February 18, 2007

A Designing Trip

Yesterday I was looking up a snake in my Audubon book when I ran across this beautiful Grass Snake.... I thought, Snake + my favorite lime green = bead crochet rope!

This rope needed to be a pattern that ran parallel to the length of the rope and did not spiral. I graphed what I thought would work in 2 shades of green with a cream colored belly. This type of pattern is what I call "The Thirteenth Bead"; an odd number of beads in a repeat crocheted in an even number around - in this case a 13 bead repeat crocheted in 6-around.

OOPS, somehow I got a dotted patterned belly rather than a solid color and I really didn't like any of the green shades that I had chosen. However, on closer inspection, the pattern I did get looked like a zipper and was interesting in it's own way.

This led to trying the "zipper" in matte root beer and matte crayon colors. OK, still interesting, but a bit too busy to suit me. So, the next effort was in black & white, which are easy colors to see what's really happening with a pattern. Those who know me also know that I just can't leave something alone..... I wondered what would happen to the the cross section of the rope if I used drops for one element? In the back of my mind was a possible snake vertebrae effect. Now this pattern was really getting interesting and I like the last two large-bead effects. Those two I think I'll keep and write up for Bead-Patterns some time in the future.

I still don't have a Grass Snake pattern, but I'll give that another go again tomorrow. Just remember to never throw out a mistake pattern or stringing as you never know what interesting thing you might come up with.

Serendipity Zipper Pattern
crochet in 6-around
2B, 3A, 2B, 6A
B= zipper color
A= background color
If you try this one, let me know how you like it and what you came up with.

Tucson Beads in Use

I started a "Snazzy Chain" necklace with the turquoise chips and coral drops that I purchased on one my Tucson bead buying trips. I really like how it's coming out with the copper metallic thread.

2 comments:

  1. My first reaction is "Why the heck was she looking up snake pictures?" but then I realized that I don't really want to know.....

    But it's funny when you do try something and something else comes out of it.

    Hope that your toes are warmer now.

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  2. Well, there ws this very cold snake that tried to slither into my studio and I wanted to know if it was friendly or not. Snakes are considered Good Luck in some societies.

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