new earrings for the new year

All good things come to an end - even having a break from making things.
I have a market coming up next week, but being a great procrastinator, I have put off making anything I can actually sell.

Instead I have been fiddling withwonderful little cubes give to me by the gorgeous Realisationcreations. She's been having a destash, which is something I had planned for the new year too. Ah, well.

I started with just a simple bracelet in peyote stitch.
But I didnt have enough beads to make it fit my wrist, so I added co-ordinating seed beads in 2-drop stitch at the ends.
(this picture shows it not quite finished yet)

I remember seeing a technique using cube beads and seed beads in a Bead and Button magazine.
that surely would solve the problem of not having quite enough beads for a bracelet.

For the next project I chose these lovely pewter or gunmetal matt cubes.
I teamed them some size 11's in a clear pale amethyst colour, that wouldnt overwhelm the cubes.


It is worked in a 2-drop peyote stitch, with the cubes being single-drop.
This technique is a lot slower than straight peyote stitch, and so it is still a work in progress, because I'm really thinking that I should be making earrings.

I have a stack of gorgeous Venetian glass beads still to use, so I warmed up witha few simple pairs.


The beads come from many different glassmakers in Venice and you can see how varied their beads are.

Some of them are quite large - not for the faint-hearted.
I'll be taking them to the Australia Day market in Glenbrook, Which is where the gnome convention happens.
These are definitely not gnome sized earrings.