Works in progress

[Kalorlo]

These are what I was doing last night:



I wanted to make stiff pieces of European 4-1 that could be used in the middle of necklaces, but wasn't sure quite how to go about it. In the first one I added a row of helm chain to the top to stop the triangle compressing itself when hanging, and in the second I joined the sections on to large rings.

I'm sure there's a better way to do it - any suggestions appreciated!

I also finished this - peyote stitch with green seed beads:



I got out the Beadworker's Guild necklace and bracelet booklets from the library and the leaf is from one of the patterns in them. The full pattern calls for the necklace to have leaves graduating in size going all the way round - I rather doubt I'm going to get that many done! I got faster as I went, but it would still take ages to do that many. I was thinking I'd go for a cluster of three instead. (There are some really lovely designs in those books, though).

ETA: I love my camera. These were taken just an hour ago in lighting from a little table lamp (normal bulb) on a white acrylic plate I picked up earlier today. I set the white balance and they just needed a teeny bit of levels adjusting to brighten the white up from pale grey. No yellow cast!

[Di Sandland]

The thing is with the seed bead stuff is that buyers don't appreciate the length of time they take.

[Charlotte]

Oooh I love the leaf, I can just imagine that as part of a big elaborate necklace. I always imagine that sort of work to be so complicated. Don't you get a bit lost in beads and complicated stitches?

[Kalorlo]

Di: yeah, I'm getting that! I do love some of the things you can do, though.

Charlotte: it's not that hard once you actually see how the stitch works in practice. The descriptions of how to use it can take some careful reading, but the stitches themselves are fairly simple. These booklets had really good instructions too, with figures showing the different steps. The only tricky part with this leaf was keeping the thread taut enough, and there's some leeway in that because you join it up at the bottom at the end.

I imagine complicated colour designs get tricky though - there's pattern paper for different stitches at the end of the books that you can enlarge and photocopy, so if you're doing something complicated you can cross off the beads that you've done.

[Jayne]

What intricate work! It all looks so complicated - you must be very patient (and quite pleased with yourself )
J x

[MuranoSilver]

Oooh yes I love the leaf sooo detailed and the chainmaille is fab too

[snow_imp]

I love where you are going with the chain maille.

And the leaf is so intricate.

[Ominicci]

Love the leaf and know how time consuming it can be, but that is a very nice pattern!

[CDW Designs]

Hi Kalorlo
I love the chainmaille, I do it too and have been trying to do some harder designs. When I get time I will post some pics up in to my album, unfortunately nothing there at the moment.

The beading is great too