Orphan Lamp Work Beads - the Dreams of Jack Flanders via Larry Scott

For a number of years, Larry Scott was my favorite lamp work bead artist at Bead & Button and every year I would buy a number of beads from him.  A lot of the beads that I bought from him were his Byzantine beads, so called because of the complexity of the surface design.  Most of these came in sets of three, one large and two matching small.  The last year he was at the show I bought 3 sets of orphan beads from him, sets of two small beads with no matching large beads.  I had always had it in my mind that I would make bracelets with them.  This past week I finally made the bracelets.

For these dark red beads I picked garnets.  This one somehow reminds me of India, so I have dubbed it Dreams of India.  There is a series of radio plays by the ZBS Foundation featuring Jack Flanders, and Dreams of India is one of them.

For these golden yellow beads I picked amber.  This one I call Dreams of Sumatra, another radio play featuring Jack Flanders.

For these purple beads I picked Dog Teeth Amethyst.  I call it Dreams of the Amazon, yet another Jack Flanders adventure.  I had the gemstone beads in my stash for the first two, but I had to order beads for this one.  I ordered them from Goody Beads, which features Dakota gemstone beads.

The silver beads are Bali silver, which I had in my stash, and the clasps were purchased from A Grain of Sand.  All of the bracelets are strung on Soft Flex Sterling Silver Extreme 925 Flex Metallic Flex Wire, Medium (0.019 in diameter).  The bracelets fit my slender wrists fairly closely.  Because of the weight of the gemstones they tend to hang with the clasp pretty much on my pulse point.  I love them.  The are perfect with a three-quarter length sleeve hand knitted sweater.  I have sweaters that match the first two, but not one for the third.  I guess I'll have to make one.

Carnelian and Onyx

Even though Larry Scott no longer comes to the Bead & Button show, I still have a number of beads by him that I have not yet turned in to jewelry.  This weekend I decided that I really needed to.  Part of the motivation is that the job I am currently in requires me to dress up a bit more than I used to so I actually have a reason to wear a lot of the beautiful things that I have made.  One of the reasons that I hadn't done anything with these beads is that I thought I would try using seed beads with them instead of the gemstone beads, but last week I was wearing one of my sets of Larry Scott beads and I realized that I really just love the look and feel of the gemstone beads.  I also really enjoy working with them, choosing the colors to compliment the lampwork, laying out the beads.

Materials:  Lampwork Byzantine beads by Larry Scott, carnelian and onyx gemstone beads, Soft Flex Extreme Flex Wire

Tagua Nut Sea Horses

Shortly after I started going to Bead & Button I discovered Tagua Nut beads.  These come from palms that grow in South America, and they are often called "living ivory".  I have an iguana and a humming bird, but the shape that I really latched on to were the Sea Horses, buying one each year.  Unfortunately, the vendor stopped coming to the show so I haven't been able to get any for a while.  I still have a couple in my stash that I haven't turned in to necklaces yet.  These are the first two Sea Horses that I bought.  I used patterns from a book on Russian netting that was focused on bead designs inspired by Coral.  Quite appropriate.

Observant readers may have noticed that I have added two pages to my blog.  The first one Beadwork Gallery, is currently a catch all for my bead work, the second one is devoted solely to pieces that I have made with Larry Scott beads.

Victorian Parfait

The focal bead is another one of the Larry Scott beads that I have bought at Bead & Button.  This one always reminded me of an ice cream parfait and originally I thought I would do something very colorful and maybe a bit silly with it, but then last weekend I was rummaging in my semi-precious stones and decided that I really needed to use some of those garnets that I have been hoarding.  I knew that I wanted to do some embellishment to the strand so I used a size 8 bead in a matching color to space the garnets, knowing that after stringing the garnets on the Soft Flex I would not be able to get a needle through them.  I then used the same size 8 beads and some transparent gold drops to make the netting.  I thought about using some smaller garnets, but they didn't match in color or in reflectivity.  I was going to do another set of netting interlaced with the first set but after trying it I decided that it cluttered up the design too much.  Less is more.

