Jewelry to Wear to a Wedding

I needed a necklace to wear to a family wedding last weekend so I made this bead embroidered pendant to go with the dress I made.

The pendant is 2 inches long and an inch and 5/8 wide. The embroidery was done on a piece of quilting cotton backed by a lightweight fusible interfacing. The pendant was mounted on piece cut from the plastic top of a coffee can, with several layers of thin cotton quilt batting for padding. It is backed with blue UltraSuede. A beaded picot stitch joined the front to the back.

I didn’t have a silver chain or neck ring, so I went to a local department store and bought an inexpensive necklace at the “Take an extra 60% off sale.” After removing the store-bought pendant, I had to find a way to attach my pendant to the neck ring. Because of the size of the clasp, I had to make a fairly large bail. I used the two needle ladder stitch, and attached the bail to the UltraSuede backing about half an inch down from the top.

The most interesting beads in this piece are the little cubes. They are about about 4 mm, but they are diagonally drilled. That makes them stand up away from the background.

I’d like to make some beaded earrings to match, but I don’t have pierced ears. If you know of a source of clip earring blanks, I’d like to know about it.

Artistic Inspiration From Far Away--May BJP

This piece has been done for quite a while, but I've been a blogging slacker. Bad Marty! Or maybe that should be busy Marty. I've done some sewing, which involved lots and lots of fitting and alterations. Photos will come later, after the grand debuts of the outfits.

I realize that I keep going on and on about our trip to Turkey in April. To repeat, it was super-fabulous! And this BJP was inspired by some of the things we saw in Turkey. I showed some of my photos here and here and here. Think turquoise. Turkey. Turquoise. The sea, the sky, the tiles. My inspiration for May.

Technical Details:

The foundation is Lacy's Stiff Stuff painted with Azure Blue Dye-na-Flow.

The piece started with the two vintage 30 millimeter bugle beads. They were on a short piece beaded trim given to me by a friend. Thanks, K! Other beads used are 8/0s, 11/0s, 15/0s, charlottes, triangles, smaller bugles, hexes, twisted hexes, and some drop beads.

I used the backstitch and the stop stitch.

The piece is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.

I used AA C-lon thread in turquoise.

What I Was Thinking:

While I stitched this piece, I remembered the beautiful Iznik tiles from the 16th to the 18th century we saw in Turkey. If want to splurge, you can buy reproductions here. Or you can just look.

Issues That Came Up:

It was harder than I expected to work around the large bugles. The piece didn't turn out at all as I originally thought.

I kept remembering the June 2009 piece here, and wanting to make sure the two didn't turn out the same. I did not get the older piece out, but when I see the two photos, they look quite similar. The beads must know what they want.

I used C-lon thread in this piece, as well as in my April piece and in the soon-to-be-finished June piece. I prefer Nymo. For me, Nymo seems to stay twisted better than C-lon.

So now to finish June and then to think about July.

Emerald Hope Stone

If you look carefully, you might be able to see the word HOPE etched on this stone. Hope Stones are given to cancer survivors at our local American Cancer Society Relay for Life.

The stones are intended to give a survivor hope when he or she needs it. Survivors are encouraged to pass along a Hope Stone when there is someone with cancer who needs this physical symbol of hope.

This stone is emerald green glass. I mounted it on Lacy's Stiff Stuff, backed it with UltraSuede, and added the edging, fringe and ribbon for hanging. I donated it to our Relay for Life to be used as a door prize at the dinner for survivors. I wanted to give someone some extra hope.

You can see some of my other Hope Stones here.

April BJP--Robin's Egg Blue for Spring

If keeping up with this blog is an optional--no obligation--activity, why do I feel guilty about being a blog posting slacker? And why does the blog nag at me when I ignore it? Enough of the philosophical questions and on to the April BJP.

The April BJP was completed in May. I first blogged about it here in early April on the day we left for our super-fabulous trip to Turkey. At that time, I counted 32 different kinds of Robin's Egg Blue beads in the lower part of the piece. As far as I can tell without using a jeweler's loupe or making myself crazier than usual, I seem to have succeeded in making each column a different kind of bead. There are a few additional kinds of beads in the top part. I'm not going to count them mostly because I don't want to know exactly how many different kinds of beads I have in this color. Too embarrassing.

Technical Details:

The foundation is Lacy's Stiff Stuff painted with Dye-na-Flow, probably a combination of Azure Blue and Emerald Green.

Although we weren't going to discuss this further, I think there are close to forty different kinds of beads in this piece. An embarrassment of beads. The largest ones are five lentils. The smallest are 15/0s.

I used the backstitch and the stop stitch and a bit of couching in this piece.

The piece is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.

I used size AA C-lon thread in turquoise.

What I Was Thinking:


This Robin's Egg Blue color is a nice color for spring. Robin's Egg Blue is definitely a 50s name for a color. My mother used to describe this shade of blue as Robin's Egg Blue. When our older grandson was about five, we found a robin's egg (already hatched) on the sidewalk in front of our house. It was this color. Finding an egg was very exciting so we brought it inside and put it on a table in the living room. He didn't take the egg home with him, so about a week later we disposed of it.

But seriously, I was thinking about the trip to Turkey--both before it and after it--as I stitched this piece. It was the Best Trip Ever!

Issues That Came Up:

I wrote in the earlier post about my Persistent Goal-Directed Behavior. I do suffer from it. I'll try to learn to embrace it.

And then there was the embarrassment of beads. Get a grip, woman!

The May BJP has been finished for several weeks and the June BJP is about 3/4 complete. Both are blue. Watch for another post in a day or two.