More Progress

Don't they look so much prettier when they're all together, instead of spread out across my work surface? The two smallest rivolis aren't actually attached to the main piece yet, but they should be sometime tomorrow... then it's time to figure out the neck strap. No rush, it only has to be finished, photographed, packaged up and mailed by MONDAY! Oh yes, I've procrastinated quite a bit this year!

It's not quite as grand as I first envisioned, but I'm still pretty happy with this lovely grouping of rivolis.

Super sparkly progress shot

Here's a progress picture of my 2011 LL-BFAC project. I took it yesterday, so there's actually been more progress since then. I've finished the fringe on the big center crystal, which is the only one that will get fringe (I guess the little crystal picots could count as fringe, but I don't think of them as such because they don't have movement like long fringe). The next step is connecting them all!

My additions to the kit are the 7 Swarovski rivolis in Crystal Golden Shadow and Ultra Purple AB, as well as the Honey Opal Silver Lined Delicas that I used to bezel the crystals... Not that you can really see those, under the layer of bronze teardrops!

I love this year's kit, as I find the purple and bronze color scheme to be very elegant. All of the finished products that I've seen on-line so far have looked very rich and sumptuous. I hope they raise tons of money in the auctions next year!

Working on my BFAC

I know this post isn't much without pictures, so I'll try to have some in-progress shots soon. I finally started my 2011 Layne's Legacy -- Beading For A Cure project about a week ago. It's due at the start of August. It's been years since I procrastinated this much on starting one. Kind of odd, because I love the bead kit and I decided exactly what I wanted to do and what components to add soon after receiving the kit. I've just been so busy with dancing and the gym and such that I haven't wanted to tackle a large-scale beading project. Now with a looming deadline, I really have no choice.

Bezeled rivolis will form the focal point. Since almost every weaving project I've done this year has involved at least one peyote-stitched bezel (around a rivoli or a button), I'm really quite bored of them. Once I'm done with this it's time for some bead embroidery!

Photos, I take them!

I hope you're not bored of Locked Away, because here's another shot! I just edited this picture, and a dozen others. That's the part I hate about doing photography... going through and getting all of the images web-ready. Luckily, with this set-up, I don't have to do any color adjustments, so it goes a little faster, but it's still a tedious job. I have to take lots of little breaks... Like a break to post on my blog!

Last night, I bezeled a rivoli in the new "Purple Haze" effect (you may have seen it advertised in the beading magazines). I'm not thrilled with the effect, it's not very purple. I won't be buying it again. But I do have a couple of vintage cabs that go nicely with it, so eventually they'll all be part of a very fancy pendant. The cabs just have to wait until I've got a couple of other projects finished, including the brooch and my November EBW challenge piece.

Rivoli bezeling is a nice, simple project for gaming, though, so if I'm not working on something else easily portable next week, I'll definitely work on another one. I feel almost like I should plot out projects for all of the rivolis that I currently have, and pick out the bezel beads for them, so I've got a ready-made project for the next half dozen or so game nights.

I made something - AND - took a picture of it

Look at this... I finished a bead project and took its picture! Ok, so it's not much of a picture. I took it right here in the office, with it just sitting on my current beading work surface, so the colors are a little off and the reflections are weird, but you get the idea.

This is the rivoli necklace that I was working on last week, and having a bit of trouble with. I managed to make it work after all! I thought the top two stones were both Deep Lagoon color, but the middle one is actually erinite, upon closer inspection. They're somewhat similar, but the Deep Lagoon has a warmer base color and odd, dark flashes due to having one of those special after-market coatings. It's one of the many custom colors that Betcey at Beyond Beadery carries, and the base stone is actually vintage. Oh, and the bottom rivoli is emerald. The strung section is an assortment of emerald and erinite crystals in various shapes, with the same Delicas I used for the bezel serving as spacers. The washers are actual hardware, from Home Depot, and the idea is to slip a ribbon through them and tie it at my neck, making for a nice adjustable length and a mixed-media feel.

