Blue Green Infinity Lariat

Often when we discover a new technique or material that we enjoy working with, it sticks. All of our ideas seem to steer towards this one concept, and the best thing is to embrace the inspiration and let it run its course. Right now, I’m hopelessly drawn to ombre. There’s something incredibly satisfying about the blending of colors with seed beads.

It took a long time to finally decide on the right technique for the Egyptian god of infinity, but I was certain early on the ombre had to be included. A blending of blues and greens was the perfect way to represent the frog god of eternity. I pulled out lots of colors, mixed them and arranged them, and eventually found a pattern that would allow the colors to flow continuously while repeating through a chevron chain lariat. Some of the colors are used more than once in the pattern, while others stand out from the crowd.

The fringe was another long time in the making. Originally I had wanted to use transparent lime and black, to make strands of frog spawn, but it didn’t seem to fit the rest of the design. Then I tried several different patterns and accents, all of them beginning with some Czech glass ovals in lime and turquoise Picasso. Once I had chosen some bright blue white hearts - in a pattern of threes to imitate the ovals’ spots - I still needed to figure out what I was going to do with the strands. Solid colors were too stark against the blended chevron chain, and it was clear that adding a new color wasn’t going to work. At last I decided to go with a default, and used four shades of existing blues and greens to make striped tassels.

I can’t decide if I’m finished with this obsession just yet, but I certainly wouldn’t mind trying out some different ombre palettes in the near future.

Copyright 2013 Inspirational Beading
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