Delft blue bracelet

Blue and white porcelain inspired me to try these colours in bead embroidery and a bracelet seemed like the right amount of work to do.




Materials all gathered: glass seed beads, a ribbon for the bracelet base, thread and an embroidery needle.




Made the frame first, starting with the darkest blue beads. Not sure if I like it this way...




Finished the first flower! The frame looks all right now, I think. The overall image reminds me more of those Mediterranean blue and white tile mosaics than porcelain, actually.




When finished embroidering, double folded the ribbon and sewed by hand all around the edges. The hardest part is making a clasp. Out of several options coming to my mind, I decided to sew some double rings to the back side where I could attach jump rings, pieces of extension chain and a toggle clasp.

Jasper in plentiful company

This jasper pendant called out for some beads in the same mellow colours and seed beads in gentle pink and beige felt like the best way to imitate the stone's spots and stripes. In order to match the weight of this pendant, thousands of seed beads would be needed though, so I started making the strands until the necklace seemed balanced.




The necklace has ten seed bead strands, which are actually formed of five closed loops folded in double. The pendant and clasp are connected by three strands of the same cube seed beads that are adding some texture to the long strands.
A note for myself: never ever buy those tiny size 15/0 seed beads again, they are just impossible to work with (like beading with sugar!) and have to be strung straight to the cord without a needle. But they look so cute...

Meet Mannie

Mannie came to me feeling somewhat tired and neglected. She was really happy to hear that I was looking for an assistant and eager to start working right away.



Mannie is my only helper at the moment, doing fitting and modelling, and hopefully will help out with some bookkeeping and supplies shopping as well in the future. (Haven't told her that yet, letting her enjoy the summer first.)

Mannie before and after the makeover:




First thing, of course, was to make Mannie a new proper outfit.
I needed to find a fabric that was stretchy, textured and of beautiful cream or beige colour. Not an easy task at all, but... accomplished - after going through ALL the fabric stores in the city in two days.
This fabric is probably a mixture of cotton and synthetics and not so stretchy as Mannie's old dress, so I had to make a cut in the back and add a zipper.




To give a matching finishing to Mannie's wooden leg, I painted it with water diluted wall paint in three coats. The outcome was really surprising, looking as if the wood had been sandpapered and lime painted and all...

Belt pocket

This March I took a short course on bead embroidered belt pockets worn with folk costumes on Estonian islands. These wonderful bags were tied around waist and used for keeping coins and other small items. Indeed, this kind of extra pocket comes very handy nowadays as well (although I haven't worn mine yet), perfect for a phone or a camera, for instance.
My green pocket is not what they used to look like, the front side was usually fully covered with very colourful beads in different patterns. Unfortunately, I could not find any photos of the beaded pockets on the internet. I used my own colours and other ancient motives instead, the ones that were traditionally embroidered with thread. Here's an example.