It is a great source of dissatisfaction to me that I make the best pieces of out the worst beads. I understand why this happens: because I don't worry about the value of the beads, I feel free to really experiment.

This is the second in a series of two (so far) of peyote stitched necklaces worked around a stone donut, or pi. I can't claim any credit for the basic concept, which was developed by my friend Gail Frederickson who, as it happens, was in a similar coil over a broken donut. She glued the thing back together, covered it with some beadwork, and turned it into a class.

Though I had some experience with peyote, I thought a class would really discipline me to practice, and I loved Gail's donut pieces. Despite all the useful information on fringing (including one I'd never seen before, sort of a corkscrew) the technique I found most appealing was the concept of color blocking: putting clumps of the same or similarly colored beads together, rather like a patchwork effect. I had a dish of all the beads I'd collected over the years, which gave me a very wide assortment to practice.

This piece is reversible, and though I didn't make any explicit efforts to reverse or contrast the two sides, I did try to keep both attractive and related to each other.

Materials & Techniques: seed beads, hematite, 12/20 goldfill, sterling silver, black onyx pi, nylon, silk; peyote stitch and kumihimo. Braid is triangular, made with D weight silk.

$400

Originally created Tue Aug 25 12:19:51 EDT 1998

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