Baaa!

The other day I was knitting and I was using my sheep stitch marker. He's the original sheep I made over a decade ago now.

The original 'Baaarney' bead

I decided that it was high time that I made a few more sheep so I set about reminding my hands how to make them.

My third attempt at Sheep Bead V2.0

I gave the sheep a little redesign around the head area in order to make my life a bit easier; the first ones I made used to have a tiny bit of 'fleece' on the top of their heads but it was always a faff to do and often resulted in ruined beads so I left it off these ones.

Sheep on mandrels

Obviously the sheep are handmade so no two are truly alike and just the slightest fraction of a millimetre difference in size or positioning of the eyes and ears changes the face of the sheep which gives each one their own little character.

As you can see, I've spent the last couple of days making sheep and this morning I added them to the shop.

They are available as...

Loose beads - £8.00 each

Pendants - £10.00 each

Stitch markers - £9.50 each

Stitch markers are made with your choice of fitting - lobster clasp, leverback clasp or ring - so they're suitable for both knitters and crocheters.

I'll be making more sheep this afternoon because they're selling quite well already. Big thanks to everyone who has bought some.

If you'd like to buy a sheep, the loose beads and pendants are here and the stitch markers can be found over here.

Have a good afternoon!

New jewellery

Remember the grey beads from my previous post? They're now a necklace.

This grey glass is so pretty. Swirls of transparent and opaque grey with a subtle pearly, shampoo-like gleam. I've strung the beads with plain round sterling silver beads.

The necklace measures about 22 inches long and it fastens with a lobster clasp.

I've also made a wintry bracelet.

The lampwork beads have cores of CiM Foam which I encased with Effetre Pale Aquamarine 038 and then coated in silver foil which I then burnt off, leaving behind tiny fine silver microspeckles. As a final step I etched the beads to a frosty finish. I used Dip 'n Etch as tumble-etching wouldn't have worked in this case.

The twinkly, frosty beads are strung with white opal Preciosa crystal beads and Japansee silver-lined clear seed beads. All findings are sterling silver.

The 'Mystic Grey' necklace and 'Twinklefrost' bracelet are currently for sale in my shop.

Ouch

First thing Monday morning, before I'd even lit the torch, I cut my finger on a glass rod. I caught the pointy end of it with my forefinger as I was switching on my workbench light and the resulting cut was like a deep cat scratch - not overly painful but really annoying and requiring a plaster. The cut was on my mandrel-twirling finger and the plaster was too much of a beadmaking hindrance so I abandoned shed.

Yesterday I swapped the plaster for a smaller, less padded one and I found that I could twirl a 1mm mandrel with minimal irk so I made a load of little plain roundish beads using Reichenbach 104 Mystic Grey. This is a part transparent, part opaque glass with a sort of pearly shampoo thing going on. Pretty.

Top right: injured mandrel twirling finger

Now I have a wodge of nice grey beads in slightly varying sizes. I think I'll sort them into size order and string them as a necklace. I do like the 1mm mandrels, though. I've only ever used them for making headpins but I might experiment with small-holed beads further.

I might have given up on the beadmaking on Monday but I got some jewellery made instead. The customer who purchased the Lemon Sorbet and Creamsicle beads upgraded them to bracelets.

The bracelets are quite summery which is very not like the current weather here. Loads of places seem to have had snow but it's just damp and quite cold in Cambridge.

I'm off to find another tiny plaster and see how the mandrel-twirling goes.

Have a good Wednesday!

Cloudburst

The colours of these beads remind me of thundery skies and stormy weather. They're made with two beautiful glasses that look lovely but are right glassholes to work with.

The grey-blue-green is CiM Little Boy Blue and it's quite a streaky glass, by which I mean that it gets dark striations in it the more you work it.

The grey-blue is Effetre Navy Blue 238. It's not navy blue as I, and probably you, think of it but seeing as the glass is Italian maybe at some point in time the Italian navy wore a uniform this colour? I don't know. Whatever, it's a very lovely shade of grey-blue but it does that copper thing that a lot of the Italian blues and turquoises do where it will sometimes fizz and it'll also get a grey sheen if it's slightly cooled and reheated. The fizzing can cause pitting which is bothersome if you're not wanting an 'organic' look. The grey sheen on the surface is nothing a short soak in Harpic toilet cleaner won't fix. However, when you want to encase it the greying can cause a haziness between the two layers. To counteract this I find you have to get the base core bead right first time in one go. You can't re-roll it, you can't add more glass and you can't faff with it. You make the core, gently reheat it once to smooth out the chill marks and then encase it while it's still hot but not hot enough that you'll smoosh the core all about. It's a tightrope.

The clear here is Effetre Super Clear 006 and the decoration is Effetre Pearl Grey 268.

The beads are in my shop and a bracelet upgrade is available for them.

Back on Facebook

In an effort to get some beads sold I've reactivated my Facebook page. I left Facebook in a huff back in 2020, in the midst of Covid when everything seemed unbearably insane. I've not got any intention of using Facebook in a personal capacity but my old bead page lives again. I'll be using it to let people know when I have new beads and jewellery for sale.

Here's a link: www.facebook.com/beadsbylaura.co.uk

And here's a bracelet I made on Thursday.

I had the beads for this knocking about in a yoghurt pot for weeks and I finally got round to making them wearable.

I've kept the bracelet really simple, as is my wont, and the beads are strung with matt black seed beads and sterling silver.

The bracelet is available in my shop.