In 2014 I had a little brainwave and created my paperbook earrings – I’ve blogged about this before in How I fell into the world of beads. I haven’t mentioned this little activity here on this blog much, but I have now decided that this blog will be a vehicle for ALL my art practices (and there are a few) and beadwork is one of them.
So where to start? I have been seriously bead addicted for a couple of years, I’m now writing my own patterns, and know what works and what doesn’t, what is quality and what I should never buy, and how to make a good piece of jewellery. My credit card has yet to forgive me.
My main focus with beadwork is off-loom beadweaving. I have a needle and beading thread and I sit there threading beads and weaving in and out of each one creating patterns. Here is a snapshot of some of my recent creations.
But I thought as an initial post on this adventure I would start with my latest craze – Gemduos.
Lots of good beads come out of the Czech Republic and my mainstays are two holed beads – Superduos in particular (see the petals of the pink flower bracelet on the left above) – but a new series of two holed beads has recently been released called Gemduos.
These are glass diamonds, and unlike many other two holed beads they have a colour series called ‘Backlit’ where a silver coating is added to the flat side of the bead, enabling the colours of the glass to be reflected back in all their glory. I bought my first few tubes of these on a whim…there has been no whim since, they’ve become must haves (yes, my credit card hates me even more). The moment I opened the mail, I dropped what I was doing and made some earrings on the spot.
Then followed somewhat of a frenzy as I had to have more and expand my collection. I’ve now racked up something like 15 pairs of earrings and four pendants. I’m just obsessed with them. They come in a glorious range of colours.
And I feel that I have just scratched the surface of what I can do with these.
I tend to do beading when I don’t have the energy to do anything else, plus when I’m obsessing, which does happen extensively. I just love the ease of fitting the beads together like a puzzle, the mathematical flow and the bling – I love the colours and shine – I’m a sucker for pretty coloured glass ๐
These Starfish pendants also use Japanese seed beads which are the best for beadweaving and come in a stunning range of colours. I’m in love with the 15/0 size as I can create a canvas with the duos and then draw on it with the 15/0s – I think it is my visual art background ๐
So this is my current bead addiction. To do something new, I thought I would share it on Handmade Monday, which I only discovered this morning and am looking forward to exploring extensively ๐ Why don’t you join me and meet some new arty people?
Anyway, for those of you in Australia, I hope you are enjoying the slowly warming weather (oh, thank goodness, I can finally feel my toes), and for those of you up north, sorry to steal your summer, you can have it back in about six months (you can tear it from my clinging hands once more) ๐
Art always!
Best wishes,
Liz
(off the edge, but learning to fly)
Comments
2 responses to “For the love of a Gemduo”
Absolutely beautiful, what a great find. Thanks so much for sharing it with us at Handmade Monday. It’s always a pleasure to see a new face and learn about a new craft.
Thankyou, Julie ? and thank you for hosting the blog hop. I haven’t previously had anywhere to share my jewellery, so your site was a great find ?