Stashbusting Beadalong Progress Week 7

Some great progress this week from Cathy and Gloria!

Gloria says, "More progress made and this is turning into a labour of love for me. I really struggle with component based designs and this design has loads of components. As you can see I have now completed six (and a bit) lockets. They are quite fiddly to make but look good when completed. Stay with me guys – this is gonna get finished!"














Cathy has completed this beautiful set, "It's finished! Plus there were enough beads left over to make a set of earrings."













Happy beading,

Sarahx

This year's moodboards 1

As promised, here are some of my favourites from this year's moodboard entries!

Carol



Helen



Maria

Quickie Facebook Challenge

By popular demand we're having a quickie moodboard challenge for December! There's no prize this month and I won't be posting the usual weekly updates. It's all taking place on our Facebook group, all you need to do is post your photos on there for the rest of the group to see! Do join in with our busy and chatty group if you haven't already, it's a lot of fun :)

Just one image for this challenge, something warm to ward off the December chill...

Photo by Moyan Brenn

November Moodboard - And the winner is...

We've done it again! Yes, we've beaten last month's record with a whopping 28 entries! Thanks to everyone who joined in with us for the November challenge and well done all of you on your amazing work :) As always here's a reminder of the challenge we set at the beginning on the month...

Clockwise from top-left: Poppies 5, Lemmie and Peggy Day, Ornaments 1, Red on Green.

And here's all the beautiful entries...

Lesley



Mary Kearney



Carol




Jet



Helen





Evelyn




Dee



Danielle



Catherine



Janice



Shirley



Amy



Nancy



Sarah



Mary Marshall



Dee (Wingsmith)





Liz (pattern is the bead base from Laura Shea's project in Bead & Button issue 106)



Zoe



Chris



Donna



Gill



Carolyn





Kelly (using the Trillium pattern in Shaped Beadwork by Diane Fitzgerald)

I'm using Random.org to randomly choose a name from the list and the beader who is in 1st position is...



Congratualions Carol, you're the winner of Helen's gorgeous set of lampwork beads!

We're taking a break from the Moodboard challenge in December and we'll be back with a brand new challenge on January 1st. Throughout December I'll be posting some of my favourite entries from the challenges we've had this year each Monday :)

Stashbusting Beadalong Progress Week 6

Well I am ashamed to say that I have thrown in the towel with mine! After the twist annoyance last week I have now lost the book I was working on and am in a proper bad mood, so it is going in the bin! Both Cathy and Gloria have put beading on the back burner this week but we have two finished projects! Well done to Catherine and Jo, they are both beautiful projects!


Catherine - I had a good long session at the Starburst bracelet yesterday, in between the chores, and managed to finish! There was a single casualty in the central join where a charlotte burst on the final reinforcement pass. I had to leave it as there was no way I could even unpick it! I left the final peyote tubes off the ends of the project and joined the slide clasp via 2 loops of charlottes on doubled thread. The attached picture is of the finished beadwork without the clasp, spot the missing charlotte! Wore it and tested doing up and undoing, and I hope it will be sturdy enough! Now I am making the second version of this for myself in the (stash) beads I selected, rather than a kit from Laura. The attached picture is of the finished beadwork without the clasp. Thanks for organising the beadalong Sarah, and I'll keep showing progress on the second version!



Jo - Yay, I've finished. Have really enjoyed this project and joining the challenge has really spurred me on to get it done. The only thing left to do is to dunk it in warm water to get rid of the wax which Laura advises and does with all her pieces that are made with Fireline. Not quite sure I'm brave enough to do it though....
Thanks for setting the challenge Sarah. It's been fun :-)

Happy beading,

Sarahx

November Moodboard - Weekly update 3

Week three of our moodboard already! Never mind, there's still plenty of time to enter if you haven't already. See the original post for details :)

Now onto the fab collection of submissions I have to share with you this week...

Dee made this gorgeous lampwork fish...



Evelyn Shelby made two beautiful necklaces. One using copper as her red with cat's eye beads...



and glass leaves are the focal on this piece...



Danielle made an amazing 3 dimensional gift in Cubic right-angle weave using size 11 seed beads...



Catherine made a beautiful bead embroidered strawberry...



Janice made a lovely necklace using glass beads with copper chain and clasp...



Shirley made a fab necklace entitled Holly Kisses using Beth Stone's 2 bead spiral technique.



Inspired by a Northwestern US wildflower, Amy Robinson has made a wonderful pouch that she's named Indian Paintbrush. The bead embroidery features an elk's tooth and it's attached to a leather pouch...



Nancy made a beautiful Garnet Garden cuff using seed beads in olive and garnet...



Another entry from Carol and this time she's made a gorgeous snowflake bracelet...



Sarah also made a bracelet with a beautiful design in peyote stitch...



Mary was inspired by Jill Devon's Bramble kit to make this amazing little bouquet using her own design of flowers and leaves...



And Dee made a beautiful pendant using seed beads in cubic right-angle weave encapsulating a Swarovski crystal heart...



Well I hope you've enjoyed this week's round up! I'm skipping next week's Monday post but don't forget to check back on Wednesday evening when I'll be announcing the winner :) Until then, happy beading!