The Bead Spot

I'd like to work up a few sketches of stretchy baby headbands, too. I was inspired by looking at photos of my 1-year-old niece. In every professional photo of her, she has a headband on. I don't want to make anything that looks gaudy, and I want to make sure that if I use beads that there is no way that a small child would be able to break it and swallow or choke on one, so this might be entirely a ribbon project.

I started over immediately after I discovered my mistake in the door hanger I'm making for my daughter, but into row 3, I realized the tension was way too loose, and I don't think it was doing to get any better as I moved along. So, I've unraveled my second attempt and have moved onto my third, which is good, because I made a few adjustments this time around. I wasn't too happy with the shade of blue I used the first two times, so I switched to one that has a little magenta in it.  I decided to work from the bottom to the top instead of from left to right. By doing this, I realized that it was going to be much smaller than I had planned, so I modified the pattern. I switched from nymo thread to monofilament, which should give the hanger more stability. The drawback is that it might not be suitable for a door hanger because the interior doors in our house are hollow, and monofilament will make the hanger heavier. If that's the case, though, it will just go o...

Because it's been a while since I've done much beading, I made an error on the door hanger that I didn't notice until I began Row 2. The pattern I created was for a square stitch, but I started with a ladder stitch, which works better as a base for brick or herringbone stitches. Oh well. At this point, starting over is easier than redoing the pattern.

I finally got a chance to start on my daughter's door hanger . I have the first row done. I have yet to decide how I want it to hang; I'll probably run a dowel through it. If I do, though, I'll need to extend the height to wrap the dowel. Here's my progress so far:

I'm in the mood to get started on some projects, so I've been thinking quite a bit about how I'd like to do the door hanger for my daughter's bedroom. My plan right now is to make it in colors similar to the ones in this shirt of hers: The biggest reason why I want to use similar colors to this is I'm getting a little tired of pink everything. While there is some pink in the shirt, it doesn't dominate.

My first project for my now 5-month-old daughter will be a beaded nameplate for her bedroom door. She hasn't moved into her own room yet -- I just can't handle her being that far away overnight yet -- but I want it ready when she moves in.

Since my last post, I've become a MOM!! My husband and I had been hoping for a baby for a long time, and I had decided it probably just wasn't in the cards for us. But now, I have a daughter. I cannot wait to sit down with her and show her how to bead, too. For right now, I don't have much time at all for beading. Somehow, I don't mind. :)