.me. She has a gorgeous gallery of kusudama origami, and several free diagrams to boot! This piece is called Immortelle, and is a variation of her Dragonfly unit:

This piece features 30 Immortelle units joined together without any glue or adhesives. I used six units each of five different colors of origami paper, and joined them together using the uniform color distribution that I describe in my Candy Dodecahedron beaded bead pattern. I used two sheets of paper for each unit so that the completed piece would be more colorful; about half of the backside of each piece of paper shows in the final unit.

I really like how flowery this piece looks!

A free diagram and how-to video for this piece is available at Kusudama.me. Check out some of my previous interludes into paper origami here, here, here, here, and here.

Sunset Sparkling Compass Set

I finished a new set of samples for the Sparkling Compass Set, which I'll be teaching at the Bead & Button Show this June. I picked up some cosmic crystals in astral pink, and found that they blend together really well with one of the colors of the new rizo beads. So I paired them with various shades of purple for a very warm, sunset-y colorway:

The Sparkling Compass beaded bead looks quite different with these rizo beads! It has much more of a flowery, burst effect compared to the more angular original version.

For the earrings, I couldn't use the rhombus crystal pendants because they're not available in astral pink, so I switched to the asymmetric galactic pendants. I was wary of this shape at first because they don't match the four points of the Sparkling Compass component, but when you position the crystals in different directions for each earring, I think it ends up working just fine:

Here's the whole set in this sunset colorway:

And here's the second colorway, in dark, cosmic hues that remind me of images of distant galaxies:

And finally, here's the original colorway:

The class for the Sparkling Compass Set includes instructions on how to make all three pieces in the set. Students can expect to either complete the earrings in class, or they can elect to start the bracelet. The class code is B130659, and it will be taught at the show on Sat. June 8, from 2:00pm-5:00pm. I'd love to see you there!

Sparkling Compass Earrings with Rizos

In preparation for the classes that I'm teaching at the 2013 Bead & Button Show, I wove a pair of Sparkling Compass Earrings with a very simple bead substitution. Can you tell?

Sparkling Compass Earrings with Rizo Beads

That's right, four of the 11° seed beads in each earring were swapped out for rizo beads! And what a difference such an easy bead substitution makes in the final design... Compare them to the original pair on the right below:

Sparkling Compass Earrings with Rizo Beads (left) and the Original Design (right)

I like this effect so much that I think I'll offer it as an option in the kit for the Sparkling Compass Set class at the Bead & Button Show (B130659, Sat. June 8 • 2:00pm-5:00pm).

Sparkling Compass Earrings with and without Rizo Beads

The Sparkling Compass Set includes this pair of earrings, as well as a matching bracelet and beaded bead. Students in the class will take home instructions on how to complete all three pieces in the set.

Check out my previous experiments with rizo beads here and here!