It's all about love

I have new things to tell you! And thinking about it, it's all about love. Quite a while ago, I answered to someone that I bead to create emotions. This remains true.

For my lovely physiotherapist who is awaiting a baby girl, I made a long necklace with a small "Mexican Bola", also called Chime bead, Pregnancy or Harmony ball. She chose the colours and I happily obliged. At first I tried to make a bola canasta for her, of course, because she saw them. But it didn't work, which I expected, because the chime bead has to be free to sound right. So I made a larger one, which didn't seem right for her. So I turned to an older of my designs, the Open Heart. It looks smaller, more feminine. I can't wait to give it to her. And to my surprise, when I posted a short video on Facebook about how it sounds... many of you ordered the tut to make one too! Thank you so much!

Left to right: Small Bola, Open Heart, a bit larger bola

 

I also want to tell about 4 women I would like to celebrate. They (and others) make the world a better place.

Let me start with Carol, who is such a sweet person. She sells crocheted items for charity. She made soft mask adapters during Covid and gifted hundreds of them to nurses and paramedics. One day I asked to buy a pair of fingerless gloves and a matching beanie. She sent them to me but she never wanted to be paid. I was surprised! I promised myself to do something to thank her. But there is not so much that I can do... So I named my Laroque Girandoles after her (because they look as sweet as she). I reversed 2 letters and voilà! I was stunned that they landed on the cover of the 101st Beadworkers Guild Journal this month!

Laroque - Girandoles

For the note, these "Girandoles" were created within the framework of a long article about seed pearls and how incredible creations were made with them back in time. I hope that you will enjoy learning more about it. If you click on the image below, a link will take you to the Pinterest album with all the pictures I gathered while investigating about this wonderful art.

 

My 3 Bowlas - for which I just planned 3 workshops (see more details here) are obviously also named after persons, and they're awesome:

The turquoise Bénédicte is named after Béné, whom I met on Zoom and Facebook. She and I bonded immediately. If there is something like cosmic sisters, we must be two!

The yellow Martina is for my wonderful friend living here in Switzerland. It's going to sound strange, but I wish that we lived closer. Lol! She lives in the mountains, at quite a distance driving, and has a busy job. But we manage to meet from time to time, and love to bead together, and help one another with other things when we can.

The red Sabine is named after the most lovely customer one can dream of. She is incredibly supportive of my work, through email and on Facebook, she often posts an encouraging comment. She also has bought every single pattern in my shop, but in addition to that she also has bought some of them more than once to support me when things were tough for me. Let that sink in... She doesn't need them. She just buys them out of sheer generosity. 

Bowlas: the Sabine, the Martina and the Bénédicte

 

I'm so grateful for these women. And for other women too. From now on, I will name more of my creations after people who rock my world.

Last but not least, I finished writing the tutorial for the Pilot Wings, the slide pendant that so many of you asked a tutorial for. Here it is! I called Silver Wings the one made for the stand of the Beadworkers Guild in Daventry and at other shows this year - they celebrate their 25th anniversary! Happy Wings is the name of the one that I made to do the tutorial. I hope that you will make Blue Wings, Fairy Wings, Rainbow wings... Many wings!

 

Thank you for reading me and for beading with me. And if you have a story about a friend or about some random kindness, something that made your day or the world better, please tell me about it in the comments!

Cath

The Doris medallion

 Last year, I got a sweet message from a woman named Doris. She said that after reading my blog post about my BWG challenge entry of 2020, the Fantasy Chess Play, where I mention that I love the Neuschwanstein castle in Bayern, she wanted to send me something related, but needed my address for this.

 

So I gave her my address and then the wait to see what this could be started. I fantasized about it. Maybe it was a water-filled ball with snowflakes inside? No idea. After a while, I wondered if it had been lost, but fortunately not. For some reason the envelope got returned to Doris, so she could send it again.

When I opened the letter, I found a beautiful hand-crafted Christmas card with a little "frame" with a brand new 2-Euro coin inside. One side of the coin was struck with the image of the Neuschwanstein castle.

 

Doris bought it several years ago and had been the only one to touch it, until she sent it to me. 

I feel very honored, Doris, that you offered me this little treasure. The coin is really beautiful and I love it. 

Of course I had to make something beautiful with it, and here is what it became: a lovely medallion made with a Cellini Peyote ribbon, with a special rope with lots of little variations made with hexagonal Diamond Weave. 

 I used precious metal seed beads (gold and platinum- plated) and 3mm faceted gemstones in a yummy camellia rose-red and am very pleased with the result.

