Month: July 2014

Finished in the nick of time.

Why is it that I work so much better under pressure?  Or is it that I just think I do because I am a hideous procrastinator and it makes a good excuse?  Either way I have had nearly a year to get my four pieces done for this years Stitch ‘n’ Craft Four Seasons challenge, but with a week to go I was still faffing around with the construction of Autumn.  Pretty fundamental stuff…..

Anyway, I gave up at about 10.30 on Friday night, and in the cold light of day (OK the very warm and humid light of yesterday) I’m reasonably content with the pieces as a whole and my final work on Autumn is just fine.  I can’t show you any of them properly as that would spoil things, but there is a taster above.  All peyote pretty much (have reverted to my beadweaving roots), and only one piece using delicas (so running away from my roots there).  I labeled them up last night while dear husband was at a glamorous party, so tomorrow morning I need to scribble a quick note about presentation (‘please put necklace on bust, looks a bit odd otherwise, don’t really mind about the rest’), and then pack them up ready for posting.   And then I am free – at least for a couple of days and then back to prepping for the Folksy featured shop and coping with the school holidays.

So for this year at least I can bid a fond farewell to the four pieces that took over my beading life – adieu to ‘Crystal Garland’; ‘Tumbling Leaves’; ‘A ********* for Oscar ‘ (sorry, can’t give you the full name because it spoils it); and ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.   Bye Bye.

PS I rather suspect dearest husband would rather I didn’t enter next year – something to do with stress, obsession – not sure?  He may be right because it does rather completely take over, but I’m reserving judgement until I know what next year’s challenge is……….sorry darling, and happy 7th wedding anniversary my sweet.  XXX

Completion

A productive few days tidying up unfinished work and trying out ideas.

The bangle is a play on a Cellini spiral using some bigger beads – over 4cm at its’ widest it is good and chunky and fun. It took rather a long time to finish, largely because I kept running out of the larger beads.  One important job (as well as photographing it properly and listing for the shop) is going to be to work out how many I actually used to avoid that problem next time.  I have a plan for something even bigger in a rainbow of opaques, a bit like the Bright Star.  Once the beads are selected the spiral stitch is very repetitive and restful, a nice change from more complex and creative work, so could be a good one for our next holiday.

The earrings are an exaggerated version of a basic brick stitch triangle with fringing – but again they are big and bold, scaled up to 12cm long.  This gave me space for lots of different shades and makes me think of a firebird.  I’ll try these again as well, like the spiral they are simple enough to be relaxing to make, but unlike it they take hours rather than months to complete.  I think a dig around in my crystal stash could give some interesting additions as well.  If only I didn’t have a small person who grabs everything he sees (glasses, hair, jewellery), then I could actually wear them……..

And finally I had another go at my ‘Saturday afternoon necklace’.  Nearly right this time so I’ll tell you all about that soon.  And I finished something else at the weekend but I honestly can’t remember what.  I’ll blame the hot weather and the four teeth the baby is cutting for the epic memory failure.

Trepidation……

The lovely people at Folksy mailed me today to let me know that they’d featured one of the pieces from my Folksy Shop on their Facebook page, and that it had generated lots of interest.  It was the lovely Jean Power designed collar I laboured over for so long last year, and is a very stunning piece and much deserving of all the attention (although the credit really needs to go to Jean for the design).  I’ve only sold one piece since I put the shop together 3 years ago, but their single photo post generated over 600 views for the item which needless to say is a very very significant uplift.  No buyers, but I’ve never been convinced I want to sell it anyway……….

Even more scarily they have asked me to be a featured shop later next month.  This is very exciting, but also pretty terrifying.  I’m going to have to knuckle down to get the shop ready to make the most of this opportunity, which means getting as many completed items listed as possible, ordering more packaging, and sorting through all those nearly finished pieces to see what might work.  Plus I need to put together stuff for the feature itself, and actually think about why I bead in the first place……scary.  

But first I must must get that Stitch N Craft challenge piece finished and post the whole set off as the deadline is starting to loom and having worked so hard I can’t bear to miss out on entering.  If number 2 child could finish cutting his third and most painful tooth I would be really grateful.