The Floribunda Story!

Hello everyone!

Do you remember Floribunda Bangle? Back in 2013 (Gulp! Was it really 7 years ago?) Preciosa Ornela gave me the opportunity to create a collection of work to showcase their striped seed beads. This was perfect timing for me because Mum had recently passed away, and having an important creative assignment that I could immerse myself in was just the thing I needed to be able to quietly process my thoughts and feelings as I came to terms with my loss. I spent several months experimenting with these beautiful beads, creating a variety of finished pieces - some wearable, some for decoration and some purely whimsical. One of the items was Floribunda Bangle.

I always knew that Flori wasn't shy. Big and bold, full of movement and fun, she was a popular girl from the moment she came to life and for several years after. She received lots of attention on social media, graced the cover of a magazine, became a calendar girl, was also selected to appear in the Playful Perfection book and even got a mention on live TV on JewelleryMaker.

Fast forward to the summer of 2019, when suddenly Preciosa Ornela asked if I could make matching earrings and a necklace so that a full Floribunda set could be used for an exhibition in Prague in 2020. I already had lots of work on at that time, but it seemed such a great privilege that of course I happily agreed. Now, I believe that 'Floribunda' is Latin for "many flowering", so I knew that to make a necklace worthy of being Floribunda Bangle's big sister would require a LOT of flowers. Of course I could have saved time and effort and made a single flower to hang on a chain, that might have looked lovely and elegant, but Flori wouldn't have approved, so I made a start.

I tried to do a rough calculation of how many flowers I would need to make, how much time I had and how many flowers I would need to make per day. However, I am not the least bit mathematically minded, and so I ended up having to make nearly double my original estimate to create a really dense cluster of flowers that encircled the neck. It took 80 flowers to fill a neckwire and to make matching earrings and each flower took approximately 1 hour to make. I beaded in the evenings, at weekends, on car journeys - every spare minute was spent working on Floribunda flowers and when I closed my eyes, all I could see were stripes!

Florence, my beautiful model, helped me a great deal. She patiently wore the part-made necklace, and at the end of each day I added a few more flowers, wondering how many I could make the next day, just how many more would I need to make and would I have enough striped beads to finish it? Beading is a wonderful satisfying pastime, but any professional beader will tell you that when the pressure is on, it can turn into something else. It was August and the UK was experiencing a heatwave, my clammy fingers kept losing a grip on the needle, the perspiration ran into my eyes, the Fireline thread cut into my fingers and made them bleed, but I had to keep going to meet the deadline. To keep me motivated, I tried to imagine a gorgeous catwalk model wearing a set of beaded jewellery that I had made.

After nearly two weeks, I was satisfied that I had made enough flowers to bunch up nicely on the neckwire and I breathed a sigh of relief. All I had to do then was make a couple more flowers for a simple pair of earrings and I was done. A few quick pictures were taken, some rough notes made and then the Floribunda necklace and earrings were carefully packaged up, ready to be sent to the Czech Republic for professional photography and to take their place in the exhibition. I crossed my fingers that everything would arrive safely.

And now, seven months later, here is the beautiful model wearing the full Floribunda set of bangle, necklace and earrings. When I look at the picture below, I can hardly believe that I am looking at my work. Despite my small frustrations during the making of the necklace and earrings, I am delighted to have been part of this, and I would like to thank Preciosa Ornela for entrusting me with this undertaking.  The pieces are currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Glass Art Portheimka in Prague, representing beads and seed beads from the PRECIOSA Traditional Czech Beads™ brand as part of the Stardust - Luxury Czech Jewellery exhibition. The exhibition runs from the 9th of March 2020 to the 14th of June 2020 and is open to the public.

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes in the making of these pieces. I am already working on the next exciting project, so watch this space ...

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 ♥

Farewell 2013!

Hello everyone!

Well it's that time again, the end of another year. At this point in time I like to stand on an imaginary threshold and look over my shoulder reviewing the past year while taking an excited peek at the coming year. For me, 2013 was a year of incredible highs and terrible lows with one event that very nearly stopped me beading, it nearly stopped me breathing if I am honest but I am hopeful that 2014 will be kinder to me and that nothing will ever take the shine off my beads. Looking back I can see that I have been blogging for 6 years now and written 152 blog posts. My work has changed and yet stayed the same but my confidence has grown and I have formed some strong relationships with various people and companies in the bead world and although I carry a lot of sadness right now I find myself in a good solid place ready to move into the new year and to bead on. There are lots of plans in the pipeline which I will share throughout 2014 but before I put the lid on 2013 I have a few links and pictures to share - December has been a busy month!

