I haven't made earrings, or even wire wrapped anything in a few years.  This project gave me a good kick in the butt to get going on it all again.  This was made to be a part of a Secret Santa Swap on another forum.



I wire wrapped a pair of halibut otolith (ear bones) with 26 gauge wire adorned with a few size 11 seed beads, a pair of drops, and one cube each. 

My giftee has a fiancee who's favorite colors are black and neon green.  The iridescence on the cubes is actually a lot more green than the photo shows, and one of the drop beads also has a nice lime-ish shimmer. 

 
It was very fitting to make a set with green and black for colors.  The fish ear bones came from this August when I was out with my boyfriend and his dad on their boat for a fishing trip in Prince William Sound.  We anchored up overnight at a good spot, and ended up pulling big ones up left and right.  When the fish took a break, and after I scared off a sea lion that was a little too interested in a few halibut we left on a stringer over the side of the boat, we reset the lines and got ready for bed.  We killed off the lights, and saw something amazing. 

It was pitch black out there, since we were away from civilization.  Everything that touched the water lit it up with a green trail.  All of the lines, the outline of the boat, anything we put in the water- the bio-luminescent plankton was very active.  It was one of the most amazing things I have seen in my life. 

 
Not only are the earrings made in someone's favorite colors, but they are a perfect reminder of the night the fish they came from was caught. 

One of my long-time friends is pregnant with twin boys.  Since one of my hobbies is fur and leather stitching, especially creating items to be used for some ceremonial or spiritual intent, she asked if she could commission me to create little Mojo Pouches or Spirit Bags (whichever people care to call them) for her babies.  They are something special that she wants to use to keep small tokens as her boys grow.  That way she can give them to the boys when they are old enough if they wish to have a special keepsake.

Of course I didn't let her commission me - I made them for her as a gift for her Mother's Blessing! 
She gave me all of the specifics:  the size is approximately 3" X 5", she wanted the materials to be entirely deer plus the other chosen animals (including the stitching), the colors were to be natural browns along with blue and green. 
Anything else was to be the sort of good fortune, happiness, protection type symbolism for a child.




Here they are with closed flaps. 


There are the open flaps- the toggle button area is more visible in this one. 


Both bags have the same base, and are of the same pattern.  I sort of made the pattern up as I went, since I had the brilliant idea of designing something totally different starting around midnight one night.  On the cool side of things, when I went to bed I had a dream about finishing them- so my subconscious figured out the bumps in the road as I slept.

The bags are entirely deer leather, including the lacing.  The super skinny lacing on the sides and the toggles was hand cut from a regular lace piece, I used some large sheers and cut each strip into thirds.  The blue and green drawstring laces were originally white, and given new dye jobs by my super helpful boyfriend.  (For some reason I couldn't find any colors at the usual stores this year!)  They are tipped with little copper cones to add a bit of jingle, and for the beneficial properties of copper. 

All of the stitching is done with real deer sinew as well.  That is seriously hard work as compared to thread.  I'm not sure if I will undergo that again for a while...  All of the holes had to be made with an awl or a punch, good thing my boyfriend does some leather work so his tools were handy!  It would have taken ages and been inaccurate if I was left to my own devices with a razor knife or box cutter.

I think it only took me about 4 nights to make these, complete with troubleshooting time. 

   

This bag has a flap made of Caribou hide.  The scrap I cut it from needed a little help, as someone prior managed to get glue or paper mache or something all over the fur on one side.  A little work with a wet paper towel and some brushing brought it back to life!
The beads and buttons are slices of caribou antler, and the tip of an antler tine. 

 
This bag is the Buffalo bag.  The flap is a piece re-purposed from what was once a pillow.  I ran the fur brush through it a few times to fluff it back up and take out any mats. 
The toggles are buffalo teeth with some horn (hypothetically buffalo) beads to add dangle.     


On the inside:

Each bag has an identical packet.  They are made of the last bit of leather that the bags were cut from, and tied with a piece of elk leather lacing.  I put together some special stones from my collection, so they each have the same things inside. 



She was blown away when I let her unwrap them!  All she expected were some basic square drawstring pouches with maybe some accents.     I was really happy to do something extra special for her, since we have been good friends for over 12 years! 

