Artisan Clay Design Team Challenge: Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

This month, the talented Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay chose her smoke fired beads for us to use in the challenge.  These are the gorgeous beads from which the team members got to choose:

Because I already have such an extensive collection of her smoke fired beads, we decided that I would go with something from my own stash before she even showed these choices (now I just lust after every single one of them!).


If you've been following the news at all, you probably know that Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas have been plagued by large wild fires these past few weeks. Hundreds of miles away from the fires in southern Arizona, we have smelled and seen the smoke as far east as here in Anthony, at the New Mexico border with Texas.  Smoke and the fire that it inevitably comes from have been on my mind a lot lately.

The idea behind these challenges is to do something we haven't done before. Well, I had been collecting but had not yet used several of her gorgeous large (1.75 long and 1" "thick") barrel beads.

And I've been wanting to play with fiber again, not having done so in almost a year. So I got out the beads and took them to my extensive yarn stash and found the perfect Japanese cotton/cashmere blend in an earthy color way.  I wanted  a thick rope for the 12mm holes in these beads, so I crocheted the entire 80 meter skein into a long chain, which I then used to create a kumihimo braid.

I had originally intended to use only one bead, but it just looked so very lonely on its own. I'm glad that I switched to a double stranded design.

For me the trickiest part of working with kumihimo ropes is always how to finish them.  I'm not a huge fan of glue and I prefer beaded closures to pre-made ones (although I do have some wonderful metal and ceramic end caps in my stash), so my natural inclination is to bead those finishing touches.

And so we come to fire part of this piece:  I used Japanese matte bronze seed beads and Czech dark bronze FIRE polished beads to create both the end caps and the closure for this.  It won't show unless you have short hair or wear your hair in an up-do or pony tail, but you'll always know that added sparkle is there. ;)

How does it close? You see that middle section there? That's made up of two separate rectangles that are connected with sew on snaps (which right angle weave seems especially designed for, btw). The snaps are completely hidden from view.  And while the closure is a bit more on the "bling side" than the focals, there is nothing delicate or light about it. In visual weight it provides the perfect, if surprising, counterpoint to the rustic smoke fired focals.

One of the best parts of these challenges is that we get to see what other designers have created using similar starting points.  Click the individual pictures to be taken to the designer's blog entry for this challenge:





I'll have this piece available in my Etsy store by the end of the day, in case you are interested. ;)

I have lots to catch you up on - I realize I've been a horrible blogger this past month - but that will have to wait for later. In the meantime, be well and get going, my friends! :D