Allegory Gallery Seed Bead Fun

 In order to make things more interesting around here, I'm going to be posting more in-progress pictures of projects. I plan to do a lot of seed beading in 2013, so there should be a lot of fun projects for me to document.

My first project involves the Black Beach Bonfire seed bead mix from Allegory Gallery. I shamelessly stole the above photo from their website because it shows the full range of this beautiful mix, whereas my pic below has it in a tube where it looks a little blah.

Because there are so many colors in the mix I decided to go with a simple black onyx cabochon for the focal piece. I'm not sure yet what else I'll be using, but I think there will be some golden key charms to pull out the gold in the mix, and to make it appropriate for Wild Wild West Con in March. I really need to beef up my steampunk stock, and this will have cross appeal for Goths, too. Plus I just really like keys!

Disclaimer: Some items in this blog post were provided for promotional consideration. I am receiving no other compensation for my blogging.

One Meeeeeellion Beads!

I just got back from spending the weekend in San Diego, where Chris and I visited a couple of museums. Now, of course I expect to find beads in a museum... people have been making beads forever, so there's always some old beads made out of natural materials, maybe some Egyptian faience, some Victorian beaded purses, you never know. But at the Museum of Man, I found beads cleverly used to represent years.

But where are the one million beads? Guess they didn't fit on the board.
Oh. THERE they are! One million beads makes a nice little wall, don't you think?

(For all you beaders who are surely wondering, the beads were a size 6ish vintage-style white heart).

Teal 'n' Green

Teal 'n' Green is a Lincoln Street Bracelet from Rachel Nelson-Smith's Seed Bead Fusion book. The only real change I made to her great design is that I of course used a button and loop clasp instead of a magnetic clasp. I worked my bracelet in teal on one side and green on the other, with white accents for both sides.
Green Side!
Teal Side!

This bracelet was a lot of fun to make. The directions make it seem a little difficult, but once I started weaving it, it really all made sense. And Teal 'n' Green has the special distinction of being my first (and so far, only) international beading project, as I did some work on it while I was in Aruba.

Seed Bead Fusion

You may recall that I bought this book on a whim because I had some JoAnn's coupons and I was mad that they didn't have any of the stuff I wanted for my next coin bra project. Amusing then, that this is the first beading book in a while that I've actually made something from! And that was also because of a whim. I was flipping through all my bead books looking for something elegant to do with Swarovski pearls for my friend Helen's wedding necklace. I thought that Seed Bead Fusion was all funky stuff, but there was a beautiful rivoli pendant project hanging from a strand of pearls, and when I showed it to Helen, that was the design she chose.

So I can actually give a real thorough review, since I've tested the directions! Author Rachel Nelson-Smith provides step-by-step written directions, with a few helpful graphs. For visual learners, each tutorial is followed by a couple pages of thumbnails of the major steps. The photographs of the projects and steps are very clear and sharp against a plain white background, making it easy to see what you're making and how you're doing it.

I found one or two small typographical errors in the project that I did, but they didn't throw me off since it was easy to infer what the author actually meant. Over all the project was very doable, though I bent three needles, and as I mentioned in my last post, it took three tries to get a 36 bead bezel that actually fit perfectly around the rivoli.

The projects use a lot of right angle weave and peyote stitch. Many of them are very dimensional, and the examples tend to be in extremely bright colors, so that I usually have to imagine them in green and black to think if I would actually do them. The fusion in the title comes from the fact that most of the projects also incorporate some wirework or stringing along with the seed bead weaving, but there's still plenty of interesting stuff for beaders who are strictly interested in weaving.

After making Helen's necklace (which I'll post tomorrow or Monday), I want to make something for myself with the same technique, and there are at least half a dozen other projects that I could see myself trying out. In fact, I'd dive right in if my BFAC deadline wasn't looming large on the horizon.

A Selection of Sensational Seeds

This picture only accounts for about half of the size 11 seed beads that I acquired this year, but it gives a pretty good idea of the sort of colors I was leaning towards. Lots of metallics, metallic irises, and matte metallic irises. I wanted colors that will make my work more lush and rich. I wanted different finishes, to add depth and contrast. And because I had about $600 trade credit saved up, I didn't have to pass beads up due to high price tags. I had quite the little shopping spree!

Oddly enough, that tube of powder blue marble luster appears to be the one of the two blue seed beads I purchased in any size. I like blue, I wear blue, I bead in blue... but I almost never gravitate towards blue beads when I'm shopping. The vast majority of my blue seed beads are in the aqua-capri family and I have to make a mental note to look for true blues, or I just don't buy them at all. This year I was so captivated by the greens and earth tones that I never even looked at blue. Of course, I bought no reds, oranges, yellows or pinks at all. But I did get 5 yummy purples.

I noticed a lot of shoppers in our booth were also gravitating towards metallics, whether it was the new-ish Permanent Galvanized, the new Platinum and Palladium electroplates (yum! How did I manage not to buy any?), or the electroplated size 15 24k gold charlottes. I think that even though times are tough financially, a lot of designers are still willing to invest in the luxurious beads that elevate our weaving to the point of rivaling fine jewelry.

Why seed beads?

Marcia DeCoster made an interesting blog post today, asking "Why seed beads?" and I thought it would be the good subject of a post of my own.

Why seed beads indeed? Woven projects are so time-consuming that I have to price them so high that they rarely sell. And yet I can't stop making them, because seed beads inspire me.

One of my favorite things about seed beads is the sheer amount of colors and finishes available. I can match almost anything, from a carved stone to a lampworked bead to the ceramic pendant in today's Daily Special, Mistress of the Secret Forest.

Versatility is key, too. Tiny seed beads can be woven together to form all sorts of shapes and express different styles. They can be bold, delicate, modern, classic, Victorian, tribal... Anything my muse wants to do can be rendered in seed beads, whether it's by weaving them, stitching them down, or even using them as spacers in strung designs. They can stand on their own, or they can be accented by anything else from my stash -- artist-made focals, Czech glass, Swarovski crystals, vintage treasures, skeleton keys...

I'm looking forward to doing even bigger and better things with my seed beads in the near future -- fully-embroidered collars, more ornate belly dance bras, necklaces with multiple bezeled rivolis, all sort of exciting projects.