Dilettantism part four - wirework

So far I've told you about bead embroidery, chain maille and lampwork. That leaves either seed bead weaving or wirework for my fourth (and last) beady activity of last weekend - and in this case, wirework won. I needed a new set of jewellery to go with an evening dress, and came up with a pendant and earrings set

The dress I wore for the party Dan and I had to celebrate our wedding was, in my best sod-the-tradition fashion, pillar-box red. At the time, I wore it with a pearl choker and cuff set belonging to my mother, and that looked great. Possibly not as great as the AMAZING brownie wedding cake which our fantastic friend Sarah made for us, but then I think that most things would struggle to look as good as that cake (excuse me while I drift off into a sugar-induced reverie...)

However, so that I can wear the dress again without having to tape it to my tits using wig tape (seriously!), I am having it remade. The new version has halter-neck which is slit all the way down to the lace, and is much more fitted through the skirt. The new neckline means that the pearl choker is right out, so I had to come up with something else. To save money I decided to upcycle my beaded wedding bouquet (check out Rachel Murgatroyd's site for similar ideas). After much playing around with cheap silver-plated wire, I made up the final jewellery set in sterling silver with red and clear crystals and pearls:

I'm rather chuffed with that - but I have to wait until the dress fitting tomorrow to find out it it's actually fit for purpose!

Part three of my dilettante weekend - lampwork

You didn't think I'd let a weekend go by without playing with fire, did you? Of course not - so part three of my weekend game session took place in front of my torch, playing with gorgeous deep red and silver-white glass. Hurrah!

To start with I pulled a couple of stringers out of each rod to keep for decorating other beads later. Brilliantly, I found that (for me at least) pulling stringers means it's easier to get a clean wrap around the mandrel when I start making beads. Maybe because the glass isn't quite stone cold when it first comes into the flame, maybe because it doesn't have such a raw edge - whatever the answer, I'm just pleased it works.

This time around, I wanted to concentrate on really getting a good shape out of my glass, so my first three beads were plain and simple red glass rounds. As usual, the first part of the process was introducing the glass rod into the flame slowly, wafting it in and out so it didn't shock (I suspect shocked glass would mean singed carpet, which would be A Bad Thing). Once it was warm enough, I let the end of the rod rest in the flame and develop a nice molten gather. I've found that by resting my elbow on the desk edge I can get a lot more control over the rod, especially when it's long, so it doesn't end up in all different parts of the flame as I heat it.

With the gather in place I introduced the mandrel to the flame, heated it up and then wound the glass onto it. Now came the tricky part: getting a good shape. I'm not very good at winding my glass on neatly and evenly yet (but I'm getting better!), so after detaching the glass rod and setting it aside I swapped the mandrel into my right hand and got to work. The first thing I did was tilt the mandrel and let gravity help me, allowing the molten glass to droop first one way and then the other. Doing that let me get those lovely dimples around the mandrel which means the beads don't have sharp edges to damage beading thread when you come to play with them. Once those were in place, I kept the mandrel horizontal and rotated it slowly, making sure to keep the glass hot and runny. Eventually, with a lot of patience, I had nice round beads. When I thought it might be ready, I brought the mandrel up level with my eyes and watched the upper edge of the bead as I rotated it: when the edge looked as though it wasn't moving up and down, I knew the bead was round (thanks to Keiara for the tip!).

I couldn't let playtime pass without a little decoration, so my last two beads were in the silver-white colour with red dots and stringer decorations. The five beads look so pretty together, I'm calling them my first set. Even though they aren't quite evenly sized.

What do you think?

Caffeine!

I can't believe it's Thursday... where did the week go?!

I'm very excited at the moment because Dan and I bought a Nespresso coffee machine this week, and I can now consume delicious espresso at home without having to faff around with the stove-top Bialetti pot. Wonder if the easy access to coffee will have an impact on my creativity (or at least my ability to stay awake to be creative)?

Dilettante (part 2) - bridesmaid patterns

Beady project number two last weekend was headband number five for my cousin's wedding (check out Bits for bridesmaids).

I promised a pattern for these, so here goes. It's pretty basic bead embroidery, which I am hoping will make my first ever pattern an easy one to write!

