12/08/2022

Puffy stars - The eighth door


The things I'm doing for this advent calendar!
For years and years I have been resisting the beaded puffy stars, however pretty they may be, for several reasons.
While I have slowly begun to dip my toe into the waters of off-loom beading more and more (mostly because I still don't trust a certain tabby cat around my loom), I still consider myself to be quite the beginner and creating structural pieces is completely new to me.

Another reason is my lack of patience for video tutorials that are longer than five minutes (which says a lot more about me than about the tutorials!), but also knowing I wouldn't be able to make the stars without one.
Last but definitely not least these stars are made of five components. You know how much I struggle with even making a pair of identical earrings. FIVE identical components??
I know. I could make this much more interesting by going for a more complicated pattern. Excuse me while I am once again laughing madly.

For the sake of finding enough topics for this advent calendar, however, I jumped into the very cold water of puffy peyote stars after all, with two different randomly chosen tutorials, this one by Bronzepony Beaded Jewelry and this one by Off The Beaded Path.
My first attempt came out a little more squishy than intended, but is still pretty.


Then I almost lost my mind over my incredibly simple "pattern" of the first star I did in all-Delicas. I very quickly abandoned the idea of making these as Christmas gifts for our vet practice. Maybe for next year if I make one a month? ;-)

All in all, I'm happy that I tackled this personal challenge and got it out of my system for now.
It's crystal clear to me, however, that I will never make a star with a more complicated pattern or a much bigger star even if in a simple pattern. There are projects that are much more interesting to me.


Nevertheless, I could muster the patience for more than just two stars even if the only reason for that was a phase during which I seriously lacked the motivation to do much else. Stars to the rescue, who would have thought? I only played with colors and small sizes, however, not with patterns. Again, that will not ever happen.
So here's my little collection now. Some became gifts, some went into my decoration after I had taken the pictures for the first day of this calendar.


What became painfully obvious to me again, though, was that I obviously have no natural geometrical understanding at all! I guess my math teachers never stood a chance.

6 comments:

  1. Puffy stars are very logical and I found them fun... however I have so many abandoned partially made puffy hearts that it isn't even funny and no there is no finished one. I realized yesterday how many abandonned video tutorials I bought during the pandemic... I just can't sit and watch a computer screen, even with knitting which means I'm not taking notes or really paying full attention to the video!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's my problem, I guess. I'm not very logical and I hate geometry except for looking at it.
      I can get YouTube on my TV which helps a lot, a computer screen is too small for me to be comfortable. Even with the TV, however, I can't say how often I had to stop and rewind and forward to do these!
      There really is a reason why I don't usually use tutorials.

      Delete
  2. I am sorry they gave you so much trouble, but I am absolutely in love with your beautiful stars. They are just gorgeous in all their colors and patterns. So many possibilities - tree decorations, earrings, necklaces...

    ReplyDelete
  3. These stars are beautiful! I’m going to make note of the tutorials. I may need to try these!

    Michelle
    https://mybijoulifeonline.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please do and don't give up early like I almost did. If my non-geometric brain has been able to figure it out, I'm sure you can do this!

      Delete