Work in Progress: Moon Collar

There have been many moments during some of my beading challenges that I’ve regretted taking on the task. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours to get it all done, or I wish that I had done something differently. What’s interesting is just how much these difficulties have made the challenges worth it - without them I wouldn’t have the experience necessary to know when a design definitely isn’t going to turn out, or the courage to start all over again.

This week’s bead tray has the beginnings of a new Egyptian Gods collar, which took me 3 or 4 tries to get right. I tried several palettes and patterns, dropped and added beads, and then started from scratch until it was finally what I wanted.

My inspiration is the moon god Khonsu. I began with an idea of using soft colors -whites and blues for moonlight. For accents, I wanted some soft white bone and pale aqua drops. Unfortunately, the bone beads I chose didn’t work well with the smaller teardrop beads, so I removed them and started again. After one thread’s worth of stitching, I realized that the palette was awful. Perhaps it reminded me too much of another palette disaster, but I didn’t like how it looked.

I went back to my bead trays and tried several different approaches. I finally decided to begin with a night sky color, and some silver-lined crystal for stars. At first I kept the aqua drops, but they clashed with the opaque royal blue. One more restart, and I finally had something that I wanted to move forward with.

Last week’s projects are also complete. The starfish ring turned out great, and I was able to finish the cuff I had planned with no mishaps. I did debate for awhile whether I should have used a pattern of three black and white rows, alternating which color would be in the middle for each section, but I like how it turned out.

What are you working on this week?

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