Grateful for a long commute?

My work commute is anywhere from one hour two one and half hours one way.  Normally, this is pretty frustrating (okay--all the time it's frustrating), but there are times that it allows me to turn off my brain and let my creativity out.  On the way home last night, I thought of this set of beads and I had a chance to make them tonight:

I used some of the flower cane from yesterday and added a leaf cane.  I'm planning on turning these into a finished piece of jewelry this weekend.  We'll see....

Inspiration...

I picked up some lovely enamel beads several years back.  They were the inspiration for this flower bead.  I started with a smashed ikat flower petal cane and applied the petals to a ball of clay.  It makes a rather large bead, but I have an idea for it, so I'm happy.

More...

I made a few more beads to go along with the focal from yesterday...

I'm not sure if I'm going to quit with these now, or make a few more.  I guess you'll have to come back to find out....

April bead theme...

Ta da!

Flowers and leaves!

Sorry for being awol yesterday.  I decided to take April Fools' Day off.

Last Natasha bead for now...

I took the other piece from yesterday and folded it a couple of times and then twisted it gently.  Here's the result:

I like it much better.

Let's try this again...

I'm going to use a larger amount of one color (purple) and smaller amounts of two other colors (gold, white):

I took one hunk and twisted it a bit (not too much).  This is the result:

Eh, it's kind of blah.  Check back tomorrow--hopefully it will be better.

Intentionality, part 4

Finally, I took the last piece and folded it over a couple of times and twisted, twisted, TWISTED it:

The result:

Much finer design--almost too fine.  It's entirely possible to take the twisting too far.  Here's a pic of all the beads for comparison:

Intentionality, part 3

I took another piece of the log, but this time I rolled it out a bit more than folded it over a couple of times:

I rolled it smooth and then loosely twisted it:

The result:

Hmmm--it looks similar to yesterday's...

...come back tomorrow for one more try!

Intentionality, part 2

So I took another piece of the log from yesterday and did my usual (as previously mentioned) twist-the-snot-out-of-it:

If you compare it to yesterday, you'll see the stripes are tighter and closer together.  Here's the bead:

It has a tighter, busier pattern than the bead from yesterday.  Tune in tomorrow for more experimenting....

Intentional, instead of haphazard...

Usually (okay, mostly), I just slap scrap clay and cane ends together, roll it out, twist it, then cut it apart and make my bead.  It's possible, though, to be more intentional about creating your Natasha bead.  I'm going to try several different things the rest of the month to play with the idea of getting results you try for, rather than being totally surprised.

I started off with a cane that didn't turn out (d'oh--I didn't take a picture; it's a tumbling blocks quilt pattern)--not enough contrast, but strangely enough, too much contrast.  Anyway, I rolled it out into a long log and cut in several pieces for experimenting purposes.

Today, I took one of the pieces and didn't re-roll it or fold it or do anything more to it beyond rolling it into a log:

I gave it rather a quick twist, not too tight or too much:

And here's the result:

The resulting pattern is larger and more graphic than what I usually wind up with (I'm more of a twist-the-snot-out-of-it type).  Interesting.

You can use...

...complementary cane slices to embellish a Natasha bead.  Like this one:

Don't you hate it when...

...it doesn't work out the way you pictured it in your mind?  *sigh*  I'm just not feeling it today....

Sometimes...

...you just have to go where it takes you:

Sometimes all you need...

...is just a nice bead or end cap to finish off a Natasha bead:

(don't look a the cat hair--I'm way to tired to take another picture and upload it....)

Still experimenting...

Sometimes I will just cut one way on the Natasha bead...it makes for a larger surface when you are looking for something a little different....