First, source a hairband of the appropriate size. The ones I'm making are for little girls so they're small, but if you want to make a band for a teenager or adult you'll need to find bigger ones. You'll need your band to be covered in fabric so that you have something to stitch to: mine were already wrapped in satin ribbon, but if your bands are plain plastic, buy yourself a reel of ribbon and follow these steps:

1. Seal the end of the ribbon by very carefully passing it through a flame - this will prevent fraying.
2. Place a small dot of fabric glue on the sealed end of the ribbon and stick it carefully to one end of the hair band.
3. Wrap the ribbon along the length of the band diagonally (this looks prettier than a straight wrap). Try to make sure that your ribbon layers overlap slightly so the plastic doesn't show through.
4. When you reach the end of the band, trim your ribbon, seal the raw end in a flame and glue the ribbon to the band.
5. You'll now need to neaten the ends. To do this, cut two lengths of ribbon which are each twice the width of the band. Glue one side of each ribbon and wrap like this:
1. Place the hair band on the glued side of the ribbon.
2. Wrap the side edges in so that the meet on the inside of the band (which will not show).
3. Wrap the bottom edge up to cover the side edges.

You might be pleased to know that the wrapping is the complicated bit, and also the bit that you can skip very easily, if you can source the right bands! So, how to do the fun bit? That's easy.

Take your fabric or ribbon-wrapped band and size 11 seed beads in your preferred colour (size 15s also work but will make your life harder!). Prepare a comfortable doubled length of beading cotton (I used Nymo) - doubling will help to ensure that your work is sturdy, and will help it to last longer. Secure the nymo to the inside of the band, then bring your needle to one edge of the band (I'll call this side one).

Pick up enough seed beads to completely cover the band - for my bands, I needed 11 size 11s. I stitched my beads on the diagonal because I think it's pretty, as did the bride and her mother, but you could go for straight horizontal lines if you prefer. Once you've got the number of beads sorted out, take your needle over to the other side of the band (I'll call this side two). Secure the beads by taking a tiny stitch through the ribbon, bringing the needle out of the ribbon, still on side two, about 1mm from the last bead. Pick up another row-worth of beads, take them over to side one, and secure. Keep zig-zagging from side one to side two all the way along the hair band. Try to keep the rows of beads nestled closely together, so that you don't end up with gappy bands.

You'll probably need to add more nymo, unless you're comfortable beading with about two metres of the stuff (I'm not!). I found that the best way to do this was to stop adding rows of beads when I had around 15cm of nymo still on the needle. I then secured my new length of nymo on the inside of the hair band as I had the original one, stitched through the last three rows again and continued adding new rows from there. When I had about ten rows on the new length, I went back to the original needle and stitched through the first three new rows before securing the old nymo and cutting the needle free.

Once your seed beads are on, you can start the crystal embellishment. I used 2mm crystals for this, and doubled nymo again as my thread (I know fireline is better for crystals but I don't like it!). Each embellishment was done as follows: stitch in from side one of the band towards the middle. Come out of the fourth seed bead from the edge of side one. Pick up one seed bead, a crystal and a seed bead. Take your needle three rows up the band and stitch through the fourth bead from the edge of side two. Come out of side two. Which seed bead you come out of and how many rows you skip will depend on how many beads you have in a row and how large your crystals are. If you've stitched your seed beads firmly enough, you''ll be able to weave in and out of the rows without having to go right to the edges. You're aiming for this:

I chose to add my embellishments against the grain of my seed beads because they seem to catch the light better that way, but you could go with the grain if you prefer.

A tip on dealing with ends of nymo: double knot the thread, trim the ends to around 1mm and seal them with a flame. Be careful not to singe anything!

Dilettante (part 1) - chain maille

As I said before, I am rather a dilettante when it comes to beads. Over the weekend, I managed to take in four - yes, four - different kinds of beadwork, as well as a trip to the dressmaker, posh lunch, a mega workout and two books (God is Not Great for my brain and Sourcery for my funny bone).

So, what exactly did I play with?

