Sue Beads

I thought I'd share this post with you here on my personal blog, in case you didn't get to see it on the AJE blog.

It's just been too cold to make beads in my basement, so I have been concentrating on making beaded ropes with spiral stitch.  In addition, I've been exploring texture within the spiral stitch rope and using different clasps.  I thought I'd show you some of my experimentation today!


The very first spiral stitch rope I worked on is in the larger photo - I used an awesome cab by Diana Ptaszynski, and the colors I used were perfect!  I then made spiral stitch ropes to go with my own ammonite cab, my own lampwork heart bead, and ceramic pendants by Diana and Lesley Watt. I love how they all turned out. They were all made using only size 11 beads in two colors, with the exception of the one I made with my lampwork heart - I used one single color on that rope, and although it's hard to see, the beads have a really great rainbow effect.

In this…

I'm part of a new group, Beading Back in Time, and today is the reveal for our blog hop challenge!  This quarter, our challenge was Pre-Human.  Make something from or with something that applies to the pre-human period in Earth's history!

Here's what I made.  I used one of my own Ammmonite Lampwork cabochons as the base.  I chose colors that I felt went well with the focal.

 I did a beading around a cabochon bezel and learned how to do a picot edge!  I was quite happy with myself!
 The spiral rope is made with matching beads, the clasp is bronze by Saki Silver.  I did a simple loop bail to attach the ammonite cab to the spiral rope.


Check out what the other members of Beading Back in Time made for this quarter's challenge!
Co-hostess:Lindsay Starr of Phantasm Creations Co-hostess: Sherri Stokey of Knot Just Macrame
Kelly Rodgers of Beadin' Black & Blue Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio Caroline Dewison of Blueberribeads Melissa Trudinger of Boho Bird Jewelle…

Works in Progress...do you have them?  I rarely do.  I rarely make jewelry anymore, and when I do it's usually one at a time, and there are no works in progress.  But lately (and I mean since before Bead Fest) I haven't felt too creative on the bead-making front.  And now that I've had a little time over the holidays, I decided to get my creative juices flowing in a different way.  I have really become interested in all things bead weaving and seed beads, so I'm working on some little projects right now.  My CoM from December was this little spiral rope number:

I had tried to work on a Russian spiral, but with the white, it was too hard to learn.  So I did just a regular spiral rope.

I also made this spiral rope for this focal I made that I absolutely LOVE (it's really hard to photograph the colors in these seed beads, but they are awesomely rainbow):

And this one is actually for reveal later, but I'm still showing it, cuz I loves it! I learned to do a picot ed…

I also have a selection of cabochons left from my Bead Fest inventory - some ammonites and also some new arty ones I did.  You can find them in the SueBeads etsy store!