14-18.11.12 Stone slice Earrings based on Diane Fitzgerald brick stitch drops

Following a beautiful shirt I purchased recently, the ethnic motives very much inspired me. I knew I had to bead some jewelry to fit the shirt. The paisley drops seemed to be one of the many good options. The fact I already made one a few years ago, encouraged me to choose this option among all other possibilities. It's been years I haven't beadwoven with brick stitch! During beadwork, I gradually chose which color will follow next row, with no planning ahead. Happy with the result and process which has a bit of freeform relaxing beading. Will try to post the shirt picture one day.

14-16.11.12 Purple Victoria's Earrings #3 for mom

Following the pair I made for Miranda, mom was in love. So here is the present I made her for Hanuka.

4.11.12 Twinlill Earrings by Ewa Gyongy

Beautiful design, generously shared by Ewa, in this link.

20-31.10.12 Victoria's Earrings #2 for Miranda

After last trial, this time the pair is symmetric. The central crystal is shaped asymmetrically as opposed to the last pair I made.

Front side of earrings

Back side of Earrings

1st pair at the left and 2nd at the right

22-23.10.12 Trefoils Earrings by Melinda Barta

I love the simple design of these modules which can yet make such elegant and  impressive jewelry.

18-20.10.12 Petrova Zinaida Flower Spiral Bangle for Pierrette

Pierrette came to visit and loved the Flower spiral bracelet designed by Petrova Zinaida, published in the Russian book: MODELI IZ BISERA: POVSEDNEVNYE I VECHERNIE (p.75).

On the 21.5.2008, I beaded Petrova Zinaida's spiral as a bracelet (at the bottom in the picture below) following Naki's flower spiral (at the top below) to understand better how they differ from each other.

Back to this spiral after 4 years, I decided to bead a bangle for Pierrette, to avoid closure struggles. While closing the spiral to a bangle was quiet a challenge here, I made almost right, but not there yet!

Finally, here are some gorgeous presents Pierrette brought me from a Paris fair dedicated to help people suffering from some specific sickness I can't remember.

I would never guess that the bag below is especially made to carry a tart!!! What an original and beautiful present! Lucky to have such a generous aunt with good taste :-)

Tart Bag

Sewing Kit

16.10.12 Teardrop Earrings #2 for Pierrette

Following the last pair I made, those ones were beadwoven with Delica 10/0 and PF golden Toho 11/0 round beads, with 10 rows in total.

3-13.10.12 Teardrop Earrings by Diane Fitzgerald

Beadwoven with square silver-lined Matsuno 11/0 seed beads, based on the Teardrop project, from Diane Fitzgerald's latest book "Shaped beadwork", on p.27.

There are a few errors in the book instructions, corrected in the following corrigendum. I still had to alter a bit to adapt to the beads (which are not cylinder ones) and the preferred final earring's size.

4-13.10.12 "Harmonious array" Earrings to fit mom's necklace

Mom asked for a pair of earrings to fit the necklace I offered her last year. It is nice to have the opportunity to bead her something that I know she will like and wear.

25-26.9.12 Little Button Loafers #2 by Sylvia Schuchardt

There are some crocheters that I admire, like Sylvia Schuchardt (Silver designs / hook candy) who can make such pretty designs so perfectly crocheted!

To fit a 5.2”L on 2”W foot (Eshchar’s actual feet size), which is about the 6.5 American size, I used a doubled thread with a 4 mm hook following size 3 (9M) of the instructions and working IN THE ROUND (!). The notes from my last project were quiet helpful but not sufficient. 

This time as well, in order to make the shoe center well adjusted, I had to make some adaptations as follow: 

Round 3 - skip the 4 sc in the beginning of round and crochet 8 sc at the end. 

Round 4 - instead of 20 hdc at beginning of round, crochet 16 hdc and then 14 instead of 10 in the end of the round.

For the soles sl-st loop part, I used the 5 mm hook.

Each shoe took me about 2 to 2.5 hrs.

Other helpful notes, can be found here, such as the tip to crochet all the 4 soles at once.

