Movement

Surpriiiiiiise! It's me! Alive ... kind of, the heat isn't helping. Kicking ... sure, mostly things that won't hurt my foot, but help me to let out some of the frustration. Determined ... as heck!

Moving? Hm.

Actually movement is this months's Jewelry Artisans Community blog carnival theme.

Things are moving eternally. Planets, stars, rivers, animals - not my cats at the moment, they are mostly passing out from the heat - cars and socks. Not sure what kind of movement socks prefer, but they must move or I wouldn't have ended up with one white and one black one after folding laundry.

I'm moving sometimes, if not the whole me, then at least my hands ;-) Typing, looming, crocheting, knitting.

I'm sure you noticed the very clever bridge I created for myself to get to the jewelry.

I have never really thought that much about movement in jewelry before. Spontaneously I think of spinner rings, then those gold clown/harlequin pendants with the movable arms and legs that were so popular, no idea if they still are, I'm not a big fan of clowns. Maybe you remember my teddy pendant, also with movable arms and legs.

For me it's mostly about dangles, I guess. I have always been fascinated by dangling earrings. I remember when I was about 12 or so. A shop had new clip-on earrings, but finally not the bulky ones that you could only wear with a costume and made you feel old, like at least 25. No, there was the clip-on part, a long chain hanging from it and charms. Ah, they were so expensive for a young girl, 15 DM back then, I'll never forget that, but one pair I had to have, with tiny four-leaf clovers.

Then when I got my ears pierced, there was no stopping me. When packing up things I found a few of my "treasures" from that early time and except for a few pair of hoops they were all the dangly kind.

And then there came the bead looming and the little dangles on the chain I used for the closures on my cuffs. Lampwork, Swarovski crystals, no way I could leave one without a dangle.

What really took the prize however was when I learned to make brick stitch extensions, so perfect to hang something from them. I'll let the following pictures speak for themselves and just tell you to be scared or excited - there are new designs shaping in my head already.

Bleeding Hearts

Bollywood Bells

I vill bite you

 Also take a look at the other JAC members' posts and their take on "movement"! I'll add more links as I get them.

Bead Sophisticate

Islandgirl's Insights
N Valentine Studio
Violetmoon's Corner 
J3 Jewelry

No quote of the week or By the way.

I want to apologize if things don't go normal the next few weeks, maybe even months. I know you wonder why I use the word "normal" at all.

What I mean is that I can't promise regular blog posts. Not even the quotes of the week because most of my DVDs are in big boxes at the moment. You can see there is none today and I can already say there also won't be any finds of the week tomorrow.

Life isn't easy for me these days and I don't always have control of how and when things happen. Please bear with me and my swinging moods ;-)

And as none of my posts is complete without a picture, I'll show you one of a cuff you don't know. Actually I can't believe I haven't shown it to you already because I have to admit I was pretty proud of the idea.

Saturday night ramblings

We didn't have those for a while, did we?

Let's make it short however.

I baked. You might think this is not exactly a big achievement, but knowing me ... well, it is. I'm amazed and stunned by myself, so much actually that I can almost ignore the knuckle I burnt in my usual klutzy way. It's not bad, it doesn't really show, it just hurts to remind me I'm a klutz.

What do I care? I got something to show and to eat, and mind you, even if I'm saying it myself, they are good, my "Seelen" which is what these bread rolls are called. It translates to "souls".

It's not the only thing I achieved in the last days. I won't bore you with stories of grocery shopping and folding laundry, but just show you the good stuff.

Do you remember the Gingham fabric pattern I made? With the beads that didn't want to play nice?

Well, I made two other patterns and am about to finish a more cooperative Gingham cuff. I'm having way too much fun with these.

This one is listed already - Houndstooth I

I took most of the pictures for this one and already edited them, I just need one more shot of the snaps, but you know how it is - Argyle (I love this one and would love to see it in different color combinations)

And of course a bad sneak peek pic of my Gingham WIP.

Ehm, yes. Not that short after all ....

Peeking in

If I'm peeking in, I think I should give you something to peek at as well.

To distract myself I have been looming like crazy. Counting beads and making patterns are perfect brain stoppers, for me at least.

Let me show you my latest.

