Birthday Present!

I just have to brag a little here- yesterday I had a wonderful early birthday dinner of sushi and udon with my mom, my best friend, and a favorite family friend. I had lots of sushi, lots of warm sake, and lots of fun! My mom showered me with lots of wonderful gifts, but my absolute favorite is this incredible purple labradorite ring, made by AshleySpatula on Etsy. Just look at this thing!

Isn't it just incredible? It's huge, and full of fire. I'm so tickled, I've wanted a labradorite statement ring for years, and this one is just perfect. :)

Follow me on Tumblr~

Hey everyone! Just a quickie post here, I have to leave soon to take my husband to the airport (boo). Just wanted to say I've made a Tumblr account! I take a lot of photos of my beadwork, but don't always have the time to write a blog post about every one, so I plan to use my Tumblr account to toss up the photos I take for anyone who wants to see them before I blog about them in detail here.

Do any of you use Tumblr? Let me know, so I can follow you :)

Happy Halloween!

Donut Tutorial

Time for my first tutorial! I hope someone finds it useful. Please forgive the blurriness.... I'm badly in need of a tripod. Let me know if anything needs to be clarified; I'm new at this tutorial business :)

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Note: this tutorial is protected by an International Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence. This means that you are free to post this wherever you like as long as you give proper Attribution (that is, to me, Jet Kosanke, and my website, malfaitluciu.blogspot.com), it may not be used commercially (you're not allowed to make money off it, that is, sell this tutorial to other people for money), and you're free to make changes to it as long as you also share it under these same restrictions (that is, you still give Attribution to me, you don't sell it, and you allow it to be shared freely.) For more information, click the Creative Commons link at the end of the tutorial.

By the way- NonCommercial doesn't mean you can't sell works you make using this tutorial. If you make a necklace, bracelet, or whatever using this tutorial, feel free to sell it- however, you may not mass-produce it, and the Attribution part still applies, that is, you still have to attribute the design to me.

If you're unsure if what you want to do is allowed, just ask me! I'm really pretty laid back about things like this :) I'd rather share my knowledge and discoveries for free so others can learn than charge money for my tutorials. With all that said, on to the good stuff! :)

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Click on any image to view a larger version.

This tutorial assumes you are familiar and comfortable with even count peyote stitch, stepping up in peyote stitch, and zipping up peyote stitch.

Materials:

• Favorite thread
• Favorite needle
• Size 15 seed beads (I've used three different colors here, you can stick with one color if you like)
• Size 11 seed beads (I'm using Czech and Japanese (Toho) seeds; I don't know how delicas would work with this pattern... yet :3)
• Favorite music
• A cup of warm tea or coffee (optional, but nice to have)

One last note: I am using a different color for each row of peyote stitch in hopes it can help make things clearer. Think of the donut having two sides that are mirror images of each other; a row of peyote in orange on one side will be matched with a row of orange peyote on the opposite side. It may make more sense to just look at the photos. Hmm.

First Step

String a total of 40 size 15 seeds on a comfortable length of thread (one 'wingspan' of thread is more than enough for one donut and a few rows of embellishment). I've used alternating colors here in order to highlight individual rows of peyote later on. This isn't required, depending on the colors and patterns you want in your donut, but this tutorial is going to assume you've followed this color scheme.

Needle through all the beads again to form a loop. Knot here, needle through beads until your thread is coming out a cream colored bead.

When you knot, try not to make your ring too taut. You want a little bit of wiggle room in order to be able to get your needle in between these tiny beads.

At this point I personally like to weave in my tail thread and snip off the excess just to get it out of the way.

Second Step

Begin a row of peyote stitch. I've used brown seeds for this row. See how they mirror the brown beads strung in the first row? This is the start of each side of the donut. Think of the cream seeds as being the innermost edge of the 'hole' of the donut.

Third Step

After stitching the entire row, needle up through the first brown bead added in this row in order to 'step up'.

Fourth Step

Add another row of peyote stitch, shown here in green beads. At this point I use my finger to form the donut around. You'll want the strip you're forming to lay flat against your finger from here on in. Just keep even firm tension, and press the beads down with your thumbtip every now and then.

When you get to the end of this row, instead of stepping up, you're going to needle through to the other side of the beadwork, so your thread is coming out of a brown 'up' bead.

Fifth Step

Stitch a row of peyote on this side of the donut, (here in green) mirroring the row you stitched in step 4.

When you get to the end of this row, step up.