A couple of things about this necklace: One is that it was almost free. The rivolis all have little chips or scratches on the edges, which can be hidden by bezels but which Betcey didn't feel right selling, so my co-workers and I at gem show got to take them home as a bonus ;) The crystals are all from various birthday presents and surprise packages from my friends, who know how much I love green (especially erinite and emerald!). The Delicas were from a friend who was destashing, the 15s were inherited from my friend Layne. I think I may have bought the Czech 15s from my first gem show employer, but they might also be from Layne. The only things I paid for were the thread, Beadalon, crimps and washers.

The other thing is that this is an attempt to make a necklace with steampunk inspirations, without it being obvious. Though I had the idea to do these rivolis with golden and bronze bezels before I moved, the impetus that got me moving was my new goggles. It doesn't quite match (the lenses are definitely more like the discontinued Medium Emerald Swarovski hue than the true emerald I used), but it coordinates nicely. And the genuine brass hardware washers are a nice, subtle touch, I think. I have two more that I want to turn into earrings, as soon as I find the bronze-hued titanium findings that I bought at gem show. The idea is to be able to wear it with my goggles as a nice accent to a steampunk costume, but for it to also be at home with other styles.

In other news, my website is still down. Bah. And since I was feeling a little down (physically and mentally!) yesterday, I read Jumper. All of it. I started at 3:15pm and ended before 1am, and that was with taking an hour break to play some Guild Wars, and some time for dinner. So I basically devoured the book. It was much different from the movie, better in lots of ways, worse in some (the movie is cooler, the book is deeper).

Also, I still can't find all my little spools of beading thread. Right now all I have at my disposal is my huge spool of black, and the little spool of olive that I've used for my last two projects -- neither of which are suitable for the bronze and golden brown lariat I want to start. Guess I know what I'll be doing today!

Playing with beads

I was sitting here working on a new rivoli pendant that would match my goggles (lagoon and emerald rivolis with brassy, bronzey Delicas and seed beads), but it's just not coming together. I feel like maybe I'd rather do a simple stringing project right now.

I need to get some more furniture for my beadroom. Everything's too piled up, which makes it hard to get to anything, which makes it hard to get inspired. It's also pretty dusty in there, which is a definite downside to having a screened-in porch as my beadroom. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time dusting. Hopefully once I get better blinds up (that is to say, ones that haven't collapsed under their own weight), that will help keep some of the dirt out.

Not much else to report on. I'm suffering from a serious case of the afternoon drowsies and can't think of a single thing to write.

Hello beading, I've missed you!

Last night I decided to take my beads to the game. My current project isn't super-portable, but I took it anyway. I knew I'd have some downtime while the guys goofed off, and I've really wanted to finish that rivoli project that I started before the move. I got a bit of work done on it -- finished the other half of the spiral rope. But then I reached the part where I need to fringe it, and I hit a problem.

You see, when I did the first half, I figured I'd be doing the second half soon thereafter. You know, maybe a few days between, a week at most if things got busy. I did not count on over a month! And I didn't write anything down. So I'm going to have to take a close look at the fringe and count how many beads I used. Definitely not something I want to do while half a dozen guys are talking and gaming around me. So I'll probably do that tonight or tomorrow.

I've been writing, too. I did some on Monday and Tuesday. I almost started writing last night after the game, but I felt like I'd probably be up until 5am if I did. I should really be rotating my sleep schedule to fall asleep earlier, since I'll need to get up in the mornings for Comic Con... but whenever I write, I start to stay up later and later. I'm going to go do some writing now, and see if I can get it out of my system early in the day and maybe fall asleep at a decent hour. I must be bright and chipper for the convention!

Anyway, writing is awesome. I'm really excited about how my book is shaping up. I feel like the characters and situations are much better developed than they were in any of my previous attempts to write this story. This might actually go somewhere.

Something with some sparkle.

This pendant is made with the first two rivolis I ever beaded! They sat around on my desk for a few months until recently, when I decided to stitch them together and give them a simple bail.

