Seed beads got me :(

I have discovered FiremountainGems and their gallery of designs. Disaster. Have surfed Russian seed beading sites. Big Fat Disaster. Surely enough, I just had to try embroidery with seed beads as well as some weaving techniques. Here is the result!

This bracelet got a romantic name "Aqua". Freeform peyote with 11, 8 and 6° rocaillies (Toho and Ornela), square Toho, and 5mm crystal bicones.




This is my first trial of beading around cabochons and embroidery with seed beads. These ones are Toho size 15-6° and Gutterman size 9. I called this piece "Ural", let me explain why.

My mother is born in a small (by Russian standards) city in the Ural mountains (Nizhniy Tagil for the curious readers). Among other things, the mines around that city are known for their semi precious gems, and malachite is one of them. Without any doubt, malachite is one of my absolute favorite gems. I just love the magic of its shades of dark green mixed with ribbons of black. I learnt about it from the fairytales that my grandparents used to tell me. People say that malachite protects its bearer from "evil eye" and "negative energies". Well, even if it does - it is just a plus. It is a truly magical stone!


Well, this is really my very first trial of the technique. In some places, the base of embroidery shows through the rows of beads, and some rows are not perfectly lined up. But I promise to work on it! ;)


And this is one of the last pieces, I called it "Celestial Chaos". It is made in freeform brick stitch, using the "Rich" mix of seed-beads in all possible sizes and shapes, to which I have added golden buggles and copper squares.




BEADING IS FUN!

Stringing continued :)

Here is some stuff that I have made this summer.

This one was made by request from my brother, meant as a present to his girlfriend. The "challenge" was to string something brown. Well, brown it was: lamp-work glass, seed beads, glass hearts and dyed freshwater pearls.

My mother was next in the line - she needed a necklace to match her new green-brown-copper party outfit. I made two pieces with mixed seed beads and some acrylic ones, added dyed shell beads and dyed freshwater pearls in shades of green and (surprise!) brown ;).


This one was made because my precious soul all over the sudden started to request something light, white and pink. I blame it on pregnancy!

And this is the last piece of my "summer collection" - recycled old and boring string of turquoise chips that my parents bought me in Egypt in 1990. I have added some freshwater pearls of natural white color, clear crystal chips, foiled glass beads and gold-plated metal beads.

First steps...

This is one of the first necklaces I have ever made: two strings of mixed seed-beeds, one string of peridot chips and a string of mixed large beads. And what a mix it was! Acrylic beads mixed with glass, dyed freshwater pearls, metal and its plastic imitation and semi-precious gemstones. I thought it might be fun to try out different materials and textures, and I think it went quite well.


But I have also discovered another thing - I love working with glass beads! There is something magical about those... Something about their cool, shiny surface and the weight of the string in your hand...
I never thought that I will fall for mixing glass with semi-precious gems. But c'mon, I'm not a jeweler, I am a beader! ;) And I like it!

Presentation

Right, it is time to present myself.

Shortly: human female in her prime, mother of two boys.
Born in Latvia USSR, in 1998 came to Sweden for three months as an exchange student. Couple of years later, I've got PhD from Uppsala university and met the love of my life. Who turned out to be a High Elf, but it is a completely different story.

Speaking more personally, deep inside I am a hippie. A well-disguised one. I like fantasy and science-fiction (in healthy moderation), as well as I enjoy making things with my own hands. That is knitting, embroidery, beading, baking chocolate cakes, putting up the wallpapers (happens rarely), painting on the walls (happens all too seldom), etc.