Mixed Bag

My hands are just about dye-free, except for under my nails, and where my cuticles are not gorgeous. (The last actual manicure I had was probably five to ten years ago). I think there was some horror at my glovelessness, and if I did this more often, I'd be more of a glove-wearer, but it was hot and I wasn't in the mood and I knew that skin sloughs enough that by work on Monday I'd be presentable. And I will be, at least in the hands department.

And then there was weekend day #2. I love days which are not filled with deadlines.

I knew I wanted to take that leap of faith in my cat and her multitude of legitimate places for relief around the house, not to mention the vast array of enzymatic cleaners and home remedies that I used on her illegal waste water location, as well as the fact that I ripped out and threw away the wooden tack strips to which the carpet was attached to the floor (wood absorbs cat pee better than Brawny, according to my nose), and roll the carpet back and put the furniture on top of it once more. I'm not foolish, so I have a roll of wire mesh and a plastic crate thing blocking off her favourite area, but I'm hopeful.

That took a short while, but I had the rest of the day to putter, which I did.

I finished the necklace I started a few days ago, and while I do love the rondelles I used, and I'm pleased at the way the necklace turned out, it's just not what I wanted and as such doesn't press my love-button (you know, that button which when pressed by something you see or touch or taste induces bliss and lust and a sense of timeless perfection of the moment), so it needs an owner which won't be me.

It has matching earrings which are not a matched pair but are a pair nonetheless.

I think I may have to buy some more of those beads and try again. I probably need other/better/different fringe beads, seed beads and/or fire-polished rounds. I'm sure that's it. I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss my metallic/industrial inclinations in favour of the easy fix of colour.

So it was successful in a way, but not in the I Have More Jewellery Now way.

Recently I picked up some faux turquoise rondelles which I'd hoped would work in this design.

Not so much, as it turns out. You can see that the seed beads around the rondelles are not lying neatly and symmetrically, but are buckling and angled and sticking out. Turns out that the rondelles are between useful sizes.

The first version of this design that I developed works well for the 4x7mm rodelles as in the necklace and earrings above, and the second version is tweaked to use the bigger 6x9s, but these ones are neither. They're wider than the small ones (so I had to try the bead counts for the bigger ones because thread was showing for the bead counts for smaller rondelles), but they're both much thinner and narrower than the big ones, so nothing really works well.

I like the colours though.

My total failure today as been reincarnated as a pile of wiggly threads on my work table and beads back in their tubes, trying to wipe their memories of what I thought they could do.