Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Work in Progress: Moon Collar

There have been many moments during some of my beading challenges that I’ve regretted taking on the task. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours to get it all done, or I wish that I had done something differently. What’s interesting is just how much these difficulties have made the challenges worth it - without them I wouldn’t have the experience necessary to know when a design definitely isn’t going to turn out, or the courage to start all over again.

This week’s bead tray has the beginnings of a new Egyptian Gods collar, which took me 3 or 4 tries to get right. I tried several palettes and patterns, dropped and added beads, and then started from scratch until it was finally what I wanted.

Moon Beam Bead Palette Moon Collar in Progress


My inspiration is the moon god Khonsu. I began with an idea of using soft colors -whites and blues for moonlight. For accents, I wanted some soft white bone and pale aqua drops. Unfortunately, the bone beads I chose didn’t work well with the smaller teardrop beads, so I removed them and started again. After one thread’s worth of stitching, I realized that the palette was awful. Perhaps it reminded me too much of another palette disaster, but I didn’t like how it looked.

I went back to my bead trays and tried several different approaches. I finally decided to begin with a night sky color, and some silver-lined crystal for stars. At first I kept the aqua drops, but they clashed with the opaque royal blue. One more restart, and I finally had something that I wanted to move forward with.

Moon God Collar in Progress


Last week’s projects are also complete. The starfish ring turned out great, and I was able to finish the cuff I had planned with no mishaps. I did debate for awhile whether I should have used a pattern of three black and white rows, alternating which color would be in the middle for each section, but I like how it turned out.

Aqua Starfish Ring Nautical Stripe Cuff


What are you working on this week?

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5 comments:

  1. The color palette of the Moon Collar looks lovely and I can`t wait to see how it looks when complete . The star fish ring is cute and dainty too.
    Been working on shades of blue too , and have finally completed the necklace inspired by the Ocean .

    ReplyDelete
  2. That takes a lot of patience to start over. Haha. I'm still working on that. I actually just finished a netted bracelet design that I found in Bead and Button's Beaded Handbook 2. Unfortunately I ran out of bead chips but luckily I was able to improvise and finish it. [=

    By the way, I like the first colour scheme you used as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It does take patience, and confidence, too. You've got to be able to know for certain whether something is worth doing over again. It's tough to get out of the habit of just making things, and shoot for only the best results every time. We'll all get their eventually!

      Delete
  3. I love that ring! Its so cute!
    ~Kelsy
    http://looseendscraftblog.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm in the middle of a micro macrame bracelet. It's a lot more complicated than the other two micro macrame bracelets I've made before, and I'm making it up as I go along. I pulled one bit of it apart about 5 times before I was truly happy with how it looked, but it was worth it. I'd rather keep undoing and redoing, and absolutely love what I end out with, than do something quickly that I don't like.

    ReplyDelete

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