Green Goddess dressing

This is a bracelet that I made for the TACA show last December. It did not sell at that show, however I did sell it afterwards as a Christmas gift for a friend's wife.

The bracelet is made from tile beads in two colors of green, one opaque and one translucent. There are also bronze tile beads sprinkled in, small green seed beads in the border on upper side and bronze drop beads in the border on the opposite (lower) side. The width makes it a dramatic item, just perfect for the woman who received it as a holiday gift.

The purpose of this post (besides showing off a finished project that I really think is pretty) is to pass along a few bits of advice about making jewelry when you do not know who the final owner will be.

When I make a piece like this to sell (as opposed to a gift for a specific person), I always make it a little shorter than I think it needs to be. It is always easier to add rows to a needle woven piece that is too short than to unweave (is that even a word?) rows when something is too long.

Most bead weaving instructions will tell you to start a new length of thread when you are adding edging or a border, but they never say why. It is very tempting to keep using the working thread to add edging to a piece. To switch gears and add in new thread takes time and stops the creative work in its tracks, but it makes for better longevity for your jewelry. If something is going to catch on a button or a door handle or the edge of a desk, it is the border. While I use very strong fishing line for my bead weaving, it is not indestructible. If part of the border rips away and it was added with a new length of thread, repairs are much easier; you are only repairing the border. If the working thread is continued into the border edging and you need to make a repair, the architecture of the main body of the piece is threatened and the repair work will almost certainly take longer.

When adding a clasp or other closure, it is also advisable to work in a new length of thread for that step. The Green Goddess bracelet pictured above was just a tiny bit too tight for my friend's wife. I only needed to add two rows of tile beads, about 1/2 inch of extra length, to make it perfect for her. Since I had added the clasp with a separate piece of thread, I did not have to worry about the main body of the bracelet coming apart when I snipped the thread to remove one piece of the clasp. After I added two rows, this bracelet was just right for the woman who will certainly turn heads when she wears it.

My Clay-m to Fame

Most jewelry makers start out with one technique. For me it was single needle bead weaving. I learned as many stitches as I could; peyote, herringbone, the dreaded right angle weave (RAW to beaders) and brick stitch were all added to my repertoire via basic classes at my local bead store.

And most jewelry makers will learn new techniques, often because what they see in their imagination does not exist (yet) in the real world.

For example, I have heard the following from my fellow jewelry making students in one class or another:

“I'm taking a class in Art Clay silver because I couldn’t find clasps that I liked and I decided to learn how to make my own.”

“I studied polymer clay because I couldn’t find marbled beads in the color combination I wanted.”

“I’m going to take a class in knotting so I can update my Grandmother’s pearl necklace with crystals.”

The point of departure from my beloved seed beads arrived over the long New Year’s weekend. I searched the internet and local retail sources for a bead or a focal piece with a primitive-looking roadrunner image to add to my Tila tile necklace called, well, Roadrunner.

This necklace has lots of shine:

 

So I wanted a focal piece with a flat or matte finish. I could not find anything anywhere that matched the idea I had for this embellishment.

On New Year’s Day I searched through my supply closet and uncovered a package of epoxy clay that I had purchased a while ago and never opened. The product comes in two parts (A & B) which are mixed together in equal parts to make moldable clay that remains flexible for about 90 minutes. Finished items air-dry and cure in 12 -24 hours with no baking required, which is a plus because I do not own a kiln (yet – heh!). I chose the copper color clay to work with for my experiment in making my own focal for the Roadrunner piece.

Here are the packages prior to mixing:

 

Once the two parts were mixed I rolled out the clay and made a flat oval shape that would fit in the center of the Roadrunner necklace. The smooth sides were roughed up with the round side of an awl. I used this same tool to make two holes through the top of the focal so that I could string it after it was cured.

Then came the really challenging and time-consuming part. I have very little training in drawing, so I made several sketches of a stylized roadrunner that were spectacularly unsuccessful. At first I was making the sketches the same size as the oval bead. After lots of tiny squiggles that looked nothing like any bird known to man, I hit upon the idea of using technology. I made some full-page sketches and used a printer/copier to reduce the size of the best image so it would fit on my clay blank.

I placed the small printed image over the clay blank and used a sewing pin to pierce through the paper into the clay all around the outline of the roadrunner image. After I peeled off the paper I made sure that the holes were all of uniform depth. I added some cross-hatching in the background with the side of the same sewing pin and embedded a small crystal in the clay for the roadrunner’s eye.