The first piece of news is that one of the Kumihimo pieces I created for Prima Bead has been published in the latest issue of Bead & Button magazine and it made the cover! Looking at that cover really makes me smile and appreciate the good things that happened in 2013 as although I designed the project, it is very much a collaborative piece involving some of the people and companies that I have joined forces with: the tools and the push to learn Kumihimo were provided by Prima Bead, the grey seed beads fit in with my Midnight Garden collection and came from my friend Kandra at Kandra's Beads, the silver flowercup beads are by Preciosa Ornela and came from www.yorkbeads.com, the beautiful clasps came from A Grain Of Sand and of course the project was published by Bead & Button magazine.

In the same issue of the magazine there is also an 'Artist Profile' featuring my recent work and in it I talk a lot about my collaborations with Prima Bead, Preciosa and York including my recent work with striped seed beads and many of the new bead shapes on the market. The hard work of the recent couple of years seems to have come together beautifully and I am very grateful to all of these people and more for giving me the opportunity to show what I can do.

 

Just a few days prior to the Kumihimo project and profile being published in the magazine, Bead & Button also released another one of the projects I created for Preciosa Ornela as a FREE digital download. This time it is a quick and easy bangle that uses the new Pellet™ beads and all you need to do is to click on this link and then either sign in or register to download the pattern.

And a few days before that, issue 7 of Digital Beading Magazine (another favourite of mine) was released and I have two designs in this issue, one of which was shown on the cover of the magazine. Holiday Hearts (shown above) was created for Preciosa Ornela earlier this year as part of my striped seed bead collection but we decided that these quick and easy rustic looking hearts made perfect tree decorations and so I made a few more to decorate the editor's Christmas tree!

The other project that appears in Digital Beading Magazine is one of the designs I created for Preciosa using their exciting new Thorn™ beads and the project includes instructions on how to make these eye-catching bracelets and rings.

So that is how the year ended and today I am reflective and thankful but tomorrow I will begin working on the glittering pile that beckons me and seeing where the path of 2014 leads me.

Happy New Year everyone!

Kerrie ♥

Catching the 94050 to who knows where ...!

Hello everyone!

I think you know by now that I am a big fan of making the most of the technological age that we live in: I Pin, I blog, I Tweet, I Facebook, I'm LinkedIn and I put my photos in the bucket. My computer enables me to do all of the above as well as connect with beaders around the world, share photos, order beads, write tutorials and it emails patterns to my customers whether they live in Guadeloupe or Tasmania or virtually everywhere in between. I am truly grateful for having these opportunities at my fingertips and I love that the beading world has no real boundaries which is why I enjoy it when beads go on a journey:-

This story starts with these gorgeous striped seed beads from Preciosa Ornela which were made in the Czech Republic. Remember those beautiful shade number 94050 beads that I fell in love with earlier this year? If you read their description of 'brown with a black and white stripe' you may never look at them twice and although these have an AB finish, they still hide their beauty when they are packed tightly together in their bags - but take a look what happens when they are set free!

Although these beads already have a long and interesting story of their own, the next chapter saw them sent to me in England. At first I just opened the bags and marvelled at their glossy beauty, mesmerised by the rich colours and flashes of gold with visions of faraway spice markets, ripe juicy berries and exotic blooms filling my mind. And then I got out my Fireline and wove them together.

The finished pieces were then returned to Preciosa in the Czech Republic where they were professionally photographed and shown on Preciosa's website and Flickr page before being sent back to England.

The next instalment saw the two pieces temporarily separated and the Pinstriped Petals went to discover the delights of Australia and to be photographed for Digital Beading Magazine. If you would like to purchase the pattern for this design, it is available in issue 6 of the magazine.

The little Flower Slides on their burgundy ribbon, flew in the opposite direction to the USA where they were photographed by Bead & Button magazine and the pattern for this is now available as a free download.

These particular travelling 94050's will soon be making their way back to England again as their work in spreading the word about their beauty is done. But I still have lots more waiting to be woven and with the world at my fingertips, who knows where they will go ...

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥
 

Stripe Mania!

Hello everyone!