At the back, the Cellini bezel shows well.

 

A leather cord can be used too.

The rope is 3-unit based  and the bail is made with a 5-unit start. 

I love to see the coin from this angle, where the details in the metalwork show so well, how the castle is not flat but really 3D (with relief).

 

I hope that you like it too.

 

 Cath

 

Quadruple Wow!

While writing this, it rains, and still is very cold over here. But!! On the 26th of January I saw a couple of bulbs bravely pointing new leaves to the sky despite the nightfrost. Wow! It surprised me and made me smile out loud Yay, Spring is on its way: 😊. I also saw catkins past week. 

Now if you don't have signs of Spring outside, yours truly made sure that you nevertheless would see something Spring-like this month: Fairy Flowers.

I'm a cover girl again! In the 113th Bead & Jewellery magazine, you will find this pretty project designed to welcome the Spring: geometric Cellini peyote flowers on a lariat. I hope that it will make you smile too!  

Fairy Flowers with
beaded rope

Fairy Fowers
with leather
cord

You can wear and make it in many ways. In addition to the blue and rose lariats shown in the magazine, I made a metal-based lariat with just two of these flowers. They are in good company: a  Rainbola (free pattern) covers the sliding bead, and a pair of Fandango earrings in matching colours completes the whole. You can also make earrings with the Fairy Flowers. I hope that you will make many!

Vicky Roberts, the lovely editor of Bead and Jewellery Magazine, also wanted to do an interview with me. I really appreciated collaborating with her. 

Now if it is really special to be a cover girl, to learn from her pen that I am one of the most influential beaders in the beading community is beyond expectations. Wow!! 

I feel honored,  grateful and happy!

Fairy flowers on
lariat-style chain

I like to enable beaders and contribute to the evolution of beading. This is one of the reasons why I write blog posts from time to time. So here is a bit more about the  lariat. 

The Yukka flower was a first warped hexagon (the other is my Trapezino pendant). Because it includes Cellini peyote, it is not obvious that it is one. In the bridal set shown here, you can see lots of Peppers, 3 & 4 pointed Yukka flowers and a hairstick with the very first Fairy Flower (02-2011).

Pepper, Fork, and Yukka
Flower Bridal set - 2011

Funnily, when I made the Toxic Flowers necklace based on it, I thought that many would easily guess how to make them, so I didn't write a tutorial for it. 

Then I made my Jalisco Bangle, another all-increase zig zag, but with a long start. I later gave it to the Contemporary Geometric Beadwork project /volume 1, pp. 214-215), with the hope that a whole team would find ways to take it further. Because to find the right size for a bangle with this technique was quite a challenge.

Toxic Flowers - 2011

Thanks to the CGB team and in particular the immensely talented Claudia Furthner, who created a tiny all-wing, the best starter strip for zigzag beadwork was found.

Jalisco Bangle for
CGB (2012-2013)

It's a joy to start new beadwork with it. Making various sizes of bangles is suddenly way less fastidious, albeit still a bit challenging if it is not for our own wrist.

For that, the paper about Rick Rack sizes and charts that I wrote/drew thanks to the contribution of many other CGB team members is still useful and available for free on my website. 

New "pod" designed
by Claudia Furthner
beaded by moi

Oh and I also developed a little mathematic formula to help planning the number of Delicas needed for the start of a bangle of certain sizes. I gave it to the CGB team during a beading retreat for them to develop further and perhaps it will soon be made available.

Do you remember that Sam Norgard launched a communal project for all beaders to participate in, world wide: the "Black and White together" project? It is becoming a huge portrait of African American bead artist Joyce Scott.

In 2021, Sam launched another communal project called "All colors", also for all to participate. Guess what folks are asked to make? Little flowers, cast off Claudia's pod! You can still participate in this project.

All colors flower

My muse sings: Sam's project will showcase a gazillion star flowers, and they are all mini "Jalisco". Wow!!! She didn't consciously use the Jalisco flower as a base, but still, it was my gift to the CGB project. It is lovely to see it live further. My Jalisco bangle tutorial is a bit obsolete now - I would recommend casting one off of a pod and hope that if you do, you will send me a photo, or tag me in it on Facebook!

B&W together

Now please have a look at this small pattern by Eva Maria Kaiser which uses bugle beads. She made all-wings earlier than me! I do believe that Eva Maria is the mother of many geometric break-throughs without that many of us noticing. If geometric beadwork can lead to design collision as I try to explain in my previous article, Eva Maria is a Master at transforming her work into unique pieces of Art and the original structure of her pieces tends to disappear in the background. 

