A Spike In Activity (Bad Pun, Fun Beads)

A while back, the fabulous Cynthia Machata of Antiquity Travelers reached out to some bloggy friends with an offer -- would we be interested in trying to make something with some howlite spikes she'd found at her local bead store? I took her up on the offer so fast, I think my keyboard was smoking...Subtle, I was not.

So here's what arrived in the mail:

Actually, this is only a portion of what was in the package. Cynthia sent both black dyed and natural white howlite. I just forgot to take a picture of the whole pack before jumping in. Bad, bad beady swapper, I know.

I've done several necklaces with a sterling armature that I shape and then use as a framework for freeform peyote (see some of them in posts here and here). It's a fun technique that seemed well suited to these spikes. But these beauties cried out for copper.

To keep the focus on the cool spikes, I decided to keep the accent beads black and white as well. 

A lot more beading could have gone onto this frame, but less was more here.

I have two black spikes left over, lurking on my worktable. I think they're destined to be some bold earrings, but you never know what'll happen.

Want to see what Cynthia made with her spikes?  Go here. And keep your eyes open for gemstone spikes at your local bead store -- they are big fun to work with!

Bacon, Shrieking Cats, Snowstorms, and Deciding What's Next

There are lots of great things about doing shows. The chance to meet some really great people. The opportunity to share my jewelry with customers. And since my children are well beyond their toddler years and I am currently between full-time jobs, doing shows is, without a doubt, the best fodder for wacky stories I have in my life right now.  And no matter how bizarre things get at a show, I can keep it in perspective by reminding myself that "it'll make a great story for the blog -- no one will believe this!"

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I did a show in a nearby city. So I get set up and ready for a fantastic weekend, when all of a sudden, I smell bacon.

It was not the cologne worn by enthusiastic art buyers or the aroma of credit cards being swiped fast and often.  There was actually a booth about 100 feet away from me that was selling artisanal country ham and bacon, and dear heaven, they were cooking up samples. You will be proud to know that I limited myself to one sample each day. But it was pretty funny to watch customers walk down the aisle with their noses twitching and a puzzled look on their faces...

Not an actual photo from the show. But now I'm hungry

The music, however, was a completely different experience. Piped in holiday music for eight hours a day. I do not know how store clerks make it through the holiday season, endlessly listening to it, without wanting to slap the living daylights out of someone.

There were 32 repetitions of "Winter Wonderland", about 29 "Jingle Bells", and so many people singing about chestnuts roasting over an open fire, I figured the world supply of chestnuts was depleted for in-home cooking purposes. (I'm not exaggerating too much  -- I actually kept a running tally of the songs played Sunday to amuse myself). Sometime mid-afternoon on Saturday, an aural offense was perpetrated that was so heinous, it nearly had everyone running from the event space with their fingers in their ears. Remember the "Jingle Bells" done with barking dogs?  This horror was similar, only using the meows and moans of cats.

What I imagine the lead "singer" in this particular holiday
nightmare looked like in the recording session.

Good grief, it was terrifying. People looked alarmed. Children wept. Have you ever heard two cats fighting? Yeah, that's a Beethoven symphony compared to what this sounded like.  Thank goodness it did not get played again. Happily, the show was better than the soundtrack!

And this weekend was my last show for the calendar year. A local show, with high-quality work, with an enthusiastic crowd of buyers who eagerly await it each year. It opened at 2 on Friday, and ran all day Saturday. But we woke up on Friday to sleet and ice, which made getting to the venue and unloading the car an adventure.  By 3, the sleet had changed to snow, and this is what it looked like outside the venue.

A lovely volunteer kept trying to shovel the walkway,
but as you see, it got ahead of him.

What you can't tell from the photo is that it was snowing when I took the picture. Heavily. All afternoon. The customers who'd braved the sleet evaporated when it started snowing.  The artists had a lovely time that afternoon visiting with each other, because there certainly weren't any customers (can't blame them!). Saturday, though, dawned clear and cold, and the roads were clear, so we had a strong Day 2.  I spotted someone wearing a necklace she'd purchased from me at the same show eight years ago (!!!), and helped a number of folks cross things off of their gift lists.

This was one of the things that went to a new home on Saturday. Yay!

Now that I have a break from getting ready for shows, I want to hop in on some of those new things I've wanted to explore. Perhaps some soutache. Maybe I'll finally tackle CRAW. Probably not. Then again, haven't done any freeform in a long time.

What's on your list of techniques or projects that you want to tackle next?

My Personal V8 Moment

You know the classic move in the V8 commercials?  The slap on your forehead that accompanies the great enlightenment and insight?

Yeah, I had one of those this weekend.

