Sir Elton John was on TV a couple of nights ago, in one of those biographical specials. Having been a fan of his music for years, I had the idea during the show of creating a beadweaving pattern for a piano. I'm sure others have created piano patterns before, so I actually went to look to make sure I wasn't inadvertently creating a design that already existed! After a few Google searches, I decided to just go for it, and here's the result.

Even my husband, who rarely comments on my beadweaving, likes this one. Lest you think my husband doesn't appreciate my creations, I think the main reason he doesn't comment is that he can't see up close without his glasses, and beadwoven pieces definitely require an up-close look!

I don't want Sir Elton to feel bad, but I wound up naming the cuff after a song by another of my favorite singers, Billy Joel. I just listed Piano Man in my Etsy Shop. Maybe I'll have to create another, more colorful version, called Goodbye Yellow Brick Road...

One bracelet finished, another begun. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I don't suffer from creative block. If anything, it's just the opposite. I have more ideas than I think I could possibly execute in a lifetime. At times that can be a bad thing, because I wind up with projects that aren't quite finished when I race off to start a new one. I'm trying to get better at that, more disciplined about finishing one thing before starting another, but it's just so difficult!

The idea for Black and Blue came to me as soon as I noticed that the Delica beads I had just ordered from Fire Mountain Gems were the perfect match to some turquoise and black "spatter" beads I've had for a few years. After just a few minutes of moving the beads around on my beading mat to see what I could do with them, I was off and running... er... beadweaving.


Almost all of the freeform cuffs and bracelets I had listed in my Etsy shop have been sold, and I've been wanting to do another one. I normally gravitate toward clean lines and geometric pieces, particularly for myself, but after I created a couple of freeform pieces I found I was having a great time with them. It's also a good way to use up those partial tubes of beads I have lying around, left over from other projects.

It was finally time to start one (even though I have to admit to having a few of those unfinished projects sitting here staring at me and trying to make me feel guilty). It's all purples and pinks, and there's absolutely no pattern for it. There is a lot of arm exercise, though, as I keep having to hold it at arm's length to see which beads I should pick up next. So far, so good. It'll probably receive a few more embellishments on top, but it all depends on what the bracelet says.

HAVE YOU VOTED YET? No, I don't mean in the Presidential election, silly. I mean in the Etsy BeadWeavers July Challege. The voting opened yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to post here. Once again I'm plagued by just not having enough hours in the day. I tried to make it a little easier for voters this time. You don't even have to find one of the links to the EBW blog in this post - just click that red button over there on the left!

I also want to mention that one of the members (who I've talked about more than once here in this blog of mine) is having a giveaway!!! After you've gone to the EBW blog to cast your vote for your favorite entry, check out SandFibers' blog to see details about her giveaway. I can assure you that you won't be disappointed.

Carol Dean gave me partial credit for the idea for her challenge entry, a wonderful freeform bracelet (it's number 31 in the mosaic you see on the EBW blog). It was so wonderful, in fact, that it stayed in her shop for less than an hour before it was bought by some lucky Etsy buyer!!! I'm waiting for her to create another one... there's a rumor that she has some more beads put aside for a freeform piece. :-)

************************

My other news, which I should have posted about before, is that one of my button rings (a little Wagon Wheel) made it into anda's treasury and then onto the Etsy Front Page!!! Woo hooo!!!! The treasury's gone now, but I grabbed a screenshot:

The other thing I didn't find time to post about is my latest Oglala bracelet. I named this one for a beautiful type of coral called floreana. I love the way this one turned out, with all that red and orange mixed together!!

Oglala bracelets are so much fun to make! I'm not a "ruffly" person by nature, being much more comfortable in t-shirts and sweatpants or jeans than in anything with frills, but I still enjoy making these bracelets. This one is called Lavender Frill, and I just listed it in my Etsy shop (you can see more photos there, too).

I have thousands (probably more like millions) of Czech glass beads, in every color imaginable, and I really enjoy going through my stash and holding different colored beads next to each other to see how they look. When I held these clear lavender beads (which have an aurora borealis finish) next to the glass pearls, I knew I had a winning combination. The perfect finishing touch was the tiny Czech glass 15s I used to create the picot edge, as they have the same pearl finish.

With the holiday weekend, I somehow got behind on showing off the treasuries in which I was featured. I'd love to be able to post them here every day, but they're probably much more exciting to me than they are to readers of this blog. I do want to thank the people who featured me over the past few days, though.