Visit her website: her work is overwhelmingly impressive and beautiful and proof that we have endless design possibilities still awaiting our hands and needles.

Now what can the 4th wow be after all this awesome sauce?

Well, the other day, I discovered that Feedspot, in their "Top 80 Bead Blogs and Websites" places this blog by yours truly... 14th! Wow!!!! I feel very honoured. Last time that I looked at this list, it was somewhere in the 50's, so thank you to all those who appreciate my articles and let them know that they do! You rock.

Cath

A Wonky Christmas tree for a "crooked" Christmas

I didn't  plan on doing anything special for Christmas this year, beadywise. I had my mind focused on Octavio the Octopus, the Sunshine pendant workshop and I want to work more on my 2022 Beadworkers Guild Challenge piece. Not much progress has been made on the latter; it has been an endless tergiversation resulting in tons of beads bought that won't work (the trouble of having a specific idea in mind!). I also have a pile of Czech beads to play with... I'm busy, happily busy.

Beautiful version of Sunshine
beaded by Eileen Montgomery

But!!! I did an unexpected and totally improvised "workshop" in the  Facebook group Cellini Peyote Freaks, a group founded by me but expertly moderated / managed by Linda, Dee, Sarah, Eileen, Karyn and Coral.

Click on the image to go to the FB group

 

Linda asked me if I knew about the existence of a pattern for a Christmas tree design made with Cellini peyote, in particular with the "Bola method". The bola method is flat diagonal Cellini peyote. Immediately an image took shape in my head that I wanted to try to bead.

For this little green Cellini tree, I used a sequence with softly increasing sizes of Czech seed beads (11°, 10°, 9° and 8°). Below the 4 photos show it from each side.

Yes, it is a wonky tree. And the more I look at it, the more I love it. No need for perfection. We need variation.

 I tried to do a live demo on FB, but it didn't work right.

The videos with the instructions are posted in the FB Cellini peyote freaks group. I hope that you will enjoy making your version with your favorite colours and look forward to seeing it.

I also tried to use Japanese seed beads and see what I could substitute. That resulted in this pretty white wonky tree. 

And now members are testing various combos and it is really interesting to work on this together, to bead together. 

Even if far apart, we are close, we are a family. A family of beaders. 

And thanks to this experiment, I discovered that "crooked little Christmas trees are actually a thing. Charly Brown, Grinchmas and even an adorable Christmas tale all feature wonky trees. 

This is a link to a nice lecture, with beautiful
illustrations, great to watch with kids.

One thing leading to another, I had to try another snail after making my Wonky tree, of course, but it was far more complex to do than I thought and it took me quite a bit of trial and error, but I am so pleased with the result! So much better than my previous snails.
I hope to tutify this pretty "Snow Snail" next year.

 

During this challenging year, meeting with fellow beaders through Zoom and Facebook has helped me very much to stay positive and creative, and I hope that this is the case, somehow, for you too.

May the holidays be happy and cosy, may you stay safe, and find reasons to rejoice, even if it are only "the little things".

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

Cath

Go beyond technique

In my previous post about design, I wrote a long article about copyright and fair use and things like that.

In this post, I wish to talk about flat diagonal Cellini peyote to give you more examples about going beyond technique.

In the photo below you can see several designs made with this technique.

There are 3 peyote ribbons at the top, of which one is zipped in the length. All are clever beauties. The pendant on the left took much more time and research to create and clearly goes beyond technique. The Fandango earrings are a typical example of art-chitecture, the frontier between technique and art. Those who know me know that attaching the earstud and the earnut to the beadwork is a "Cath" signature.

When I made my Anthea's Tiara central stone bezel, I discovered how to make Bolas Canastas. I decided to give the Bolas Canastas technique to the people of Planet Bead, because of its huge potential. This is why I use the example of this technique: I see it evolve nearly "live" and with pleasure.

Flat diagonal Cellini peyote is only technique and I already had created many dimensional Cellini Peyote shaped beadwork. The tutorials for these pretties will expand your beady brain far more than the bolas, which is why I wrote tutorials for them:

3D or "Dimensional" or "shaped" Cellini Peyote creations:
Precious Pommanders, Mermaid Tail beaded
beads and Lotus bangle

Unzipped bolas are simply diagonal Cellini peyote ribbons. I don't see them as design, but as technique. Nobody can claim them as a design. But depending on what you do with these ribbons, the size, the bead count, the colors, the assembling method, they become designs. The method is the architecture to which you need to add a bit of your Art to make it your art-chitecture.