The bottom stone is crystal AB with no foil lining. It takes on the hue of whatever's behind it. So against my barely-pink skin, it makes a nice, warm compliment for the brandy-hued stone above it. Unfortunately, I had the brilliant idea to photograph it on this green notebook. What the heck, self? You had a nice brown notebook sitting right there! Also, I didn't quite focus the image right. I'm still working on it, but I'm trying to wean myself off of relying so much on auto-focus.

I spent some time today working on my next rivoli project, which is shaping up to be beautiful... but now I'm packing. 5 days to go and there's still a ton of stuff to go and no boxes to put it in. I just packed a whole bunch of beads in a small rolling suitcase. In fact, that accounts for a huge chunk of my BTSB collection. I've also got my bead desk down to just a few scattered things left to clean up and put away. There may be light at the end of this tunnel after all.

So much for beading.

Argh, I swear, these bezels are out to get me. This one should fit the rivoli I made it for, and it's just not fitting. So once again, I'll have to start over. Eventually I'm probably going to get annoyed and stop working with rivolis altogether.

I spent today cleaning up my bead room, sorting through the piles of beads on my desk in there. I'm making some progress, and really instilling in myself a desire to be better about putting beads away as soon as I'm done with a project. I might even finish cleaning the desk off tomorrow.

Photography didn't happen today, I was just too busy and too tired. Maybe tomorrow.

Boxes and Beads and Books.

I'm almost out of boxes... but I'm almost out of places to put boxes, too! Some of them are going to have to go live in the trunk of the car until we move, just so I have some room to work in here.

Today I actually started packing my beads. A lot of them are in these two 4' tall plastic filing cabinets (aka iris carts). This is a great storage method, however, it's a little heavy and ungainly for moving. As such, I've begun the process of moving the beads into smaller containers. I'm still keeping the containers out and accessible -- next week, right before we move, I'll put them all into suitcases, which have convenient wheels and handles for easy bead-moving.

I started another rivoli project tonight, and picked out beads for the next one, too. They both involve green and earthy tones. The second one will be for me to keep, as it involves "little chippies" -- rivolis that have dings on the edges. Sure, I cover the edges with beads, but I still feel bad selling damaged goods -- especially since I got the chippies for free from my gem show job, because she also doesn't like to sell damaged goods!

The books part of the title refers to the fact that I'm working my way through some nerdy astrophysics book called Death By Black Hole. So far it needs more death and less physics, although I did like learning more about the rings of Saturn and why they look the way they do. There's also a lot about the history of physics and general and astrophysics in specific. Last night I read about people learning that we are not the center of the universe. My cats, of course, disagree. They're pretty certain that everything revolves around them, even up to a cosmic level.

So I'm probably going to go read more nerdy physics stuff, although what I really feel like doing right now is writing. I did a short little story for some gaming-related stuff this past weekend, and it reawakened my inner author. Unfortunately, said inner author can't really settle on a project, and doesn't have anything specific she wants to write, she just misses the process. Maybe I can distract her with shiny beads, or bore her to sleep with physics.

Getting things done.

Much of today was spent packing and cleaning. I'm been packing away all my fragile things, and hoping that they're well-wrapped enough to survive the move. I haven't even decided exactly where I'll put them in the house. The shelves I've got them on now aren't very pretty. I might get a curio cabinet or something. The vintage dragonware tea set will go in the kitchen, and that's about all I've figured out.

I did get to bead a little bit today. I finally finished the first rivoli pendant I worked on. I kept it really simple, since it's not really colors that I wear a lot, so it'll spend most of its time in a jewelry box, I'm afraid. But now I feel like playing with more rivolis, so maybe tomorrow I'll come up with another project -- after I finish my work, of course.

Now I'm feeling pretty tired, so I'm just going to do a little e-mail and go to sleep, so I can be prepared for another busy day tomorrow!

I should be doing this every day.

I spent most of today working on this necklace, and you know what? It felt wonderful. I don't know why I've fallen out of the habit of putting in a serious amount of beading every day. I mean, sure, a lot of times recently I've been out doing house stuff for half the day, but that excuse only goes so far. I've got to rededicate myself to making beautiful jewelry!