Please check out their shops! I've looked at them all, and I guarantee you'll find some great things in them.
- Kathy (aka KathysKraftyKreation) does beadweaving and makes all sorts of beautiful bracelets, cuffs, lanyards, and other things with thousands and thousands of tiny beads. I think she might love them as much as I do! Kathy's treasury was a walk through her favorites, and I was honored that she included my Ribbon of Beads in it!
- Dee (aka DinkingAround) has TWO Etsy shops (I can't imagine keeping up with two). She featured one of my Surly Cats (Cat Want Food Now) in a treasury that was filled with all sorts of silly felines. Dee's DinkingAround shop is filled with really fun pendants.
- Jill (aka outofthepinksky) is someone whose Etsy shop I ran across when I was dropping Entrecards, and now I check her blog regularly. Her shop is loaded with all kinds of earrings, everything from glam to hilarious! Jill included my Obama cuff in a treasury all about politics. Really! It was fun! :-)
- Staci (aka PinkPoochDesigns) is a fellow member of Etsy BeadWeavers. I'm in awe of the photo ribbon bracelets she creates. She has Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and even The Joker designs (along with many more); and they're all wonderful. Staci's treasury featured loads of pink and green in an homage to watermelon (I wanted to race to the store to buy one!), and she included my Check It Out cuff among the yummies.
- Ileana (aka enchantedbeads) is also a fellow Etsy BeadWeaver, well known for her fabulous beaded and beadwoven brooches. Ileana featured some of the goodies that were created for the July challenge, a Midsummer Night's Dream, even though she didn't have enough space for all 31 entries!! She was nice enough to include my entry, Titiana Speaks to Bottom. (Be sure to check out the EBW blog on Wednesday so you can vote for your favorite!)
- Bea (?) (aka Humblebea) put together a treasury of smiles. Actually, her treasury made me laugh out loud! She was nice enough to include my Understated Greeting card, Nice Smile, in the collection. I don't have any little ones around, but if I did I'm sure I'd want them to have something from this shop. There are some of the most adorable little felt Mary Janes in there!!

The VERY SPECIAL treasury I have to mention here, though, is the one assembled by Sarah (thebeadedlily). She wrote about the inspiration in her blog, but just imagine my surprise when I came across this one!!! A treasury named after me!!! And including my all-time favorite color combination!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew! What an exciting weekend!

My entry for the Etsy BeadWeavers July challenge was truly challenging! I had no trouble at all finding what I wanted to use for the focal piece. I don't remember where I got it originally, but I've had this gorgeous brass brooch for many years and could never bear to part with it. As soon as I saw the theme, Midsummer Night's Dream, I knew I'd use it somehow.

The pin never worked properly, as it would always come undone. I can't tell how many times I was stabbed by that silly thing, even over the past couple of weeks while I tried to decide how to incorporate this into some beadweaving. I originally thought to make a cuff using fabric and beads and leaving the pin intact, but it's such a large piece that I gave up on that idea. It would have been nice, perhaps, to leave the pin on so someone could use it as a pin or a cuff, but oh well.

Eventually, I opted to create a spiral rope for the pendant. The focal piece has a lot going on, with the fairy, all the gems and jewels, the freshwater pearl (which I added), and all the swoops and movement in the brass itself. It just seemed better not to get too carried away with the necklace portion. I created the spiral rope using two colors of Czech glass beads that match the colors of the brass, but it looked like it was missing something. I sent an early photo to my friend Carol Dean (aka SandFibers), and of course she had a brilliant idea - add some opalescent beads to the spiral, near the pendant, to pull in the opalescent gems around the pendant. I wonder if Carol Dean wears a cape...

The addition of the opalescent beads (which, luckily, I had!) took me past dusk, so the original photos I posted with the listing were pretty pathetic. This is one of the new pictures of my entry, Titiana Speaks to Bottom.

The deadline for entering the challenge was yesterday, and by my count there are 31 entries!! Two of them have already sold, which is absolutely wonderful. That's even better than winning the challenge itself (which doesn't come with a trophy or award of any type, just the honor of selecting the theme for an upcoming challenge).

More Etsy treasuries! It's such fun to find that little gold star, and I also had some fun creating one of my own.

Here's the one I created, called Be Unique!. It's filled with lovely coppery and pewter tones that I just love. I pulled almost every one of these items from my extensive list of favorites.

The Etsy BeadWeavers have been keeping track of treasury appearances in the Etsy forums, but I still like to browse through the treasuries myself. Since I create all sorts of things, I occasionally find treasuries that feature my other creations.

This one, for example, curated by coolsisters, is a statement about the price of gas these days and includes my photograph, Got Gas?
I immediately went off to check out coolsisters Etsy shop and found some fun and funky jewelry! This Black Chunky Chain and Beaded Necklace is my favorite. How fun!!

Another of my photographs, Purple Flashes, was included in this treasury that was assembled by Purpledaizie.
It's nice to encounter someone on Etsy who has as much fun creating a variety of things as I do, and that's what I found when I checked out Purpledaizie's Etsy shop. She has all sorts of goodies in there - photography, artwork, and jewelry, along with lots of other things, including these Juicy Deep Red Dangle earrings that just popped off the page at me!

