And we're shuffling! :)

Yayy, look what came in the mail the other day: my bead pourri from Eesha! :D

She sent a sweet, sweet note saying that these are her favourite colours :) I looked at the beads and I felt... panic. That's a lot of beads, I thought. I have never worked with beads, I thought. They're all from the same colour family, while QK is all about the seduction of technicolour, I thought. So I did what I always do when brain isn't working: I went to sleep.

Today morning, I woke up early and took my bedtea to the QK workdesk. Maybe it was the open windows, the morning breeze, the honeyed light, but the bead pourri didn't look all that intimidating. My mind is at its most intuitive and fresh at this time of the day, so I quickly sorted the beads into combinations, before my brain began its chatter for the day :P I didn't have a plan; all I knew was that these were going to be long earrings, just the way I like them. No tiny drops!

This is how it began turning out... yummy!

Now, part of the rules of the game is that you are allowed to add 10 per cent findings of your own. I love pearl beads - they're the only beads I use in QK designs - so I added those to the mix. I also used this moment to fish out my precious evil-eye heart beads. I'd bought while wandering through a knick-knacks bazaar in the Egyptian Spice Market of Istanbul during my recent trip there, and had decided I would use them for a special design :)

I also add these maroon beads that a friend (who has been major QK patron and idea-generator, and most famously ordered the quilled dragonflies for her lamps) had given me a long time ago, hoping that they'd be useful for a QK creation. These were from her mother's necklace, so they're all the more precious :) I used them inside the white oval earrings.


Stringing these beads was SO different from stringing Quillkaari earrings! With QK, I tend to use a lot of the round jump rings for connecting the beads, since I can't pierce through a quilled bead. Here, all the beads could be pierced through, so no jump rings needed! But this also means working a lot with making wire loops, which I totally suck at. One of the reason for that (other than the fact that maybe all my patience levels are depleted by the quilling and I have none left for jewellery-making techniques!) is that I use the most archaic jewellery-making pliers known to mankind. They're 3-in-1, and I picked them off on sale from a US craft store when I had just started experimenting with quilling. Very crude, sort of like, Stone Age Tools meets Plumber's 'plaas' (see right corner of pic above to know exactly what that looks like), and cannot make delicate, fine eye hooks. Note to self: Buy a tool kit, silly.

Another dilemma was that my eye pins and head pins were not long enough to accommodate these huge beads: they often fell short, like here:

And so I had to alter the design - the one on the left is what finally stayed. Which one do you prefer? Left or right?

And finally, I had them ready - not one or two, but seven pairs!

Of course, in the middle I had to attend to a thousand domestic emergencies that any Work From Home artist has to encounter on a daily basis: I got news that maid had called in sick for the day; had to conduct a treasure hunt in the house to find things that Husband has misplaced and could not find; had to cook two meals and answer one zillion doorbells and give the dog a bath.

Here he is after said bath, soaked wet and nuzzling in front of the cooler, happily.  

Then I ran back to studio - all sweaty, grimy but excited - and photographed my beauties endlessly, while QK Fairy twirled them around! :)

I'm gonna keep one pair for myself, and give the rest away to friends and family (this is the point where you being friend/ family, send me a sweet little flattering note for your pair).

Which one's your favourite? And which one do you think I'll keep? :) Let's see how well you know the QuillkaariWali, hah!