I’m still playing around with ideas for a herringbone/St. Petersburg chain combination. I’ve moved past the sketching phase, and onto my next step: playing with beads.
I’ve gotten into the habit of stitching little swatches of beads to try things out –– a creative technique that I learned from Beth Stone, who’s pretty fearless when it comes to experimenting with stitches. I often use the first beads I lay my hands on, and I try to recreate some of the stitch patterns I sketched. Rather than picking apart my failed attempts, I set the swatch aside and move on to the next attempt. I learn a lot from my failures by studying what doesn’t work, and sometimes I’ll stumble across something unexpected. If a few different attempts seem to be working out, I try to see how many different directions I can take those patterns in.
Right now, I’m most pleased with the lacy texture and defined lines of my cranberry swatch. I’d like to play with the colors and the bead sizes a little more, to really make the texture pop. My original plan was to try to do a necklace, but this pattern is a little too wide for my taste. I think it would make an excellent bracelet.
The other option I like is the bronze and brown swatch. Using different sizes of seed beads (as in Carole Horn’s Rainbow Collar) adds a nice curve that would fit perfectly as a necklace. The St. Petersburg chain is a little boring right now, but the right beads will make it stand out and accentuate the curve.
The next step for this project will be to play with different bead sizes and start brainstorming color schemes to make the most of the stitching.
Want to leave a comment?
Login or register for an account to join our
online community!
There are no comments for this post.