Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Pineapple Lace

I have been so busy beading lately that I lost track of my Diary and haven't even been visiting my favorite beading forums or my beading groups on Facebook. I am working on several pieces for the Beading Babes Challenge for this month as well as a few Birthday and Mother's Day gifts, a collar for myself, and a loomwork project for one of my FB groups!

As if that wasn't enough to keep me busy around the clock, I made a spur of the moment decision to purchase a challenge kit from Amy over at Amy Beads, who I met through the Beading Babes group. I chose to buy this kit in orange because I liked the focal bead, I like Amy, and the colors in the kit are so far outside my comfort zone that it really inspired me to challenge myself!

Check out Amy's blog, she is participating in the A to Z Blog Hop...and writing a blog post every day of April (except Sundays), and her posts are all about Beading! She will be writing about the reveal of our challenge kit projects as a blog post on day R, for Reveal.

During all this beading madness, I ended up ripping out over 12 hours of work on a project and started over! The particular piece is the Pineapple Lace pattern by Mikki Ferrugiaro. The design and the pattern itself is awesome, as always.

Her directions are flawless and I am very familiar with her tutorials and her style so while I usually bead up a small sample whenever I am working on something new, I didn't do that this time...so I take all the blame for having to rip out so much work!

The way this project is laid out, you stitch the center of each component in one long strip and then you work out from there. So your length and number of 'Pineapples' is predetermined at the very beginning of the project....and your rows go back and forth across the length.

And of course I decided to make myself a collar rather than just test it out with a small cuff. And I miscalculated my length and added entirely too many "Pineapples", if that makes any sense.

Due to this construction process, it really makes no sense to try and shorten the piece once you are too far into the work...and I was beyond the point of no return! So I just ripped it all out and started over. But I love the end result and it was worth all that time I invested in it!

I am really loving beaded lace, and I think this would make beautiful bracelets, chokers, doilies, embellishments on fabric etc...it really is beautiful and it curves around your neck or wrist perfectly!




One of the projects in this month's Beading Babes challenge is the Trellis Necklace by Nancy Dale...and it is a really cool design for a beaded rope. I have completed about 20 inches of it so far and I really like how it's turning out.

I would love to share more photos, but I really shouldn't post any until the reveal at the end of the month...besides, I am also having a terrible time getting good photos of it...the colors just don't want to cooperate with my camera!

While working on this project, I decided it might be cool to add some beaded beads between the rope segments...so I have been playing around with Gwen Fisher's pattern for her Cube Cluster Beaded Bead in the current issue of Beadwork Magazine.

These are larger than I thought I would be comfortable with for this rope, but now that I have made one, I really like it...and I plan to experiment with different Pearl sizes and try to make some smaller beads. And if you simply follow the diagrams, rather than all the text, the pattern is easy to follow and works up very quickly!



During all these long hours of beading, I have been contemplating Thread and it's somewhat invisible yet starring role in Beadwork...while it may not be seen, it really is a major component. So my upcoming post about Thread is becoming more in depth than I originally anticipated...more to come soon!

Happy Beading!

7 comments:

Therese's Treasures said...

Hi Vimala,
Your Pineapple lace necklace is gorgeous. Oh I don't know if I would have had the will for all to tear it out and start over though. I have not started the Trellis necklace yet. I did start the bracelet, but I did not like the focal beads I chose so I orders some more they should arrive soon, in the mean time I am working on my challenge piece for Amy's challenge.
Therese

Emma said...

OMG Vimala! I LOOOOOOOOVE that lace necklace!!! It is sooo me, I must have one! Lol.. Payday this weekend, should I splurge...?

I know the feeling about losing track of your diary.. I kinda fell off the map for a little, but back on the wagon now :)

I love the beaded bead as well. The colours are amazing in it. I saw that in the magazine and promised myself I would attempt it, so long as I get some of my UFOS out of the way first. Haha!

Emma
xXx

Legolas said...

This necklace is so wonderful.
I don' think I have the patience to bead it.
Really lovely.

Amy S. said...

Thank you for your kind words Vimala!

WOW - that lace necklace is absolutely SPECTACULAR!!!! I LOVE IT!

Great beaded bead too. I love this beaded bead series they have going on this year - I did last issue's and am still waiting (til probably next month) to do the current one that you did...

And what a great observation about thread in the magazine you have noticed. I'm heading straight to my magazine stash after this and now I"m very much looking forward to your thread post!

Tia Dalma said...

Thank you all so much for the compliments! I highly recommend Mikki's tutorials.

She is an excellent designer and her tutorials are very well written and diagrammed...but also not overly wordy, easy to follow for a beginner or an advanced beader!

Horse'n'Garden said...

LOVE the lace necklace!! I feel inspired by it! I have had a few thoughts bouncing around in my head around a similar type of stitching... I hope I can get them out of my head and into bead form one day!
I simply LOVE the beaded bead!! My friend and I have made them in the 8mm the pattern calls for, and 6mm, and 10mm and even a 12mm! I will have to post them on my blog this weekend! I'm OBSESSED with them!! :D Great colors on yours!!!

Gwenbeads said...

Yeah! I love the beaded lace, and the Cube Cluster came out great. Well done!