26.5-7.6.12 Coco's 2nd Lace Workhsop (May 2012)

Beadwoven with C-lon thread and Matsuno bronze 11/0 seed beads.

Ouch.... It costed me a full 25 needles package of John James needles size 15!!!

It took me 4 times to success beading the motif without mistake. After so long I haven't been beading, that is still not so logical, but that is a fact.

I am so grateful for Coco for her endless generosity sharing this workshop (part I, II, III) on the Perles & Dent'elles blog.. THANK YOU COCO! It happened that I had finally the time to catch up and go over this blog as well as part of Coco's blog. Such beauties can be found there! I love so much these princesses jewelry.

The lace was planned  to go with a new dress I bought. However, when I tried them together, it doesn't seem to fit, because the beauty of the dress is in its V shape decolletage. It can fit another dress I have, though. 

The Workshop's  participants laces appears here.

The earrings are based on motif #2 with some personal interpretation.

Coco's 2nd Lace Necklace and earrings

25.11.10 - 22.3.11 Mom present Inspired from the "Harmonious array" Necklace & Snivli's cabochon

The "Harmonious Array"necklace appears in Bead & Button magazine, February 2009, Issue 89, pp.36-39.

Once I received this issue and saw the necklace on its cover, I immediately knew I wanted to bead it for mom, but it took about 2 years to make it true. This beautiful necklace, also called "Renâitre des Cendres" was designed by Maria Teresa Ferreira. Maria has also a blog called "Piu Bella Bijoux", that you can visit here.

However, I made some changes and several adaptations as compared to the original design. For example, the length of all the necklace parts differ from Maria's necklace and are all shorter, especially the central donut. Additionally, I didn't bead the peyote+embroidery cabochon, but instead beaded a cabochon based on Snivli's Vintage Cabochon tutorial , in her worthy blog: Bead Fantasy. This is a great gift for the beaders community since this cabochon is so simple and yet so elegant, beautiful and impressing. I really appreciate Snivli's design.

As oppose to Snivli's tuto, I have used round 11/0 Matsuno and 15/0 Japanese beads only (with 4 or 5 mm faceted multicuts) and made some small changes in the last rounds to better adapt my cabochon in the beadwork.

I really recommend you to try it.

My modifications are as follow. Once you get to the upper part of the cabochon (2nd stage):

• Bead two herringbone rows with round Japanese 11/0 in color A.
• In the next row: *One herringbone stitch with round Japanese 11/0 in color B and then string 3A to be connected to the next herringbone pair. Make sure to have high tension during the work*. Repeat* to end of row and step up. You will also note the cabochon starts to sit in the beadwork in the end of the row .
• The next row is made up with *stringing 3 round Japanese 15/0 between the two beads of the herringbone pair from last row and stringing 2A in between the herringbone pairs*. Repeat* till end of row, making sure to pull tight all along the row.
• String 3 round Japanese 15/0 between each 15/0 picot from last row.

Giving this present to mom, I meant to thank her for all she does for me.

Well, it was worthy :-) to finish beading it since she was very happy to receive it.

23.11.10 31st Surprise Birthday in Neve Shalom Forest

That is how my dear husband surprised me for my 31st birthday.

The "baladi" eggplant and giant tomatoes on the grill where just delicious!

By the way, this was the first time I finally wore Huib's autumn glory necklace that I beaded a while ago.

24.6-17.10.10 Charlstone Beaded Amulet Bag for Miranda

To make a long story short:

I wanted to thank my cousin for all she does for me and for offering me a beading book she had and wouldn't use, in ITALIAN!!! Such a perfect combination :-)

I Received the Mini Bag di Perline book by Patrizia Nave Cerutti on June 2010.

Nevermind that I was very disappointed from the book, to my opinion the projects are very poorly explained and the work isn't neat. Nevertheless, I asked Miranda to choose some project she liked from there and ended up beading her the Charlstone Beaded Amulet Bag.

