Complimentary Contradictions

That is the theme for the Etsy Beadweavers September Challenge. For once, I wasn't scrambling to finish at the eleventh hour, and I had so much fun with this one! My piece is called, "Black and White - A Story in Color." It's made up of six hexagons woven together. Three of them are made up of different colors, and two of them are black, white, and different shades of gray. It's finished off with a real silver chain and a red glass bead. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. These colors were so fun to use, and I'm also really pleased with the final proportions. I have a feeling that this piece will be my inspiration for many pieces to come.

You can vote for your favorite September EBWC Entry on September 9th on the EBW blog, http://etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com.

I've only been a member of the Etsy Beadweavers since May, but it's been such an awesome experience so far. And the three challenges in which I have participated have truly influenced the way I bead, for the better! Lately, I haven't had much time to bead, because I've been getting ready to move apartments, and I've also begun the law school application process. I have finished a gift and a custom order, and I finished two more bracelets a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to photograph them and get the up on Etsy yet. But I will soon! All in good time...

It must be genetic

At least it runs in the family. Or maybe it's just a family trait.

People in my family tend to buy gifts for birthdays and holidays early or on time, and then just never send them (instead, waiting to give them in person), or send them really late. It's not a negative thing, because we all do it and so we all expect it.

So that is why my Auntie Carol got her birthday necklace three weeks late! It was one of the things I was madly trying to finish in June, but I didn't exactly send it until the middle of July. At least the outcome was success -- she loved it! After all, it was her colors! :-)
This isn't the greatest picture of it. It was almost 100 degrees outside when I took it. (I was determined to take it in natural sunlight.) I had to run inside before I could take another one! But you get the idea...

And now, I'm off to watch the new season of Project Runway! Woohoo!!

Some Happy Things

Last night, I went to the 40th anniversary party of Sam's parents, Cheryl and Richard. I really had a lot of fun meeting their family and friends, and of course, hanging out with Sam and his brothers, both of whom live in Chicago and had flown to New York for the occasion. They finally presented them with the photo album that that they (mostly Sam) had been working on for over a month! It included anecdotes from their loved ones, as well as photos. It was a great success!

After the party, Sam, his brothers, and I went back to Cheryl and Richard's for a night cap. We looked through the album. At this point, they opened a few presents. That's when I presented them with this box:
You see, Sam's parents collect little boxes. I've had this pattern by Julia S. Pretl in my beading repertoire ever since it appeared in Bead and Button Magazine about 6 years ago. They take quite a while to make, but I love making them and giving to people who love them. Seeing Richard's and Cheryl's happy reactions to this was sooooooooooo cool! :-)

Another happy thing is that I am currently being featured on NightMaiden's blog, Going Handmade! I am so grateful to NightMaiden for featuring me! I know that when I answer interview questions (just like when I used to write essays, and before that, reports) I tend to write a lot! So I really commend NightMaiden for taking my looooooong answers and putting together such a wonderful article! I also commend her for taking so much time to promote Etsy artist. Her blog is very new, but she has featured a different Etsy artist every single day since its birth! If you check out her blog, be sure to check out some of the other Etsy artists she features! Her post on Maoiliosa prompted me to impulsively buy these gorgeous Japanese washi earrings.

Ever since they arrived at my apartment a few days ago, I haven't taken them off! (OK, maybe for sleeping and showering, but that's IT!) :-)

Here they are!

(Thanks, Marylou!)

My beeeeeeaaaaauuuuutiful new beads.
I tried to find a background for the purple mix that I already had, but now I'm thinking maybe the blue mix. I think I'm going to have some silver in there too. So I got a LOT of potential background colors, but I got them in small quantities (I can always get more), knowing that I will find other uses for whatever I don't use for this particular endeavor. Now all I have to do is get beading!!

And now I will talk about the weather. (Seriously.)

It's been unusually cold here in New York. But all of a sudden there is a heat wave. I think my body is in shock. I went outside to take pictures of the finished necklace that I started last weekend, and after a couple of minutes, I had to rush into the doorway to relieve myself of the heat. I went back outside to finish the job, and quite frankly, I don't even care about the shadows right now. When I got back inside my apartment, I could barely see, even though the the lights were on. This is something that I'm not used to happening in New York. (Sydney, but not New York.) I got a couple of pictures of a gift that I just finished so that I could post them after the gift is received. But just barely. They're pretty bad pictures, but I couldn't stand the heat anymore! I'm supposed to go out tonight, but I'm not so sure if that's going to happen.

Here is the finished Etsy necklace:

The Return of the Camera

I am a woman of my word, and for that, I will bestow upon you pictures of Sam's reunion. (I can't believe it's already been a week and a half!)

Here is Sam during the gig (yes, that is a dorm in the background, but they pulled it off well!)


And here's one of the two of us in front of one of the houses he lived in in college. I must say, that is a very purple purple!
I've become kind of obsessed with different shapes of peyote stitch. Here's another one I made this weekend (I have yet to add the chain to it, which I guess is kind of crucial for any necklace if it is to stay on one's neck):(Blurry, but you get the idea...)

This weekend

was very productive! Obsessive, yes, but productive.