First up was chain maille. I've done some bits with Byzantine weave in the past, but this weekend I went to town on European 4-in-1, and came up with a very pretty bracelet (if I do say so myself).

After struggling to master the main weave, the embellishment was a nice relaxing change. I slid size 6 tris beads left over from a previous project onto small individual jump rings, and then scattered them around the large jump rings of the main wave for some colour.

If you are interested, Instructables has great tutorials for Byzantine and European 4-in-1 weaves, including how to make your own jump rings. Alternatively, check out Lark Books' Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry for instructions and projects.

Book review - Sculptural Metal Clay Jewelry

I've been not very well for a week or so, and while wrapped up in many, many layers of clothing and a duvet, I had time (between naps) to read the new book by Kate McKinnon, Sculptural Metal Clay Jewelry*. Carole Morris of the Bead Society of Great Britain asked me to review it for the next newsletter, so let's hope I've made the deadline!

* sorry for the American spelling, it isn't my choice...

This is the review:

"Before I get into details, I must confess that I am a dilettante - bead-weaving, wirework, lampwork, even mixed-media techniques get a look in, but I haven't done a great deal with metal clay before, beyond the odd piece with some scrap clay from my grandmother. Kate McKinnon's style is eminently helpful and friendly without being patronising, and it seems that all of her instructions have been carefully tested before being included in the book, which is a refreshing change from some of the other metal clay and beading books I've seen. The one thing I didn't find here is my personal favourite tip, courtesy of my secondary school art teacher (who was kind enough to let me use her kiln in the interests of this review): make a test first. That way you won't be wasting expensive materials!

Sculptural Metal Clay Jewelry provides plenty to get your teeth into, with chapters covering not just the basics, like tools and safety, but also a huge variety of elements as well as the to-be-expected projects (covering rings, chains and pendants). There is also a proper technique section, from basic through to more advanced ideas, which makes the book accessible even to beginners. Personally, I loved the elements sections, as I am always looking for new and exciting ways to finish my work. My new-found skill with metal clay has opened up a whole world of custom-made clasps, connectors, ring bands and bezels, and I can’t wait to start putting the principles into practice.

My favourite aspect of the book is the DVD. For something like this, being able to watch a video is an enormously helpful bonus, and I wish I'd done so before trying my polymer clay test piece. After watching the DVD, my second test piece – and my final 'real' piece – came out beautifully, and look likely to last (unlike my pre-McKinnon pieces, which all cracked within a day or so).

All in all, this must be one of the best books around for those who want to start out in metal clay, or even those who know what they're doing but want to pick up some new techniques and tips. Definitely one for the reference shelf!"

Purple vs. black-and-white

So here they are, my sparkler-inspired beads:

The trails of silvery-white on dark purple make me think of the optical trails left by sparklers when you wave them around. They might not be quite what I had in mind, but I still love them!

On the other hand, if you want to see some really gorgeous monochrome beads, head over to The Beading Gem's latest post for a look at some pretty spectacular black-and-white dots, swirls, bubbles and other glassy gorgeousness.

Productive weekends are so lovely...

As the title suggests, I had a very productive weekend. Hurrah! Friday being Guy Fawkes meant that we spent the evening at my father-in-laws watching pretty fireworks. Saturday evening brought with it more fireworks, courtesy of G and Vicky. Sunday was the usual round of playing with Mel's kids, shopping, cleaning the house and cooking enough to feed us for the week, but somehow in all that I managed to find time to finish the fourth of the bridesmaids' headbands, and make a couple of new lampwork beads. I'd clearly been inspired by the season, because I chose a dark purple transparent glass for the body of the bead, and covered it with silvery trails and dots to remind myself of sparklers! I'll share pictures later, but for now - pretty sparklers to tempt you:

Guy Fawkes Night has always been one of my favourite events, partly because it's one of the few holidays that has no religious component. For those who don't know the story, in 1605 a group of Catholic dissidents planned to assassinate the Protestant King James I of England (VI of Scotland) by blowing up the Houses of Parliament. Fawkes was put in charge of the explosives because of his military experience. After the plot was exposed - via an anonymous letter sent to the 4th Baron Monteagle - Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of the House of Lords, guarding 30-something barrels of gunpowder. After a trial, the outcome of which was never in doubt, Fawkes and some of his co-conspirators were sentenced to the traditional traitors' death. On 31 January 1606, they were hanged, drawn and quartered, after which the quartered bodies were displayed at the four corners of London, to decompose and be eaten by carrion birds.

