Back to the beads

My last several posts have veered off topic from what this blog is supposed to be about, so I'll post a couple of pics of two necklaces I talked about earlier as they were in progress. 

This one I call "Russian Gold" because it features the Russian spiral stitch. I like how the long rope is broken up by the large glass rondelles on either side. Note that neither of the two spiral rope columns pictured in my original post here were used to make this; I made three new ones that were all the same thickness. (And no, I never solved the mystery of why try #1 was fat and try #2 was skinny.) 

And lookie here at the necklace I first blogged about way back in January. 

I called it "Down and Dirty" at the time because that was the week's theme in the Year of Jewelry Project and earth tones were my inspiration. I actually finished the necklace within a week or so of that blogpost, but it took me several more weeks to get around to taking decent pictures of it. By then, the YOJP's theme was "Windswept," so that's what I called it when I posted a pic there. (I wrote that it evoked the swirling maelstrom that autumn leaves sometimes get caught up in.)

This was my first time doing double spiral rope stitch. I had seen the stitch before in several beadweaving books, and although it looked very easy, I was never tempted to make anything with it because I didn't like the finished effect. However, this design, by Alicia Shems (in the book Creative Beading vol. 5), features these ingenious graduated loops. I think the effect is stunning. If I remember correctly, I altered the pattern only slightly, using somewhat larger beads and longer loops. Check out Alicia Shems' amazing work at the link above!

I think I said in my last post that I would show off some of my bounty from the craftsmen's fair, but I haven't been able to take pictures of that, either. Yesterday morning I was shooting some pics of jewelry when my camera batteries died. I got some new batteries later in the day, but today I had to disassemble my light box to reorganize my space. I'm trying to establish a permanent setup so that I can take pictures day or night using appropriate artificial light (lamps outfitted with daylight spectrum bulbs.). Right now, I'm limited to shooting on Saturday and Sunday mornings and hoping that it's not a cloudy day.

I was hoping that restoring my lightbox setup would be my this-weekend project, but it may be turning into my next-weekend project.