Streamlining a bit - Battah's bead babies

[Katbran]

Looks good...those little gold beads do pop don't they !

 

[lmgarden]

Ooohhh, Battah I love it!!! Amazing how you weaved them all together!

 

[battah]

Thanks, all! Just finished this guy, too. I love the colors but not the pattern, so I'll probably actually try to sell this one lol. Gold clasp, I think.

 

[Katbran]

Hmmm .. I agree with you . That didn't turn out the way I had it pictured. Are the Howlite beads sitting out from the coral ? Are they larger ?

 

[battah]

Yeah they're slightly larger. I don't mind that, I like texture, but I don't know how pronounced through spiral patten is. I wanted more of a scattered effect.

 

[Katbran]

That's what I thought was going to happen. Random is a lot harder to achieve than people think ! And, not being familiar with this beading style I can't help at all. Don't get me wrong..I think it's a pretty necklace...it's just not what I thought was going to happen ; )

 

[battah]

That's the fun of experimenting

 

[MSC]

I think the spiral pattern looks really nice! I'd go with an antiqued silver clasp, personally

 

[battah]

Oh I like that! I think I have a few somewhere.

 

[SunSeeker]

very nice, battah!

 

[battah]

Thank you, SunSeeker! I haven't updated on a while - finally got out the light box and took decent pictures. Here we go...

First up, the coral and howlite necklace:

I had a cute little Hill Tribe clasp I thought kind of went with the overall vibe.

Then, one I completely forgot I made - lavender metallic rice pearls and tiny off-white rice pearls.

 

[battah]

Next, very exciting - Lady Disdain was kind enough to make me some pearl tassel caps! They arrived today, so I'm playing with matching them up with beads. They're so pretty!

 

[battah]

I also made this - dyed jasper and glass beads. Turned out cooler than I expected, so I grabbed some lapis chips and will make a couple more, one with gold and one with silver beads.

 

[battah]

And finally! Possible combos.

 

[battah]

Just kidding there's more.
A good pic of the kumihimo collar:

And I restrung my triple strand into an ombre rope and I'm a little obsessed with it - this is heavily inspired by Purranha's gorgeous Emily Thorne (with pendant option here):

And of course there's a matching tassel - FYI Beader's Secret makes lovely tassels (thanks again, pattye!):

Ok done for now

 

[enbcfsobe]

gorgeous!! the ombre rope is fabulous -- did you hand-wrap the tassel out of BS? how much did it take?
also those tiny little keshi/baroque strands in #54 (akoya keshi maybe??) look like they'd make a cool strand for your MS river pin!
so many inspiring designs!

 

[JerseyPearl]

Whenever I do a random placement of pearls, I dump everything into one dish and "blindly" pull out a bead. If I try to pick a "random" pattern, my mind always steers me toward a pattern and not a random placement. That said, I rather like the coral and turq colored beads together.

 

[battah]

gorgeous!! the ombre rope is fabulous -- did you hand-wrap the tassel out of BS? how much did it take?
also those tiny little keshi/baroque strands in #54 (akoya keshi maybe??) look like they'd make a cool strand for your MS river pin!
so many inspiring designs!

Thank you! I did hand wrap, it was pretty simple - not sure how much it took, I get the spools of Beader's Secret and they hold a ton of thread. You'd need more than a few cards of thread, I would think.

Great idea re: the keshi! Yes, they're akoya - I fell in love with the look of them, they're just so gorgeous. I think the two strands in those pics are from Ehret Design Gallery, and the ones in my twisted Tahitian strand are from PP. They're pricey but worth it, so pretty.

 

[battah]

Whenever I do a random placement of pearls, I dump everything into one dish and "blindly" pull out a bead. If I try to pick a "random" pattern, my mind always steers me toward a pattern and not a random placement. That said, I rather like the coral and turq colored beads together.

That's a good idea, I tend to gravitate toward patterns, too. And with a braid like this, even if the spacing on each warp is similar, you may still end up with a spiral instead of scattering. I have a bunch of little pearls I got for another kumihimo braid, I may just calculate how many I need on each warp and dump them into a bowl, mix them up, then separate and string. That's going to be really tedious (they're tiny), but I think it'll be much prettier than a spiral.

 

[BWeaves]

Wow! Gorgeous.