Cosmic Peacock!

The new issue of Beadwork magazine is out in the US and should be in the shops here in the UK in the next couple of weeks, although subscribers have already received their copies I believe. My Cosmic Peacock lariat (aka Eye of the Peacock lariat) is one of the projects in this issue and so I received a lovely parcel from Interweave this week. It included my contributor copy of the magazine and Ms Peacock herself who has flown all the way to ♥Loveland♥ Colorado and back, to have her picture taken professionally. She's now up for sale in my Etsy shop

I originally designed this necklace in November last year and you can see the blog post about her creation here . I was fortunate enough to sell the original necklace and so I had to make another one to send to Beadwork magazine. Now as you know, I love beading, but this necklace takes a long, long time to make and a fair amount of patience and concentration to keep that continuous stripe going on for forty inches of cylinder bead rope! I do hope that you have a go at this project though or simply make the peacock 'eyes' to adapt for a project of your own - remember to send me pictures of your finished project and I'll add them to the 'Readers gallery of work' page on my website.

Have a great week and happy beading everyone!

Back to beading ... but for how long?

As promised after my little rant last week, normal beady business has now been resumed. I hope it stays that way too, but I have a fear. For nearly three weeks now I have had an odd 'sensation' in my upper left arm, that's the best way I can describe it really, and it has now developed into a burning pain coupled with a loss of grip in my hand. I suspect it's RSI as I must admit that being a bead addict I have not taken care of myself over the years. I spend long periods of time sitting in awkward positions without taking breaks. I use impossibly long lengths of thread as I don't like to have knots within my work unless it's absolutely necessary and I hold my work with a death-like grip to maintain a really good tight tension. Oh, and I do rather a lot of typing too! Does anyone have any experience of this or tips as to the best way to handle it that they can pass on to me?

Anyway, let's continue with the beady pictures while we can. This week I had a commission. My friend Tracy saw a cuff bracelet I was wearing that I had made for myself to match a stripey top in blues and greens. She wanted the same style but in elegant black with a few touches of silver, together with a matching ring to wear to various Christmas parties. The cuff is just straightforward herringbone, embellished with some size 8 beads zig-zagging down the centre and either side. It has a brick stitch toggle clasp. The ring is made using increasing peyote stitch with a few black diamond Swarovski crystals in the centre and it has a right angle weave band. All quite plain and simple but I think Tracy will look very striking at those parties!

Ingredients ...

Just a short blog today as I've spent far too much time on the computer recently and I really must get on with some beading today. I have loads of new project ideas in my head and various notes scribbled everywhere, but none of that is any good if I don't actually put the time in and try to create them! So, here is a quick picture of the ingredients for the project I plan to start today ...

... I went on a bead buying spree earlier this week and came back with lots and lots of Delicas in a gorgeous shiny dark green (shade number 175) some very expensive 24k lined cream opal Delicas (shade number 230) a bag of beautiful semi-matte blue Delicas (shade number 630) a string of Lapis Lazuli beads, a Swarovski crystal Cosmic Ring and some thread. I'll keep you posted with some 'work in progress' shots, but in the meantime I'd love to hear your ideas of what you think it's going to be!