The pattern shop is filling up!

It's been a busy year (and it's about to get busier for the next few months!) but I've managed to find time to add two more patterns to my website.  Both of these have actually been published in magazines already, but  after receiving requests from people asking me to make the patterns available from my website, I have completely rewritten them and added lots of new diagrams and photos.  The first pattern is Daisy Chain (originally published in Bead magazine) and as the pictures below show, you can make your little daisies into a variety of finished pieces - from a complex looking necklace or bracelet to a simpler pendant or pair of earrings.  All of these finished pieces are surprisingly simple to make and full details are included in the tutorial.

The second pattern is for my English Rose necklace (originally published in Perlen Poesie magazine) and is bit more advanced than Daisy Chain, but again, there are lots of diagrams and photos to help you create the finished piece.  The project is to make the necklace shown and the idea is that you make several 'roses' as they are interchangeable, but it would be easy to adapt it to make a bracelet (to save you making several feet of beaded rope!) or you could just make the 'rose' and turn it into a pendant or a brooch.

So the pattern shop is gradually filling up and there are now seven patterns to choose from.  I will be adding one more in the next few weeks and then I really MUST start preparing for my workshop in Hamburg as it is coming around frighteningly fast!  Bye for now!

A dose of daisy medicine!

Unusually for me, I've had a couple of quiet weeks when I haven't done much beading, pattern writing or ... anything really.  I felt a little 'under the weather' and it felt like my usual drive had driven off and left me.  Even my normally over-active imagination went into hibernation and when I sat by my window in the evenings looking at the moon, instead of imagining fairies with beaded flowers in their hair skipping around in my moonlight garden ... I just saw the moon.  I think it was probably my body's way of telling me to take a little break though and so I am now more or less back to bouncy and have finally picked up my needle and thread again.  I hardly ever get chance to make the same thing twice and rarely make myself anything these days, so I started off gently by following my own instructions and made two of my Rivoli Daisies.

The first one (shown above) has a Montana blue Swarovski Rivoli for the centre and the beads are a mixture of galvanised Tohos and some delicious little Czech Charlottes I bought some time ago but hadn't got round to using.  Although the pattern shows a complete bracelet of daisies, I just wanted to make myself one flower to hang simply from a silver snake-chain and I must admit I am pretty pleased at the way this has turned out - the blue Rivoli looks like a mesmerizing bottomless pool at the centre of my sparkling daisy and I just want to dive into it ... see, my imagination is fully restored!

I went on to make another Rivoli Daisy as a gift for a friend and this one has a Sapphire Rivoli centre and the petals are made with silver lined crystal and transparent lustered cobalt beads.  It can be worn as either a pendant or a brooch and I think it will go perfectly with jeans and a t-shirt but equally well with something more dressy.  Isn't it great how we can make our own jewellery to match our outfits ... or even vice versa!

I think this is a perfect spring project as the individual daisies don't take too long to make, you don't need many different materials and the great range of Rivoli colours available means that you too can soon bring a touch of beady sunshine into your life.  Imagine the full bracelet (shown below) with each daisy made in a different colour or with all the same coloured petals but each one having a different coloured Rivoli centre!  The Rivoli Daisy (bracelet) tutorial is available to purchase via my website.

See you again soon!

Teaching Timetable ...

There's not much to report at the moment as I have been busy writing instructions, drawing diagrams and taking photos for my new workshops.  I have managed to sneak in the odd hour or two for putting a new idea into beads for my next tutorial (after all there has got to be some light relief from all that computer work) but it will probably be some weeks before the new design is finished or added to my website - it's going to be a little bit different from my usual style with lots of citrus colours and an asymmetric twist, so watch this space!  In the meantime, I suddenly realised that I haven't actually posted details of my new classes, and as there are still some places left I thought I should tell you about them as the first class is next week!

