Crystal Explosion

I am totally excited about the necklace I learned to make last night. The very talented and nearly perfect Katherine Flynn (http://www.beejewelry.ca/) of Bumblebee Jewelry, who teaches the Bead Crazy courses for the Toronto District School Board night school sessions (http://www.tdsb.on.ca/ -see "community programs"), was making up the kits for this necklace at our Bead Crazy Intermediate class the other night and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to learn how to make it. She very generously agreed to let me attend the Advanced class on Thursday night where she was going to be teaching the pattern, plus she sold me the kit on Tuesday so I had a chance to start putting the pieces together on Wed night. It's a very beautiful pattern and lends itself to a lot of variations. Katherine made the necklace in the photo - it's made using two colours of Swarovski bicone crystals and based on a Fire Mountain Gems Collection pattern.

As soon as I have a chance to finish mine (the pattern is somewhat time consuming to make, as you have to put the majority of the crystals on either headpins or eyepins and make loops for each one, then join all the loops together - it's not hard, it's just fiddly), I'll post a photo. It looks quite different than the one Katherine made, as the bead kit I fell in love with had five different colours of crystals, not just two.

Gee, I wonder if they'll have any crystals for sale at the Bead Fair tomorrow??