Combined structures

I've been thinking about the fact that I've been working with 2 different structures lately.  With the round gemstone beads I work with a system based on hexagons that is the outgrowth of what I learned from the Beaded Molecules blog.  Then I have another set of shapes based on triangles that I use with the silver tube beads.  I really like the openness of the tube structures, but it occurred to me that I could accentuate the not-there-ness of the tubes by having areas of more there-ness using gemstone beads.  I've done that in several pieces by having structures of gemstones and having them interlock with other structures, made of tubes.  I've liked that, but I wanted to find a way to integrate them into a single structure that goes from tubes in triangles to stone beads in 6 bead circles (functionally hexagons) and back again.  This does that, and I think I'll do more along this line.
  I've also been playing around with photography again.  This picture was done by hanging the necklace (with loops of monofilament line that I can then photoshop out) from a hoop of  steel cable with the background behind it but not touching it.  Here it's close enough that you still see the shadow of the piece on the background.  Can't decide if I like that.  I did it again with the background farther away, and that may be better.  I hadn't actually planned on putting that picture in the blog, but now that I've mentioned it I guess I will.  It's a more dramatic
picture, but for some reason I couldn't get it so that you could see the light aqua of the beads very well.  I think I need more light.

New Shape

I've been working again on creating different torus shapes based on the tube structures I learned from the Beaded Molecules people.  Since they're based on 6-bead circles, which serve as hexagons, they lend themselves to circles, triangles, diamonds.  shapes with right angles come harder.  I did a post last September where I came up with several shapes.  One of them, which I did in dark brownish red, was vaguely right angled, because I used 4 9-bead circles in the middle to get the curve.  It didn't sit flat, though, and just generally wasn't satisfactory.  I was playing around the other day and came up with a much better structure.  It still uses 4 9-bead circles in the middle (they're the darker green ones) but they're arranged differently, and I like the shape much better.  As a more general thing, it's a way to make a clean right angle turn in a tube structure.

Shapes of toruses

   After spending a lot of time working with my tube beads, I spent some time this week going back to my molecular shapes.  My idea was to make several long narrow toruses (I suppose it's actually "tori", but I can't bring myself to say that) that I would join together, probably with metal tube structures. I found I couldn't make what I wanted, so I took some time to just try and figure out how shaping these structures works.
  The basic idea is that if you build a tube out of hexagons ( 6-bead circles serve as hexagons), it will be just that--a straight tube.  If you want it to curve, you add  heptagons on the inside and  pentagons on the outside of the curve.  It takes 12 heptagons on the inside and 12 pentagons on the outside to make a full  rotation and create a torus.  Actually, you can do it with 10 and 10, and that's what many of the toruses in the beaded molecules blog do, but to get it all around without having to force it you need 12.  Often you get a firmer structure by making it do something it doesn't quite "want" to do, but here I was trying to not do that.
  What I've come to realize, after making a jillion of the things, is that what you really need is just to add 12 extra beads on the inside and a corresponding number left out on the outside, and you can do that in any configuration.  The easiest, and one I had done before, is to use 6 octagons on the inside and 6 squares on the outside. The picture here is taken from one of my very first posts, and shows  a hexagonal torus done that way on the right of the piece.  It's easy to see because the octagons are green, the squares blue and the rest red-brown. The big square and triangle of the necklace were made by trying to stretch those same octagons into ever tighter angles, and show how much I didn't know what I was doing back then.  On the other hand, it's nice to read that post and see that I've actually learned something since then.
  The 6 octagon/6 square torus makes for a very blocky shape that I don't much like, so I haven't used it often.  But now I can see that there are lots of ways to add 12 extra beads on the inside of the circle, the number 12 being divisible in so many ways.