I will be teaching four 3 hour workshops at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd.  The first one on February the 3rd is 'Spring Daisies' and I will also be teaching this again on May the 14th.  The other workshop is 'Herringbone Flower' and I will be teaching this on March the 12th and May the 26th.  The city centre venue is lovely and spacious and bright, with a beautiful bead shop stuffed full of sparkly goodies on the ground floor, all materials are included, workshop students receive a 10% discount voucher to be used in the shop after class, there are lots of tasty fairtrade refreshments on offer and the atmosphere is fun and friendly - what more could you wish for?  Full details and booking information can be found here.

It's official ...

... I teach beadwork!  This has been a long time coming, but I finally have my first workshop under my belt with several more in the pipeline.  My first class was held at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd. and it will definitely be a day to remember as we woke up on the morning of the workshop to be greeted by this scene;

We didn't feel that it was safe to drive, but fortunately the buses were still running and so I made it to the workshop on time, and so did the staff at the bead shop and my four lovely eager students.  Although it was a full day workshop, we knew that it wouldn't be possible to complete the Double Daisy project in class, but everyone got stuck in, choosing their colours and juggling peyote stitch, ladder stitch and brick stitch until little petals began to appear.  Keeping my first workshop small with only four students, meant that I could spend lots of time sitting with each student individually, checking that they were on track and also chatting about their favourite bead stitches and admiring some of the beautiful beadwork that they had brought with them.  As well as a lovely spacious (and warm!) workshop area, the bead shop also provided plenty of tea and biscuits which all made for a really enjoyable day before we all had to wrap up and head off home in the snow!

This project was designed exclusively for The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd. but now that the workshop has finished, you can buy the comprehensive 18 page tutorial via my website and make your own Double Daisy!  The instructions cover how to make the finished daisy and include some ideas on ways to use it; you might like to turn yours into a pin/brooch, create a loop of beads at the back to turn it into a pendant or sew it onto finished beadwork or ribbon (as in the picture below) to make a glamorous choker or wrist corsage!

Whatever you decide, have fun and don't forget to send me a picture!  The pdf of the instructions is available for purchase here and will be delivered by email.

Crazy Daisies!

Not much exciting new beadwork to show you this week I'm afraid, just a little pair of earrings I've made as a present to myself to match a new top. They really are as bright and colourful as the picture shows and I call them my Crazy Daisies! The centre is a hot pink Miracle Bead and the petals use a sparkling shade of lilac lined cylinder beads.

I also wanted to tell you about the new issue of Bead magazine that is out this week. This is the third anniversary issue and there is an interesting 'Where are they now?' article which looks back at some of the artists that have been featured since the magazine started. It's fascinating to read what having their profile in this internationally available magazine meant to the various designers and how their work has evolved since that time. My profile originally appeared in issue 12 of the magazine and was quite a bold move for me. Here is what I said in my profile update - click on the picture to enlarge it (used with kind permission of Ashdown).

My mistletoe earrings are also shown in the 'coming next issue' section of the magazine and although I have shown them in this blog before, I've added a refresher picture below. That reminds me, there will be no new blog entry for the next 2 to 3 weeks, but if you click on the links under 'Blog Archive' there are 63 previous posts - feel free to make yourself at home and have a look back through my beading history. I hope to have some pretty new pictures to share with you before too long ♥

Late bluebells ...

The bluebells here in England this year put on a real show and my favourite area of woodland was covered by a scented carpet of them. I had never really thought about beading them before, but when I bent to look closely at them, I was fascinated by how delicate each little individual flower that goes towards making up the total impact is. I went against the country code and picked a couple of stems (in the name of art you understand!) and kept them in a small vase in my studio so that I could follow them as closely as possible. Of course the real bluebells have all gone now, but finally, after nearly two weeks of trial and error, I have some little beaded bluebell earrings to show you.

I chose a semi-matte cylinder bead in a cobalt blue with an AB finish,which seemed quite close to the colour and feel of a real bluebell and added three of them to each earring to create a cluster. Once again, I have used long sterling silver earwires so that you get a lot of movement when you are wearing them, just like my 'Swingin' Poppies' and I've also added to the series by creating some 'Swingin' Daisies' too.

All three pairs of earrings are for sale in my Etsy store.