This is the focal before it dried completely:

 

Once the clay was completely dry and cured, I mixed up a wash of light orange acrylic paint and brushed it over the focal. I wiped off most of the wash so that there was more paint in the depressions than on the surface. This is the final result:

 

For a first-time effort with clay, I am happy. I imagine this would have been much easier if I had actual clay tools but it was also fun to improvise with the items I had available. After I have stitched this oval focal piece to the Roadrunner necklace, I will show you how it looks when it is all put together.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

This may be hard for younger folk to believe, but there was a time before DVRs or TV-on-demand internet services. There was an even more distant time before VCRs. It was an era when, if you wanted to watch a particular television show, you had to be sitting in front of the set when it aired.

During this primitive time, the most important TV viewing time for kids was Saturday morning. This was the only time that all of the major networks showed cartoons for hours on end. There were prime-time cartoons during the week, like The Flintstones and The Jetsons, but for a dizzying glut of animated slapstick and mayhem, it was all about Saturday morning.

I have a visceral memory of flopping on a bean bag chair in the den of my childhood home just as Saturday morning cartoons were about to begin. That sense of anticipation is something that I did not experience again regarding a television show until many years later when my daughters Kage and Smallest of All got me hooked on (bwah!) Project Runway.

A consistent favorite during the Saturday morning cartoon era was any Looney Tunes cartoon: Bugs & Daffy (Wabbit Season! Duck Season!), Marvin the Martian (I am sooooo angry!), Michigan J. Frog (Hello my honey, hello my baby!). But for dialog-free, surreal cartoon bliss, there was nothing like The Roadrunner.

The great Chuck Jones directed many (if not most) of the Roadrunner cartoons. He crafted the complex and doomed methods that Wile E. Coyote devised (with help from The Acme Corporation, of course) to capture (or obliterate) the Roadrunner. He gave us a stylized, gorgeous view of the American southwest desert landscape that served as the backdrop for the Coyote’s never-ending pursuit of his prey. Chuck Jones taught us that, in the cartoon world, you could run across thin air for exactly as long as you didn’t look down.

An actual roadrunner looks very little like the purple, soft-edged Warner Brothers version. They look like this:

 

The Gruffalo and I enjoy spending leisure time in the desert, and roadrunners are a frequent sight. With their Mohawk-like crest, long legs, skinny frame and nervously peeved demeanor they resemble nothing so much as punk-rock chickens. They have a distinctive call which does not sound anything like ‘meep meep’.

This piece, a project-in-process, is called Roadrunner. I started it after a weekend walk with the dogs that included several roadrunner sightings. The shape is elongated and spiky, the colors are desert-like and the saturated orange tile beads are reminiscent of cartoon hues without being too extreme. I plan on adding long feather-shaped orange drops along the bottom of the necklace.

 

The colors and angles of this piece are a departure from my usual preferred hues and shapes. It is also woven in a set pattern of alternate opaque and translucent beads. This type of pattern is much easier to stitch than a random placement of colors. Whenever I am doing a random placement I have to think much harder than when I am following a pattern. Making a combination of colors look random is not as easy as it sounds; you have to pay attention to the way that the various rows & columns combine to avoid large blocks of a single color. Following a simple pattern like this allows my mind to wander while I bead. In fact, my mind wandered a bit too much and one side is longer than the other by two rows, so I have to unbead a little before I go on.

The translucent bead color in Roadrunner is called 'root beer' by Tila. Every time I read the side of the bead container I want a root beer float. Perhaps I will drive through A&W on the way home tonight--or maybe I'll use 'root beer float' as my next inspiration. 

Czech It Out

This is Czech It Out, a necklace made of tile beads in light purple tones with a czech glass button as a focal.

I have a small box full of czech glass buttons in my workroom. Some of them were given to me by my Mom, others were purchased throughout the years on eBay. I have used them in sewing projects in the past but have never been fully satisfied that the button was getting all the attention that it deserves on a jacket or a dress. In Czech It Out, the button is front & center, as it should be. For my next piece of this size, I am thinking of using several glass buttons of various sizes on a single color bib necklace. The tile beads in this piece are the lighter weight Tila tiles so the large bib is not too heavy.

Like La Liz, the tile beads are a mix of 2/3 opaque and 1/3 translucent. This gives the surface of the necklace shine & movement. There are 7 gold drop beads at the bottom center of the piece and bronze seed beads at the top & bottom of each column. The necklace closure is made of gold tone chain with a little extra at the back so that the length can be customized.

This item was on display at the TACA show in early December 2012. There were several interested parties however it did not sell and so remains available. Contact me via email if you are interested in this necklace.It is not too late to have something delivered in time for Christmas...mention the blog and I will ship for free.