Materials:
Garnets
Size 8 seed beads - Beadcats stock # 2-08-280-91 dark red transparent lined with black, irid
Small drops (4 mm x 6 mm) - Beadcats stock # D-T2-840-00 amber transparent
KO thread in gold
Soft Flex 24k Gold Extreme flex wire (medium)
Gold clasp purchased from the Soft Flex site

Storm Clouds

Yesterday, despite the weather, I received the book "Beautiful Beaded Ropes" by Jill Wiseman and was inspired to pull out the beads.  Originally I was going to make a spiral bead rope for this focal bead using the semi-precious stones that I had selected, and I really liked the colors that I selected and the look of the spiral beaded rope, but I also discovered that with a focal bead of this weight, you need more than beading thread to support it and make everything hang right, so I defaulted to the old faithful string some gemstones and call it good.  I added the silver bangle on a whim, but am not sure that I am going to keep it.

Lamp work beads by Larry Scott

Sacred Vessel Necklace

I have had this focal bead in my stash for a couple of years.  It is by Larry Scott, my favorite lamp work bead artist.  Yesterday morning I was putting away my swag from the last Bead & Button show and taking stock to see what I wanted to look for this year.  When I pulled out this strand I knew immediately that they would go perfectly with this bead.  The large oval beads are fossil coral from Indonesia.  I'm not sure what the small gray ones are, I am really terrible about keeping track of what kind of semi-precious stones I buy, only what colors.  I am going to try and fix that, and I have a couple of field guides coming to help me identify what I have.

I used a fish clasp and silver Soft Flex.

Silver and Teal - Finished

It's been a quiet day here in King George.  We finally got rain yesterday after about a month of heat.  I spent the day finishing up this necklace.  With my two circular shawl projects dragging on I felt a need to finish something, and this one has been in my works in progress since January.  Yikes.

Materials used:
(Beadcats stock number)
2-06-927-14:  size 6 real Nickel metal beads (20 grams)
2-08-694-90:  size 8 rich teal transparent lined with teal (10 grams)
2-11-592-79:  size 11 bright light blue green opal silver lined (10 grams)
2-11-686-79:  size 11 turquoise-green silver lined matte, dyed (5 grams)
2-11-759-76:  size 11 lavender transparent silver lined matte irid
D-T1-773-01:  3mm x 5mm tear drops, light amethyst transparent irid
Soft Flex Sterling Silver Extreme 925 flex - Medium (.019 in diameter)
Silver End Caps
Crimp beads
Magnetic clasp
Gudebrod Silk, size E in silver gray for the bead crochet
Teal Nymo, size B, for the embellishment
Focal beads, one Larry Scott Byzantine Bead, 2 small lampwork beads, also by Larry Scott

I did the bead crochet around the Soft Flex, to make the final assembly easier.  Make sure you leave a long enough tail of Soft Flex at the start, and anchor it so it doesn't pull free.  I taped it to the silk thread tail.  I used two silver cones to cover the ends of the crochet rope, and strung the focal beads and more size 8 seed beads on the Soft Flex to close the gap.  The clasp is hidden in the kinky fringe.

Beads, beads, beads

I've been buying a lot of beads this past month.  I ordered some for bead knitting, and some for my Larry Scott Byzantine beads.  Last year at Bead & Button I bought a lot of Larry Scott beads in some really great colors.  Larry has been bugging me to do something with his beads that involved seed beads rather than stringing them with semi-precious stones.  I started a bead crochet rope for one of his beads over Christmas and actually finished seven inches of it, but decided that it just wasn't going to work, so this past week I sat down with my Larry Scott beads and my bead cards and picked out a bunch of colors.  One of the sets that I picked out is for this lovely teal bead.  The plan is to do another spiral bead crochet rope, like the Dragon Scale.

Holiday Projects

Bruce and I drove down to St. Augustine, Florida to spend Christmas at his Mom's. I needed a knitting project for the car ride so I started this one. It is from Tahki Yarns Spring/Summer Collection 2004. The pattern is #4 Moving Cables Pullover. The yarn is Tahki Cotton Classic. I've had the yarn for quite a while, I love the yellow, so bright and cheerful and warm.

I also started one of the bead crochet ropes for my Larry Scott Byzantine beads.

