Night in Tunisia

First of all, I loved this piece from the minute I saw it. But when I started picking out my colors to go with those Siam Swarovski crystals that I picked, I felt totally disheartened. I just could not find a set of colors that went together well, so I cheated a bit.

I decided to stick with those lovely hematite colored seed beads for the base, and I found some silver lined red beads that were a perfect match for the crystals. I loved the way the grey-lined 15s contrasted with both the red and hematite beads, but I just could not find a color of size 8 that I liked with these beads. So I used size 8 beads in silver lined red.

Stitching this piece together was, I thought, like magic. As I made the base with right angle weave, I couldn't get over how unstructured it looked. (I should have taken a picture.) It was loose, floppy, and just didn't sit right, no matter what I did.

Then I started filling in the little squares, and WOW! Things just tightened right up, took shape, took form... It was a beautiful thing to watch.

I loved the freedom in this piece - Rachel didn't have a specified thread path for filling in each of the little units of right angle weave, so I was free to wander through my beadwork in any way I saw fit, which was good when I was trying to squeeze my beading needle through some of those tightly-filled bead holes.

My current obsession: finding the perfect red sweater to wear with this necklace this winter. I did see a couple of beautiful jewel-toned red cocoon sweaters at the Bass outlet in Lake Placid the other day. Maybe another quick trip there with Colden this weekend...