These Bolas are my designs, for their special
shapes and special colors

I made many different bolas. The variations in color and shape offer endless design possibilities.

Tooth pick vessel "Primeval Waters"

The longer and wider the ribbon, the more things become interesting. If you make a Cellini ribbon with your personal choice of bead colors and sizes, it will determine what the piece will look like in the end and that is what will make it yours. There is a different bola for each beader on Planet Bead.

Frosty is a shaped (triple) Bola Canastas
for which I made a tutorial

Of course, the more complex, the more a design can be "claimed".

Teresa Shelton is a very creative beader who uses primarely peyote stitch for her own creations. She made her Minx River earrings by folding the Cellini ribbon. This might sound very simple, but it takes a specific choice of bead sizes for a nice result. She teaches them in her region, but also gave us the sequence in the Cellini Peyote Freaks group.

Teresa's Minx River earrings in
delightful rainbow colors.

I had plans to make real earhoops. Créoles in French. I love that word. My plan was to add earstuds and earnuts to make hoops. I tried and ended up with my Fandango Earrings. 

My preferred version of the Fandango earrings are the ones with the studs and nuts attached to the beadwork as in the photo below, but I also made a dangle version with off-centered beads added to them). I think that my earrings really go beyond technique and that they are very "me".

Fandango Earrings

The same is valid for CRAW, Herringbone, Peyote, Diamond Weave, Brickstitch and many more techniques. Add your special touch. And if you encounter design collision, don't feel defeated. It means that you're on the right track!

Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year

2018 comes to its end and I wanted to look back at it.

I have been struggling a real lot with my health. The Summer was too warm and sunny and if you know me, you know how hard that is for me.

Both my desire and ability to write tutorials was extremely low after the Cellini peyote shapes were finally all done. I am grateful to those who bought a pattern: Thank you very much for your support! But I hope to sell more of my Cellini peyote shapes, for I haven't done anything else for sale the past 6 months, except Frosty. Instead, I did a lot for free:

'Frosty' - snowman made of one single Bola Canastas

I founded a wonderful new Facebook group, Cellini Peyote Freaks, where you can learn a lot about the stitch and its applications. Color challenges with prizes are organized.
I wrote and drew instructions for various Cellini peyote techniques, including the Bolas Canastas. I consider it as a technique people can take further, like I did with Frosty, this little snowman. He is one Bola Canastas. You will find the tutorial only in my IndieMade shop.

I was very happy with the two workshops I organized in collaboration with my ergotherapist and am very much looking forward to founding a beading group in my hometown next year.

I was less happy with some painful misunderstandings. And with people who didn't understand my genuine concern, who didn't see that I cared for them. People who understood things I wrote wrong and created more darkness in my life. One of them not only spread hate, tore my reputation to pieces, but thinks that everything is all fine now! Well, some harm cannot be undone. There is no UNDO in real life.

Fortunately, I saw this video about Sunny Jacobs, reminding me to shine my little light of mine. It helped me more than telling myself that Karma would bite eventually. And my many other, real friends on FB were precious allies. You know who you are! 💗💗💗 I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

'Silver Lining'

'Silver Lining' also reminds me that there is light in the dark. If none, there is my light. That there is a tomorrow, with new friends and adventures. Always. And that we learn. and learn. and learn.

I for sure enter 2019 wiser and freer than I was in 2018.

I wish you a Happy Holiday Season. May your heart be filled with love and your days be peaceful. And I wish you a

Happy New Year!!!

May laughter illuminate your days often.

Last but not least, this is the text I wrote on Facebook when posting the photos of my 'Silver Lining' bracelet there. Learn more about this cuff.

What is sacred?

Everything.

Life is sacred.

The birds, the fish, the dragonfly, the pangolin, the big and the small cats, the apes. the trees, the moon, the sun, the stars, the entire Universe. Your life. Your body. Your soul. Everyone's life, body, soul.

Love is sacred.

The love in your heart is sacred. Even the sorrow in your heart is, for sorrow is linked to love that is not acknowledged, may it be because of absence or departure...

Time is sacred.

Your time. Everyone's time. Because life is time.
Your feelings. For feelings come from love or the lack of it.

Your eyes telling how you feel. My eyes. Theirs. Your eyes seeing life unfold. Our eyes seeing miracles happen. Miracles of life, miracles of love.

And all this echoes with that light that you have inside of you, that light that has no name, that light that shines or sometimes dims...