I made some changes and added a Russian Rosette Flower, based on this free tutorial.

Added some Herringbone donuts and used the following twisted Ndebele spiral. You can also have a look at a similar embellished one, here.

I sent the bag to Italy, but it came back to Israel after a while because of customs issues. Miranda finally got it on the 14th of January 2011 and seemed to be very happy.

21.7.10 Triangle pendant for Einat - designed by Veres Zsuzsi

About two years ago, I reproduced Veres Zsuzsi' s Triangle which remained so long orphan in my beaded elements box.
My friend Einat once saw it and really loved it. That was a good solution to salvage this triangle, so I told myself I would one day offer it to her with an accompanying necklace.
The opportunity to see her arrived and I managed to bead the night just before our meeting a suiting necklace, also from Veres Zsuzsi' s original designs. I will repeat myself again, by I have to say I really deeply admire this woman and her incredible talent/creativity. I wonder how does she (and few other beaders that can be counted on one hand fingers) manages to be so creative, to bead as much as she does, to raise up children, preparing them stunning birthday cakes and probably much more, learning constantly new crafts and arts and also work. HOW??? It remains a giant mystery to me. I just wish I had this strength to bead more, to further express my creativity and well exploit my time.

30.5-11.7.10 Lotuses of the Nile Necklace designed by Melanie Potter

6-11.7.10
30.5-1.6.10, 19.6

Motivated by a friend, I also decided to challenge myself and try to bead Melanie Potter's Lotus flower, following her beautiful chevron stitch "wildflowers earrings" design, published in the Beadwork Magazine of April/May 2010 (pp.36-38).
The picture published in "beadweaving masters" (p.186) was my main guide, having in my mind to stick to the chevron stitch, along with "Riverlea beads" post.
After several trials and errors, when I was almost finished with what I thought was similar to the "Lotuses of the Nile", I discovered 2 wrong interpretations of mine with seed beads size and the fact that the lotus is dimensional and not flat. When I started all over again, I managed to accomplish something quiet similar.
I loved the balanced design, the color palettes and the integration of both.
I truly thank Melanie for the source of inspiration which also lead me to reproduce this necklace.

22.6.10 Scottish Thistle Spiral inspired by "Charming Things"

This too was one of my unfinished projects that I didn't gave up on on one hand, but couldn't finish on the other. Nevertheless, I managed to accomplish it after 2 years!
On one of my beadwork net exploration, I encountered the amazing Flickr of Natalia, nicknamed as Charming Things. She has this gorgeous "My Sweetheard Necklace and Earrings" (1,2,3) that I really felt a urge to reproduce.
I knew the flower was similar to Diane Fitzgerald's Scottish Thistle (in her book "The Beaded Garden", pp.47-49) and thus made a bigger flower and a small flower bud.
For the spiral, I didn't make a RAW, but experienced with the Primary Twist Spiral By Beth Stone, from B&B August 2005, pp.82-83. There exists a free version called "La résille tubulaire", written down by Océanie Créations, here.
As for the clasp, this is a secret.

1.6.08 - 19.6.10 Lisa Scelsi Amphorae and Bead Infinitum double daisy chain

I once saw the Little Urn Necklace of Lisa Scelsi, with Bead Infinitum "Double Daisy Chain" and really wanted to have such an amphora of mine.
I beaded the Amphora almost exactly 2 years ago, mainly with 15/0 seed beads, based on the pictures (1,2) from Lisa's website (Liliad Bijoux) and partly based on Mimi LG's round beaded bead tutorial (used to be free on Mimi's blog, but unfortunately no longer available on the net).
At that time I also started the daisy chain which is a free pattern of Bead Infinitum (p.1,2, 3, 4) . However, I just got stuck with this chain and tried several times to come back to finish this project without success. Recently, I was in a mood of finishing old projects and unbelievably managed to finish this chain. Not that I am satisfied with the combination of the amphorae and the chain (I find it too much of the same color and the amphorae doesn't receive the right attention), but for the moment, there is a BIG progress.

