Fiona Tranter

Get into the Holiday spirit and come support the CWarren Township Band Boosters Fundraiser Craft Fair

On

Saturday 7th November, 2015

9am to 3pm

At

Warren Township High School on Almond Road in Gurnee

With free admission and 100+ vendors it’s a great place to get a jump on your holiday shopping.

I’ll have a selection of holiday bling, geometric designs and beautify made jewelry including the vintage crystal snowmen featured above.

Just in time for the holidays our local bead shop "Ayla's Originals" has organized a jewelry and accessory show. This is a great opportunity to pick up gifts for the favorite people on your list and support local artists.

For one day only on Sunday 14th December in Evanston from 10:00am till 4:00pm at the Best Western hotel, 1501 Sherman Ave, Evanston, Il.

More information about the artists, location, transport etc. is available at Ayla's web site.

I look forward to seeing you there.

The inspiration for my latest necklace was changing seasons and the transition from summer into Autumn and the Autumn Equinox seemed like a good day to write about the piece.

The focal leaf is enameled copper that was expertly created by Anne Lichtenstein of Gardanne. I added a couple of Swarovski crystal dangles and a peyote stitch bail in graduating sized seed beads. The rope was created in moss stitch with matte and duracoat metallic seed beads graduating from colour to colour along the length.

There is a special design feature with this piece though; it can be worn two ways. The photograph above shows the leaf hanging from the green and lavender silver beads. Combined with the green and pink of the leaf this reminds me of the cooler days of summer.

However the bail fits nicely between the ends of the rope and covers the clasp so the leaf is nestled against the orange and gold seed beads which remind me of autumn colour changes.

In this photograph you can see the full colour graduation along the length of the rope.

Here is a close up of the lovely enameled leaf. I must admit the leaf looks a little brown on my monitor but the accent colours are actually a lovely pink colour. I used rose gold and silver jump rings to match the silver, bronze and gold beads in the rope.

This is a close up of the rose gold clasp. The rope is twenty inches in length and the leaf is about 1.5 inches long. The piece is available for sale in my web store

Several of my designs use glass beads from the very talented Teresa Silbert of Hobo Glass.

Teresa has a booth this coming weekend (7th September) at the Shimmer and Bling Bead Expo and has graciously offered to have some of my work available for sale.

I will be availble in person, with a full range of my latest designs at the Highland Park Bead Bazaar on 21st September.

Here are photographs of some of the work Teresa will have available this weekend.

Sophisticated Closed Curves

This bracelet uses glass ring beads from Hobo Glass along with size 15 Japanese Delicas and Swarovski crystal beads.

The Fi Squared bracelet uses Hobo Glass ring and square beads and size 11 Japanese seed beads in various matte finishes. The design incorporates two closures which provides balance and offsets the glass beads, while also sitting comfortably on the wrist.

Just for fun I also created the Closed Curves bracelet in black and white and bright colours. I have a version of this bracelet and it receives complements whenever I wear it. It's a great piece to wear in the summer with my many colourful t-shirts.

Since my aha moment last year concerning bead crochet I have been enjoying using the technique to create bangles and ropes. Once you have the beads threaded the project becomes very portable and I've been able to crochet on the plane and in the car and at art and craft fairs. These days even threading the beads is less of a chore as I have a bead spinner and can finally use it successfully.

Here is one of my latest projects. The Lisa Peters Raku ceramic heart was the inspiration for the colours in this piece. The rope was crocheted with tiny size 11 Japanese delica beads and I added a modified Russian leaf to give the heart a little more interest.

The delica beads crochet like a charm. They fall into place very nicely and create a lovely even rope. I used a combination cotton/ polyester thread, which gives the piece great durability with all the drape of a 100% cotton thread.

The sterling silver clasp came from Silver Dash and fits this size rope perfectly. The rope is 6 beads round. The necklace is approximately 18 inches in length and the heart and leaf are just over 1 inch and it's available for purchase in my web store.

What fun we had this last weekend at the 19th Annual Grayslake Art festival. The weather was perfect, beautiful blue skies, a slight breeze and lots of sun.

Here is Jobi at our booth ready to start the day.

The Grayslake Chamber of Commerce lined up some excellent bands, so we were serenaded all day to big band music, 80's hits, rock and roll!! and by the end of the Fair some great mellow music for winding things down. The News Sun wrote a small piece on the day and The village has a Facebook page with lots of photographs of the vendors and artists who took part in the event. They even managed to snap a picture of me working at the booth.

Jobi and I met some lovely people and our jewelry went home to good homes. I imagine we'll be back in 2015.

I am very excitied to have been accepted into my first juried show and will be attending the 19th Annual Grayslake Art Festival on 14th June.

The show runs from 10am to 5pm and I will have a selection of my latest designs available for sale.

Jobi from One Cheek Crafts will be sharing a booth at the show and the organizers promise great food, entertainment and activities for kids.

The art festival will be located on Whitney street in downtown Grayslake

I love the way this bracelet turned out. It looks like many of my other bracelets that incorporate Lampwork glass beads and bead weaving however there is one big difference - there is no clasp!

I have been asked several times whether its possible to make nice looking jewelry with elastic for ease of use. This was my first attempt and I think it came out rather well. I used a woven elastic with a fabric outer for added strength, rather than the usual Stretch Magic Elastic. I found the elastic in a sewing shop, but I was able to knot it and glue it securley. The knot is hidden in the tube of herringbone woven beadwork.

The Lampwork beads were made by an artist who resides in Door County, Wisconsin, USA.

The crochet hooks have been running at full steam recently. Its been a great way to pass the time on a plane or in front of the televisions. I am not very good at just sitting still!!

The paler lavender bangle on the left was crocheted with size 8 seed beads from Bead Cats while the bangle on the right was crocheted with size 11 seed beads from Beyond Beadery.

The invisible join has improved because I get a top tip from Mary Lou of Time2cre8. She suggested I try using Fireline to join the rope into a loop because it's much finer than the thread used for the crochet and will reduce the bulk at the join. It's also very strong and will likely give a stronger join.

One of my local bead shops has started selling tubes of bead soup. These are collections of beads that are left over from various classes and projects the shop has going on. The nice thing about the tubes of beads is the selection of shapes and sizes in one package that are arranged in colour themes.

Recently Jean Campbell blogged about a snow day and how her daughter amused herself for most of the day making a simple necklace that could be worn twelve different ways. The necklace is a simple 45 inch loop of strung beads. The challenge was then to see if the necklace could be worn more than twelve ways!

This necklace is strung on Soft Flex Touch, flexible nylon coated beading wire with excellent drape, and is approximately 45 inches in length. I used two sterling silver crimp beads to close the loop and added some silver beads to the mix to help the crimp beads blend in.

A quick and easy project that is very versitile and fun to wear.

These pictures show the necklace knotted like a lariat, but the loop is long enough to be wrapped around the neck several times.