It does help to know Monty Python to understand what that is. And no, the red is not cabbage.

Mine, mine, mine!

Yours, yours, yours ... maybe? Eventually?

For those who still didn't get it ......

Time out

You wonder where I am? To be honest I wonder a bit myself. Things beyond my control are going on, and as you could tell I didn't feel much like posting and will probably not be around that much in the near future.

The good thing is that there are things still within my control, like the beads. There are a few finished pieces and a few WIPs.

Wanna see? Enjoy (although you'll have to deal with some bad sneak peek pics).

The Beader - if you take a close look and are a little familiar with seed beads, you might be able to see that this pattern was made after a close-up shot of seed beads.

 

Who knows who that will be? Actually he's finished already, but I'm waiting for a clasp order to get the cuff finished all the way. Little hint - there will be a companion eventually.

No sneak peek pic because this cuff was actually listed (oh miracle!). It's gone already, though.

Blue gingham. I struggled a lot with this cuff because the dark blue beads decided they ain't no friends o' mine. Thank you for nothing, silver lined matte cobalt blue. As you can see I didn't let them beat me!

 

Whimpering and rambling

Seriously, I can't handle a new addiction. I feel torn between one technique and the other, I fall in love with one kind of design and want to make it in a thousand different colors, and then there are still those ideas from the list I made two years ago, one year ago, four months ago.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Ok, that helped. Not. You know I'm very unsocial at the moment. I'm happiest with two or three cats fighting for the best place on or near me, with a DVD playing, in my little fort whose walls are built from a loom, a bead mat, bead cups, wire, findings, beads, cabs, crochet hooks in different sizes and two remote controls. I don't need to talk and I am much too lazy - although I prefer to call it happily relaxed - to go outside and buy food. The selection at home is not that great at the moment, but as long as I still have milk, I don't really mind. Don't worry, I had spaghetti with veggie bolognese last night, I won't starve. And if there's danger of starving (if you know me, you'll find this as funny as I do), there's still nice Indian food waiting for me across the street. Very tempting.

I should take pictures and edit them before they take my Picnik away. I have played with other photo editing programs, downloads and online, but so far none of them has been IT for me.

Let's get to my latest addiction now however. I better write fast, the cats are in a strange mood today, and I have no idea when they'll get up and try to scream each other down again, crazy bunch.

A while ago I got myself some gold and silver Kumihimo cord. It lay around waiting forever, but suddenly its time had come.

Would you have thought that cord, tiny glass cubes and other beads might look good together? Well, I did, thanks to Erin the Evil Enabler. You might remember her.

Inspired by one of my favorite quotes I now want to say "I'm gonna need a bigger cube stash." As in Miyuki cube. You saw what I did with the bigger ones, I'll show you what I do with the tiny ones.

Those pearls (from Crysallis Gems, another enabler ;-)) look good enough to lick. I bet they would taste like chocolate. They sure look like it.

Unfortunately I found that I didn't have the right clasp for this cuff, so it's not listed yet.

Oh darn. I knew I wasn't fast enough. The "food patrol" is here demanding food for starving cats. To avoid more screaming and hissing, I'll obey.

I'll turn some music on for you and be right back.

I just hope 6 minutes will be enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amazing. I'm a real speed feeder.

On with the story. As I had so much fun with doing this cuff, I decided to go through my beads and see what else I had and I found tiger eye.

Then I had some more fun ;-)

Bead loomed cuff with tiger eye

THEN I ordered some more cord in different colors and now I need to decide what color cubes I want .... *sigh*

If you came that far, I can only admire you. Thanks!

A new year - a new technique

Actually this wouldn't be a new technique for me if I right away had followed the whole tutorial I once got from Yoola Design, but you know me, being playful and impatient I don't deal with tutorials well and this has nothing at all to do with the tutorial itself, just me *inhaling deeply* That had to be said first.

Maybe it just came at the wrong time for me, though.

Now someone suggested the subject "New techniques" for the year's first blogring of my jewelry team on the Jewelry Artisans Community (no names will be told) and I had to think of something. It's not as if there isn't anything on my list, but none of it would fall into the urgent category, so I was pretty much at a loss at first.