During slow moments at the show I was doing, I worked on bezeling a couple of donuts from my stash. Peyote is my usual bezel choice, but this time it felt like time to try a right angle weave bezel.

Yes, most of the seed beading world has done these. Yes, I realize that my insecurities about RAW is irrational, and can only be overcome by working through it.  And yes, I have had many previous escapades with the stitch that ended in bug-ugly projects, inappropriate language being thrown around, and frustration.

And you know what?  This time it came together like magic!  I don't know why.  I can't explain it.  Perhaps it was an early holiday miracle.

So I did two.  The photos aren't great, but here they are...

There's no telling what they'll eventually become part of , but I think the smaller one is going to get some spikes...stay tuned!

Happy Birthday Therese! - The Reveal

The fabulous Therese of Therese's Treasures is having a birthday, and she's given some of her friends gifts to play with.

Me and the birthday girl!

Let me tell you about my friend Therese.  We met through blogging, and through our conversations discovered that I had known and worked with her brother when I lived in Alabama (small, small world!!).  She is funny, warm hearted, generous, and has an insatiable curiosity that leads her to explore new jewelry techniques.  In addition to always pushing herself to new levels of beadweaving beauty, she's learned PMC and glass fusing.  What next? I predict fencing, competitive baking, and/or writing an award winning novel.
To celebrate her birthday, she dipped into the results of her latest exploration, and sent each challenge participant one of the fused glass cabs she's made.

I got the gorgeous, delicious cobalt blue triangle.  It has small flecks of clear dichroic, which give it a subtle effervescence, like little bubbles of champagne right beneath the surface. Because Therese always explores new ideas in her work, I wanted to figure out a new way to incorporate beadweaving into the bezel surrounding this cab.

Since I'd been playing around with twin beads, I explored ways to use them.

See the little sparkles of dichroic?  Lovely!

A twin bead herringbone strip was the perfect width for the height of the cab, and the unusual shape of the cab allowed me to twist the strip so that part of it laid down around the cab and part of it snugged up on end. And the rest of the necklace?

Since I love cobalt blue so much, I figured there's never too much of a good thing -- I pulled out lots of blue beads in my stash.

The webbed beads are vintage Japanese glass.  The pewter wavy discs have a sparkly finish that echoes the dichro in the cab.  And pearls are classic, perfect to salute a classic lady.

Thanks for letting me celebrate your birthday Therese!  Here are the other partygoers, so go grab a slice of cake and enjoy:

Alicia

Amy

Bobbie yep, you're here!

Christine

Cynthia

Kristen

Lola

Marla

Maryanne

Shirley

Therese and Crystie

MeMaw's Quilt - The Rolling Blog Hop Reveal

A while back, my friend Christine at OneKissCreations invited me to take part in a rolling hop -- she'd send each of us a goodie package with a mystery component and some additional beads, and we could create something to share on our own schedule within a certain time period.  I love Christine's sense of humor, sense of style, and sense of creativity, so of course I said yes.

The package arrived, and, with great ladylike grace and restraint (snort), I ripped it open to discover the mystery component. And my thought process was something like, "Spools! Spools? Hmmm, spools....."

The image that kept coming to me over and over again when I thought of spools was one of my maternal grandmother, who spent a couple of years (or at least it seemed to me, although given a kid's sense of time, it probably was only a several months) making a pair of quilts, which she then gave to me and my sister.

So my creation was going to be a reflection of my grandmother, who we called MeMaw, her style, and her quilt.  Here's a little bit about my MeMaw -- she and my grandfather had a farm, although she also worked in town.  She had gorgeous snow white hair, long legs and a terrific figure (which, sadly, I did not inherit), a great smile, and always took care to dress with flair. She had an incredible strength and spirit.  I so wish my children could have known her.

Anyway, here's MeMaw, and here is a section of the quilt she made for me.

See what I mean about dressing with flair? She's wearing a silk dress and
fab jewelry, even though the infant me might have spit up or done
something else messy at any moment.  The lady had style and guts!

The quilt is queen-sized, and I have yet to find a square that has a duplicated fabric center.

And I'm happy to introduce to you MeMaw's Quilt Necklace.

I decided the best way to capture the idea of the quilt was to wrap the spool in a quilt of beads.  I made a right angle weave base, and added every small bead I could find in my stash to the open squares.  There are gemstones, crystals, Czech glass, and pearls in there -- hopefully a faithful reflection of MeMaw's love of sparkly jewelry.  For the neckstrap, I braided some beautiful sari silk that I had from another swap, AntiquityTraveler's blogoversary hop.  The color was a perfect mimic for the background of the quilt.  I will admit to having had fifteen different kinds of fits trying to figure out a clasp, since the silk wasn't long enough to allow me to loop it over, but I finally came up with one that I was happy with.