This is going to be an unusual post from me because firstly this is the second post in one week (I'm normally a sporadic blogger) and secondly because it will be very long as I have been saving up lots to say! I have been working as a kind of ambassador for the giant Czech Republic based bead manufacturer Preciosa Ornela for almost a year now and my first assignment was to work with their Twin™ seed beads which I blogged about here and Preciosa wrote about here. My next task was to work with their range of striped seed beads and I spent many weeks between January and May experimenting and trying to create a collection that would showcase their diversity and potential. Although I have been able to show a few of my striped pieces that either appeared in magazine adverts or projects, I was asked not to show the full collection until Preciosa had chance to photograph the pieces and write an article for their website about our collaboration, which they have now done and you can see it here.

Although I have built up a vast collection of seed beads, I did not possess one single striped bead and until I started working with them I had no idea of the beautiful range of colours and finishes available - from the basic blue and white striped bead to shade number 94050 that is technically a boring sounding brown with a black and white stripe but actually looks like a gorgeous shiny maroon with an ab finish. I also discovered what interesting effects you can create by using striped beads and it was quite a lesson to me how different a bag of unassuming striped beads can look when herringboned or brick stitched together. I can happily say that I am a complete convert to the Czech glass striped seed bead and I will certainly be using them again in the future! The first striped pieces I created were three critters - Flash the owl, Podger the rabbit and Crusty (the fox with the LONG tail and the SHORT temper). I used solely blue and white striped beads for these as I was inspired by the Chinese blue and white porcelain animal shaped beads I had seen. I have to say that I am really happy with the way these turned out and how they all seem to have their own personalities. Little Flash was lucky enough to appear in a full page advert in Beadstyle magazine and Digital Beading Magazine.

My next experiments with stripe beads resulted in Stripes in Bloom. I fell in love with these purply blue beads with the thin white stripes as soon as I saw them and I thought that paired with the green beads with the yellow stripe they would make a striking floral brooch/pin. It just so happened that I had a Czech glass button in my collection with the same colours in it and so I used that as an eye-catching centrepiece. This piece appeared in an advert in Bead & Button magazine

 

As St. Valentine's Day was fast approaching I was inspired to make some simple folksy Rustic Hearts next. These use size 6 beads so they are quite large, but with a narrow strip of ribbon threaded through the top they make nice little home decoration ornaments.

Next in line it was Floribunda Bangle - a big bold statement piece that uses a mixture of white based beads with a thin coloured stripe of either red, blue or green. I often like to make jewellery that can be worn in more than one way and these flowers (half red with a blue stripe and half blue with a red stripe but all with a green stem) can be slipped onto a bangle and worn as a full floral display or you can wear just a few or even a single one on a chain as a pretty pendant. You can find the instructions for this piece in issue 3 of  Digital Beading Magazine and it also appears on the cover.

While making the flowers for Floribunda Bangle I had some ideas for other shapes of flowers and as I still had lots of brightly coloured stripe beads that I hadn't had chance to use, I decided to make Podger an ornamental garden. There are twelve tasty flowers in Podger's Garden and each one is a slightly different shape and all of them are freestanding which means that they can be moved around to create different scenes.

In April I took a big bag of striped beads with me to Spain for a couple of weeks (and yes, I did get stopped by bemused customs officials at the airport) and whilst enjoying the sunshine I whipped up a couple more stripey creations. Despite being surrounded by the vibrant colours of the Spanish flora and fauna, the first piece I made was a monochrome necklace: Czecherboard Vine. I really enjoyed working with these beads as they have a matte finish which is so soft and smooth that they are not only lovely to work with but feel great against the skin when worn too.

The green and yellow beads I used for Stripes in Bloom seemed to lend themselves to making realistic looking knobbly vines and leaves and so (still in Spain) I went back to colour and made a matching necklace and bracelet: Stripitwisticus Major and Stripitwisticus Minor.

By the time I returned home from Spain I had hardly any time left to finish working with the striped seed beads but I still had some beads that I hadn't got around to using - remember those 94050 brown beads with the black and white stripe? Well hopefully Pinstripe Petals and Sliding Stripes show you just what a beautiful finish these beads have. If I could only pick one striped bead, it would be these.

Well that's my news with lots of pretty pictures of what I was up to during those missing months! I hope you enjoy the results of my beady efforts with these Czech glass striped beads - let me know which one is your favourite piece and whether these will perhaps inspire you to do some stripey experiments of your own.

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