Frogging It

It's a term that most knitters are aware of. And live in dread of. Frogging their work. To the uninitiated, Frogging means to tear ones work out. The term came about because to take knitting apart, you have to "Rip it!" "Rip it!" "Rip it!"
And so it came that I needed to Frog a major piece of jewelry I was working on, for the nature of the beads with which I was working required endcap seed beads to keep them from sawing through the thread by which I was sewing them together, and I didn't know enough when I started this piece to use them. So out came the scissors and I started hacking away at the piece to recycle the very special vintage beads.


But as almost always in my experience, the ripping part was painful and the re-do was extrordinarily better than the original so that it became worth it.


I continued to work on it today and have made some wonderful progress. The idea is that the "chain" part of the necklace look like water and wraps around the large shell while dripping bead strands of "sea weed." Something akin to Shelly Neimerow's work below. I only hope that I can do justice to her instruction.


And between bouts of beading necklaces, I'm working on bead bezel cabechons to use in future pieces. This is done by stiching the center stone - cabechon or flat backed stone - to leather through the use of a brick wal of Japanese Delica beads. A nice portable occupation to keep myself busy with during social situations in which I might otherwise feel awkward.