Thank You Robin

The end of April I had the pleasure of joining several ladies for a bead cave in Payson AZ. They had seen some finger weaving that I had done and wanted to try it. I grabbed Robin Atkins' book, Beaded Treasures, wrote up a materials list and facilitated a great day of finger weaving.

Lauren and I made bracelets, hers in all shades of red and mine in Lucite with faceted gemstone roundels. Every once in a while I manage to make what I saw in my mind when I bought the beads. I went to Maine last year and bought vintage Lucite beads. Just see how nicely the project finally turned out (bottom bracelet).

Jo went drawer diving and was using every largish bead she could find (including plastic) to create a very large tassel.... or was it going to be a wind chime? Whatever you call it, it turned out big, brash and in-your-face bold.

Drawer Diving: a drawer full of leftover or otherwise discarded beads. All participants bring contributions to throw into the pot. Then everybody can pick out beads that might work for their own project.


Pam's work is always meticulous, but selecting the right color combinations for her bracelet became the focus of her beading time. Sometimes you just have to stop and fondle the beads! Don't we all know how that is?

Sandra also decided to make a tassel and chose soft colors. I'm sure we'll see more finger woven elements in her paper work. She makes the most beautiful books and bead embroidered pieces.

Crystal thought she had brought enough neutral colored beads to make a tassel, but had to drawer dive several times to make her earthy piece full enough to look right. I enjoyed the ethnic look as a contrast to the fanciful colored pieces.

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Marque kept saying, "no, I'm not going to do that"! We knew that at some point she just wouldn't be able to resist. Capiz shell flowers, long bamboo beads and an assortment of over-large plastic components made a wind chime with the most unusual, soft tones.

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Once again, Thank You Robin for writing the book and sharing with us a technique that gave our group so much enjoyment.

And Thank You, Jo for hosting a beautiful, relaxing weekend of beading amoungst friends.

Designing Bead Crochet Elements

I haven't gotten a lot of beading done in the last 6 to 8 months, but I have been doing a lot of work that will make bead crochet graphing as easy as falling off of a log. I'm even so far behind on my Bead Journal Project that I'm going to have to drop out as I'll never catch up at this point.

Instead of writing a third book on Bead Crochet ropes, I've been collaborating with a computer friend, Ken, on creating a software program for graphing bead crochet designs. It's finally to the point that I want to show it off and let people know that it's coming. It'll go to bead fairies for testing next week. We'll ask themand to try and break it as well as find any bugs and flaws . It should be ready for release around mid-June of this year. Watch Bead Line Web site for announcements. It'll be for sale through my good friends at Bead-Patterns. There will also be designs sold on Bead Patterns that will import directly into this program.

Sneak Preview:

Bead Crochet Element Designer is a software program that will allow you to import bead crochet elements, change the bead colors, change the design itself and save your design. You will be able to design on a graph or on the rope itself. The fantastic thing is that you can twirl the rope to see what your design will look like in real life. We all know that the flat graph is useful, but requires that you visualize what the finished rope will look like. Too many times we've had to actually crochet a sample only to find out that it wasn't quite right. Once you have a design you like, just click one button and up pops the stringing table for the design on the screen. When you're ready to get out the beads, just print out your design and you can take it (with stringing table) to your beading table and get to work.

The program will come with 6 to 8 designs that you can use right away.

If your eyesight is as mature as mine is (like, almost blind!) there is a zoom feature that allows you to blow up the graph itself.


I'm excited and have been using it to refine my own designs without having to crochet several samples to make sure things look like what I thought they would.

We envisioned this as a true entry level design program, thus there are not a lot of frills and extras. You get one size bead in 9 set colors and will have to pick your own colors and bead size to substitute for the bead letters A through I. It is limited to 14 graph rows, but can handle 5-around through 9-around. I just looked in my books and there are very few designs that go beyond 12 graph rows.

Now maybe I can get back to actually crocheting some of the neat new designs I've come up with.

Make Lemonade

"When life throws lemons at you, make lemonade"

When a design just isn't working you can do one of three things:
1.- cut it apart and salvage the beads.
2.- undo the project and take out what is wrong/not working.
3.- call it an oportunity to maketurn it into something else.

I was working on a finger woven bracelet and had the bright idea to make a bamboo tile bead into two long beads by splitting it in half. I never gave any thought to the fact that the long bead might not work. I wanted to do a symetrical bracelet as opposed to a more freeform, any bead will do, bracelet.

Everything was looking quite nice while it was flat on the board. I liked the "less is more" look to the piece.


The problem came in when I decided to try fit it on my wrist to see if the focal bead was centered..... Oh my, ... long narrow beads just don't bend around the side of a wrist! I even had a fleeting thought of cutting the bead - fleeting, as I'm sure I would have also cut the threads and would then had to resort to solution #1.

OK, I really don't like to undo work unless it's critical or a piece that is important enough to take partially apart.


In this case I resorted to the creative solution - what else could I do with the piece that wouldn't turn into a bracelet, no matter what I did?

I grabbed some very long bamboo tile beads I had from an old placemat. They clinked together very nicely in a quiet sort of way. I added them to the bottom in a fringe-like manner. Now I have a nice, small wind chime that will make a perfect gift for someone.

Tucson - Snow to Snow

It was snowing the first day I headed to Tucson to attend the Gem Shows, I cancled yesteday's trip due to the possiblity of more snow and woke up this morning to 1/2" of white stuff on the ground. Not my idea of a warm, sunny Arizona winter.


I found more cones in nickle silver, brass and copper. Now I have even more reason to finish the coral and turquoise necklace. I went from not being able to find base metal cones to having a choice.


I hadn't meant to visit Gary Wilson's booth this year as I already have a substancial stash of his unusual stones and glass. Alas and alak, I did and spent more than I had planned. This is a selection of what I got: Beautiful, non-sandard cutting and not highly polished. The interesting thing that he was doing was vintage pool ball cabs and jewelry pices. Different! How could anyone resist?

I have a standing order from my Daughter-in-law to get her something unusual every year. Nothing in the cut, faceted, sparkly area looked right for her. However one of Gary's pendants reminded me of a Wind Goddess. I paired it with black rock pearls and will string her a necklace that should get noticed whenever she wears it. I can also be assured that it will truly be a one-of-a-kind piece.




I've almost finished my latest finger woven bracelet and was wondering what to try next.





I don't have to wonder any more as I fell in love with some Czech presed glass. I'm going to use these matte daggers with large purple iris drops down the center. I think it will look like wearing bunches of grapes on my wrist.

This is the other dagger/drop combination that I bought at the same time. Wouldn't Bev, at No Easy Beads, love this color combination?

The masses plopped together like this are almost art in themselves. I may put them on the coffee table and admire them until I have time to put some of them to use.

Forgive my poor spelling - no blogger spell check yet!