Progression

Some years ago I made a pendant with matching earrings, scaling them down by using smaller fire-polished beads and omitting the rivoli which was in the pendant. I sort of like it but I think it could stand improvement so that's where I started.

I used the smaller fire-polished beads to weave a square frame, embellished it and inserted a smallish rivoli. Different embellishment than the last time and I was enjoying the making so I kept adding sides until I had a large, square slider.

 The sides measure about an inch and three quarters I think. It's pretty big.

Also? I don't like the embellishment so much. Too disorganised looking; not enough structure, just a mess of shiny magatamas, so I decided to revert to something closer to the original and make only one face before deciding whether I like it or not.

 Too dull. I hate those orange circles with holes and while I like some of the changes, it's too plain.  Not enough magatamas.

Third time though? Better. Just enough magatamas.

Good enough to make into a necklace for a friend's birthday in just over a week. (She doesn't read this blog so my secret is safe I think).

Also goo enough to start on another big slider. Or pendant. I'll decide later.

And Then It Was Over

Bead and Button, that is.

Great classes, excellent students.

Pretty good schedule with not too much free time between classes.

Uneventful drive there and back.

Then there was this brunch I went to that messed with my ability to talk with a reasonable amount of lucidity - not because of what I consumed, but because of what I saw.

A combo cocktail / appetizer.

So a nice big Bloody Mary, but instead of say, a stick of celery poking up through the surface of the drink, the glass was festooned with a piece of spare rib with barbecue sauce, a bird made of pickle slices and cherry tomatoes and I'm sure there was more but my mind was so blown that I couldn't take it in.

I mean, how does it work? You can't sip the drink because there's meat and pickles in the way but you don't get a plate for the food or even a fork with which to spear it and hold it away from the drinking part of the game and I ... just don't quite get it.

Apparently it's a Thing in at least Milwaukee and Chicago and a week later I have my words back but I'm still flummoxed, appalled and fascinated in equal measure.

So between teaching I stitched samples:

 So the beaded bead kit wasn't the most popular at Meet the Teachers but I still like those colours.

 I sold almost all of the lariats with just a couple in this colour-way left over.

I didn't have time to stitch an entire necklace but I did manage the one motif to show the colour-way.

I've barely unpacked but I've almost finished a new project which is only sort of new so I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it.

The rivoli components are not new, one of the chains is from another project and I think it has nothing in it that's strange or complicated or clever but I think it'll be quite pretty.

I'll post a better picture once it's done.