Fan-tastic Variations

Fan-tastic VariationsA couple of years ago I played around with some stitch variations to try and achieve an undulating 2 dimensional wave. I love serpentine wriggles and fans but couldn’t quite get down in beads what I had in my head. I always find it a good idea to put that sort of thing aside for a while, and let your mind deal with it subconsciously, so that’s exactly what I did.

One evening we had scallops in their shells for dinner, and whilst I was looking at the shells, imagining how to mimic them in beads, suddenly it clicked.

I love those Eureka moments! Within minutes I made the little pink shell you can see, to the right, and added a pearl (well it would have been rude not to). I didn’t sleep much that night as I began beading sea creatures in my head which were eventually to populate The Octopus’ Garden.

Having experimented with many of the variations possible with this design, I pounced on the new 2mm Swarovskis at the Harrow Bead Fair and had to make a pair of earrings in 18ºs with them.

For information on the Fan-tastic Variations workshop click here.