Prepared

The way it works is that I fool around with needle thread and beads, and if I'm both lucky and persistent I end up with something that I don't want to cut up for spare parts, and either it's something I absolutely need to add to the ever-more-overflowing place where I keep the beaded jewellery which is for me to keep, or it's something I like but isn't for me (I kinda thrill to make floral things, but I rarely want to put them on my body), or it's something that's clearly just a first pass needing a few more iterations to get right - whatever that means.

Sometimes it means that I need to find a better way of assembling it without passing through the same bead more than three times. Sometimes it means that I need to find a way to stop it from collapsing in the middle (or alter my expectations of what I'm making), and sometimes it means that I need to find a less complicated way of putting it together so that I can explain it to another person. As in teaching it.

So I go off and do it again - sometimes the initial version never gets finished: as I start it I see its flaws so I cut it up and do the next one better. 

When I think it's coming out right, I start photographing every step because I know that when it's the week before I'm due to teach it, there's a really good chance I won't remember how I did it. What this means is that writing instructions for a class ends up being a combination of explaining (first to myself) what those photos represent in terms of what must be done, and being annoyed that I omitted to photograph one or more steps, so I have to make it yet again.

This turns out to be not a bad idea at all so that I have extra samples on hand to show the students in class.

I had completed two samples for tomorrow's class months ago when I was putting the proposals together; one went to the store, and one sat in my drawer until it was time to put the instructions together.

There were some steps for which there were no photos, so I had to make another one.

 Really, that's a good thing because as I was making this one, I found a better way to do one part.

 I also had the opportunity to use some new beads and crystals. I'm really enjoying the magatamas: they're frosted clear gold-lined yumminess.

I only wish it was a shape which photographed better - even the ones in less confusing colours look ugly in pictures.

But I was all done by lunchtime so I had the luxury of doing whatever I wanted the rest of the day, and there won't be a mad rush to get done tomorrow morning.

The only thing I forgot? To call the store to find out how many people are signed up.

But I do have two samples to bring in.