Lessons Learned Part 452

Yes, I made up that number; it probably should be 452,000.

Current Work

I have started a tag for this blog called lessons learned.  These are not tutorials.  I am not even sure anyone reads these and if they do if these are not lessons everyone else has already learned and I am merely stating the obvious.  Nonetheless, I will continue.

Lesson I: Choices
If you recall when I last posted I was not sure if I was going to decrease or start over.  I ended up starting over.  The decrease showed too much thread and in order to get the bezel tight enough the depth of the bezel was going to cover up to much of the pretty stone. I stopped work before getting the bezel tight enough.  (See picture below.) These are judgments you will need to make as an artist.  I started over. 

Unfinished rejected work

Lesson II: Choices Again
Choosing beads requires more than just color consideration.  As was pointed out in comments, these satin beads tend to cut through thread, so they must be used in a place with little movement.  I chose to continue with the honey colored satin beads because of their color, their added textural impact, and because they are relatively large beads for seed beads.  The size will make it easy to attach the neck strap.  Because these are Czech beads the size is quite variable, which makes it easy to fit as a bezel.  In hopes of lessening the depth of the bezel and exposing more of the stone, I chose a single row of the honey satin beads in my second try.  Below is a picture of the edges of the two bezels.

Bezeled jasper on edge

The single row of the honey satin beads is much cleaner visually. 

Lesson III: You can always laugh at yourself
I am laughing at myself because the depth of the bezel is still going to cover up more of the stone than I would like. Fortunately, I did decide to embellish so I think that will justify the extra depth.  Here again are the two works in progress at a different angle.

Bezeled jasper side by side

Lesson IV: Take time off
I had a bit of a back ache last week and took time off to give my back time to heal.  Be kind to yourself.

I always thought my beading choices were intuitive, but they are not. I make choices based on what I hope to achieve.  I hope these lessons learned are helpful. 

They Multiplied

Empress bead in cinnamon and honey

My Empress Beads have multiplied!  I thought I would use two for this necklace and I looked down on my work table and discovered I had three.  Now I need to make a fourth, I think.

Bezeled Jasper

I went for the jasper with the cinnamon.  I always want to save my best bits and pieces for the next masterwork. This time I decided there would be no next masterwork so I used the piece of jasper that I liked best.  Unfortunately, this bezel is just not working. It is just a tad to big.  I will either need to start over or decrease, and I am inclined to start over. 

On the other hand I might just decide to get fancy and add some embellishments to the bezel which would hide any threads exposed by a decrease.  

Stay tuned.