Beadweaving bug

For the past 2 weeks, I've been bitten by the beadweaving bug. Lately I've found it quite hard to think. I know it sounds funny to say I can't think but I can't get into any projects that require me to calculate, plan, strategize, organize or require critical analysis. That's why I've (temporarily) abandoned my bag pattern. I'll be honest with you. It's getting really hard handling my food sensitivity issues. I don't know what I can eat anymore and the hunger really gets to me. How do I keep staying positive and lead a normal life? To keep myself sane (and also to stop myself from thinking), I worked on a few beading projects. Beadweaving is very repetitive and it's only harder the first few rounds.

I started with my favourite spiral stitch necklace and bracelets. Spiral stitch projects are really easy. Check out this tute if you're interested in trying it out.

These are the supplies I used. I bought these beads either last year or the year before but they were misplaced in a brown envelope. My core (the inner beads) are the black beads. They aren't really black, I just don't know how to describe the colour. The spirals are made using 2 red beads with a drop bead in between.

I find the drop beads incredibly sexy. Yes, sexy. Have I been hanging around beads way too much?

I managed to use up all my red beads! It's quite a feat. I hardly ever use up all my beads. The necklace is a nice average length.

I love the colour combo. I can see myself wearing the bracelet and necklace many times.

Sadly for my next project I had to do a little bit of thinking. This bracelet was made using a technique called RAW - right angle weave. This technique is new to me and as you know I'm always interested to improve my knowledge of beadweaving techniques. I read up on it a little and it's not really difficult. This video gives you an idea how to do a basic RAW necklace.

Overall for a first effort, I'm quite happy with the result. However, I will never use seed beads to make another RAW bracelet. I read that bicones work much better. I made the bracelet too short and had to use an extension chain. Luckily Tiba had given me a bunch of extension chains.

A few years ago, I made a simple flat even count peyote bracelet. (bottom bracelet above) I made it mainly as a exercise to understand peyote stitch. It is a very sweet and simple bracelet. As it turned out, I wore the bracelet many times. It seems to go with everything I wore. I had been thinking of making another similar bracelet but this time using odd count peyote technique. Some people find odd count peyote hard because they don't know how to weave the thread. Here's a pretty good video explaining 3 different ways to do it. But know that there are other ways to do it as well.

I have these blue and mixed colours delicas I've been dying to get rid of. I made this bracelet the lazy way. I did not make a chart and plan it all out properly. (remember, no thinking) I just figured it out as I went along. The pattern is really simple so it wasn't hard. If I had made the effort to chart it out, I would have put a red delica in between each hexagon. I didn't manage to use up all my blue delicas but I came very close. I still have a million of the mixed colours delicas.

Hey, they look good together! I'm taking a break from beadweaving as I don't want to overwork the same muscles. What should I do next to stop thinking about food? Maybe bead embroidery.