The time you are not gazing at the moon, not holding a kid's hand, not laughing with friends, not making love - maybe because you can't, but still need to put all that love into something to keep that light shine on, is sacred. Maybe just to say to whomever will see it that you exist, with all this love or light inside of you that you don't know what to do with... To say that you are life, still alive, also there, also a part of it all. To be acknowledged.

And so the things in which you put all that time, all that love, a little bit of your soul, making it meaningful things, are sacred. By extension.

And so, everything becomes sacred.

Everything is sacred.

Bolas Canastas & Cellini peyote freaks

You may have noticed by now that I am a Cellini Peyote freak. And a pearl aficionada. My moto could be

"If it ain't got pearls, it's got to have swirls."

Because I love pearls too. I love to use them together.

Cosmic Spiral (not Cellini peyote, but it's got pearls and swirls)

After coming up with the dimensional Cellini peyote shapes within the framework of my 'Waves and Flames' study, I asked you, people of Planet Bead, if I should make a tut for each  or for all, and if I should create a group on Facebook where to share ideas and many answered that you wanted "all". Of course!

Lotus Bangle, Mermaid Tails,
Parrot earrings, Precious
Pomanderand Tulip Tassel

"Open Heart" - pendant, earrings,
bracelet and necklace

So I made nearly all the tutorials, individually, and also listed them as bundles: duos, a trio and  a quintet for the pieces I made with the 'Flames start; and 1 tutorial for several designs made with the 'waves' start.

I haven't made tuts for everything yet, but I have created the proposed Facebook group, to share ideas with like-minded beaders, who love this stitch too: the "Cellini Peyote Freaks" group. You are welcome to join.

'Waves and Flames, unfinished'

In this group you will find my paper about the principles of the "Waves and Flames" start, including guidelines to make a "Waves and Flames, unfinished" bangle. If you are not into Facebook, you can send me an e-mail via my website to ask for it.

To have something new to photograph for the banner of the group, I beaded up something swirly, of course: a Cellini bezel, which became a beaded bead.

The Cellini bezel is an old idea, left in a drawer, which I took out for the pink ice CZ in Anthea's Tiara - I wanted the bezel to match the Yukka Flowers. It is based on diagonal peyote.

Pink Ice cubic zirconia on top of Anthea's Tiara

And as explained in my previous post, this gave me the idea to make a gigantic bezel for a tape measure.

Cellini Measure Tape

My first try was not what I wanted for the tape measure and so it became a beaded bead.

Because of its resemblance with Mexican woven basketry (canastas), I called it Bola Canastas. 

It provoked something inside of me. Something I cannot explain in words, but these bolas are addictive. I made more. 

And more.
And more!

Rounder, longer, double etc. 

It's so much fun.

Because I have to take a break to rest my arms, instead of adding this to my pile of stuff to tutify, I posted a short, pretty bad video in the group, to show the beady world how to do it. It's just a technical trick... Amazingly, many beaders got instantly hooked too. Enthusiasm is infectious! I love that. But my video was unclear, so I made a graph and a new video, which you can watch here too:

In the Cellini group, many members seem to actually never have done Cellini, so I created class rooms and made the first graphs for 2 basic techniques, so that they can get started. There is still more to do. It's a nice place, with advanced beaders and beginners, and members are helping one another. Isn't that awesome?

Interaction with other beaders is what I love most. It is what keeps me going and writing patterns and inventing new designs. "Drink me" will probably be a tutorial (perhaps the tape measure too!). Perhaps even a kit, but I will have to find a better quality tassel.

Unfortunately for my arms, all this provoked massive tendon-overload, so now that my video is up, and you beady peeps can fly, I am going to slow down the pace, and thus...

I need help

I need a little help in the group. Thankfully Elisanne M. McCutchen joined nearly immediately as Admin. I am so grateful for her help. But we need moderators. So if you have a passion for beading, are inclined to help fellow beaders, and know Cellini peyote, maybe you will like to help moderate the group? It's not complicated: approving (sometimes rejecting) new membership requests, help newbies finding this or that information and perhaps delete a post that is off-topic.

My dream team would be composed of one more person in the Americas, two from the East (Asian, Australian), one or two more from Europe / South-Africa (or anywhere in between) and a Russian and a person from the Middle East. That would really be awesome. One instead of two would already be awesome, but you've got to aim for the moon to land among the stars, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said so well.

Enter the rabbit hole. Let's celebrate Cellini peyote together.

Thank you!!

Cath