Kites and cubes - The big ones

A week ago, I posted about using tiny 1.8 mm cube beads for a kite shape and announced this post about using the 3 mm cubes.

These bigger beads and I have a bit of a fraught relationship. When I started out crocheting and then knitting with wire, a friend told me that she had big cube and triangle beads which would be just perfect. They were leftovers from her beading days - that should have been a warning, if she didn't know how to use them, how would I? - and she would make me a good price.
In the end, I gave in and literally regretted it for years. The triangle beads were easier to use, but the cubes - there were loads and they were too heavy to use really many of them in pieces of jewelry ... I can't even tell you how often I tried something and ripped it up again. Finally, I used quite a few in my "pineapple slices" aka Christmas ornaments.
 

One experiment from when I also started bead looming was using them for that. Where the tiny cubes worked quite well, though, the big ones just didn't look and feel right at all.
Eventually I cut up the one bracelet I had made and the big tube of beads went back into the tin with all my tiny cubes where I found it again now.
Years ago I had a regular "tackle that stash" day on my blog to motivate myself to use up really old supplies - maybe it was time to tackle this bead tube ...

So this is how these two pairs of earrings were created (and now there are only about a dozen beads left which I call success).
I'm sure you have seen the earrings which have a beaded triangle on top, sometimes a diamond with four sides of the same length, in one or more colors, sometimes with a pattern, and a fringe.
 

My own "Jaws" design

This is the same idea, only with "cube kites".
For the fringes I dug into my stash of tiny crystals - and promptly threw a bunch of them all over the place 😂
It's difficult to catch in a picture, but I quite like the contrast of matte and sparkle.
Which version do you like better?

Kites and cubes - The tiny ones

K was a kite
Which flew out of sight,
Above houses so high,
Quite into the sky.

(From the Nonsense Alphabet
by Edward Lear)

I love tiny cube beads, so when I was able a few years ago to get a surprise assortment at a sale price from one of the bead shops I order from, I jumped right on it.
Then I remembered that as cute as they are, I always struggled a bit what to do with them. I loomed with them (the result is stiffer than with seed or cylinder beads) ...

... I wire knitted with them (so slinky) ...

... I did peyote with them, in the round and folded ...

... and I still had a box full of cube tubes (this wasn't even everything I made).
So when I came upon a quick tutorial for a beaded diamond kite shape, I thought I'd give that a try (this isn't the only tut for it, it was just the first popping up in my recommendation, but it works well) with cubes instead of cylinder beads.
I first made a test piece in Delicas and immediately decided that instead of the original design I wanted to make some variations, ripping up the test piece again.
These are the results so far.

The kite shape made me think of Art Deco patterns and inspired this design. Simple but with a bold color combination.

One theory is that kites have their name from the hovering birds of prey. In German, however, we call the bird "Milan" and the tethered flying object "Drachen" after dragons.
Inspired by the name, I beaded a smaller version of the design and added dragon charms. Readers who have been around for a while know I can't resist a nice dangle and I love these 3D dragons!

I also tried a pair of earrings using just the open V shape in a combination of clear, pearly white, and matte black cubes.
While I liked the color combination, I wasn't completely happy with the overall look and will be playing with that some more.

Delicas as used in the tutorial are very uniform beads, the cubes not so much although I cull the ones that are way too big or crooked. So it was a nice surprise how well it worked after all.

Cubes also stiffen the design a bit which isn't a bad thing for earrings.
These beads come in different sizes, so expect another post with some "big ones" (3 mm instead of 1.8).