Beaded Beads and Lampwork Beads, Finale!

I completed my necklace featuring Venetian glass beads and beaded beads!

I strung the original two Venetian beads, additional Venetian glass beads, and the seven beaded beads all in between size 6° seed beads, 11° seed beads, and 7 by 4 mm Czech fire polish roundelles. I debated whether to add additional Czech glass beads to this piece, but I wanted to prominently feature the Venetian beads and beaded beads, so I stuck with using the other beads as accents. A vermeil clasp finishes the necklace.

You can see the evolution of this piece in the other blog posts in this series here, here, and here.

New Kits: Microphyte Beaded Bead

New kits are now available for the Microphyte Beaded Bead. The first is in dark purple bicones with bright silver drops for extra contrast between the sharp crystals and bubbly seed beads:

The next is in harvest colors, just in time for the fall season. It matches the Harvest Queen color scheme of the Ice Queen Necklace:

Both kits are available at www.beadorigami.com, and include a needle, plenty of thread, and all the beads needed to make the finished beaded bead.

Beaded Beads and Lampwork Beads, Part 3

I continued to work on my blue and copper necklace with beaded beads and lampwork beads. I made a thinner version of the original Dewdrop beaded bead by using a smaller core bead, and 4-fold instead of 6-fold symmetry around it. I also made some minor adjustments in the seed bead overlay:

I did the same with the streamlined version:

Now that I think about it, I think that these thinner versions would also make excellent matching earrings...

With just a few more beaded beads, I now have a complete set, all ready to string into the necklace:

Stay tuned next week for the finale of this project! For the previous posts in this series, please click here and here.

Dewdrop Bracelets

Over the past few days I wove a Dewdrop bracelet in the Lavender Fields color palette. I really love these blue-green matte metallic tila beads.

Here's a shot with a view of the custom toggle clasp. I like how it turned out, but it has an unusual thread path that's not very intuitive. I spend over a third of the bracelet pattern describing how to make the clasp! I think it would also make a nice charm, but I haven't explored that possibility as of yet.

Just like the Dewdrop beaded bead, the bracelet can also have its drop beads substituted with round seed beads. Here it is with this substitution in Pandora Sapphire:

The Dewdrop pattern contains instructions for both designs, and each Dewdrop kit contains enough materials to make a total of either five Dewdrop beaded beads, or one Dewdrop beaded bead and one Dewdrop bracelet.

Bead Society of Northern California Meeting

In a couple of weeks I'll be giving a talk at the October meeting of the Bead Society of Northern California. I was a member of the BSNC when I lived in the Bay Area, and I always appreciated how they invited a diverse group of speakers over the course of a year. I'll be talking about geometric beaded beads from the perspective of mathematics and science.

For this talk, I wanted to start with a basic lesson on three-dimensional geometry and how it relates to beadwork. While the cube is an easily recognized structure, I sometimes hesitate to use terms such as "polyhedra" or even "dodecahedron" in discussions about beaded beads because these terms sound so mathy, even though they are just descriptions for the basic structures that underlie the beaded bead designs that are so popular today.

The advantage of applying these principles to beadwork is that it opens up a new range of possible design ideas. A cube beaded bead can be scaled up to the size of a pendant by weaving it with the symmetry of a dodecahedron. A dodecahedron woven with lentil-shaped beads takes advantage of duality to look more like an icosahedron. Chirality can give a design a right-handed or left-handed twist. It's my hope that everyone who attends this meeting will feel more comfortable with these ideas by the end of the talk.

Finally, I'll relate several of these geometric principles to structures found in nature. From the tiny viruses to the stars in the cosmos, the natural world offers a plethora of inspiration for the beadwork community. For example, the Microphyte beaded bead gets its name from a group of microscopic plants that have an incredible range of diversity.

The meeting is on October 16 at 7:30 PM, following a social half-hour of coffee and tea starting at 7:00 PM. BSNC meetings take place at the Courtyard Marriott in Emeryville, just over the Bay Bridge from San Francisco, and are free for members ($5 for nonmembers).

The Bead Society of Northern California meets on the third Tuesday of every month (except for December). More information about membership and events can be found on their website.

More Beaded Beads and Lampwork Beads

I made some progress on my new piece featuring Dewdrop beaded beads and Venetian lampwork beads. For the next beaded bead in this piece, I replaced the drop-shaped seed beads with the same cobalt blue color of round seed beads:

The resulting beaded bead (left) is shorter than the original (right), but it also shows more sapphire blue than cobalt blue. It's interesting how a substitution in bead shape can also alter the color scheme of the entire beaded bead.

It still matches the original lampwork bead though.

New Kaleidoscopes for BABE! Show

The Bay Area Bead Extravaganza or BABE! show is next month. Have you registered for your classes yet? I'm busy putting together kits in additional color schemes for these classes. One is this purple Rivoli Kaleidoscope pendant, which looks kind of like a passionflower:

Another is this green, blue, and purple Rivoli Kaleidoscope. It's an analogous scheme right out of Color Theory 101, set firmly in the cool half of the color wheel.

I'll be including a sterling silver chain in the kits for this class, which I haven't provided in previous kits for this project.

The BABE! Show runs from November 2-4 in Oakland, CA. More information about class registration, along with general information about the show can be found here.