Kazuri Kritters and Creative Beading!

Hello everyone!

National Beading Week has arrived and so it's been a busy few days with more demonstrations of my designs lined up at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd tomorrow, but I had to drop in and share some other news with you. Firstly, I've just received my copy of the August 2015 issue of Bead and Button magazine which has a picture of my Kazuri Kritters in the 'Your Work' section on page 17. You may remember that I made these pins in November of last year as part of my work as a design team member for Many Hands Marketplace - Kazuri West and you can see the original post and the stories I wrote for each animal here. The pins were originally going to be published as a project in Bead and Button, but it was later discovered that they are not as simple as they perhaps look and so they are not really suitable for a project. However, as my original intention was to help promote the work of the Kazuri ladies I still needed to find some way to do that and so a wonderful collaboration took place - Preciosa's excellent photographer took some pictures of the pins for me (because really, my photography is not so great!) and the editor of Bead and Button magazine agreed to publish the picture and some links in the 'Your Work' section. I'm sorry that I cannot provide you with a tutorial for these pins, but I do hope that you love these charming handmade animal shaped buttons as much as I do and that perhaps you may give some of them a new home.

The other piece of news is that I have also received a copy of the new Kalmbach publication Creative Beading Volume 10: The best projects from a year of Bead and Button magazine. I have several of these lovely hardback annuals on my shelf now and I am delighted to have had four of my projects selected for this issue. Flowercup Cascade which is the Kumihimo project I wrote for Yorkbeads is on page 194 and my Preciosa projects Flamenco Pellets, Twinflower Lariat and Organic Twist can be found on pages 74, 120 and 213 respectively.

That's all the news for now so I'll get back to preparing for my demos. Don't forget, I'll be at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd tomorrow but I will also be at the Bead Art Fair in Hamburg doing demonstrations at the Preciosa stand from August 21st to 23rd - I hope you can join the "Flower Party"!

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥

Doing the Organic Twist!

Hello everyone!

Do you remember way back in July 2013 when I blogged about my experiments with Preciosa Ornela's striped beads? The patterns for four of those pieces have already been published (Sliding Stripes, Pinstripe Petals, Floribunda Bangle and Rustic Hearts) and you can now find the instructions for Stripitwisticus Major and Minor in the April 2014 issue of Bead & Button magazine. Of course the sensible people at Bead & Button changed my slightly eccentric project name to 'Organic Twist' but it's still the same garland of leaves and flowers that is just waiting to be wrapped around your wrist or neck.

I used the same green and yellow striped seed beads for the vines and leaves in both of my sets but for one set I made matte cobalt flowers and for the other I used vibrant red and white striped beads. The editor at Bead & Button chose a mix of matte and shiny grey seed beads to make her test piece which gives it a completely different, more elegant look. I loved working with these beads and plan to use them more often (when time permits) and I think that the irregularity in the shape and size of some of these particular beads really lends itself to natural organic looking designs. When you pop the end flower on the bracelet through the viney loop at the other end, it really does look and feel like it has just grown there.

I hope you enjoy doing the Organic Twist and as always, feel free to send me pictures of your variations and colourways. There are three more of my Preciosa patterns due to be released in the next couple of months using Twin™ beads, Pellet beads™ and Charlottes so be sure to complete the Follow by Email box at the top right of my blog if you don't want to miss anything.

That is all for this time - apart from to let you know that I am no longer a Prima Bead Blog Team member. It's been a fun eight month ride resulting in lots of pieces that I might never have otherwise made, but I decided that this was the right time for me to leave the team and concentrate on other areas.

See you again soon!

Kerrie ♥