How long should a beaded icicle ornament actually take?

One per session is honestly a win when you're starting out, so don't beat yourself up. The hands thing sorts itself out after a couple of weeks, your fingers build up the little muscles they need. What helped me most was stopping before my hands got sore, not after. Two hours into a session my tension goes sloppy anyway, so pushing past that just means re-doing beads later.

For the threading, don't pick up one bead at a time. Pour a small pile onto a fuzzy bead mat or even a tea towel, the beads sit flat and don't roll. Then you can scoop several at a time with the wire tip and feed them down with your thumb. Some people use a bead spinner for long runs but for fifty-ish beads the scoop method is faster than setting up gear. I also thread all my beads for the whole evening's batch first, leave them stacked on the wires laid flat on the mat, then go back and do the shaping on all of them. You get into a rhythm with each step instead of switching between tasks every thirty seconds.

The kinking near the top loop is almost always because the wire is too short and you're fighting it. Cut longer than you think you need, like double what the finished icicle uses, since the extra just gets trimmed. And bend the loop slowly over a pencil or a chopstick instead of yanking it around pliers. Kinks happen when wire gets a sharp fold, so gradual curves are your friend. Round nose pliers help but honestly a pencil works fine. Also, worth checking your wire gauge. If you're using something stiff to hold the spiral shape, the threading gets miserable. A slightly softer wire makes scooping way easier and the beads still hold position if your tension is decent. As for the cat, mine treats bead mats like a bed I put there specifically for her. I just bead in a room with the door shut now. Fifteen ornaments is doable, just spread it over the season and enjoy it rather than racing it.

Made these by the dozen back in the eighties for craft fairs, and the one trick I'd add is work over a cookie sheet with a lip. You WILL drop beads, always, and on carpet you're on hands and knees with a flashlight for half an hour. On a tray they just sit there waiting for you. We didn't have bead mats back then, a flannel shirt laid flat on the tray did the same job.

Also, run the cut end of the wire across a candle stub or a bit of beeswax before you start. Old habit but it stops the beads skittering off the tip while you're feeding them, and it saves a fair bit of that fumbling you're describing. One icicle a night through the season will get you a proper tree, same as it did us.

The cookie sheet advice is spot on. I use an old rimmed baking pan with a bit of fleece in the bottom and it's saved me more times than I can count. The one extra thing I'd add is to count your beads onto the tray before you start threading. I did a run of snowflake drops last winter, thought I had enough of the red ones, got to the tenth one and came up four short. No shop within driving distance that sells seed beads in ones, so I finished the batch with two silver ones mixed in and now they look intentional. Nobody at my house knows but me.

Honestly I'd lower the count and mix it up. I did a beaded ornament run a couple years back and by the tenth one I was sick of the sight of them. Now I do a handful of the fancy beadwork pieces and fill the rest of the tree with cheap wooden stars and dried orange slices I make in the kitchen. Nobody looking at the tree can tell which ones took four evenings and which took ten minutes, and the beaded ones actually stand out more that way. Also on the wire thing, I keep a bit of scrap wire handy and practice the loop bend on that before committing to a full icicle. Wasted a few tops learning the hard way.