pair of Christmas Trees

here is the first pair of Christmas tree earrings
Size 40 Lisbeth thread in Christmas green with red, silver and gold Delica beads and 1 gunmetal teardrop bead for a trunk.



still working on the 2nd pair

it is snowing and the wind has been blowing 40 - 50 mph all day today. I put the winter "we may be closed due to weather" message on the answering machine at work before I left today. a little early for my taste.

farmerguy did get the final 40 acres corn combined, in the rain yesterday so it was done before all this wind knocked the ears off. that at least is a relief.

first try at wire tatting

I have decided to branch out a bit and tried tatting with wire. I had some copper wire on hand and paired it with some beads and worked up this pair of earrings.

I then splurged and bought some more wire, silver and gold and brass colored as well as some ear wires and jump rings, so will have to see where this takes me.

~later~ I forgot to mention, this is 28gauge wire it is a spool that I picked up in the bead section at I think Hobby Lobby in Fargo ND. but the silver, gold and brass wires are both size 28 & 30 and I ordered them from Firemountaingems

beads on an earring

Yesterday Jane Eborall on her blog posted about beads and sizes.
Today Gina posted on her blog about bead sizes and gave us a nifty scan to show relative bead sizes.
Bree has posted a wonderful tutorial about beads
so I thought I would add a bit to the discussion.
I am working on 2 pair of these earrings. I am using Lisbeth size 40 thread in Christmas Green with delica beads. I can add the delica beads with a size 15 mini crochet hook.


I didn't block this yet, and since this is just the first trial to see if the person who commissioned these liked them, there will be a few corrections to the techniques I used for adding the beads.
I used 3 different techniques to add the beads,
1. the direct method, where you thread the beads when you are winding the shuttle,
2. adding beads to a joining picot between the rings and between rings and the chain below
3. adding beads to a long picot that you then join back to, I used this for the side beads on the 2 top rings.

I am grateful to all those who post instructions for new techniques on the web.

the pattern in one of Jane Eborall's, I don't think it is listed on her pattern website so you will need to contact her for the pattern if you want it.

~later~ I have heard from Jane and it looks like the pattern may be in the public domain.