Patchwork Mouse

Another pair of earrings this afternoon: Raccoon Blues, the royal blue enamel raccoons with blue beads above and below. They look terrific.

Also a necklace this afternoon: Is That a Dagger I See Before Me?, another of those silvery swords on a chain of the blood-stained beads. Also quite good.

And I snipped the backs off of three of the fairy tale buttons and glued a pin-back to one (the book) and bails to two (knight and princess). The glue needs to set for at least 24 hours, so we'll see how well they come out later.

Made three sets of earrings and a necklace today. And had a seriously wonderful idea for yet another necklace.

Earrings: Octopus's Garden, When Pigs Fly, Purr-ple (with resin cats--had trouble with the beading wire on these)
Necklace: Up, Up, and Away! (lots of lampwork balloons

New idea: Swordheart necklace, with the red jasper heart and one of the sword charms. Probably strung on red seed beads.

I finished the two squirrels, Goth and Ratatoskr. The Goth came out better; I got Ratty's left eye and ear in the wrong places.

I made two purple necklaces yesterday, and the Forest Heart one so far today. Going to do more this afternoon, after I dye my gray hair teal.

Made the Rocket to the Stars necklace; it probably will fit on the panel at Balticon. Worst case, I can probably squeeze it onto the end of the table. It came out really well.

And I strung the beautiful blue/green glass pendant that the dealer gave me last year. Tiny black beads interspersed with bigger ones of black with blue/green/yellow flashes.

That's the last of the jewelry for a while. On to blouses and a skirt!

I had one more milky white agate crescent moon (the others are all yellowish or have lines across) and suddenly decided to make a necklace to go with the earrings. I used the tiny whitish glass beads, the ones with a bit of rainbow in them. 24". It's gorgeous.

That's going to be it for the day, but I do want to make another 2-3 pairs of earrings and at least one more necklace before I go back to sewing.

Used the brassy dragon claw in a necklace. Black jasper chips for the beads. It came out well, although I didn't have as much jasper as I thought, plus I had trouble with the clasp and had to remove a couple of beads to get it to work. So it's a bit shorter that I wanted, at 22" counting the clasp.

The second claw is silvery with a clear glass globe. Obviously the white magic counterpart.

Note to self: Crimp the tubes before you try to tuck the ends of the wire in, dumbass!

Made Bears Discover Fire. The stones are chips of (dyed) red coral. Eight bears, mostly browns with one dark red-brown and one white with a few black veins. It could have stood to be longer, but 19" is okay.

Not quite finished with beading after all. Turns out I have lots of space in the Balticon art show, so I made the purple fish earrings, plus a necklace out of one of the other two-piece cats.

The cat necklace is a bit shorter than I had intended--barely 18"--but it works. The cat is blue and brown, so I used rutilated quartz chips and some blue quartzite chips.

I have three more cats: brown, pink, and aqua. Now (or rather, later this year) I want to make them all into necklaces. Plans--
brown: the rest of the quartz, plus some brown chips [tiger-eye!]
pink: rose quartz, and maybe something a little darker but still pink [pink opal looks promising; I bought some rose quartz but it's barely pink at all]
aqua: the rest of the quartzite, which is aqua and lighter blue, plus maybe some white [white turquoise, howlite, or possibly marble]

I'm not doing a quilt next after all, because I'd need more panel space. Haven't quite decided which stuffed animal, though. I should make the gingham dog; I might make the Doctor Goose (Canada goose); the stealth skunk, the Borg-i, and the hell poodle are all clamoring to be made soon. [starting the gingham dog (beagle) this afternoon]

[edits in square brackets on 4/1]

Restrung my grandmother's broken necklace today, plus another one that I found on my dresser while I was looking for that one. They both came out well.

I have also spent far too much money on beads in the last couple of weeks.