So Much

It's as if I've lived a couple of months since last I posted. I like doing things and going places but I like these events to be spread out with lots of down time between because otherwise I feel rushed and over-full.

But there's been good stuff.

There was Amy's sale at which some of the pieces I sold let to orders for other matching pieces and I filled one when I had a very small window of spare time but really, I have the usual deadlines looming so I shouldn't have and yet I did.

I spent a few days in Chicago with my very oldest friends in the world (we've known each other for so long that our earliest encounters were when we were too young to form meaningful memories) and the last time the three of us got  together was in the late nineties but none of us can remember exactly when. After so many years you can pick up and connect in minutes.

I'm teaching a bunch of classes again at Bead and Button this year and my schedule is decently efficient as I have only two days of no classes (but the days have evening classes). I'll post pictures in the sidebar later. I'm tired right now - more about that further down.

I've started working on actual samples (as opposed to fooling around beading doodles that I hope will lead to actual beading projects) for the next lot of local classes for February through May. That's a deadline on the horizon.

 This open star pendant is fun because it's really a pentagon coerced into being a star. Also it could be added to the chain below.

Apparently I'm into stars lately. That's two classes out of six or eight so far.

There's also a rivoli idea that's in the percolation phase so no pictures and not yet on the list but maybe.

 This beaded bead (the green one in the front) is the culmination of a progression. I made the one in the back a year or more ago and there must be something particular about the beads I used as I couldn't get it to work properly on subsequent tries.

Truth is there's always variation between different colours of beads; somehow the nature of different colours of glass seems to lead to slightly different proportions or sizes among beads which are nominally the same size. For example, black seed beads are often taller and more irregular than other colours, I suspect because black glass melts much softer than some of the other formulations and so black beads may be more likely to distort. This is purely conjecture on my part having fooled around with melting glass from time to time; I could well be completely wrong (but I think I'm on the right track).

Anyway.

The beaded bead sat around for ages until I decided to try it using differently-shaped beads and it sort of worked but wasn't quite the way I wanted it so on the last iteration I mixed bead shapes at which it did what I wanted it to.

There's also a beaded bead from a few months ago (but no picture today).

My daughter flew in for the weekend to collect her very pretty cat who even after more than a year is the cause of much dissent among the felines in the household. There's still altogether far too much hissing and growling and swatting going on, not to mention the hunks of white fur everywhere. (The diva doesn't care to be brushed).

While she was here she got a rather elaborate tattoo.

 I'd never seen tattoos in action before so it was rather educational and illuminating. Also crazy long.

We did not get to spend a couple of hours while she got inked, then go to dinner, then go to Strange Donuts and then organise the cat stuff before getting an early night so that waking early to go to the airport wouldn't be heinous.

Instead we spent an hour and a half designing the tattoo, called in our food order, made a mad dash to get the food while the tattoo artist was setting up, and then spent many excruciating (mostly for her; but my hand was squozen almost into oblivion, poor thing. I shouldn't complain. She would have stopped if the artist wasn't fully committed to the vision). We walked out of there after one in the ayem (we had arrived shortly after six), at which point she required fast sugar therapy in the form of a shake. Yeah I dunno.

And then we still had to pack up cat stuff, try to get at least three hours of sleep (barely), drug the cat (you wouldn't want her unhappily in a cat carrier at full throttle on a crowded plane), take them to the airport and hope for the best.

Last I heard they were happily ensconced in my daughter's new apartment.

Apparently the tattoo still hurts. She likes it very much though. I'm definitely not getting one.