More about the mask construction

Hello, everyone.

As mentioned yesterday, I'm using Leah Day's pattern to make simple masks. After posting that, I remembered to take a photo of some of them.

These aren't all, of course. But these are in the sewing studio at the moment.

The project went along pretty smoothly until the end of the 6 inch long twisty ties was reached. An order for chenille stems (that's the fancy word for pipe cleaners) was placed with Hobby Lobby online, which presumably will arrive before the whole mask project becomes moot.

In the meantime, the imagination got to work. A chance suggestion from DD2 about using beading wire led to cutting 12 inch pieces of blue 22-ga. wire, crimping the center around the rosary plier to make a double thickness, and then curling the loose ends into a little spiral that wouldn't poke out through the fabric. That was where matters stood at the end of the day yesterday.

During the night, the imagination must have kept working, because it occurred that really the thin paper or plastic around the wire in twisty ties is pretty much tape. So the shipping tape roll was rounded up for an experiment.

Here are some possible home-made twisty ties. They're not cute, but then they're supposed to be encased inside the cotton fabric anyway. I used shipping tape because it's less likely to do something weird in laundry than duct tape. I just laid a piece of tape a bit longer than the wire piece with the sticky side up, put two wire pieces onto the stickum, somewhat separated, and folded the other half of the tape over onto the wire bits. A little pressing and squishing, then trimmed with the scissors. (By the way, those are the paper scissors, not the fabric scissors.)

It might work. Or I might amble out to the store for a tide-me-over bag of pipe cleaners, which would be less fussy to work with. And each 12 inch pipe cleaner gives shaping wire for two masks.

Decisions, decisions.

Bead stash usage: another purse charm

Hello, everyone.

This is another purse charm, all bits from stash. The colors are in a springtime theme.

As with the last one, the catch was in that three-pack at Hobby Lobby. Most of the beads were from Fire Mountain Gems--some in their Boss's Bead Bag which is a random mix. (That used to be really fun to go through but the last time, some years back, it was less exciting. Still really useful, though.)

There are 5 strands strung onto 6# Fireline. I used a wrapped loop to connect the strands to the catch inside of the cone finding. Two of the strands were designed to provide balance to the other three, which have accent beads up and down the strand, so they're just plain old mixed white/clear seed beads.

I tied the bottom bead of each strand thoroughly, strung it to the right length, and held it in one of those little spring type bead holding clips. When all 5 were strung, I tied them to the wrapped loop, dropped the cone finding onto the wire, and made another wrapped loop to connect to the catch.

A Beaded Hairpin (more stash usage)

Hello, everyone.

Today's picture is another hair pin. It began as one of the bridesmaid hairpins, but the work was coming out too dense: the little branchlets too close together. Fortunately this was discovered before the whole hairpin was constructed. The densely twisted piece was set aside.
Today it became a hairpin by itself:

Interested viewers may note that this time the background is more friendly to the project. (They may show up well in person on black, but the photo of that was not so good.)

Teardrop faceted bead plus bead cap for the top bud, assorted faceted glass and pearl beads. The smallest perle beads are 3mm Swarovski beads, left over from another project some years back. The top pink bead is a 4mm Swarovski bicone, accompanied by a couple of simple 3mm fire-polished faceted glass round beads.

More Bead Play (also uses up Stash!)

Hello, everyone.

I have to give a hat tip to the Russian ladies on Youtube for this idea. They have uploaded bunches of twisted-wire work involving beads for hair, bracelets, whatever.

This is a bridal-style hair pin. A young lady I know thought that her ladies might like to have sparkly bits to tuck into a braid for The Day.

The beading actually grew like Topsy when I started working on it, I think the original idea was the daisy in the middle and maybe three or four beads sticking up, but one thing led to another and here we are. It uses up a number of crystalline faceted rounds and bicones, and some teardrops, some pale pink ones, and some seeds and various sizes of perles and even some cultured actual pearls. (The teardrop shaped ones on stems.) Also an assortment of bead caps.

The twisting has to be done carefully, I actually gave some of the wire metal fatigue by twisting too tightly and it broke. Who knew that could happen? But if y'all are thinking of doing something like this, now you know.

Beads mostly from Fire Mountain Gems, some from Hobby Lobby, wire likewise. Hair pin from the pile in my hair stuff! Rhinestone in the flower from Fire Mountain, it's a montee from a pack I got years ago to replace a lost rhinestone on a sweater. You never know when extra bits will come in handy!

Stash busting: Purse charm

Hello, everyone.

Another little stash-busting success: a dangly thing to put on purses. (It could also be hung from any other hanging point, like maybe in a window as a decoration.)

I used up some white & silver and perle bead mix, some pendants, some crosses and pressed-glass butterflies, faceted ovals, and some quartz crystal diamonds. The hardware was half-off at Hobby Lobby.

These little stash busters are fun, but there need to be more of the necklaces if there's going to be a measurable reduction in bead stash!

Stash Busting, Beads Edition

Hello, everyone.

There is a lot of stash around here, as has been said before. I saw a number of seed bead bracelets on Pinterest and watched a video or two and got inspired to see what I had to work with.

I did say, lots of stash. (Sadly, repeating that phrase doesn't use it up. One must actually make things to use it up!)

Lots of seed beads are included--size 11 Dynamites, size 15 Rocailles, assorted odd bits and pieces, they all went together into a few bracelets and a necklace.

Three bracelets and a necklace

What I'm learning: yes, there is a handy video about braiding the strands. It's trickier than it looks, especially toward the end of the braid. Y'all will note that only one thing in this group of projects is braided.
Using the bails that don't open or adjust in size with seed bead strands is only sort-of possible. It's surprising how thick a strand of the tiny beads is!
The little cones at the end of the strands are working with a wire-wrapped loop to hold the strands, it's the only way I could make sense of it. Also the tigereye bead on the necklace is on a wire work piece. It's fun and peaceful to wrap the wire around the pliers to make things.

Another bracelet

I was happy to be able to use up some of the odd bits from "assortment" bags that have been gotten from Fire Mountain Gems over the years. Also to find homes for some of the assorted saints' medals that have accumulated.