La Liz

Another piece that is made from the mosaic tile beads that I love sooooo much.

The combination of bronze and green seems both natural and dramatic. The green beads are a mix of 2/3rds opaque and 1/3 transparent which gives the surface of the piece some shimmer and movement:

At the TACA benefit last weekend, this piece was one of the items for sale at my table. I originally had another name for it, but one of the women who tried it on said "This reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor!" so I changed the name to La Liz.

When I was younger I was obsessed with movie magazines, the trashier the better. Ms Taylor made frequent appearances in the pages of those magazines. The woman's life was nothing if not dramatic. Of course, now there are websites that cover celebrity news in much seamier detail than anything I read as a teenager. While I do confess to reading online gossip sites now & then, I do miss being able to cut out photos of my favorite actors (RIP, Chad Everett) to tape on my school notebook covers.

When I make something that I offer to sale to the general public, whenever feasible I leave some extra chain, which you can see at the top of the photo. I also carry a small set of tools with me. This way I can adjust the length of the necklace easily to suit the customer. For a bold collar-shaped piece like this it really needs to lay correctly to be shown off to its best advantage.

I will continue to post photos of other pieces that I were for sale at the show. If it did not sell I will make a note that the item is still available. If anyone is interested in the price of an unsold piece, send an email to pincessleah4@yahoo.com (please do not use the comment section!) and I will respond as soon as possible with details. La Liz is still available to purchase. 

Mention my blog in the email and you will get free shipping on any items that you purchase.

It isn't diamonds, Liz, but I still think you would have rocked this necklace.

Owl Be Seeing You

The Gruffalo and I live in what is called ‘an urban/wild land interface’. It is one of many pockets around the Los Angeles area that consist of homes located in, well, the wild land. We are not far outside of the nearest city but where we live feels very much like the country.

We are surrounded by wildlife; sunbathing lizards, suicidal squirrels, lawn ornament rabbits, fat & sassy coyotes, gate-crashing rattlesnakes (they prefer to coil themselves on back porches, we have learned), shy foxes (only glimpsed twice), tufty bobcats, sashaying skunks, cranky raccoons, soaring hawks and, once, two horses that had left their stable and were chilling in our front yard. The bats are coming back to our part of the world. They left the area after the Medfly insecticide spraying in the 1970s killed off much of their food supply. It has taken decades for the bats to return and their presence is very welcome. They keep the swarms of little annoying black valley flies under control.

The first time that I cared for The Gruffalo when he had a bad cold, I told him that he looked like a peeved owl, and he really did. Wide eyes, wild hair sticking straight up in a crest, look of intense concentration. Since that time, the owl has become my spirit animal whenever someone is sick. When The Gruffalo was hospitalized with a serious illness I wore an owl-emblazoned bracelet every day.

There is one owl in our neighborhood who escorts me along the road to our home when I drive home at night. I am not making this up. This owl will swoop into sight and fly just ahead of my car until I drive into my garage. It has happened often enough that I can’t dismiss it as coincidence. I mentally refer to him as my Guardian Owl and I wave ‘thanks’ to him every time he leads me home.

The piece pictured above is made of tile beads with an iridescent owl bead in the center. It represents a stylized tree trunk with my Guardian Owl perched in a knothole. I am almost finished with one side of the twisted rope necklace that will complete the piece.

Cleo

This is a piece that I just finished last week. It is made with square glass two-hole tile beads called 'czechmates'. The gold beads are black on the other side, so the necklace is reversable.

This photo shows the many threads that still need to be woven back into the piece. It would probably make more sense to weave them in as I go along, but I just can't stop beading when I really get going. I wait until the very last step to weave & trim the fuzzies.

The final necklace will have a chain attached with a clasp in the back. I originally was going for an Art Deco feeling but I think the finished product looks more Egyptian, so I am calling this Cleo. I want to make a jagged-edge cuff to go with this.

As much as I love the tile beads I cannot for the life of me figure out nice earring designs to go with the necklaces that I've made. These beads are not lightweight, so any earring that I make from them has to use only a few beads or they will be too heavy. I also tend to think that, with a really bold statement necklace, you don't need attention-getting earrings (but maybe I am just rationalizing to cover up my lack of good earring ideas).

I have an idea to design & make a wall hanging out of these beads. It would be like making a stitched mosaic. Again, however, it will end up being a very heavy piece. The thread that I use is a form of fishing line, so I suspect that it would hold up well, but the wall might not.