22.9.12 Super Easy Cloche Hat by Tara Murray (Mamachee)

For the adult size of this beautiful cloche hat, I used a doubled thread of Malaga yarn, 8mm hook for Rnd 1-7, 10mm hook for Rnd 8 till the end. Rnd 15-17 was crocheted with Berroco comfort chunky doubled thread. Then I skipped to last Rnds with the smallest brim.

I am not happy with my main color choice. It makes me look pale. Will need to find a lucky new owner. Maybe my small sis.

12-20.9.12 Trim Brim Beanie by Amanda Tipton

 

Normally, one afternoon would be enough to make this adorable hat, but since I had 6 failure trials at least, it took much more. Not to say that even when I thought I had it right, the last rows were too tight for Eshchar’s head, so I had to unpick the brim and make it over with a 10mm hook instead of a 8mm hook. 

Thanks to the kind and speedy response of Amanda, I could overcome most of the troubles I had. 

My two main mistakes in the beginning were the gauge and hooks size which came out too small with the yarn I have used. I gradually used a bigger hook and doubled the thread, till I finally arrived to 8mm and 10mm size hooks! 

Another mistake is that in Row 3, there is apparently an error in the instructions, saying “in next ch2 space” (instead of “in the same ch2 space). This is why I didn’t get any increase for so many trials. 

Finally, with the yarn I used, for a 2-4Y size (maybe it is even 24M), I did as follow: 

8mm hook with 11 sts in rows 1-2. 

10mm hook with 22 sts in rows 4-8, 44 sts in row 9, 12sts in row 10 up to row 13. Then sl-st all the rest of the hat, excluding the brim.

23.6-14.9.12 Solomon Knot Earrings for Li-or Birthday

It's been long that I admire Maggie Meister's Solomon's Knot Bracelet. In her last book, Classical Elegance, she offers the instructions for the Solomon's Knot Pendant, on pp. 72-76.

Li-Or has already enjoyed paging Maggie's book. I asked her what she would like me to bead for her birthday present I wanted to give her and she said she would love the Solomon knot.

Obviously, I had in mind earrings and started beading following the pendant instructions.

While arrived to the first oval half, I just gave up. Too much time, too big, not able to accomplish timely. 

So I tried to make an oval with a different beading technique and it was still too big for an earring, especially that Li-or head is relatively small. So I moved on and draw on a paper the size that seems to me the most to fit and followed it to make the following earrings.
The project was on hold till came the Jewish new year and I was again motivated to accomplish this pair. I started all over again and ended up with this design after about 5 beading hrs. I may interpret it wrongly but when I gave it to Li-Or, I was a bit disappointed since it didn't seem to be an exciting present for her :-( Oh well...

12.6-19.8.12 Vine / Bacchus Earrings by Maggie Meister

It took two months to bring myself complete these Vine earrings, but this is finally done.

The instructions can be found in Maggie Meister's Classical Elegance, pp.24-29.

The leaf design is wonderful!

I made a slight modification in the last part of the leaf instructions and had to unpick the 2nd grape to make one that will look similar enough to the 1st one. The grape freeform part wasn't so fun for me.

The colors I chose were a compromise since I didn't have in my stash reddish drop beads nor gold Delicas. Maybe this is why it took me so long to finish. Not my favorite combo.

17-19.8.12 Open Teardrop Earrings based on Diane Fitzgerald's design

Happy New Year!
שנת תשע"ג טובה ומתוקה

To fit a new blue dress with white dots, Omer helped me choose an earring design that would fit to. He had in mind triangles. We looked together in Diane Fitzgerald's Shaped Beadwork book. From the several options that could be relevant, we decided on the open teardrop rhombus (דלתון).

After an earring was done, I discovered the 11/0 Delica blue tone I had chosen was more going to the purple instead of to the grey. That is why I added grey embellishment hoping that it would give from some distance a more grayish-blue tone.

This is a very odd combination, I know. I hope it works  though.

The second earring I made contained two mistakes. One of them was that I considered all the points as an hexagon increase pattern instead of 3 hexagon points and 1 triangle one. Finally, I liked the curvature it formed and left the 1st earring to make a third one like the second one. Working on the teardrop brought me a therapeutic sense of feeling :-)

14-17.8.12 Zoe Earrings by Maggie Meister

I have recently encountered a Beadshop seller in my city wearing beautiful and very delicate earrings. I patiently waited her to be available for answering my question and asked "what are the earrings?" (probably badly asked...) "what do you mean" she said surprised. "Is this your design?" I asked hesitating. "Yes, it is". So, I added "They are beautiful and very delicate".  I went out the store and was a bit thoughtful. Coming back home I had a flash and immediately opened the last book by Maggie Meister. Zoe earrings. "Proper design of  the beadshop seller". She made a slight variation and took herself generously all the credit that comes to Maggie. 

