in the works

I posted last month about how I was going to rework my Something Blue bracelet.  I got my beads and set to work on it last week.

Sometimes I have a specific idea of how I'm going to make a piece when I start it, but other times I have an idea for a base and then see where it goes.  This is one of those pieces.  I knew that I was going to start with a right angle weave base, but I wasn't sure how I was going to the embellishment.  It will come together though.

The theme for the October EBW Challenge is Picasso.  You can read more about it here.  I know Picasso's more famous paintings, but it's been fun discovering a lot of other ones while doing some research for this challenge.  I've never been a huge Picasso fan, but I'm determined to do as many challenges as possible this year, so I was game for this one.

I wanted a piece with a lot of color and settled on Mediterranean Landscape.  I got this picture of it from allposters.com.

While were in DC, I chose this painting and sketched out my idea for the color distribution of my piece.  I'm sure that some people think that this is old-fashioned, but I still do a lot of my brainstorming on paper.

I still haven't decided about the charms.  I have plenty of house charms.  I think that a simple sailboat charm would pair nicely with it.  Something like this.  Any thoughts?


I picked out the bead colors this week.  Yes, there are a lot!

I did my mix carefully so I would have an appropriate color distribution.  I started with the most frequently used colors.

I was so happy when I saw how this came together.  I love how it echoes the shades of the painting.

Then I added the medium level colors.

Finally, I added the outlier colors.  There will only be a few of each of these last shades in the piece.

I know that some of the more prominent shades are buried now, but they'll still be the ones that I use the most frequently.

I'm planning a design that is very similar to Strawberry Fields Forever.  The challenge will be that I'm going to attempt to write the pattern.  There are a lot of turns for all of the layers.  I think that I'll be able to make diagrams for them with Word, but it will be a tedious process.  The challenge entry is due October 5.  I'm not promising to have the pattern done by that date even though the piece should be.  I'm working on the Something Blue piece first while I prepare myself for this challenge haha.

Also, on the subject of patterns, Mortira from Inspirational Beading mentioned something recently about writing a clasp pattern.  She's not working on it yet, just contemplating the idea.  She also uses a lot of non-metal clasps for her beadwork.  I think that this is a great idea.  Even if she does write one, too, it would be very different from mine, as she uses a lot of herringbone and square stitch techniques while most of my clasps involve buttons and/or peyote stitch.

This would be fairly different from most of my patterns so the write up would be slow going, but I think that it could be an excellent addition to my shop.  Most of the patterns that I've written have done well, and I'd like to add more to my shop.  Designing the Picasso piece and writing the pattern for it will be a fairly time consuming process, as will getting ready for my November show (I haven't price tagged any pieces in MONTHS), so don't expect this any time soon.  But I'm starting to take pictures for it and will work on it here and there.

Finally, here's my newest crafty hub: Craft Blogs: How to Start and Maintain Successful Blogs for Craft Businesses.