17-21.4.10 Baroque Spades Necklace Inspired by Varda's Netted Necklace

My friend Varda kindly sent me a scheme of a netted necklace she had designed. I haven't seen the necklace yet, but she asked me to try the scheme and tell her how it goes.
I opened the file and saw the first row, which seemed to me at 1st sight to be the whole necklace. I made one element and found it very nice. However, it looked to me too "simple" to repeat this element to the circumference of the neck. A flow of ideas ran through my mind and I decided to flew with them to finally come up without too much hurdles with my own design of the necklace you can see above.
Ammusingly, while chatting with Varda, I discovered I had actually missed the 3/4 of the scheme and related only to the 1st row out of 6 or 7 of them!
Thanks a lot Varda for being a source of inspiration to me!
I gave the necklace today to Nomnom for her coming birthday and another excuse for celebration... She will have to buy some purple clothes now - I know she is not so much excited about that ;-) ...

28.2-10.3.10 Turquoise Indian Amphora for Mom

Mom came back from India with this amphore and kindly asked me to prepare for her a nicer necklace, such as a nice spiral. So here is the "before":

and "after":
closed amphora:
opened amphora:

4.7.09 The Brainstorming Kite Spiral

This Peyote spiral is a fruit of an interesting brainstorming we had in our Israeli Beading Commune around a Russian scheme of a Spiral done with a "French Flower Beading Technique" (2 needles crossovers). RuthyK addressed our attention to this spiral scheme which is very unclear to my opinion and it is nice how it pushed us to create beautiful variations around the same final shape.
Trying to decipher this unclear scheme, Ronit Florence came out with a beautiful increase/decrease RAW Spiral, using a peyote design by Ginger Ausband as the central motif:

I later on reproduced a module of such a RAW spiral in order to experience this technique of increase/decrease in Right Angle Wave:

Whereas Iris also did an interesting work while trying to experience the increase/decrease RAW Spiral. Since she found it a bit too long, she thought that maybe using peyote would give a very similar effect ,but would be much quicker.
I like this thought :-)

and when I saw these 2 variations one next to the other, I also decided to try the peyote way.

Since I got bored after the first module, I kept on with the modules, each time increasing it a bit more. From then on, the spiral went quiet quickly and I finished it during a weekend. I think it would have taken me a month if I had to do Ronit's spiral in RAW ;-)
It took some time till I accomplished the project since I had to obtain magnetic clasps.

Finally, if you ask why did I call it "The Brainstorming Kite Spiral"? You will surely guess it's because of the kites and deltoid shapes of which it reminds me...
Though I don't know what will I do with this spiral, since I am not so fond of it. I have no clothes to which it can suit and no idea what can go on well with it, I still want to Thank you warmly girls for the interesting process you lead me through. Hugzzzz....

23.5.09 The Choco-Moka-Vanil Necklace for Naomi's 24th Birthday

My apologize for the bad picture quality , I had very bad conditions to take it.

The 5-petals flowers close to the center motif are the small "Center or Not" from "Crochet Bouquet" p.21.
The Trimmed "Off-Center Round" - is also taken from "Crochet Bouquet" p.27.
The two types of rounded mandalas are taken from a Japanese booklet.
The small white flowers close to the clasp are the "apple blossom crochet flowers" from here (for free) and originally appears in the 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet book by Lesley Stanfield, St. Martin's Griffin, 2009.
I learned the Santolina flowers (look like small beige buttons) with my friend, from the "100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet", p.86. The small stem is a bit different and is adapted from another project.

Finally, I started the center motif with the Santolina flower and moved on, playing a bit till I got this shape, based on many double trebles.
So here it is, I am glad I have finished it, not so much enthusiastic of my sister's response, which apparently didn't find it so nice for her :-( ....

