Straight Up ZELIA

One of our FloatFest participants owns a bead shop (Beads'N More) in Akron Ohio. Estelle and I had a couple chats about how Zentangle and beadweaving might work hand in hand. I had thought a while back about doing a beaded cuff in a Zentangle design, but it just never happened. Talking with Estelle fueled and reignited those little embers, and as soon as I returned home, I began working on a cuff using a simple peyote stitch. I had never attempted to bead from a peyote chart pattern (much less create one!), but before I began any beading, I had to first create a Zentangle design that could be transfered to a bead chart. Because this stitch is created in staggered lines of beads, yes, you guessed it... Laura's challenge was perfectly timed, floating right into the focus of my project. (How was I going to get those spirals I saw in my head to be any kind of round in this world of straight lines?)
   The cuff is not complete, but thought I would share what's happening so far with the process. 
   Beading from a chart is more relaxing than I had imagined. I never was one for counted cross stitch, although not sure why. I think working from a pattern seemed very confining somehow. But now I am seeing how 'in the moment' this kind of work is. Each bead goes on one at a time, added row by row, in an order that hardly makes any sense to me as I do it. And trying to "figure it out" from a big picture perspective, just confuses me and I have to think too hard. So, in each moment, the focus is on each bead and where it goes, trusting the chart, and hoping the end result will look like the chart I designed. As the piece gets going, it's really exciting to see the patterns emerge. Even the 'mistakes' are ok with me. After all, it's Zentangle/Estelle/Laura-inspired art! (ZELIA). Thank you everyone!!