I had applied to be part of the Etsy Beadweavers Street Team a few days earlier, and on Friday, I was invited to join the group! They add new members' names to the blog on the first of every month, so my name is not quite up there yet, but just wait...because it will be soon! :-) Now I just have to finish going through all my Etsy

My next big feat was making my banner! I still want to change the font, but I'm super excited about it:
I spent Saturday night (see, I told you it was intense!) making this star of David necklace. I had noticed that with a little tweaking, the hexagon necklaces that I made for Angela, Hilary, and myself would make cool stars of David. I also figured out how to make it lie flat.

Sam's parents may or may not want this one for a bat mitzvah to which they are going next weekend. Either way, I plan to make more of these - it's really fun to see the star shape appear as I make them. I am also going to try to make a five pointed star.

Today, Sam came over to use my printer. He and his brothers are planning a 40th wedding anniversary party for their parents, and he had to print addresses on envelopes. The ordeal took almost the whole day, but it was a success!Meanwhile, I spent a few hours cleaning up my apartment, which had recently turned into more of a disaster zone than it already was. When I sat down to take a break, it turned into a necklace.

This weekend, I got a sales proposition based on my green necklace. Since then, I have been pretty over the moon about that. I still have a large collection of jewelry ready to go that has been waiting at my mom's house for the past six years, but I definitely want to add some new things. I've mentioned this before on my blog, but I want to add some things that reflect who I am right now. I want to use more chain in my work, and I've come across some great sources with just a little bit of effort. Those Japanese seed beads I mentioned last week? Apparently they are available through the internet for not too much money, with free shipping! I ordered a few and will probably order a lot more once I get myself a little more organized.

In the mean time, here is my next creation. The newest bracelet made for me me me.
I don't have the best lighting or, apparently, camera, to get great detail or color, so but this open envelope makes color and detail show up a little better.

And now, the "before" shot. My shoddy makeshift work station: a plastic glad container lid.

<3

I love making things. It's like my comfort food. My chocolate cake. (OK, well maybe that's taking it a little too far, but you get my point.)

And that is why I spent my Friday night making myself a necklace. It's the same one that I made for Angela and Hilary, but in olive green. Back in the day when I used to sell jewelry, I always made quite a few pieces for myself. So while I have some new ideas up my sleeve, the first few things will probably be for yours truly. Besides, I use them as measuring devices. (Who needs rulers anyway?) It's just the same as using an old sweater to take measurements for a new one when knitting.

I used Japanese Delica beads that I got with my mom at an expo in Australia a few years ago. As a rule, Japanese seed beads are more uniform than Czech seed beads, and that is why I mostly bead with them these days. But these Delica beads, though freakin' expensive, are the most near-perfectly uniform beads I have ever used. I love love love them!

Olive green has always been a comforting color for me. I know that that is really silly, but it's true! When I was a little kid (like, three years old) my mom put me in a pottery class. The teacher's only complaint about me was that I refused to paint anything any color other than olive green. I can only imagine how strange it would have been to see me come home with a clay sculpture of a bowl of Cheerios, painted olive green. That I, at three, had chosen that color, is pretty bizarre.
Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my UFOs. I've been working on Sam's mystery item, but I think I don't have enough yarn, so I went back to the place where I got it last weekend to see if they could get that dye lot in, and I still haven't heard back from them. (So I should probably follow up on that.) If they can't get it in, I will probably have to incorporate stripes of some sort.

I swear, this is totally not cheating, but I am counting long overdue gifts that I haven't exactly started yet as UFOs. Hence my dad's fiftieth birthday sweater come-post-fiftieth birthday scarf. I am using Misti Alpaca, which is amazingly soft. I looooooooooove it. I using the pattern I mentioned before. It looks pretty cool and it's not as tedious as seed stitch. My only minor annoyance is that it isn't quite symmetrical. On both sides, it starts with garter then knit, and ends with purl then garter. Even though I am a very messy, cluttered person who loves olive green, asymmetry to this magnitude annoys me. But I'm not starting over. And I still love the scarf so far. I just hope my dad isn't allergic to alpaca!

Back to my Roots, or, Reclaiming my Mojo

I learned to knit in December of 2005. I learned how to crochet in December of 2006. I learned how to needlepoint in 2000 or thereabouts, I think. But when did I learn how to bead? Some time in or around 1991. My mom taught me how to make daisy chains, and from there, there was no stopping me. At sixteen, I sold my jewelry at a little market (making next to nothing). I sewed beads onto paper, making a sign that read "Beaded Bijoux." That was probably when I found my place in the crafting community. My friends came to my house for "bead days." I was in bead heaven. In college, I taught my friends how to make beaded lizards. I have pictures of a lot of these things, which I will put up here some time. Some of them are at my mom's house in Australia, so that makes them slightly inaccessible, and others are *gasp* not on a digital camera, and I don't have a scanner at home.

For Christmas, I made the other paralegals I work with beaded necklaces. The center of the necklaces are little hexagons.

There is a story behind these hexagons. I adapted them from the base of a pattern for a beaded box. This pattern was published in Bead and Button Magazine in the late '90s, right around the time when Austin Powers, the Spy who Shagged Me, came out. My friends and I loved that movie, and my mother proclaimed that everything was "Very shaggadelic!" It was the Austin Powers movie where Austin Powers "lost his mojo," so I decided that I would make a box for my mojo - it was my mojo box!

I want to start making jewelry that is really fun, but still wearable for people who are not as eccentric as I am. The mojo hexagon was perfect! And their new owners said they love them, so it all paid off!