The first torus in this picture was made by making the center out of 4 circles of 9 beads.  That way each circle has 3 extra beads for a total of 12 extra. It's a bit odd because 9 is an odd number, so sometimes you're adding more to the back and sometimes to the front, so it doesn't lie quite flat.  But you get a sort of 4-cornered torus. The center is actally a short fat diamond on 1 side and a tall skinny one on the other, so it's a bit odd. The second torus uses 3 circles of 10 beads each, and so makes a triangle.  And the last one uses 2 circles of 12 beads each, and makes a sort of long skinny shape.  I can now see that if I had added some hexagons (6-bead circles) between the 12-bead ones, I'd have gotten a longer torus, which was what I was originally looking for.  But by then I was into exploring torus shapes.Actually in any of these configurations, you could make the donut hole larger by just putting 6-bead circles between the larger circles.

  Having gotten  handle on the inside of the torus, I started playing with the outside.  I liked the triangular center best, so I used a center of 3 10-bead circles in each of these.  On the outside you need to take 12 beads away from your structure of hexagons.  You can do that with 12 pentagons, or with 6 squares, or with a combination of the 2.  Using all squares ( the 1st one) makes the hardest angles.  Using some or all pentagons makes the curves gentler, which I prefer.  Also it makes a difference whether you put the smaller circles near the points of the triangle or along the flat sides.  If you could space your small circles evenly around the torus, you'd get a circular outside with a triangular hole in the center.  I couldn't quite figure out how to do that. but I came close in #2.  It has 6 5-bead circles and 3 4-bead ones.  There are 2 pentagons on each flat side and a square at each point of the triangle.  The last 2 are both done with 12 pentagons, so they have nice, gentle curves.  #3 has 4 pentagons at each point of the triangle, so it maintains it's triangular shape. #4 has 2 pentagons at each point and 2 on each flat side.
  I have no idea if anyone is still reading, or if this makes any sense at all.  But I do like being able to talk out my ideas, even if no one is listening.  And if you actually are reading this and have questions, be sure and ask.

Circles of pearls

I've been playing some with freshwater pearls lately.  I made the first, larger circle using cubic RAW, alternating cubes with triangular forms to get the curve you need to make a circle.  My intent was for it to be the focal of a pendant.  I didn't like how much thread showed.  Part of the problem, I think, was that, because the pearls are quite a light gray, I used white fireline instead of black, and I think that was a mistake. The black would have disappeared into the shadows of the pearls better than the white.   Still, in either color, there's a lot of thread.  The second one was done (with black fireline) using the hexagon as a base, as I learned from the beaded molecules blog.  It's smaller, but I like it much better.  I like the openness of it.  Also, if I were making a series of them for a necklace, which I probably will do, the weight is less (54 pearls instead of 65), which I prefer.

hexagon shapes

    This turned into a fun project/experiment.  I wanted to create a focal piece for a pendant that was asymmetrical. Something sort of porkchop shaped was what I had in mind.  The part I felt would be hardest was the quick 180 degree turn I wanted at the top.  Looking at some of my earlier samples, I found a way to create it.  From there it was pretty straightforward to create the first shape in the picture.  But it wasn't quite what I wanted.  I had wanted a curvier, rounder shape, not just a series of hard 120 degree turns.  This led me to look again at tubes and shapes I had made in the past. 
   I knew, although I hadn't thought about it too much, that there are 2 different ways to make a tube out of hexagons.  They can be aligned either point-top or flat-top.  That is when the tube itself is pointing up and down the hexagons in it can either have a flat side up or a point (vertex).  The one on the left is made of flat-top hexes.  This is a bit counterintuitive, as they look pointy at the top.  In just the same way, when you do RAW, a "square" (4 bead circle) made with round beads actually looks more like a diamond than a square, and you have to remind yourself to think only of the thread path, which is indeed a square.
   Anyway, if you do a flat-top tube the beads appear to align lengthwise and accentuate the squareness of the tube (in both cases the tubes were made with a 4-hex circumference) and the hardness of the angles. So I decided to try to create a similar shape using point-top hexagons.  With point-top hexagons you get the appearance of rows of beads aligning around the circumference of the tube.  As I expected, I couldn't get as tight a bend at the top (I'm sure there's a way; I just haven't found it yet), but I got a much rounder tube and a more fluid, organic shape.  All in all, more what I was looking for.