First forays into soutache beadwork

I ordered a few types of soutache cord after seeing myriad gorgeous photos online and was immediately overwhelmed with indecision. I've seen other bloggers write that rayon cord doesn't snag while stitching, but the polyester can sometimes cause trouble. I got a few colors of both and didn't realize I'd ordered such a hot pink shade of the polyester. It isn't a color I would normally have chosen and, being the more potentially problematic of the two types, I figured I wouldn't lose out much if I used it as my soutache guinea pig. Most of the beads in these little pieces are acrylic, which I also tend to stay away from. The combination of the two materials made me worry a lot less about what mistakes I might make and, as a result, I had a lot of fun being adventurous in my color scheme and shapes! Here are the results so far!

I did find that the polyester dimpled in some places, but I think that's as much my inexperience and too-tight stitching as it is the cord. The metallic gold cord was also a bit challenging because the outer layer seems to be made of a thin, woven, plastic-y material and I was worried about puncturing the strands and causing fraying. My worries didn't seem to manifest themselves, though, which was a relief. I think I did alright considering these were my very first attempts. I learned the hard way to stitch the cords together before fixing them to a cabochon bead, as you can see on the middle piece. my big white stitches are showing themselves off. I'm still really happy with the experiment and I hope I can one day be as fearless with all my materials and not just the ones I know I'll use once in a blue moon.

Nymo necklaces

These are the other necklaces I've been working on recently. They're strung on various colors of strong Nymo thread. I love the delicacy and the wide range of color possibilities and I'm having a lot of fun incorporating gemstone beads with high-quality size 15/0s!

This first one was created this past Christmas. It features hand-cut diamond shaped garnet beads, gold-plated size 15s, a freshwater pearl and gold finding clasp and a red and green jasper drop focal.

Silver nymo, hand-cut peridot rondelles, matte platinum 15s, gold findings and a freshwater pearl focal.

A look at the clasp.

Silver nymo, aquamarine rondelles, "silver night" Swarovski Xilion bicones, and a handmade focal of dark nickel and smoky quartz drops. I call this one "Derisann"

That's all for now! I've got two more nymo necklaces to photograph and probably many more to make. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading!

Where have I been?!

I've spent the last year and some change in Seattle, fell off the radar and then stayed down there in the sub-radar quiet. My apologies to those of you who checked on the blog and wondered if I'd simply abandoned it.
Here are some of the new things I have to show. Please excuse the low quality phone-pictures. There was a period of about half a year where this was all I had.
First off are these fun little earrings:

 

Next is this hemalyke and freshwater pearl chain-bib necklace I've named Andromache. I've found I'm really fond of this gunmetal-and-gold

color combo!