That said, I'm in love with this necklace! It features a rivoli in a Laura McCabe-style bezel, with an Earthenwood Studios "dream" charm hanging below it, and lots of pretty beads hanging below that. The pendant is strung onto a necklace of Czech glass and Swarovski crystals. The idea was that the pendant would be removable, but it's a pretty tight squeeze over the 6mm beads. Next time I should give it more wiggle room.

This will be going onto the website tomorrow. I think I'm probably going to move to only updating once a month for the next few months. With moving and BFAC and Comic Con, I'm going to have a hard time keeping with the once-a-week schedule. The fact that I haven't put new jewelry up all month serves as a testament to that!

The beads aren't playing nice!

Last night I sat down to work on Locked Away some more. Well, after how perfectly the first side came together, with such graceful curves for the wing... the second side had to be all "Blargh! I am ugly!" The beads just refused to stitch down nicely, and I kept having to remove them and do it over, and then it would look even worse. In an amount of time that I expected to do 1 1/2-2 rows, I got less than one done, and half of that will have to be ripped out again.

So today I decided that I was about due for a break from Locked Away. After all, I haven't beaded anything else since I started it (other than that 1-hour pendant), and my website was suffering from the lack of new jewelry. Plus I had a nice idea for a rivoli pendant that I could put on a strung necklace. And you know what? The colors that I picked look absolutely gorgeous together. Too bad the bezel is too small.

Someday I'll learn to keep double-checking the bezel size as I work!

I think that tomorrow I'll be able to get the bezel right, but now I'm just feeling frazzled.

Math is my nemesis!

So, I've been trying to bead a rivoli today. The tutorial that I posted yesterday is designed for a 16mm stone, but I had an 18mm. No big deal, I figure, I'm a reasonably smart girl, I can figure out how to do a different size. A 16mm stone uses 40 base beads, and I know that to do tubular peyote with a step up, my base row needs to be divisible by 4.* First I tried 48 beads. Way too big. Then I tried 44. That seemed right, so I continued on. I get it done, try it out, and it's TOO SMALL! Nrar! Why must math defy me? I'm going to have to do 46, which means I'm going to end up with spiral peyote, which isn't nearly as attractive. Stupid peyote stitch. This is why I never do you. You always bite me in the end.

*When I explained this concept to Chris, he quickly did some math and said that if 40 beads go around a 16mm stone, then an 18mm stone would need 45 beads. This proves that he is better at math than me, but I am better at beading. 45 is not an even number, and thus, useless for doing tubular peyote.

So anyway, I got frustrated with that and strung a necklace instead, and it turned out quite awesome. I'd photograph it, but there's a big stack of gaming books in my photography spot. *sigh* I've got to find someplace better for them by Monday, when I hope to start updating my website and Etsy shop again.

I'm going to try the rivoli again at gaming tonight. Stupid 46 beads. I wonder if I could use Japanese 11s instead of Delicas and have 44 fit? Hmmm...

Almost all put away.

You know what's amazing and wonderful? Not being sick after gem show. If you were reading this blog around this time last year, you know that I got crazy-sick during the show. This year I'm healthy and energetic, and it shows. Almost all of the beads that I bought have already been inventoried and put away. I'm so on top of things, that I'm ready to start beading tomorrow. Heck, I'd bead tonight, except that I'm not back to my natural night-owl schedule yet and I get drowsy at 10pm.

I think the first thing I'll do is bead a rivoli! Beki at Out on a Whim just posted a basic rivoli bezel tutorial today... mere days after I got done buying rivolis at gem show. Coincidence? I think not. The universe is conspiring to get my addicted to rivolis, the way the rest of the beading community seems to be. If I enjoy my bezel experience tomorrow, I'm definitely going to pick up Laura McCabe's book. I was planning to do so anyway, so now if it turns out that I hate bezeling rivolis, I can save myself the money and buy a different book instead.

I think I've said the word "rivoli" enough for one day.

Actually, I'm feeling very inspired and there's a lot of things I want to make. All of these new gem show beads are very exciting, and since I mailed all the BFAC projects off, I actually have room to get into my bead room and get to all the beads I need. I also feel like doing some polymer work and getting back to work on the Pants of Doom. Too many hobbies!