The English being a somewhat gruesome lot, we celebrate this grisly part of our history by lighting bonfires and setting off fireworks. There is some justification for this in the (now rescinded) Observance of 5th November Act 1605, but mostly it's just good fun.

Playtime

The weekend's coming, and that means PLAYTIME. I've already dipped my mandrels in preparation... they'll be nice and dry by tomorrow.

Bits for bridesmaids

One of my cousins is getting married in a few weeks, and during the summer asked me to see what I could do with headbands for the bridesmaids. There are six of them and they're all little, so any hair decoration needs to be unbreakable (no delicate feathers here!). She gave me seven ribbon-wrapped alice bands, covered with horrible little pink flowers. One to play with, six for the kids. First things first, let's get rid of those pink suckers - yuck! Luckily they weren't stuck on too firmly, so a good tug got rid of them cleanly. Then I played around with ways of adding decoration to the band, stitching peyote tubes of seed pearls to slide over the band completely and then trying some free-form embroidery with ivory silk and seed pearls. It just wasn't coming together, until I came up with the idea of going back to basics and simply couching rows and rows of seed pearls along the whole length of the band. The finished effect was lovely, if I do say so myself, but a little on the bare side.

Hmm...

Time spent pondering was interrupted by the arrival of my sister with her girls, aged two and four. They're both going to be bridesmaids at the wedding, and who knows what little girls want better than other little girls? Their verdict, pronounced after much giggly debate and trying on of the sample band: princesses and weddings need to have sparkle. Not being a very girly girl, I had forgotten the crucial ingredient - crystals! They might not be quite my scene (unless they're the delicious paparadscha colour), but I overstitched a line of 2mm clear AB Swarovski bicones (courtesy of the Bead Shop in Nottingham) right down the middle of the band. Charlotte, the bride, was delighted when she saw the finished sample, so now I'm deep into band number four, with another six weeks to go until the wedding. Once I've finished them I'll post a picture and the pattern here.

My only remaining problem? Forcing myself away from the torch to work on getting these finished!

The beads came out great!

Woo! I made my first batch of beads on Sunday night, using yellow, medium blue and petrol green from my Tuffnells selection pack. I dipped the mandrels in bead release late in the morning, between the oh-so-exciting tasks of hanging out a load of washing and cleaning the bathroom, and stuck them in a handy polystyrene plank to dry. My top tip for coating mandrels? Tip some bead release into a tall, skinny double shot glass, then pour the mix back into the bead release pot. The mix will coat the side of the shot glass. If you roll the end of the mandrel around the inside edge of the glass, you'll get a nice even coating with almost no waste.

Once the release was dry (and I'd finished all my chores), I plonked myself down in my ancient sewing chair and lit the torch. This was a scary experience because Hot Heads are LOUD - much more so than the Nortel I used in my lesson, or than the bunsen burners we had in the lab, which are more similar to the Hot Head than the manufacturers might want to admit. However, I'm not one to be deterred by loud noises (if I was, I couldn't have married He Who Makes Noise), so I twiddled the knob until I was happy with the flame, and picked up my rod of yellow glass. I chose yellow to start with because it's the colour I'm least likely to use in jewellery, so I didn't mind wasting it on my first pieces!

Remembering my lesson, I carefully wafted the rod through the flame for a while until I judged it to be hot enough, then introduced it fully to the flame and let it melt into a nice ball (gather). Figuring I'd start with something easy, I pulled a couple of long strings of glass (stringers) from the yellow, for later use as decoration, then got busy. Keeping a gather from drooping into the flame while heating a mandrel is a weird combination of movements (it has been compared with rubbing your belly while patting your head, and I can't say as I disagree!), but I managed it, and pretty soon I had a roundish sort of blob around my mandrel. I kept twisting the glass slowly in the upper part of the flame until it looked rather more like a bead, then slowly let it cool a little, wafting in and out of the flame, before sticking it in between sheets of fibre blanked to properly cool down.

