Evolution

So a couple of weeks ago I made a pendant which was sort of almost but not quite. Right. There were bits that I really liked, like the pairs of matte and shiny picots around the edge, and bits that I liked less, like the magatamas closer towards the centre, so I knew it needed work. 

Also it wasn't quite stable.

You can't really tell from the picture, but it doesn't lie flat because the beads aren't exactly the right size, and for once I'd like a project that doesn't rely quite so much on crazy thread tension.

 I also wanted to use triangle beads to frame the rivoli.

My next try used bigger large beads and although the picture completely (and unintentionally I might add) disguises the fact, it's a horrible wiggly mess which cannot lie evenly - so in that respect is worse than its predecessor.

I like the triangles though.

 The problem with a wide surround is that you do need a certain amount of thread tension to ensure that it doesn't just keel over and flop down which means layers of beads which in turn means that each bead in each layer of beads has to be just the right size so that they all fit and don't buckle and support each other.

I cut up the brown pendant (though I rather love the colours) and started again. I replaced the rondelles with o-ring beads because I realized that I've never ever seen that exact size of rondelles again which makes it problematic for a class project and its supplies.

 The green and yellow one has such a nasty nasty stance (it's all hunched up around itself) that I didn't even finish it but just cut the thread (and I'll cut up the pendant by the end of the weekend most likely) and started another one.

 The colours look way worse in the picture than in the flesh, but it holds together, the beads support each other, and the layers aren't impossible to stitch. I abandoned the large fire-polished beads altogether and opted for a more open edging which works better altogether. I also lost the double picots which is a bit of a shame but they needed the big beads to support them.

I confess that there were times I wasn't sure it could work at all.

 Speaking of flesh, some of the people at work persuaded me to go paint-balling with them last weekend and since I've never been and am unlikely to ever spontaneously and on my own up and decide to go, I agreed.

So it turns out that if you get a direct hit it bruises rather spectacularly and welts up pretty quickly too. Just for the record I should say that it's awkward trying to photograph your own inner thigh, as an explanation and apology for the awful picture. In real life it looks far less washed out, much angrier.

It was enough fun to have done once, but not enough for me to actively try to gather a group of people for another such expedition, though it's possible I could be persuaded to go again. Possible, not all that probable.

I spent the rest of last weekend painting the doors and drawers of the vanity, putting it back together and fashioning new cabinet hardware. Out of hardware. (Nuts and bolts and another faucet handle which I painted silver).

I'm still waiting on the tip-out hardware for what used to be a false drawer below the sink but which will soon be a completely unnecessary little pocket in a bathroom which is not regularly used by anyone besides me, until the twenty-fourth of this month, at which point I really hope the leak in my bathroom will finally be resolved.

So here's what I'm finding ironic.

What I really wanted in my bathroom was a floor that started at the door and continued unbroken all the way to the far wall, tipping just enough towards the drain,  with a glass shower surround and door that presented one continuous sweep of floor, practically unbroken.  It's a small bathroom, and apart from my personal aesthetic, I thought it would make it look a little bigger.

Every contractor I spoke to hummed and hawed and said how that was wrong and bad and they'd never heard of such a thing and it couldn't be done but if they could do it, it would cost me a LOT more and on and on, so I gave in and said ok fine, build a curb, but please make it as small and unobtrusive as possible and so that's what I signed.

The curb is so fat it reduces the size of my shower and oh look! That's where it leaks from and it's a complete mystery to everyone how on earth the water managed to make its way all the way to the bathroom side of the curb.

The last time the tile guy tried to fix it, the wood underneath was saturated. His fix prevented the water's egress to the basement, but the little puddle on the bathroom floor from the trickle down the side of the curb remains a problem.

And just so we're clear: work on my bathroom was completed mid-December and they're completely stymied by the leak mid-February.

I'm doing my (very limited) kitchen renovation all by myself.

As soon as the shower stops leaking.