Now I really want to make one for myself with some wolf fur scraps I have hanging around, and possibly some salmon leather if I see some available at the store!



Questions or comments welcome!  If you would like more detail on stitching with sinew, or fur and leather stitching in general, feel free to ask.  I have a ton of pictures of the pouch process and would be happy to share or write a tutorial on that type of stitching if people are so inclined.

I made a bit of progress.  I stopped for a while when I first brought my bunny home.  Now he's more independent and hangs out with me when I stitch.  If only the same would be true of my boyfriend...

Thanks WrecksTangle!  I just took two days in a row off- nooo!  (I spent ages at the fair looking at the rabbits this evening.)

The red grid lines are that Ez Count Guideline stuff.  It was the very best cross stitch aid I ever started using, especially with evenweave or linen.  I was going insane with buggy eyes on this darn dragon before.  

Those daily progress pictures are excellent.  Now I find I'm waiting all day long to work on it rather than looking at it in the evening and dreading it.  I no longer feel like any work is futile- I flip through the past few working days and see how much filled in each evening!

Edit:


That's from the wee hours of Sunday morning.  Yeah, I stayed up really late stitching while watching DVDs of Supernatural.  
It doesn't show that well, but a whole bunch of the very light blue area by the dragon's chest is now filled in since the prior picture.  It was an evening full of fill in the blank, but boy is it great to have it done!

@Listessa: I remember that cross stitch from 2010! I'm so excited to see you have found the motivation to stitch again

Thanks so much!  It's such a good feeling to work on it once again too.  I really like the larger boarder on your piece.  It's awesome to see the variety of games together, and the new style boarder really makes it pop!

Here's my update as of last night.  Tonight I didn't end up stitching.  I got sucked into a crossword puzzle and cryptogram or two.  Oops...  Tomorrow is a day off, and I think it will be a stitching day since it's supposed to be rainy.




Toralune- I love that pattern!  Don't worry too much about the adding beads part, it's really a piece of cake.  You have a nice start there!

One thing I just started to do that seems to really help me with the big project is taking a picture after each day you worked on it.  That way when you feel like you haven't done anything, you can flip back to a couple of days prior and really see your progress. 
I just started doing that.  Eventually I want to make an in process photo collage or maybe just a slideshow on the computer.    (I don't want to bore everyone here with daily pictures, plus I'm lazy about uploading.)

I picked up what I am now deeming "The TW Neverending Cross Stitch" once again this weekend!  Back in late 09 to very early 2010 I had been plugging away fairly well.  Then my life sort of exploded. 

First I got walking pneumonia so I coughed and was too tired to stitch, after a few months of getting over that I had been super busy.  Then I ended up getting really sick and being diagnosed with Crohn's Disease.  Plus I ended my relationship of of 4 years.  Since then I was busy, started dating a new guy, have traveled back and forth to visit a friend (400 miles away) before she moved, did busy summer stuff. Etc.  Focused on other projects.   

Finally this weekend I decided to get going again.  I swapped frames- I think some of the problem was the old split rail scroll frame.  It kept slipping and irritated the hell out of me.  I snagged a new set on clearance at Michaels, and my boyfriend's mom gifted me her old one (she doesn't cross stitch anymore as it bothers her eyes and she is busy raising her grandson- my boyfriend's nephew).  The new to me frame made a HUGE difference.  I didn't have to fight to keep it steady, and it didn't fall over every three stitches.  It's a really nice lap frame set up. 


I made a bit of progress for the first time in about two and a half years!

Here's the last picture I have of progress: 

I had a little bit more in the sky stitched up, but didn't think to get a before picture.  Close enough for whatever.  That was from the middle of November '09.

And here's the work that started on Saturday night:


Boy did it feel great to make progress!  I admit, it helped that a huge chunk was all half stitches...  Plus there was a ton of fill in space with a single color of whole stitches.  I guess I'm ready to tackle the quarter and three quarter stitches again.  Maybe.  We'll see.

The down side is that now I'm dying to work on it rather than go to sleep for work! 