Then I remembered this technique, though. I have seen it described as wire crochet (it's different from the wire crochet I have done so far) or as wire knitting. The finished product looks like a knit piece to me, but you can't grip the wire well with knitting needles, a crochet hook works much better. It also reminds on working on a knitting spool, just without the spool, and you can't just make tubes, but also flat pieces.

Actually that is what I have been making, bracelets and a necklace. This year has only just begun, I have time to try different items, I hope.

Let me show you what I have so far.

This was my first attempt. You can tell by the irregularity of the stitches. I had planned to make a simple bracelet without any extras, but I couldn't stop myself, so instead I made a long strip of wire whose edges I then crocheted together so that I could fill the bracelet with small beads.

This bracelet is by no means perfect, but I learned a lot from it already and I'll keep the design in mind.

My second attempt called for a slightly thicker wire and beads. What a nice coincidence it was that I still had the blue seed beads on the dark blue wire. Yes, this was certainly getting addictive as it turned out so nicely.

Now I started wondering if it would also work with bigger beads. A while ago I had gotten myself a few tubes of large Miyuki cubes not even knowing what I wanted to use them for.

I chose the silver-lined clear cubes and teamed them up with black wire. I wasn't all that happy about the cubes along the edges, though. It was ok, but round beads would have looked better ... or maybe no beads at all?

This took me to my next piece and this time I decided to really dig in. Bright red Miyuki cubes and clear AB finish Swarovski crystals ... bling, bling, bling. Believe me, these pictures might give you a vague idea, but they can't show the sparkle. What I like a lot is also how the cubes give the cuff a nice weight and still leave it slinky.

You know how I always seek to use up my stash? Well, here we go. Hm, more cubes. I really have to go and look for some round beads next, huh?

I'm not the only one in my team trying out a new technique. Please also visit:
Jewelry Art by Dawn
Bead Sophisticate 

Oh, and by the way, I just had a new idea for cuff #3. I still have those blue cubes somewhere ... stay tuned!

Friday Musings Illustrated

I bet you know the excitement of finding a long expected parcel in your mailbox. This landed in my mailbox yesterday as part of a swap in my bead looming group (if you are curious and want to know more about bead looming, check out Erin Simonetti's blog, but be sure to sit while having a look), it came all the way from Australia from the lovely Gretchen.

Isn't it beautiful and slinky? And it's MINE!

I haven't shared my latest adventures in looming with you for a while. These are just a few of my latest cuffs. As you can see I'm still experimenting.

I have been wanting to tell you about this snail for a while. The talented ColtPixy (sssh, she has a 50 % clearance sale in her ArtFire studio right now!!) swapped her for some of my things. I'm totally in love with her, can you see why?

What else have I been up to ... let me think. I listed more pieces, I took pictures, I scheduled blog posts and I have to giggle every time I hear the name Tesla, but that's a long story. I cooked, I keep struggling with level 50 of an online game and yell /$%§/$/"" a lot. I give Esme her pills and am happy that she comes back to me afterwards instead of hiding. I am working on an eye pendant, slightly creepy, but fun.

And I had a far too long nap this afternoon which kept me from folding the laundry. What a shame ;-) You won't get to see a picture of that, either. Oh yeah, I should write two e-mails quite urgently.

One more last picture before I go, for those who don't read Ponder's blog. Isn't he like a visitor from the past?

Kitty Halloween

Halloween is creeping nearer and cats, well, they are always creeping around here (except Greebo who is snoring up a storm right now) and how things sometimes go ... I lost my Halloween witch cuff. Not really lost as in "no idea where it is, I have been looking everywhere!", but as in "ooooh, I like, did you want to keep that?". Money changed hands in a dark alley at midnight, the witch flew off with someone else and I had the best excuse to make another one for myself. Alright, baby! Or maybe alright, kitty?

P.S. The tail is crocheted from wire with beads. I didn't lose the touch for the hook, hehe.

Mary Poppins, incomplete hearts and a witch

Since I was a child, I have loved the Mary Poppins books by P. L. Travers. I can't say how often I read them. I still read them regularly. I always wished I could have been one of those children, and it's impossible for me to pick my favorite adventure.

