Whoohoo! It's here :)
#beadsoupblogparty !
.. well.. actually, since I'm writing this Thursday afternoon and the reveal isn't until Saturday, it's NOT actually here YET, but by the time you read this... it will be...so..I'm babbling :D
Check out the close up maps HERE .
This round of the Bead Soup Blog Party marks some big changes. This is the last of the fall editions; from now on there will be just one edition per year in the spring :) This is also the biggest round ever with 400 participants! Having pity on us readers and hoppers, our hostess Lori Anderson has split this round into three separate reveal dates, and then to make things even nicer for all of us, Tanya of Fusionmuse is running around gathering up all the post links and posting them into a special webpage for easier viewing :)
This is the second reveal. Tanya is still busily gathering up all the post links and making the hop page for this one.
Now... enough horn tooting and babbling... on to the good stuff ;)
Here's my finished soup!
What..? You want pictures of everything separately?! *sigh* Oh alright...I guess I can do that for you ...;)
My partner this round was Maria Horvath of Hungary (* edit- Sorry, Maria, I have NO idea where Bulgaria came from... I must have read something about it right before I wrote that >.< *crawls away in shame to think of ways to make up for naming the Country * ) She send me a soup that contained a focal she made and beaded herself, as well as some components her mother-in-law made :)
After taking all the 'before' pictures, I left it all in that little black soup bowl and playing with it every now and then, doodling ideas, or laying things out and taking a picture so I'd remember.
First up was this... I used one of those orange MOP beads as the focal for this. I was already working on this piece when the soup arrived and gave me the perfect piece to finish :) It was meant for a specific person... but somehow, despite all my measuring, it ended up too small >.<
The large orange beads are from the Pantone mix Solange Collin sent me. The large blue lampwork beads are by Cottage Cove. I keep wanting to put something on top of the orange but so far nothing has jumped out at me as 'perfect'.
That was it...the rest of the soup sat and waited. It wasn't until just a couple weeks that things began to cook.
The start of the muse really getting to work were these two.
Not really surprising that those little dyed magnesite skulls would be among the first to get me going. I'd known what I wanted to do with them for a while. I've worn them several times since :) The other pair with the MOP ovals isn't the original design I had in mind for those... that involved those brass filigree cones... but when it came down to having the tools in hand, the cones were out.
Next came this one. Putting that beautiful dragonfly clasp to use.A design I'd sketched the day my soup arrived, and then changed and altered slightly many times since. Originally it was a three strand, using some of the yarn or tatting worked in somehow, but in the end, that just didn't work. I detoured and did another beaded strand .. but that came out and went to a different project instead. I even tried some blue velvet ribbon... nope. So two strand it is :)
The clasp and the oval Czech glass are from my soup. The white flowers are from Solange's Pantone mix, and all the blue & purple Czech glass flowers I bought from Grace Neff when she had her destash.
This next one is that missing strand from the last one redone. I used up all but four of those little clear rondelles, and that's some of the sodalite chip stone Solange sent me for the Pantone swap we did :) I'd had a different plan for the three crocheted flowers, but then this popped into my head so it became a decorative bail 'cover' for my focal :)
This piece still feels 'unfinished' to me. I've tried adding different
elements in a second (or third) strand, but so far nothing has worked. I
do still have a few ideas to try so maybe I'll have something done to
'finish it off' and get this edited before the reveal.
And then we have the soft and fuzzy - This was born of a 'need' to use some of this gorgeous yarn and tatting. Shaiha suggested I try kuhmino, and while I still plan on trying that out, I ended up trying a tutorial on finger weaving. Really quick and simple :) The ends I recycled from a thrift shop find and glued on :)
And then there's this...
Originally to be a blue velvet choker with a vine pattern stitched in and the rest of the bits sewn on. I don't have any ribbon ends at the moment though... and I keep forgetting I can't sew >.< ;) lol So this may or may not be completed. For the record, I had a similar design in mind for a ribbon cuff in my last BSBP with some gorgeous stone flower buttons Shaiha sent me... that never happened either ;)
I still have the tatting and most of the brass bits, along with the rest of the MOP beads, and four Czech glass rondelles left over. They'll be used up fairly soon :) I have plans for most of that to be mixed in with some of the other bead mixes I need to use and post about in the coming month or so :)
Don't forget to visit my partner and see what she made with the soup I sent her! LINK
While you're here, pop over and check out my newest Freebie Friday post, and enter for a chance to win some yummy Fall Pantone Bead Soup :)
Then continue on to checking out some of the amazing talent in the list below :)
~ Skye
