Crazy Lace Agate Necklace

I’ve been sitting on this stone for about two years now and I finally finished it. Yay! The cabochon around the stone is entirely made of beads, unlike the more traditional way of using a backing. I prefer to use only beads as I can let the back to the stone peep though.

I got this stone with my sister and mother on the way back from visiting the redwoods in California. There was this cute little bead shop that I just had to go in, and well I couldn’t just leave empty handed so I got the crazy lace agate cabochon as well as the beads to match there. It was called Angela’s Bead Art on main street in the quaint town of Weaverville CA.

 

 

Bored and Beading

I’m spending the summer in rural West Virginia doing research at the Greenbank Radio Observatory. Aside from working there is not much else to do besides lots of beading. This necklace was something I was working on for my sister, but then it evolved into this instead. Now I’ll have to start a new one for my sister, aw shucks.

An Experiment Turned Necklace

 

To make this necklace, I made a triangular tube with a cube lattice structured and embellished one side. I then threaded wire through the tube piece and twisting it so that the embellished side would acquire the spirally look as seen above. I also played with using bigger beads to finish the necklace. I so rarely play with either wire or large beads that this necklace was an experiment through out it’s creation.

It Is important to realize that some times the beads will “talk” for themselves and tell you exactly what they want done with them. Other times beads will hint at what they want to be made into and wont give you the big picture view until you see it completed. which is exactly what happened when I made this necklace. It was a set of layered experiments that at least this time, all worked.

 

Containers

For me having a good container to hold my beads is essential. I want it to be clear so I can play around with the colors without having to worry about spilling all those tinny seed beads all over the floor or my work space (which has happened many times and is a pain to clean up). I also want to be able to easily get my beads in and out of the containers. (In my experience most bead containers don’t actually accomplish this, they generally work better for big beads but if you try to get seed beads out of them you end up chasing half of them around unable to get them out.)

Below are pictures of a container I found at Michaels which works fabulously There are thirty small screw-top containers, they each hold about 7.5 grams of seed beads (your average small vile size) inside a larger box with a lid. This way you never have to worry about your beads getting all mixed together. I also found it useful to tape the lid to the box like a hinge (I used clear packing tape) so I could easily flip up and down the lid without fumbling it or not being able to find it when I was done.

Bead box emty Bead box 2 Bead box1

 

 

 

Beaded purple ring

This is the first time I have ever made a ring out of beads. I used size 15 and size 11 seed beads as well as twins, a type of beads that have two holes, and fringe beads, which are like miniature drops. The band is just a regular flat peyote stitch and the center in a freeform flat peyote stitch using the various types of beads mentioned above.

Purple Beaded Ring

Sadly the week after I made it I lost it…. (It was supposed to be a graduation present for my older sister.) Oops…

Sketching out your ideas

One of the thing I have found helpful is to sketch out my ideas, whether I just want to remember a certain color scheme, try to recreate a piece I saw or to give me something to come back to so I don’t forget how I was going to do it. I don’t know about you, but I always seem to have at least five projects going on at once. If I stop and come back to it, the piece usually comes out really different than my original idea. Thats where a sketch comes in it allows you to visualize what you like and what you don’t then later you can look back on it as a reference.

Here are some of my idea sketches…

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