Serendipity, or kumihimo & beads

 Serendipity!  I love it when things come together!  Several years ago I got hooked on kumihimo, a type of braiding, and I made a lot of necklaces.  Most were done with eyelash yarns (I love the texture!) and finished into necklaces, and there were 4 of them still hanging around.  Several weeks ago I made some blown hollow boro beads and accidentally used the wrong mandrels so their holes were much larger than normal.  Last night, lightening struck!  The holes slid over the cones on the ends of the necklaces, and some of the colors matched!  I now have 2 new eye catching necklaces!

Boro hollow beads

I spent the day blowing these boro hollow beads.  My pile of black rods has just been waiting for inspiration, and I now know what I am going to do with the black hollow beads.  In March I bought the perfect stone beads for them and can't wait to put a necklace together.  Hope it turns out as nice as it is in my mind!  Boro blown hollow beads are so much easier to make than soft glass hollows because the boro is so much more forgiving!

Open torch weekend

I made these beads this past weekend at an open torch with my glass tribe, and you can see I am still stuck on black and white.  A friend of mine was instrumental in getting a new facility for lampworking up and running, and my glass tribe and I tested it out this past weekend!  It is really a new facility for the Tuscarora Lapidary Society located in Brookhaven PA.  (The website is in the process of being upgraded.)  They teach classes in all kinds of lapidary and jewelry work, and now lampworking too.  Everything worked just fine, with only a few glitches, and we are all so excited to have a place to work together again!  I am also looking forward to teaching there.

We always share new knowledge and discoveries, and have a really good time in the process.  It was so good to work together again!

Nasty cold!

This week I was going to get my taxes done, but I came down with a really nasty cold.  The first sick day I spent the entire day on the couch vegetating, and then I did work on taxes, sort of.  Last Dec, I found a crate of old tax records, all of which needed to be shredded, so I worked on that.  It satisfied something- destroying all that paperwork!  I hate being sick!  Besides feeling bad, I keep thinking of all the work I should be doing and worry about getting further and further behind.  I miss working in my studio; that was going to be my reward for a week of paperwork.  Oh well, the best laid plans...

Glass Bead Inspirations

Last weekend at the Berks Bead Bazaar, 7 of the bead makers from my new book had dinner Sat night after the show.  We had so much fun making beads for the book, and dinner was like a party!  We all signed each others books, and that turned into a giant hassle.  I told them that was an inkling of what it was like to keep everyone on point and on deadlines!

For the book, I sent each lampworker something to use as inspiration for a bead (photograph, word, painting, etc) and then documented the beads.  It is a good thing to look outside the bead world for inspiration!

Left to right, they are Katy Abbott, Christel Hoffmann, Tamara Melcher, me (Louise Mehaffey), Patti Cahill, Laura Schreiber, and Alice St Germain. 

Black and white

The world is not black and white.  However, I have been obsessed with making black and white beads for a few months now.  When I sit down at my torch, I want to make more!  It is actually a good exercise- working with only two colors.  Black and white is such a classic color combination!  The beads are striking, and they make striking jewelry as well, so I will just continue to make them until the urge is gone.  Who knows how long that will be!

Snow!

Today was the first significant snowfall of 2012 here in eastern PA.  It was only the 2nd snowfall of this winter- the first one was Halloween weekend.  We had around 4" of very light, dry snow so it was easy to shovel.  Maybe the snow was because I just found my 3 snowmen!