8.5.09 Mom 63rd Birthday's Present - Crochet Lily of the Valley Butterfly Necklace

A closeup on the clasp:

On Sunday this week, I discovered two amazing Internet treasures. The first one was the crochet and knitting flower free patterns on the lionbrand site. The second one was the "mypicot" site with additional amazing flowers AND butterflies to crochet and knit. I immediately fell in love and decided to use these elements to create a necklace from crochet for Mom's birthday.
I made 4 Lily of the Valley Crochet Flowers (also called in French "Muguet de Mai" and offered on 1st of May) , one Rosebud flower for the clasp and finally a Butterfly. For the flowers I used a regular cotton yarn of 125 m for 50 gr (hook of size 2), whereas for the butterfly I used DMC cotton thin threads ( but can't say exactly what size except the hook which was size 1).
With the great help of two girls from the Crochet Israeli forum "פורום סריגה", I succeeded to overcome the obstacles I encountered in the scheme of the butterfly, as how to read it. (Row 2 of the Upper wings of the big butterfly is: 2 ch, sc in 2nd ch from hook, 13 ch, 1 tr to the center of the wing [in the tr of the middle], 5 ch, 1 tr to the center of the wing, 8 ch, double tr to the center of the wing [ yarn 3 times over the hook], 5 ch, 1dc in the middle of the double tr, 5 ch, tr to the center of the wing, 13 ch, sc in same place as sc of this row and sl st to close to a ring). Also the work of crochet with such thin thread was strange to me at first.
I felt afraid and challenged for how to compose all the pieces together and succeeded to finish on Thursday on time, with the help of Omer and Varda. I hope I did well. [Huib, your inspiration is in the air ;-) ]

I think Mom loves it and it is quiet her colours. So sorry if I overcharge you with pictures - but I wanted to show you how it looks on Mom :-)

To another issue, I discovered recently that some of my favorite Francophone artist blogs has disappeared from the net (such as Benedicte Tarrade, Kim Anderson, Frany et ses perles and more). This is a real loss to the beading community and I hope they will create a new one soon - I miss them.
On the other hand, I had the nice surprise to discover today that some of you can find the links I put here in my blog interesting and helpful (Thank you Louise for the credit). It is my pleasure and I am glad if you can enjoy it.

11.1.09 Autumn's Glory, designed by Huib Petersen

Automn's Glory necklace was designed by one of the most talented bead artists I have ever known: Huib Petersen.
I admire his detailed beaded nature scenes and amazed by his compositions. From all the meticulous details, imitating beautiful Nature scenes, his pieces makes me feel life, spring and joy. In other word,

HAPPINESS

One of the best pictures to demonstrate Huib's love to bead, nature and what he is doing, is here. Look at the sea creatures on his desk :-) It looks to me as if it was taken from a splendid dream.

I deciphered the necklace from this picture and worked on it for a week. I would absolutely recommend you to attend one of his workshops. I think you will be very privileged if you can, I wish I would.
Huib also provides kits, so you can contact him here.
Thank you Huib for inspiring me and kindly allowing me to put these pictures on my blog!

Varda was right in that sense she thinks I should have located the leaves a bit differently for purpose of luminosity balance (exchange the yellow and brown leaves or put the yellow in the middle, then the peach and last the brown one). I'll try to recall that for future works.

30.11.08 "Time for teapots" designed by Diane Fitzgerald

At the beginning of November I saw the Teapot that Mariposas made and I immediately fell in love with it. I waited impatiently to the B&B magazine to arrive and from there on, I had a great time spending with this wonderful teapot, geniusly designed by Diane Fitzgerald (B&B December 2008, Issue 88, "Time for teapots", p.113-116). What's amusing, is that Mariposas fell in love too and also posted today her second beautiful teapot, only that this time it is also accompanied with all its set, cups, milk bottle, cookies etc... Check it!
The pattern of the Iris and flowers popped so naturally from the teapot and I think much of the color style is influenced from my good beader friend Pnina, but also Varda. The spiral is the Magatama spiral by Laura McCabe, with a small variation.
I had to figure out all the connections, time will say if it's comfortable or not to wear...