Sixth Step

Now we switch to size 11 seeds for the rest of the donut. Stitch a row of peyote (shown here in orange).

Seventh Step

When you get to the end of this row, don't step up. Instead, needle through to the other side of the beadwork so your thread is coming out of a green 'up' bead.

Eighth Step

Stitch a row of peyote here to mirror the row you stitched in step 6.

When you've completed this row, step up.

Almost done!

Ninth Step

Stitch a row of peyote, shown here in cream. This row will form the outer circumference of the donut.

When you've completed this row, step up.

Tenth Step

Time to zip up! Stitch through the orange bead opposite of the orange bead that's in front of the cream bead your thread is coming out of. Then, stitch through the next cream bead, the next orange bead on the opposite side, etc.

When zipping up, you're going to want to use pretty strong tension; enough to get the beads to 'lock' into place next to each other. Don't be afraid to pull hard; just make sure you keep the tension even.

Eleventh Step

When you've zipped up all the way around, your thread should be coming out of the same cream bead that your thread was coming out of at the beginning of step 10.

From here, your donut is complete! You can knot now and weave in the thread end if you like.

Embellishment

However, the last row of beads added (the cream 11s) forms a wonderful foundation for further embellishment.

Here, I've added three-bead picots in purple using the outermost row of cream beads on the donut. The possibilities here are endless. Add crystals, pearls, hell, you could even use that row as a foundation for some right angle weave.

Use your donut as a pendant on its own, as half of a toggle clasp, attach a bunch of them together for a bracelet (I have plans to do just that soon :3)... whatever you like!

And that's it! I hope this tutorial was helpful for someone. Again, please let me know if anything is confusing or needs clarification.

If you create something using this tutorial, I'd love to see it! Email me photos of your work (with a link to your blog if you have one) to malfaitluciu@gmail.com - I'd like to create a gallery page on my blog featuring your creations made using this tutorial (or any of my tutorials) with a link back to your blog, too :) Don't be shy, let me show off your work! :)

Donut Tutorial by Jet Kosanke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Today I'll leave you with Neo in a paper bag. 

'Til Next Time!

Halloween, My Most Favorite Day of the Year

It's October, and I'm thrilled! Not only did I win a fantastic fall giveaway courtesy of the wonderful Skye, it's also my husband's birth month, the end of dreadful summer heat, and best of all, Halloween is my wedding anniversary! This Halloween will be our fifth anniversary (wood and silverware)- by silverware, I like to think that includes silver jewelry components. Is that a stretch? Haha :)

I've been absent from this blog, but busy busy busy with beadwork. I'll post the things I've been up to in the coming days (too many photos for one blog post!), but for today I'll show off what I've been working on for the October Moodboard at OTTBS.

The theme is turquoise, red and white, and I love it! It's a departure from the predictable fall colors scheme (we did that last month, and it was a wonderful send-off for summer). I still don't have an end result in mind for this month; but I didn't want to just spend my time thinking and not beading, so I delved into my stash (which includes some fantastic opaque czech 11/0s in rainbow colors that my lovely husband bought for me- just in time, as I had no turquoise beads, and I really felt this moodboard would be best served by opaque beads, of which I had none!) and decided I would pick a stitch and get really good at it. I have been a sort of jack-of-all-trades (and therefore master of none) when it comes to beading stitches, (aside from peyote stitch- I feel I have mastered peyote in all its incarnations). So, although I am very familiar with right angle weave, I didn't feel that sense of mastery, that I could use it and make it do whatever I wanted... so I decided to make these little 5x5 (I'm counting as a unit one round of four beads, the one that makes that pleasant little cross with the hole in it) swatches (I call them 'biscuits'!) Actually, they're not just 5x5- I suppose you could even say they're 5x5x1... in that they're not just flat swatches of RAW, but flat rectangular swatches folded in half and joined at the edges (did that make sense?). You can tell in the photo the ones I did early on and the ones I did later- my technique has been improving. :3 (I learned that for simple seed-bead RAW, doubled-up thread works wonders for form). I also used it as an opportunity to work out my own designs in RAW using graphs, and played with seeing how many different patterns I could come up with. Then I moved on to the Cubic RAW hollow square in the middle there. I love Cubic RAW. LOVE IT. And last, moving away from RAW, I completed the peyote donut. This is something that I have seen countless times on the internet and drooled embarrassingly over, but try as I might I could never understand it (and could never find a tutorial)- but then, magically, I just... did it.