After that, I was off: another yellow bead, then a couple of blue beads with yellow stringer swirled around them, some blue stringer, some green beads with blue frit (crushed glass dust), blue beads with green stringer swirls and then - excitingly - some longer barrel beads rolled along my ridged steel block to make ribbed beads. At that point I realised that the parentals were due in half an hour and I hadn't made dinner, so I had to pack up - but here are the results of all that activity:

They might not all be perfectly formed (I'm working on it!), but after cooling in the fibre blanket for a few hours, then soaking overnight in tepid water, every single bead came off the mandrels, crack-free, and they're now clean and waiting for inspiration to strike so that I can make them into something pretty. Hurrah!

Dark Times in the City

Dark Times in the City is the first novel from Gene Kerrigan, and I re-read it last night after deciding that I was too snoozy to play with fire.

Dark Times requires a bit of attention - I wouldn't try to read it in a busy room! The time line is scrambled, so we join the action in the middle, with Danny Callaghan trying to keep a low profile in a down-at-heel local pub before being dragged, against his will, into the glare of criminal gang attention. I found the use of Callaghan as protagonist interesting; he is rather a bland character, constantly trying to wiggle out of trouble but not really making a true effort to do so. His relationship with his ex-wife and best friend/employer are the key to understanding Callaghan: he keeps them both at a distance, maintaining only superficial contact, possibly in an attempt to protect himself from the full impact of his time in prison. On the other hand Callaghan's opposite number, Mackendrick, was wonderful, jumping off the page. The references to Mackendrick's more violent deeds are oblique, but keep the reader aware that this is not a man to cross, and I would have loved more about his past. Throughout the book Mackendrick drives the action, from the initial confrontation in the pub through to the explosive denouement. Dark Times is of course populated by a raft of minor characters in addition to Callaghan and Mackendrick, and these are generally well-drawn. Prowse in particular is definitely worth keeping an eye on!

If you enjoy Ian Rankin or Stuart Neville, you'll enjoy Gene Kerrigan.

Dark Times is on Amazon - of course - but if you're interested I'm sure you can find it at your library.

Setting up the studio

I've been stitching seed beads into all sorts of pretty, delicate creations for just over two years now, and I love it. But at the back of my mind was a little thought, brought on by over-exposure to magazines and craft shows. You've all seen them, those pretty spreads in your favourite beading magazine with detailed instructions about how to make fantastic glass beads with swirls, flowers, embedded silver and all sorts of deliciousness. It's the sort of thing that you secretly (or not so secretly) want to try, while at the same time thinking 'I could never do that!'.

I did a lot of research online (and I mean a LOT) and discovered that you can safely make glass beads in your own home, and it's not too expensive to get yourself started. On the other hand, I really didn't want to invest in the relevant kit before I'd had a lesson and made sure that it was something I was going to enjoy! So back in September I took a class with the lovely Keiara (bykeiara.blogspot.com) and was well and truly bitten by the bug: lampwork.

While driving myself back from Folkestone, I plotted, planned and generally schemed about how to get myself set up to make these glossy lovelies at home. My research had revealed that Tuffnell Glass (www.tuffnellglass.com) sell a beadmaking kit with a Hot Head torch - nice and basic for baby beadmakers! - glass, mandrels, safety glass and all the other bits and pieces that you could want. I also picked up a fibre blanket for cooling my beads, and a bench clamp to fix my torch to. Needless to say, I was HUGELY excited when my package arrived, but I had to hold myself back until I tracked down the vital missing ingredient, MAPP gas. If you're interested, most plumbers' merchants stock this stuff, and it ranges in price from £8 to £13 a bottle, depending on where you are and whether they apply VAT before or after they put a price sticker on the bottle.

It took a little while, but yesterday I finally screwed my bench clamp to an old Ikea computer desk (this really is a basic operation), set up the torch and started to play with fire.



It's not the most exotic studio, and I have to remember to pull the curtains right out of the way, but it's safe and secure, and - most importantly - it works!