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This week I've done something a little different.

We went to Los Angeles over the weekend for a concert, and I thought with all that beading time I would come up with something spectacular. Well, we left late on Friday and it was too dark as we headed south, we arrived at 1am and Clio decided she had had enough sleep so what were we doing trying to sleep ourselves? MEOWMEOWMEOW!!

By the time we were headed north again on Sunday I was feeling pretty brain dead. I pulled out this center that I had started and struggled to find a direction. I loved the blend of Very Peri and Blue Dog, but couldn't find my black beads to continue the edging I had started, blah blah complain whine...then I noticed my tube of bead soup from the last couple of months.

In case you're not familiar with the term, Bead Soup is what you get when you don't bother to sort out your tray after working. They get scooped into a tube and create a nice blend:

I liked the result so much I decided to make a second square for earrings. I'm posting them for sale on my website Here.

Instead of a pattern this week, I am going to offer a recipe:


BEAD SOUP

Center:
Two colors, try tone-on-tone or high contrast (see last week's square).
Color numbers below refer to Miyuki Delica beads unless otherwise noted.

Other combinations to try are:
798 Blue Dog + 724 Gojira
651 Yellow Sun + 1202 Electrical Banana
010 Adam-12 (shiny black) or 310 Gravity (matte black) + 749 Cat Burglar
262 Absinthe + Electrical Banana
262 Absinthe + 375 Superfund
...the list goes on!
If you have trouble choosing, you can narrow it down to colors already found in your Soup.

I chose to line my fields of color with the most intense colors in the mix, Kandi and Tardis, and black, rather than two lines of black.

I used alternating rounds of:
798 Blue Dog + 760  Very Peri
791 Kandi + 795 Testy
for six rounds.

Edged with one round each:
010 Adam-12
756  TARDIS

Then nine rounds of Bead Soup. Mine contains a fairly consistent set of colors, from the Prime and Phoenix colorways mostly. There are a couple of odd silver-lined and metallic beads in there too.

Finished with one round each:
791  Kandi
010 Adam-12

And an edging of:
15-190  Mercury

You can always find basic instructions for making a Warped Square HERE.


And Clio?
She hopped into the car on Sunday without a mew, fell into a deep sleep for the entire trip and woke up early Monday morning in order not to miss her usual nap:

Feet up and everything!

31

C'est chic!

I didn't expect it, but this week's stripes reminded me of the classic Mariniere, the French sailor's top, Done to perfection here by Petit Bateau. While searching for photos I found myself in serious shopping jeopardy:

I have a passion of long standing for that intense blue+red combination!

I don't think I could have made a better companion square if I had tried. Maybe I should go order one of those shirts...

30

Yes, more stripes!

The 'Primer' kit remains my favorite for stripes, not least because it includes Peep Show, and this pattern really shows off that crystal clear bead.

I really enjoy the way the stripes flow off the edge in this square, and wondered what the stripes would do if several squares were joined. Luckily that's fairly easy to mock up in Illustrator:

This would make some spectacular Space Bacon! I felt like the stripes described a pair of whirling paths, like dancers, so I named this one Pas de Deux.

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MORE STRIPES!!

As much as I really love grays with black (I am wearing 7 articles of gray and black clothing as we speak), I felt like the photos were looking a little sad. This week's stripe makes fine use of most of the Phoenix colorway, still available in the shop:

I had a lot of options here. I might have continued the center section stripe out to the tips, which would have made the black and cream stripes stand out more, or done different stripes at the tips rather than carrying them across, or done the tips solid, or...you get the picture! I'm very pleased with this square. I sketched out the basic idea quite a few weeks ago and it was fun to finally get to work it. More like this in my future, I think.

It will make spectacular Space Bacon, I think, joined along the edges. Any and all of these stripes will be really exciting as joined pieces.

28

Happy New Year!

I'm so excited to be continuing with stripes. They are truly my favorite motif in this beadwork.

Today's square is basically a 'bacon'-style stripe with facing corners flooding off into a diagonal. The fun thing about this is that it creates an optical illusion, not only of the continuity of the center band's stripes, but of stripes running down, forward, and then down again, as though it were a folded piece of paper, or shadows running over and down a stair step.

There's an oddity to it because it's bound within the edges of the square, and because of the way the stripes go across the grain.  Overall I'm really pleased with this one and plan to do another with some color.

If you choose to make this square with your own colors, I do have some suggestions.
Using a tone-on-tone effect, at least for two of the colors, is a good idea as it helps to blend the stripe along the sections where it is broken by the stitch, making it look more continuous. And I deliberately chose three colors here because it enabled me to get the proportions I wanted with the colors lining up a certain way. The black stripe running through the center of the square and taking just one step diagonally is important to the illusion. So keep that stripe in particular mind as you choose your colors.

Have fun with this one, I sure did!