I just spent a fun morning with a friend, shopping at one of my favourite bead wholesalers. She shopped..... I shopped..... and between us we wouldn't have had any money left for a cuppa after. Lucky they provide the coffee free! I've become determined (read obsessed) to find a jewellery design that will work with the swirly yellow, orange and brown dress so one of my tasks was to suss out their selection of wooden beads. I picked up a few strands of dark wood and some dyed shell beads. But my happiest find was the strand of kukui nuts (bottom). It reminded me of the leis the girls and I made in Hawaii a few years back. At the time, customs wouldn't let us bring them back into Australia and we had to leave them behind but seeing these brought back some happy memories. It's strange though that we can now buy them here on our own shores!  Anyway, I'm hoping to turn some of these beads into the piece that finally works with that dress. I'll report back once I'v......

Earlier in the week I completed the spiral rope necklace to wear with my swirly yellow, brown and orange dress. I loved the way the necklace turned out but it just didn't work with the dress. Such a shame. But the good part is that I learned a new stitch and ever since I have been itching to start on the next kit. It's a lariat using St Petersburg stitch and the packaging says its level of difficulty is medium. Well, I'm breezing through it. And while it's taking a little longer to make the finished length than the spiral rope took, it's taking shape nicely. There's a lot to like about this stitch. Apart from being quite easy, I really like the angled pattern the stitch creates - the movement and direction that makes your eye move up and down the pattern. And because there is so little backstitching, it's really flexible as you can see in the photo. Don't you love the little picot edge? As I'm working on this, I'm beginning to wonder if it might ......

When I look at beading projects and see the many thousand seed beads that make up these designs, it always makes me think how time consuming these projects must be. But not this one! I whipped it up in a couple of evenings in front of TV and without making a mistake along the way. Now that's the perfect kind of project for a busy girl! The only hitch I had was when I broke a bead as I forced the needle through it one too many times. Luckily, it was right near the clasp and it's not visible in the design or I'd have had a bit of unpicking to do! Anyway, here is the finished necklace and the dress it was made for. The dress is a mass of swirling colour.  As I said, yellow, brown and orange are colours that I don't feel super confident in, but with the pinks and blues swirling amongst the autumn palette I think I can pull it off. I'm not sure about the necklace though. When I bought it, the shell pendant looked brown inside the packaging but in the daylight it is as b......

I was pretty excited with my beading kit purchases from the Bead Shack at the Brisbane craft show on Friday - I couldn't wait to get started on them. At first, I was having trouble make up my mind which one I should tackle first but after reading the packaging, I discovered that each one was marked with a degree of difficulty. What a nice little touch. And how perfect: I had bought one which was easy, one which was intermediate and one which was advanced. Three different kits, and three different stitches! So now it's pretty obvious which one I should start with: the spiral rope! The packaging says this is herringbone (N'debele) stitch which I haven't done before so I'm excited that I'll be learning a new stitch. I'm glad this was the easiest because I bought it to wear with a colourful maxi dress in colours that are way out of my comfort zone: yellow, brown and orange! I don't have a thing to accessorize with that colour palette and I've found it d......

I took a day away from the studio today and spent a few pleasant hours wandering the show floor at the Brisbane Craft and Sewing Show.  It was fun to be a visitor instead of a demonstrator or a teacher for a change. I got to do what you all get to do and that's browse, shop and learn. Well, I didn't have time to actually take a class but I did buy some beading kits which is basically a class in a kit! It will be a nice change of pace to follow instructions instead of writing them! I also found some new moulds to work with. I love silicone moulds and I'm always on the lookout for new shapes and designs and today I found two new vendors to check out, both of them are cake decorating suppliers. Not many of you would know that many years ago I was a cake decorator and spent many years refining my skills in this craft so after all these years, it was refreshing to see cake decorating represented at the craft show. How cool are these "building brick" shape moulds?......