Quick Trip - Maine

 Every once in a while one needs to go some place away from home and the many projects that keep saying, "me, work on me next.".  So we threw a change of clothing in the car and took off for the coast of Maine for a couple of days.  It was also cooler over there and I was tired of sitting in an air conditioned house in the summertime.

You can see my orange Element just behind this great delivery van restoration.  I love the colors and think my Element would look beautiful painted like this.... Chicken stuff and all.


Chainsaw roadside art -- funky and fun.  But this flamingo was totally lost alongside of all the chainsawed bears. It belongs in Florida, not here.

I have a beading friend who is known for her beaded moose.  I was thinking that a 3-D piece like this might look awesome in colored beads.

 It's hard to see, but there is an eagle up there on that nest.  Wonder how often it lost sleep when the lights went on for an event?  We sat and watched the birds for a while and then turned around and watched the big cranes (mechanical, not birds) at Bath Iron Works.  Big, big cranes and big pieces of ships being moved around.

 It was so restful sitting in the empty park, looking out  to the  Kennebec Estuary.  The shipyard was upstream and the maritime museum was downstream. Nice soft seacoast breezes were blowing.

We drove home along Rte 202 and looked at several inland towns while I finished up some crocheting for my on-line String-Along.


A change of scenery is always good.

Musical Interlude in Yellow & Black

Piano Roll Rope

 There are times when an idea, like a song, becomes embedded in your mind and you can't get rid of it. This was one of those moments.  I'm deep in the midst of doing  the African Stripes String-Along and then Rachel Nelson-Smith posts another Bead Project Challenge on FaceBook.....





Two things converged here. I'd wanted to revisit a favorite color combination of the 60's; yellow & black. Then Rachel proposed a second project to bead a song, music, or sound. Given the limited design canvas on a bead-crochet rope, I had to think about it.  Yellow/Black and bumblebees came to mind and just didn't go away.






While refreshing my ears with the sounds of Flight of the Bumblebee, I noticed the dits & dots rolling off  the top of the YouTube piano video. Thus was born my Piano Roll bead-crochet rope. The rightmost column of dits and dots became black Miyuki drops on a bumblebee yellow background.


I'm sort of smugly pleased with my concept. It satisfied my creative itch, got it out of my system and made a unique rope design.





This was my other foray into the yellow & black color combination.  I used the colors to swatch test a couple of design elements for the string-along.


Now I think I can go back to regularly scheduled bead-crochet string-along designs in black and white.

Like Popcorn ~ African String-Along

Some days you can't stop at just one . . .  bracelet, that is.  African Stripes seems to be spawning bracelet ideas right and left.  It's fun to work in bright primary colors with first a black background and then a white background. As soon as I get one strung, before I even put crochet hook to thread, another possibility pops up to try out. This String-Along is going to be a prolific one for me. 

 Meanwhile, here is how the String-Along, Mud Cloth Necklace is progressing.  My piece, above, has two sections completed and the following photos are some member's work at section #1.

Terri is using a brown and cream mud palette

Debbie is also using browns, but more of a redish brown and cream

Karen has chosen such a regal cobalt and silver combination

 As opaque drops are non-existent, Marlene chose to put in a third color with the black drops

Toni has a goal of using beads she already has on hand. This could get interesting when we get to the second necklace and add in 4 more colors.

How many beads do I need? - Bead Crochet

Click here for Beads Needed Chart (PDF) - right link 7/3/2012 - sorry

I've had a few questions on "how many beads do I need to crochet that pattern in 8's, 11's, 15's, etc."  If you have an Android phone or tablet, you can download an app that will figure all of this for you. Here's some information on it... Bead Crochet Designer's Bead Needs.  I helped develop it, so I know it works quite well.

If you prefer to use pencil & paper to figure the beads needed, click on the link under the photo.  The chart is limited to only 6-around ropes, but covers 5 different bead sizes.  If you're out 'n about, buy beads, want to start stringing and crocheting right away, this is a quick and dirty calculation; length of desired rope (inches) X number-around.  OK, you want a 9" bracelet, in 8-around... simply multiply 9 x 8 for 72" of strung beads (estimated).

The Bead Crochet Ropes book does have a whole page of this kind of information and covers other number-arounds.  You can find the eBook edition over at www.bead-patterns.com .