The Trials & Tribulations of Goal 8!

First of all, huge apologies for my lack of posting lately. I've been really busy with orders and commissions (although I'm not complaining!) plus other non-beady stuff and have spread myself a little too thin.

Also I came to a total standstill with my last goal. I had planned to use up that gorgeous tube of beads by the end of the week but three weeks later they were still sitting on my desk! Several times I had an idea, tipped the beads onto my bead mat and had a go but everything I tried was a disaster.

I discovered that they're not very good for herringbone, triangle stitch or right-angle weave. I had an idea that because they're triangles, they would look good stitched in rows on a bead embroidered cuff and I visualised a lovely zig-zag texture. No. They wobbled about a bit and it just looked messy, so back into the tube they went.

My last resort was peyote stitch which I had dismissed at first because of their shape. Success! They fit together brilliantly to give an unusual effect. So off I went, merrily making a six bead wide strip to make a bracelet...and ran out of beads three quarters of the way through! Grr. Determined not to buy another tube of these flippin' beads I unpicked it all and started again with four beads. Several hours later and with the addition of some red and gold seed beads I had this bracelet...



Now who was it that said beading was relaxing, lol.