It made me quiet cross for her dishonesty!

The earrings were so beautiful, I decided to make a pair as well.

The instructions appears in Maggie Meister's Classical Elegance, under the Zoe Earrings project, pp. 59-61.

Though they seem to differ in 4 ways from the picture shown in the book:

1 - the 15/0 beads fringe number, 

2 - apparently 15/0 Delica beads are used for the smaller square in the pictured earrings, whereas round ones are used in the written instructions, 

3 - decorations next to the join area between the squares, 

4 - the earwires hanging loop

The materials I used are: Japanese 15/0 and 11/0 seed beads, 4 mm Czech multicut beads and 5/16 mm Czech Daggers.

In the pair I made, there is a slight modification to Row 7 when embellishing the large square, which seems to be mistakenly omitted from the instructions (pick up 2 beads instead of one and then pick up 4 beads. In Row 8 insert one bead between the pair of beads from Row 7 etc...).

Hanging on a tree

Reminding me of Muslim Tiles

On the way taking pictures, look what I found:

Reflection on Amber

9-10.8.12 Twin Spades Bracelet by Smadar Grossman

Looking for making a present consisting of the new twin/superduo beads, I encountered Smadar's stunning twin spades bracelet design and wanted immediately to try one.

The day after preparing the presents I was available to decipher it, based on Vielekleineperlen, Shannah and Pearly creations. It went much smoother than I expected. The ends were challenging though. I didn't want to add a magnetic clasp, after the bad experience I had with a heavy bracelet that slipped off. I tried with a regular metal clasp and toggle but it didn't work, so I finally unstitched to attach 2 magnetic clasps and reinforced the work. I hope it will make it. The bracelet is slightly large on my wrist. If I had to do it again, I would content of 6 spades instead of 7.
*About 6 working hrs.

8.8.12 Presents for the Kindergarten teachers

Eshchar has just finished his first kindergarten year. In the 2nd part of the year he moved to the young toddlers class with 2 kindergarten teachers and an assistant. He has been often sick this year, mainly viruses and standard childhood diseases. It wasn't obvious, but seems to be quiet common at this age and hopefully strengthened his immunity system.

The teachers were very caring. I really felt self-assured he is being kept in good hands.

To thank them for all their love and caring to the children, among them to Eshchar, I made them some small beadwoven presents.

There was a party about a week ago in which Eshchar received plenty of gifts. One of them was a spiral notebook with his creations, drawings, stickers and scribblings. I was overwhelmed to see the investment in each of the presents and in this notebook. The teachers made it very personal, cropped  the childs' pictures of the appropiate creation period and sticked them beside.

For Avezo, full of optimism and good energies, patience and trust in Eshchar, I beaded a pair of Gwen Fisher - DNA Earrings. She loves turquoise and bottle green, so this is the combo I chose, though I should have taken turquoise bugle beads for the background. Avezo, immediately loved it and wore them :-) 

It made me especially happy to score for her taste. 

Gwen Fisher DNA earrings for Avezo

Batya is a great cooker and I learnt from her a rescuing recipee for the period Eshchar was approximately between 5 to 8 months. It is a baby soup, based on chicken breast and root vegetables. It was the only crushed salty food he would devor. I thought that small and delicate earrings would fit her, so I prepared her a version on a pair of Mosaico Earrings designed by Meggie Meister.

Meggie Meister Mosaico Earrings version for Batya

Finally, for one of the assistants, full of joy of life, I prepared a Preciosa TWIN - Rivoli Pendant, designed and kindly shared by SashaSi. This was an opportunity to use for the first time the Twin beads with double holes. Since 2006, I don't remember to have beaded another pendant. On the way, the Rivoli broke after falling on the floor, but luckily it was still in a stage I could replace it with a new one. Hope she will love it.

SashaSi TWIN-Rivoli Pendant for Diana