Since I knew he would be recovering from surgery on his birthday, I wanted to give my boyfriend something special.  He loves labs, and this one was too cute to resist. 



The back came out looking as neat as the front, so it ended up in a float frame for equal opportunity viewing.  (And I need to add a picture of the back.)  Don't mind the oven and what not, my kitchen floor worked the best since it is darker cross stitch!

It would have gone faster, but I ended up playing nurse during his recovery and was distracted by other random stuff for a month or so in the middle.  I started it in March and finally finished the back stitching last week.

Even though it wasn't finished ON his birthday he had a great time watching me stitch and picking out the frame.

Here's a little something I stitched up as a birthday gift for my awesome partner at work!

"If I did I don't remember!"  Is a long running joke within her family regarding someone forgetting if they picked up a large chest freezer.  So whenever something comes up and no one can remember if they did it or not we say, "If I did I don't remember!"  and end up laughing like mad. 



It shows up sort of funky in the picture, but it's stitched with mostly DMC metallic (Light Effect) flosses, and one of the old discontinued rayon colors.  Plus the middle question mark on each side of the border is stitched with beads.



I can't seem to get a good picture of all of the colors, but it's super sparkly, and all in shades of purples (even the beads are a transparent sky blue with purple centers) since purple is her favorite color.

I hope she likes it!   

It's just mounted on some of that sticky board.  That way if she wants to keep it in the work van I can just add magnetic tape to the back and it will stick to the metal rack behind our seats where we can see it!

It was so nice to design and stitch something in just one weekend.  I have way too many ongoing large things that keep getting put aside.

Lately I found myself on a bit of a rabbit kick.  I really love rabbits.  I grew up with pet rabbits when I was very young.  Until I moved up to Alaska I had a house rabbit (she went to my best friend who loved her dearly when I moved as I was afraid of what 24 hours on an airplane or in an airport would do to an older bunny).  Unfortunately now I can't have a house rabbit, apartment life can be a bummer. 

Long story short, Rabbit keeps popping up with me spiritually as well.  I ended up with a couple of nice rabbit pelts that wanted to be something.  I ended up with a very soft pillow that will end up being used with my spiritual stuff. 

 
to change your image viewing settings please click here
Here is the tan side, believe it or not there was a bit of a tear in the pelt.  I stitched it up before making the pillow.  Now I can't even tell where the rip was.  I intentionally kept the shape as natural to the two pelts on hand, so there was a minimal amount of trimming involved.  I rather like it like this.

 
to change your image viewing settings please click here
The gray rabbit looks like the fur has some rubs or holes.  It honestly doesn't.  The camera picked up any hare (haha) that happened to be out of place on the pillow. 

 
to change your image viewing settings please click here
I really like the way the side seams went together.  The rabbits' natural coloring meshed nicely.  They almost look like night and day rabbits.

I had a very refreshing time making this pillow, once I discovered some techniques and real details about sewing fur.   My apartment didn't even get covered in rabbit fur when I shaped the pelts.  If anyone is interested feel free to ask and I'll post a little tutorial about hand sewing fur.   

 

It's not really mature, but I know a lot of people get freaked out about fur - so I added mature tags.  If I messed up, mods please feel free to change them out/tell me to change them.

That sounds like an epically awesome project! 
I've heard of that type of beaded stiching being called "Beadpoint" (it looks awesome when it is done, a sample once caught my eye at a bead store back in NH). 

Here's a site with a little bit of info on the seed bead size vs the type of canvass recommended to use.  It's that interlock stuff that is different than aida, but I know it works on aida too.   
http://www.beadseast.com/beadpoint.pdf

Mill Hill Beads often have little patterns that include beading as part of the stitching- sort of what you are talking about but with the corresponding color rather than clear thread.  It looks really neat and adds a nice depth to the stitching.  I made one for my mom a few years ago:

It's sort of hard to see in the picture, as my mother took it for me after I gave it to her, but there are some highlights with beads in the water, tree, chairs, and a few other things.  I think that was done on 14 count perforated paper.

I can't wait to see what you come up with!  I LOVE stitching with beads and just haven't gotten around to doing a beadpoint instead of cross stitch since I moved.