June Etsy Beadweaver's Challenge Entry

I decided to do a more playful theme for the Phenomenon challenge. This necklace is called Rolling Snowballs. The stitch, dutch spiral, reminds me of rolling a snow ball, stopping to pack it together and then rolling some more. The spiral is an increasing number of white iris charlotte beads that are loose, with several other beads that are connected in peyote style. The top portion of the necklace is strung white Swarovski pearls and crystal moonlight and crystal ab Swarovski crystals in rounds and bicone shapes. This necklace is 24 inches long. It is white and crystal ab. I'm thinking of doing a bridal and special occasion section in my etsy shop. Taking the pictures was somewhat of a challenge with white and depth of field to get the entire necklace in focus; the skinny one is taken almost vertical while the other is flat focusing on the center front of the necklace. The skinny one is most in focus for the entire necklace. When I photographed it on white, I had some shadows which were cooler than the necklace!

Roller coaster ride

I have been trying to recover from an online marketing class I took after a poorly attended weekend art show. The obvious writer's block attack came on immediately because I was told I needed to put something of value in my blog. So after the unexpected results from the Art Fair, my self esteem was not up for thinking I had anything of value to write about. I often feel like I am a yo yo or riding a roller coaster, emotionally, with being an artist.

I completed part of my June challenge entry for the Etsy Beadweavers. It is whites and a dutch spiral chain about 14 inches long. I found some lovely size 11 charlottes (seed beads with a facet) in white iris for the strung loose part. I would normally explain the rest of the beading process, but I was visualizing the glazed eyes of my readers so I'll stop for now. Value? No. Before I finish the project, I will take a picture and post it here.

Dutch Spiral Necklace and Earrings

Earrings of the day are Swarovski green and purple flower earrings. They look spring/summer to me.

I added the dutch spiral necklace which has Swarovski black diamond ab bicones as well as the delica beads which are miyuki 107 transparent grey iris which are similar to the black diamond color. This is my creative heart shaped display for necklaces. If you want to learn more, the listing should be above under my blog banner.

Dutch spiral is similar to peyote stitch except some of the beads increase and decrease (the delicas) and do not connect to the previous row. Counting is important so that it drapes well. Also the beads used vary in size starting with an 8 (I used a double delica columnar shape bead) which is a great place to hide knots and several size 10 and then the delica beads. Use uniform size of beads for the ones that increase and decrease to get a beautiful spiral curve. You always know which bead to pick up because it is the same as the one you are coming out of from the previous row.

I have used a variety of stitches to finish off the spiral, but find the strung crystals and silver to be preferable. You really can't see the sides and back of a necklace, so spending extra time beadweaving there just makes the necklace more costly. Besides the crystals are lovely. This stitch is a lot faster than the cellini spiral.