I tried really hard to do like MeMaw and not repeat any beads
in the squares, but there are a couple of duplicates.

The Quilt on the quilt

Thanks, Christine, for letting me play along!  And if you're interested in seeing what the others have created (and the results so far are pretty eclectic, kind of like the artists involved), here's a list:

Janet

Cynthia

Kim

Therese

Tanya

Bobbie (aka MeMaw's granddaughter - you're here)

Liz

Maryanne

Karin

Lisa

Hope

Erin

Christine

Celebrating Cynthia's Blogoversary - Time To Reveal The Goodies!

Probably like you, I follow a fair number of blogs, but there are a few that stand out because the spirit and personality of their author truly shine through.  These bloggers show us more than their jewelry, they share their thoughts, their inspirations, their sense of humor, and their lives with their readers in a very special way.

Cynthia Machata of Antiquity Travelers is one of those.  She shares her exotic travel tales and explains how they inspire her jewelry making.  It's like taking a wonderful mini-vacation to read her posts. Wen she invited me to help celebrate her blogoversary with her, I was thrilled to say yes.

Five of us received a custom-made component from Jana at Happy Fish in the Czech Republic (see? One exotic location involved).  Along with that we got some complimentary beads and some sari silk from Darn Good Yarn, a company that employs and economically empowers women in Nepal and India. Another pair of exotic locales.

My beautiful soft denim blue component arrived, and for some reason it made me think of both something from the African continent, and of a figure in a Marc Chagall painting.  I tried mightily to find beads to echo the Chagall idea, but couldn't find anything right.  But what I did find in my stash was some antique Ghanaian brass beads that were a perfect expression of the African inspiration. Here's what came of the pairing:

The focal bail is a simple beadwoven strip made from the seed beads Cynthia included.  I added blue-dyed sponge coral, copper gear shaped discs, some rutilated honey quartz, a chunk of white turquoise, the Ghanaian brass, lovely moonstone rounds that Cynthia also provided, and some beaded beads that also include the seed beads from Cynthia.

Here's a closeup of the non-pendant section:

The only thing I couldn't use was the sari silk, but it will be showing up in another challenge reveal in a few days, so stay tuned!

Thank you, Cynthia, for letting me share in the celebration of the joy you bring to us with your blog! The other participants are below.  Now I'm going to go find a slice of blogoversary cake to eat in honor of Cynthia!

Janet Bocciardi          Honey from the Bee

Christine Altmiller      One Kiss Creations

Bobbie Rafferty          Beadsong (you are here!)

Therese Frank           Therese's Treasures

Alicia Marinache        All the Pretty Things

Cynthia Machata        Antiquity Travelers

Old Friends, Monkeys On Unicycles, and Eating My Way Through Town

This past weekend was the second of my three shows this month, and it gave me the chance to go back to Tuscaloosa, AL, where my family lived for over a decade. I was thrilled to be part of the Kentuck Festival, which is a fantastic show, and I was excited to be able to go "home" for a while.

And to start things off right, look who showed up at my booth almost as soon as the show opened --

It's Therese from Therese's Treasures! What fun to see online friends, and what a kick to see her again!  She is, truly, every bit as sweet and encouraging and fun as you'd expect from reading her blog.  If you don't read her blog, get on over there and start following her!  She was a bright spot in an early morning that had started with some passing rain.

Around 11, the showers stopped and the sun started peeking out.  Pay no attention to the water bottle I forgot to hide before taking the booth photo.  Duh.

 Each night I was in town, I ate at one of the restaurants my family used to enjoy when we lived there.  I may or may not have gained five pounds. Do the calories you eat when you're having lots of fun count?

I got to see lots of old friends and neighbors, which was great, and very nostalgic. Even after eight years, it's like the blink of an eye.

"But wait," you're probably thinking, "you said something about a monkey on a unicycle?"  Why yes, I did.  And it was in the booth next to mine, the work of a truly awesome artist who handformed whimsical and weird creatures from steel wire and found objects.  This monkey stopped people dead in their tracks, inspiring laughs, gasps of wonder, and lots of photo ops. The artists were terrific neighbors, and they won a well-deserved merit award.

Seriously, click on the photo to see it in more detail.  Awesome.

No peeing dogs this weekend.  A few mildly hungover patrons on Sunday after Saturday's Alabama football game in town, but they managed to control themselves.  Great sales, great fun, great food, great football, and great friends.  Now I have a couple of days to recuperate and make new stuff to get ready for this weekend's show!