And so, to celebrate this achievement, I've begun work on a tutorial for it (free to everyone, mind you). I remember the frustration I went through trying to figure it out, and if I can save someone that trouble, then I'm happy to do it. :) Cuz I love you guys!

As for the biscuits... well. There's no definitive plan for them.. yet. Perhaps join them all together in a sort of patchwork bracelet? Maybe some of my turquoise pearls in between each biscuit? Perhaps the donut acting as half a toggle? Hmm!

In other, more minor news, I also managed a very effective pattern for making 6mm peyote beaded beads. This was also discovered by trial and error. I will make a (free) tutorial for these as well. (I've noticed on all the non-english bead blogs I've visited, google translates 'beaded bead' to 'berry'. Or, people who speak other languages call these peyote beaded beads 'berries'. I've decided that's ridiculously charming, and so will be referring to peyote beaded beads as 'berries' as well from now on.) So, stay tuned! 6mm Berry tutorial coming soon!

For now, keep an eye out for my Peyote Donut tutorial, which I'm hoping I will be able to post tomorrow. Until then, here's Neo telling me it's time to get off the computer already.

'Til Next Time!

Cube Love

I think it's about time for another post, just to show the bits and pieces I've been working on. First, my little contribution to this month's Moodboard at OTTBS. It was a little bit of a challenge; fall colors I have, but pink? PINK! My stash is oddly lacking in pinks, particularly pink seeds. After a bit of frustration, I found this big faceted glass round in pink and thought, "Okay, I can work with this." (Look at that giant chip in the bead! Luckily you can't really see it in real life.) I'd been meaning to do something round in herringbone, and this seemed to be a good opportunity to use lots of different colors in one piece. As for what this piece is... I have no idea. Perhaps it could be a pendant, or a very large flashy ring? Or perhaps it will sit in the box full of all the other little round doodads I've beaded, haha.

I wanted to do more with the moodboard colors, but that pink was just blocking me at every turn, so I said "Fuck it!" and turned to something not fall-like at all. This type of cube-y two drop peyote I'd attempted a number of times but kept failing miserably; then yesterday it just 'clicked'. Normally I find peyote a little tedious, but this one works up quickly and since it switches from cubes to seeds, there's a little variety. Oi, but it uses up thread fast! Ah well. I adore these cubes; I've had them for years, but really I just bought them because I liked how they looked in the tube. Finally, the tube of cubes happened to roll next to the tube of the opaque red seeds and I loved how they looked together. So, it kind of decided for me. I love when that happens.

So that's what's been going on with me recently. Instead of my usual gratuitous kitty photo, I'll leave you with this; a frog I found in, of all places, my toilet. Ha! (I scooped him up into a styrofoam cup and we took him outside.) Forgive the awful quality, but isn't he cute?

'Til Next Time!

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I Love Getting Mail!

Hello~

So my eagerly-awaited copy of Creative Beading Vol. 6 came in today, courtesy of the giveaway by Cyndi at Beading-Arts. I've been stalking the mail truck for days now, so imagine my delight when I came home from a doctor's appointment (with Taco Bell in tow), my husband presented me with a package that could be none other than my long-awaited treasure! I was surprised before I even opened the package, because it was clear by the weight and feel that the book was hardcover. Very nice!

After perusing every page of the book, I decided that I must create a project from it after I'm done with my first creation for the September Moodboard over at OTTBS (I think I'll finish it tomorrow; stay tuned for photos~) After much consideration, I decided to go with the "Do The Twist" bracelet (as shown at left), because A. I have the proper beads for it, and enough of them, and B. I have experience with twisted herringbone, so it isn't entirely intimidating. I'll have to look through my beads to decide on the color, but today I did pick up some gorgeous Toho hex beads in a sort of blue lined with copper with a sort of AB coating- yum! I bet I can find some firepolished rounds to go with them (I bet it'd work with rondelles, even- and I have way too many of those...)

So that's the news for the day; good stuff, I'd say! I'll leave you with Trinity, hugging my wrist tightly as she sleeps.

'Til Next Time!

Functional Peyote

So, my husband suggested I bead something more functional than jewelry; a case/cover for my electronic cigarette (a much healthier alternative to 'analog' cigarettes). I looked at my ecig and thought 'tubular peyote would do the trick nicely!' I'm proud of myself- while I love the look of peyote, I find stitching it to be quite monotonous and tedious. It just doesn't work up as fast as I'd like.




