Totally Twisted

Totally twisted is not only the Etsy Beadweavers Team challenge theme this month, but is also the way I feel when I bead a Cellini spiral. As some of you may know, I am a type A personallity which means in beading terms that I have very tight tension!  This being said, my first Cellini spiral was a wonderful long work of art...by long I mean straight and stiff.  It needed to curve, so I bent it.  Yes, you guessed right...it broke into two sections with tiny beads popping through the air.  My heart broke!  Then to top it off, my husband told me it looked like plastic.  That's his comment when he doesn't like my beadwork.  Well, it does look somewhat like plastic...need to rethink my bead choices!!!  Notice the straight spiraling work...perfect, but not an ounce of give!

My second Cellini spiral turned out a bit better. My bead choices didn't look plastic so I wove about three inches.  The tension varied.  I was trying to figure out the correct tension so that when I started my third Cellini spiral it would bend! 

The third was a charm!  My tension allowed the spiral to flex and bend into a nice curve.  You see it here in this necklace that I made for the challenge.  I am so proud of this Cellini spiral because beading it does not come natural to me, I had to work hard for it!

After all this, one of my FB friends told me that my tension may not have been the culprit!  She had always used Nymo for her spirals and they were very flexible, but she decided to use Toho's One G thread on a new spiral.  She said that it broke on her and was not flexible.  One G is my thread of choice, but I will have to give Nymo another chance on the Cellini.

Wow look at that flexible curve!!!

When Beads Go Bad

I fully intended to enter the Etsy Beadweavers Challenge, Inspired by Picasso!  I researched Picasso's art including his different periods.  I was most struck by his analytic cubism period.  All the angles, shapes, and play with a confined colorway was something I understood.  Picasso's "Le guitariste" (1910)  is the perfect example of analytic cubism.

I organized my thoughts (as well as they can be organized).  I chose my colorway.  I drew a diagram of what I planned to do.  It was titled "The Swimmer".  If you look closely you can see a face and two swimming arms.

I even made the base for the bracelet. My plan was to embellish the angles and lines on the surface of a right angle woven base.  I chose a wonderful Czech finished seed bead that was sort of a variegated buttery tan color.

I started to add my embellishments...that's when things started to go bad!!!  Somehow, I had forgotten to tell the beads what I wanted to accomplish.  As many of you beaders know, beads do have a mind of their own!  The beads felt very strongly that stripes were in order.  Who was I to argue!  

Actually the "bad" beads were correct in their thinking,  stripes turned out great.  My only problem was how to close the bracelet.  Again the beads made that decision for me.  They had the idea of collapsible flowers with loops for the closure! 

They turned out even better than I thought they would.  Sometimes when beads go bad, we really need to listen!  The bracelet was wonderful...but had nothing to do with Picasso or analytic cubism!  Oh well, there's always next time!  Happy beading!!