Another Page Finished

Here's the page, finished at last. Some urgent paying work swept into the house last week, but once that was done, I was able to get back to where I was and finish up. I'll be starting another tonight and/or tomorrow. It was interesting working mainly in greens this time. I wonder what the next piece will be? I'm still a Champion of Behinders, but one of these days, I'll find myself all caught up.

Still Working...

Here is more progress on my page, plus a shot of the very small (3/4 of an inch at the widest part) piece of agate that inspired me to start it. I'm finding the green colors to be very calming and soothing to work with, yet the movement in the design feels very joyful and energetic and makes me want to go out and play -- so I do! I'm hoping to be finished sometime over the weekend and will begin a new page a few days later.

Sometime between now and next Tuesday I'll be taking time out to do a little painting around the house to surprise my husband when he gets back from a conference. It will be nice to have the house to myself (and cats!) for a few days, though I will certainly miss him. I really do like having quiet time all to myself sometimes.

New Page Started + Corrected Scan

So, I have started a new page, and here is the beginning. I'm basing the design on a beautiful piece of agate that I rediscovered at the bottom of one of the myriad boxes I am unpacking these days.

Also, I'm posting the better scan of my previous page -- sure is good to have the scanner up and running again!

Another One Done

The scanner is not hooked up yet, so this is a quick, not color-corrected snapshot image, but I wanted to post something actually finished after all this time!

I'm slowly getting settled into the new little house and I have a set-up in a separate room with LOTS of light so I can work again. I still have to excavate for beads and supplies down in the basement, and right now I have a slightly limited palette, but it feels so good to be sitting down with needle, beads and fabric. It's cold outside, but I keep warm with cats and hot chocolate as I bead and smile.

The move-in was nightmarish, but we expected that, and now that it is well over and we have kitchen (mostly), bedroom and our office/studios unpacked or in process, things are better. The cats all like the new place, too. We have just finished work on boxing in the back porch and turning it into a small sunroom room especially for the cats. In warmer weather, I hope to do some beading out there, too.

I will post a better pic of this once I get the scanner online.

BeadExpo - Portland Classes: Me Being Practical -- Really!

I took a deep breath and plexed and plexed, but finally chose my classes for BeadExpo. They are expensive. They are deductible. My husband told me to do it. One 7-hour class per day. Most of them actually involve more metalsmithing than beadwork, and all are geared to things I can just sit down and make, with a minimum of extra tools, specialized equipment, expensive materials, more schooling. I'll be learning Etruscan-style Chain and Ring (wire work), Low-Tech Metalsmithing (working with fine silver, a small butane torch, and NO toxics), Bojangle Bracelet (bead embroidered bracelet), Objects & Elements - Creating Talismans Jewelry (making cold-joined bracelets, etc. with ordinary and found objects and manipulated bits of metal and glass). I already have pretty much all the tools I'll need, and the few I may need to buy are not real expensive. This is my attempt to be more practical in my approach (while still being true to my nature...) and build things that I could actually sell to folks. For money. And I'll be in BeadExpo classes all day, every day, so I won't have much time to spend in the vendor room. As usual, I'll be packing my lunch. Actually, the classes cost just a little less than the money we're saving on the new mortgage every month, and looking at it that way, I can see why my husband is not gritting his teeth over this. :- )

Finally, I'm getting moved into my studio room, and things are generally getting into shape around the house. AND I AM BACK TO BEADING, AT LAST!!!! We've been boxing in our back porch with reclaimed windows from the Rebuilding Center, and it's nearly done and looks great! It will be a mostly sun-filled room that I'm sure will be completely taken over by our cats. But it will give us some more room, and maybe kitties will let us in there from time to time.

Meanwhile... it's still 28F outside. I hope all the critters are keeping warm and safe out there tonight.

My New House

Here's a picture of my new little house. It's about 1/3rd the size of the previous place, and we are going to have quite a time squeezing into it. There are only 864 sq. ft. of living space. However, the basement is the same size, so there is a lot of storage room. Eventually we hope to replace the falling-down garage with a back yard studio, but who knows when that will be?

I'm going crazy with packing and stuff -- we have less than a week to be out of here, and take possession of the new place at the end of the week. We will be moving our belongings into the basement storage space while we get the floors done upstairs. Should be an exciting weekend.

Back At It Again...

Here's a beginning. I don't know if it's August, September, December... or if that really much matters just now. It feels really good to be back beading, even though there really is NO TIME for it now.

We did sell our house, finally, and with a great deal of ugliness and dishonesty on the part of the buyers. Real estate is not for the likes of me, who wants to just deal straightforwardly and above board. We have 30 days to vacate, no slack permitted. We have no house to vacate to. We almost bought a place, but today's inspection revealed the need for not only a new roof and some wiring, but complete re-plumbing! Too rich for our blood, and not enough time to get it all done anyway... We had to pay almost $600 to find all this out, of course -- my classes for Bead Expo, now up in smoke. So, if I ever thought I knew fear before... no, I did not. Our only prospect at the moment is a very beautiful little house in a great location that is about a mile too small for us. Maybe we can shoehorn ourselves in, and maybe we can build a little studio building out in the back... And, of course, we don't yet know if there are any surprises there for us to discover.

This has truly been the worst year of my life so far. There have been bright spots, to be sure, but one of the brightest consistently has been BJP. I haven't been good at keeping up, and I don't post as often as I'd like. However, it is very inspiring to me to see everyone's work and to be working along also. The beading is truly good for my soul, and helps keep me anchored to the ground.