But for a long time I've been telling myself I need to practice decreasing circular peyote, and I'm quite proud of myself for this little project. I thought about copping out and not beading an end 'cap'; rather just leave the work as an open tube, but I made myself do something scary, and surprised myself with the result.

The spiral pattern with the silver-lined delicas took me a couple of tries to get started correctly, and luckily just happened to work perfectly with the eighteen-bead-long circle (if that makes any sense). It also created a nifty little spiral pattern on the bottom where the decreases are (which themselves form a soft, pleasing to the eye hexagon. I love hexagons).

Funny I went with blues- blue is not exactly my most favorite color (I like greens and oranges). But the dark blue delicas I picked up specifically because they're so pretty- you may not be able to tell, but they have a pretty iridescent iris effect). The teal delicas seemed like they'd be a nice compliment (and lord knows I have way too many of those beads; I NEED to use them up already). The silver just made sense.

Overall, I'd say it's a success! I'll leave you with Neo and Trinity as babies, chilling in the window.

'Til Next Time!

Umbrella!

Good morning! I wasn't planning on posting something this early, but when I saw this, I couldn't contain my excitement. I stumbled upon a german beading blog called Perlenfieber (which google translate tells me means 'bead fever') and immediately noticed this incredible beaded umbrella!

I'm in love!

Of course this means I'm going to have to try making one myself. Too bad I don't have any of those wonderful playful colors! Perhaps next time I make a sale, I'll have to go shopping. I'm relatively confident that I can pull something like this off. I just wish it was my idea; isn't it adorable?


'Til Next Time!

What Luck!

I was checking my email for a final time tonight, and I saw something from Cyndi at Beading-Arts.com; turns out, I won a giveaway being held there for a copy of Creative Beading Vol. 6! I'm so excited! It's so rare I win anything, I had to re-read the email a bunch of times, haha! Cyndi says she'll send it tomorrow- I can't wait to look inside!

That wasn't the only lucky thing today. I finally, after many, many tries over the past months, successfully made a peyote beaded bead! It's not particularly pretty, I just used beads I had on hand, and aside from a tiny bit of visible threads, I'd say it looks pretty damn good! It was exciting when I got to the end and saw that it really was going to come together.

In addition to that, I made one more ring inspired by this months Moodboard over at OTTBS. I'm kind of proud of this one- it's rather clever, I'd say! Go figure it's just a tiny bit too small for my fingers; now I can't wear it! Ah, well. It was fun thinking a bit unconventionally while I made it.

Overall, a pretty awesome day! I started working this evening on something I've never tried before: structural right angle weave. I'm going with a concept that's been done before, so it's not necessarily that creative an idea, but I'm just testing my ability for now. I'll post the results tomorrow when I've finished!

For now, here's Neo and Trinity holding hands (paws?)

'Til Next Time!

Hello and Welcome!

Welcome to the first post of my blog! I've decided, after a week of ravenously browsing the web for as many beading blogs as I can find, that I'll dive in and give this blog thing a shot. I've been inspired, perhaps.

Since this is my first post, I figure I'd post what's been keeping me occupied currently. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of finding Operation Tackle That Bead Stash, a lovely blog with monthly 'Moodboards'; a collection of images featuring color combinations intended to inspire new beading creations, hopefully with the end result of using up some of the stash every beader inevitably has. This month's Moodboard had me very busy yesterday! Here you can see my boy Neo with my first creation inspired by it; an embellished right-angle-weave bracelet in purple, teal, and green (reminds me of a peacock!).

After the bracelet, I really got into the spirit of using up my stash with these two fun little rings. The one with the green band used up all of those green seeds I had left, save for just one! The tiny purple crystals surrounding the blue bead were also a good use of my stash- those six beads were the only ones of that type I had!

The other ring used up a good bit of my teal delicas- a good thing, since for some reason I have three tubes of those beads. (Why? I hardly ever use them! I guess I just really like the color.)

Overall, I'm surprised how much this month's Moodboard has inspired me; purple, green, and teal are generally not colors I like to see together (they seem almost too playful for my tastes), but I've come up with not one, but three different projects using them- and I'm not done yet! I plan on at least one more ring, this time with a purple band, using the tube of delicas you can see above.

I'm kind of glad I found Operation Tackle That Bead Stash when I did, at the end of the month. That means that a new Moodboard is right around the corner. I'm excited to see what it is!

Oh, and a final note: I highly recommend joining their Facebook group. I recieved a very warm welcome, and from what I can tell, it seems to be pretty active.

'Til Next Time!