Bead project finished

Hello, everyone.

Today I finished the beaded shell project.

Y'all probably remember the last picture of it:

Peyote stitch shell project, at end of weaving stage

You can see that the shell seems to be placed too far down in the blue background. I decided to add a fringe to balance the colors. Looking online led me to this article about beaded fringe that seemed to be the right kind of a thing. Using a pad of graph paper, and basing the structure off of the fringe in that article, I counted the number of strands at the bottom edge, separating the "up" beads from the"down" beads, and drew a pattern for the strands.

Each tiny square of the paper was one bead, marked B for blue, W for white, R for blush ("reddish"), F for fringe, etc. It seemed hard to read, so a line of light orange at the color changes was added before beginning. The hanging crosses are an inspiration from the miniature  wall tapestries we saw in Istanbul souvenir shops. Many of them were icons and had a collection of crosses and eye beads hanging from the bottom.

The pattern for the fringe, with the completed bead thingie.

Happily, the fringe pattern uses up more of the Delicas that are in the basic shape, plus some enameled crosses, perles, hearts, and Delica fringe-beads that are in the stash.

After finishing the fringe, I held the project up in front of a mirror and discovered that this is just way too big to make a necklace out of. I supposed that if I'd been thinking of it and drawn it differently, it could have been a bracelet. Maybe the next one will be! But this isn't a bracelet either. So...I laid it on my purse and had a look at the proportions. It fits!

Completed purse ornament.

I used some more of my favorite thread, Fireline, to attach it to the purse with a pair of 6mm blue glass catseye beads for the transition at the top.

Fireline 6 lb test line and Rappala line cutter. You cannot use normal scissors to cut this stuff! You will ruin the edge on your blades. Go to the sporting goods section and get fishing-line cutters instead. Mine are from Wal-Mart.