Dragon Scale - Spiral Bead Crochet Rope

I finished the spiral bead crochet necklace last night. I really like the way the colors work together. The blue iridescent beads of the center of the spiral with the olive green purple-lined beads and the bronze all seem very organic to me. Once I got going with the crochet I didn't want to stop, and I wasn't sure how long a rope I would end up with, so I decided to put the clasp in the front, hiding it with the flowers. I borrowed the flowers from a project in the October/November 2009 issue of Beadwork Magazine (the project is edelweiss necklace by Melinda Barta).

Materials
- approximately 20 grams of size 11 seed beads, blue iridescent
- approximately 10 grams of size 8 seed beads (Beadcats stock # 2-08-507-90, light olive transparent lined with lavender)
- 10 grams of size 6 seed beads (Beadcats stock # 2-06-816-14, dark gold opaque metallic)
- approximately 1 gram of Toho Aiko beads (TBC-221A)
- 3 8-millimeter semi-precious stone beads
- one focal bead by Larry Scott
- Size E silk Guderbrud in dark green

More Scarves

I've also been weaving. When I first started weaving (almost three years ago) I made a bunch of these rayon scarves. I made them in every color combination that they had. They have been a big hit with friends and family and I've sold and traded them at Bead and Button (you can buy them from my Artfire site). They have been so popular that I no longer have a complete set for myself, so I have been trying to rebuild my stash. Lately I've been getting up a bit earlier than I usually do and weaving before going to work. The fiber is Earth Guild Dragon Tale Yarn (rayon slub). The warp for this one is Purple Haze (variagated) and the weft is Royal Purple (solid). 8 dent reed, 16 epi, plain weave.



I also picked out some colors for bead crochet ropes for some of my Larry Scott beads. These are his Byzantine Beads. My favorites. When he was making these beads his wife told him that no one would buy them because the colors were so unusual. Larry's response? "Oh, Carolyn will buy them." I am an official Larry Scott groupy. I even have the button to prove it.

Back to Beads

Last Monday one of my work-friends told me that I had inspired him to get out his crochet hook and pick up crocheting again. I was tremendously flattered and of course told him about ravelry. We had gone on travel together to Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey (12 hours in a government van) and I had knitted during the drive. On Tuesday I wore my (only) bead crochet rope necklace that I had made when my sister, Virginia, and I took the Beadcats booth to Convergence in 2006, knowing that he would find it fascinating. I offered to show him how, but then realized that I would have to brush up on my rather rusty bead crochet skills. So I pulled out some beads and some silk Guderbrod (size E) and a 1.4mm crochet hook and got to work. I did a small sample to show him, but didn't get a chance to last week. He stopped by my office on Friday on his way out and borrowed my size 11 seed bead cards, and my bead crochet rope book, but we really didn't have a chance to talk. I did show another friend of mine from work, and may yet get her into beads (I have already gotten her into sewing). Looking at the book had inspired me, though, so this weekend I decided to get out a project that I had started some time ago.

Every year when I go to the Bead and Button show (I work in the Beadcats booth - and get paid in beads) I buy lampwork beads from Larry Scott, my favorite lampwork bead artist. Typically I buy his Byzantine beads and string them with semi-precious stones and silver, but one year I bought one of his long cylinder beads, intending to make a bead crochet rope necklace to go with it. I found some nice dark blue iridescent beads and worked up half the necklace and then decided that it needed to be more three-D. A rope and a long cylinder bead was just too flat. So I decided to do a spiral bead crochet rope. I rummaged in my pretty extensive bead stash (it took two of those organizer cabinets to organize it) and came up with some size 6 and size 8 beads to go with the original size 11 beads.

A couple of hours of stringing later I started crocheting and discovered that spiral bead rope crochet is a bit more challenging than straight bead rope crochet. It took me a couple of tries to get the hang of it, but I am quite pleased with the results so far. I'm not sure if it will go with the lampwork bead, but it will make a nice piece regardless.

A few notes on tools:

For stringing beads on anything I use the Japanese Bead Threader Needle, available from Beadcats. It is wonderful, and makes stringing a breeze.

For beading I put the beads I am working with in a white ceramic bead tray, also available from Beadcats. I use the large center space for any mutant beads that I don't want in my beadwork. I cover the bottom with self-adhesive felt so it doesn't slide or clink when I stack them.

The thread is silk Guderbrud, size E.