Friday, January 15, 2010

Disco, disco (duck!)

I've been having a grand time playing with a new tutorial written by my friend Cindy at Bead Origami. It's her Disco Ball beaded bead, and after making one where I actually followed the directions, I quickly began branching out and trying new ideas. Before I knew it, I had seven beads in the same color scheme that needed a home, and another pair in a different color scheme that became earrings.

But this story is not about the earrings; they're jewelry already. Nope, this story is about the seven different olive and bronze beaded beads that have been rolling around my beading board. They needed to be together in some sort of necklace; since I've been wanting to make a netted lariat for quite awhile now, I decided to get right on it.

After several false starts, I settled on a 3-bead spiral netting stitch with size 15° beads. It makes a sturdy, but flexible, tube about 5mm across; it's a good size for the beaded beads, which range in size from about 15-20mm in diameter. I'm too lazy to go look for my calipers right now, so that's probably off a bit, but you get the idea. The beaded beads will be at the ends of the ropes; four little ones on one side, and three larger ones on the other. There might be some additional ornamentation involved; there usually is.

However . . . after netting for two days, I've begun to realize that this is going to take awhile. I've got about 14 inches done, and I need about 48 inches.

Or not.

2 comments:

Kokopelli said...

Yes, sometimes beadwork takes forever. Especially when there are "dust particles" (aka 15/0's)involved.

Cynthia Newcomer Daniel said...

LOL! Yup, it was a moment of madness that got me started on this one. But it really does make a pretty rope . . . if I can only stick with it to the end! I'm already wondering if a lariat of, oh, say 30 inches is long enough . . . . !