Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Medusa Turning to Stone

Despite being afraid of snakes, I have a real fascination with Medusa and naga. I really love this three-dimensional Medusa head pendant, I've had it for years, and I finally decided to work it into a necklace. Of course, I chose Ndebele stitch, to mimic the slinky, scaly nature of her snake-hair. If you'd like to view the additional images on Etsy, please click here!

This was a fun piece to work on. The green section is Delicas in two-drop Ndebele in green iris Delicas. Very fluid. Then when it transitions to "stone" I've used matte grey Japanese seed beads in a single-drop Ndebele. Much stiffer and a little more nubbly, like an aged statue.

I'm not quite sure what I'll do next. Probably something inspired by the snake Loa Damballah for the Etsy Bead Weavers' "Animal Instinct" challenge. That's another one I've had planned for a while.

5 comments:

  1. Oh, that's a great piece!

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  2. This turned out wonderfully!! I love that stitch!! It's got such a cool feel to it.
    Cheers, Denise

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  3. Thank you both :)

    Denise, tubular Ndebele is one of my favorite stitches. In fact, I think I'm going to start a tubular herringbone spiral tonight.

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  4. Now, it's either tubular or spiral! Unless, of course, you've regressed to your surfer days!

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  5. It is a tube of Ndebele that gently spirals! Ok, since it's 4 beads, it's more like a square than a tube, but still.

    Granted, I did bead almost half of it at the game last night, and the characters ARE in Hawaii, and there WAS surfing going on, but that was all Alex. My character is far too angry to be a surfer.

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