When looking at the pendant I just listed I remember the story about Mary's relative. He could repair all kinds of porcelain things, cups, figurines, but he could also repair something much more important - hearts.

Have you ever wondered how to repair a heart that is not just broken, but missing a piece? I just couldn't help myself, this beautiful green freeform cab reminded me of an incomplete heart, so I went on a mission - I made the heart complete by crocheting fine silver wire into the missing piece. I hid the "scar" with rainbow moonstones. And yes, you have seen it before, but I didn't explain anything about it then, AND it's listed now. Progress!

Make my heart whole, now on Zibbet

I also have a confession to make. I don't have enough time. Now that I'm not only married to my crochet hooks, but have also caught the looming bug, I'm probably doomed.

Let me show you my latest cuff. Can you see I'm looking forward to Halloween? And here the circle is closing. I first read about Halloween in a Mary Poppins book. Yes, it's true, I swear!

By the way, even if I don't have any loomed cuffs in my shop (yet?), let me know if you want to talk about one.

Hope, cats and cuffs

I'm sitting here and there's a cool breeze coming through the windows. It feels so good! I have a little hope now that I'll survive after all. I'm not so sure about my brain, though. Those brain cells just melted away over the last days. Even the cats were knocked out by the hot weather. I have two pictures to prove it and believe me, the others weren't better off.

There is NO picture of me being sprawled all over the bed like a dead octopus. I don't want to scare you away.

My poor girl Esme - mowed down by a heat wave in the prime of her life

Smart move, Ponder, to rest your head on a warm laptop during that heat

It's a good thing Mabel's brain cells are as good as ever (what a show-off). I'll just show you two cuffs that she made me create recently. She was no help however in cataloging my books, blogging (!) or editing pictures of my vacation (and blogging about that as well). Yup, Mabel has a very one-sided mind. And she refuses to cook - which is actually a good thing now, but not so good at lower temperatures.

With a beautiful lampwork bead by Pink Beach Studios - it's for my Mom

Against the light, so you can see the pattern better - the edging is made from tiny red carnelian beads

Cuff of Modern Art - for myself. Somehow it makes me think of lots of framed pictures

P.S. Don't think all I do is bead looming now. I just can't take too many pictures at once. Our command center (aka computer room) and my photo setup are under the roof ... hot, hot ... and I can't stand that for long, remember

Cats and beads

No, this is not a post about cats helping me to make bead soup. They are good bead soup cooks, that's true, but this post is about Denis and Kirsten. They are no cats, but they are both artists.

Denis made my shop logo for me - thanks again! - and Kirsten ... wait, let me show the logo first. Here you go.

The other day I stumbled upon Kirsten's - aka Quernus Crafts - work (have a look at her Flickr gallery) and when I saw her "Wee Cats" album, the idea jumped me from behind and didn't let go until I had written to her about a custom order.

She transferred the cat, now named Denis, into a polymer clay sculpture and she did such a great job at it!

Her work is full of whimsy, let me just mention the mouse beautician or the mouse family with baby sleeping on Dad's chest or the kitties or the police mole or the adorable snails - there's so much more, you have to look for yourself.

Kirsten's work can be found at her different shops, click here to find out where.

That was the cats part, now let's get to the beads part.

I have something to confess - after years of resistance, yes, even laughing openly in the face of those who wanted to convert me, they finally got me. I'm not sure anymore how it happened, but suddenly I stood at the customs office staring at a beading loom together with a customs officer, both of us trying to figure out how, what, where and why.

I guess I figured out at least part of it as following pictures show.

Thank you to E³ or EEE. If you read this, you'll know who you are. For those who don't know, that's her.

And here's the result. I'm afraid there will be more to come. Those people are evil *whispering* Once you are in their net ...........

My cat Ponder when he was still a young'un, pattern by the Evil Enabler Erin Simonetti

My first own pattern

Big Bling Theory

A bad pun, I know, but after working on one bling Swarovski cuff after the other this weekend, I couldn't come up with anything smart.

Black, crystal, silver, padparadscha, montana blue, crystal AB, copper - you'll find all of these colors in the cuffs. They have different lengths and widths and patterns ... now I think I won't want to see a Swarovski crystal for some time!

Well, of course after I have taken photographs and listed these six ;-)