Tiny chatons 1.

Last summer (or spring, can't remember clearly) my favourite local bead shop added 6 mm Swarovski chatons to its sortiment. I was absolutely fascinated by those tiny shinies, bought quite a lot of them and started to experiment... Here are some of my results:

1. The easiest way - just bezel a few of them with peyote stitch then join them without further embellishing.

The result is simple but nice. It can be used as a modestly sized "alltagstäugliche" pendant perfect for everyday wear or even  - if using fitting colors e.g. grey or black - for an elegant or business look. 

But what looks rather small for a pendant, as a ring may look a bit oversized - but so funny! I really like this ring, even it can be a bit uncomfortable to wear... 

For this set I've chosen the following colors: Blue zircon, Light turquoise, Pacific opal - the shades of water, cool and clear, they are the best choice for beadweaving on a hot Summer day :)

Leaving the comfort zone

As you might have noticed, my colour palettes are not very creative: most of my beadworks are rather monochromatic, made in different shades of the same colour + an accent metallic colour. They aren't too creatively chosen either: to blue, violet, rose, burgundy, white, black and grey I always added silver;  reddish shades or topaz were paired with gold; and bronze accompanied cream, brown, purple or teal. Green was maybe the only colour that I've paired with all three metallics named above.

Well, that was a long introduction, but slowly I'm getting closer to the actual topic...

It started with a 8 mm "Crystal copper" rivoli, which I wanted to bezel with bicones and 15/0 seed beads (like here). I have already used bicones in this colour together with a "Crystal red magma" rivoli, and the result (the second pic there) was quite good, so I thought this pairing should also work well the other way around - that is, the copper rivoli with red magma bicones. Well, I was wrong: the effect was rather awful. 

So I tried to find bicones in my stash that look good with the copper rivoli: the solution was maybe obvious, but for my stubbornly monochromatic taste a bit unusual: the rivoli had an interesting greenish sheen from a certain view, so dark green bicones matched it really well. (They're called "Turmaline", as far as I know they're already discontinued, but years ago I was fortunate enough to find some) 

The next challenge was to find seed beads which harmonize with both colours. My first idea was gold, but they looked somehow lame together; bronze definitely didn't worked with the rivoli, copper could have been good, but I haven't had any of it... Silver or nickel, maybe? That seemed a weird idea at first, but then I saw a beautiful painting which proved that steel grey and red can look wonderful together, and that helped with the final decision. (Yes, it was again a painting by Jenny Dolfen. And yes, about a certain red-headed character... I'm hopeless ^.^")

Can you see the green sheen of the rivoli?

Breaking the silence

Well, that was a long break. So many things happened in the last months (almost a year): personal, local and global crisises, new challenges... But to be honest, not those problems are entirely to blame for this long silence, it was me, who was simply too lazy for blogging. Well, maybe not lazy, rather unsure: does this whole blog-thing make sense anymore...? I still don't have an answer to this question, but since I have now some new projects to show (and hopefully finally some time too), I'll try to post some entries in the meantime.

Stay safe and healthy, everyone!