April 26, 2006

Bead Crochet has Arrived

When you see examples of bead crochet jewelry at Target I guess you could say that the technique is popular. While shopping in Target yesterday I ran across 4 different bead crocheted items. Ball necklaces; plain ropes with adjustable chain clasps; a looped chain necklace and a multi-chain, chained stitch necklace.

The large looped chain necklace is made with rather crude 10/0 beads and the individual invisible closures are not very invisible. However it is an idea that you might want to try with your own patterned or colored closed loops.

The bronze multi strand necklace is a rather neat idea if you can't get beyond crocheting beaded chains. It has randomly crocheted 8/0 bronze beads and drops done with a bronze metallic thread. It is 10 strands gathered into cones at the ends and has a chain & hook adjustable clasp.

Here is a detail of what the individual strands look like.

If you used brightly colored beads with some leaves and flowers interspersed in the strands you would have a great Summer look. It should make up very quickly.

April 21, 2006

Designing Bracelet

I took me a day to do the base for this Summer Bracelet and then everything I thought I wanted to do as a surface embellishment went wrong. Monday the 5mm cubes I tried to use didn't work - they wouldn't nestle together well. (Note to self, next time try an every-other pattern.) So I took those rows out. Then I tried some beautiful blue faceted rondells and got a total surprise when I took them into the living room - they turned purple! I didn't know I had Alexandrite glass beads. Well I had half of the embellishment done when I discovered that and the purple just didn't go with the other blue accent beads. Plus, the thread kept breaking and I kept stringing the pattern wrong. Two days of struggling and not liking what I was doing; I took those top rows out. This afternoon I went looking for another bead/color combination and the bracelet you see was finished in 2 hours - it went together like a charm. I guess it was meant to be. I did discover that by using an odd number of size 11/0 beads at one edge, the dark center bead offset itself in a small zig-zag. I rather like the effect. This bracelet designed itself at the end.

April 16, 2006

Arizona Roadside Shrines

Roadside shrines dot the Southeastern Arizona desert landscape along the sides of the road. These public shrines, also called capillitas or grutas, have become Southwestern cultural icons. Part folk art and part expression of faith, they have evolved from the Spanish-Catholic traditions brought to the New World by early missionaries and settlers. Many mark the sites of fatal auto accidents and similar tragedies.


On a recent road trip from Why, Arizona into Mexico, I could not help but notice the beauty of those shrines in the desert.

.

.
.

They ranged from the very simple to very elaborate and exhibit a tragic beauty of faith in folkart.


.
.
Some of the shrines are simple crosses on the edge of the road, while others are more elaborate with candles, statues, artificial flowers surrounded by carefully raked sand.
.
.
.







The straight flat highway through the Tohono O'odham Reservation is very monotonous. I noticed the shrines to others who also found it monotonous, and died along its straight shoulders. They appeared different from the ones I had seen before.
.

The Tohono O'odham tribe is one of the few North American tribes never removed or relocated from its ancestral land. Once known as the Papago, the tribe officially changed its name to Tohono O'odham in 1986: "the Desert People Who Have Emerged from the Earth". Some archaeologists believe the O'odham are direct descendants of the Hohokam, who moved into the area about AD 200.