One of my newest beadwoven pieces, Little Vine, made it into this lovely treasury curated by fellow Etsy BeadWeaver Ileana (enchantedbeads):

Ileana is best known for her beaded brooches (well, that's what I think of when I think of her shop!), but she also makes other pieces as well, such as this little Red and Black pendant. How pretty!

Marilyn (aka GrandmaMarilyns) included my Passion for Purple necklace/pendant in her treasury, Life Spiralling Out of Control. This one's filled with spiral ropes, all created by members of the Etsy BeadWeavers team. I only recently learned to make spiral ropes, but I've already decided I love doing them!
Marilyn just added some new goodies to her shop, including another of her beadwoven rings. Aren't these cool!?

Lest you think I've just been hanging out and looking through treasuries (and working on dishwashers, as shown in my previous post), I've also been doing a bit of beadweaving. Surprise surprise. I just listed this Looooooooong (66", to be exact) Luxurious Lariat yesterday, bead crocheted from thousands of pearlescent beads. I really love the texture of these ropes. :-)


Now I'm off to try to finish my piece for the Etsy BeadWeavers July challenge! Nothing like waiting till the last minute...

How to hook up a dishwasher... in forty-seven *ahem* easy steps.

1. Make sure that the old dishwasher really doesn't work. Do this by starting and stopping it numerous times with the same load of dirty dishes inside. Start it, cross your fingers, let it run for awhile, and then stop it when the stupid beeping sound goes off indicating that it's not working properly. Open the door, stare inside, verify that the little soap dispenser thingy hasn't opened yet and that there's a large quantity of water in the bottom of the machine, close the door, and restart it. Repeat. Repeat.
2. Take all the dirty dishes out of the broken dishwasher and wash them in the sink. They won't all fit, so this takes several tries. Because you have a dishwasher, there's no drainboard on which to dry them, so use your best stacking technique to build a tower of clean dishes. Don't wash any of the silverware. That's too tedious, and there's plenty to get you through until the new dishwasher arrives.
3. Look online to see if anyone is having a sale on dishwashers. Sears looks promising, but they have a hefty delivery charge (more about that later).
4. Hop in the vehicle and drive to the nearby family-owned appliance store. They've been reliable in the past and have had prices pretty much in line with the big-name stores.
5. Talk to the salesman about what you really want in a dishwasher. White. Relatively quiet. Something that washes the dishes. Something that doesn't cost $1000 or more. Top of the line isn't necessary, as (with any luck) we'll be moving sometime in the near future and the dishwasher will remain with the house.
6. Pay $373.45 for the lower middle of the line dishwasher. Here's the good part. Opt to install it yourself to save the $119 delivery/hookup fee.
7. Drive to the back of the store and help the warehouse guy lift the dishwasher into the back of the vehicle.
8. Drive home, back into the garage, and remove dishwasher from the back of the vehicle. For some reason, lifting it into the back with the help of the warehouse guy was much simpler than removing it with the help of the husband.
9. Tell husband to stop ripping open the cardboard box that holds the new dishwasher because it will be easier to move into the house while it's inside the protective cardboard covering. He agrees.
10. Wait a day. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves here and do too much in one day.
11. Turn off electricity to dishwasher. This requires that the husband goes to the basement for the dangerous part (flipping off circuit breakers) while the wife stays upstairs to watch the light on the dishwasher door go off. Use cell phones to communicate between basement and first floor. Flip several circuit breakers because you forgot to take glasses to the basement and can't read the labels on the door of the breaker box.
12. Turn off water supply.
13. Disconnect old dishwasher. This in itself is another forty-seven step process and involves hunting down the big flashlight with the rechargeable battery, several screwdrivers (no, I meant Phillips!), wrenches (I don't know where you put those, so you're going to have to go find them yourself), utility knife (please put it back in the drawer when you're finished because that one's mine, and it's not to be confused with the dozens of others you have in the garage), removing everything from under the sink to enable access to the drain pipe, mopping up the floor when the dishwasher is tipped onto the hand truck, and then sitting it behind the vehicle for future hauling back to the appliance store where it will be recycled.
14. Bring the new dishwasher into the house. Once again, this would probably be easier if the moving weren't being done by a husband and wife who always seem to do things in opposite ways.
15. While husband goes to the garage to see if anything needs to be salvaged from the old machine, remove the cardboard box from the new machine by carefully cutting along the dotted lines at the bottom of the box. Take cardboard and styrofoam packing and place with recycling.
16. Stand and watch as husband begins process of figuring out what goes with what and how to hook up the new machine. Do you want me to read the instructions? No. Real men don't need instructions.
17. Listen to all the grunting and expletives that come from the kitchen as husband tries to take off the old electrical box.
18. Go to garage for another pair of pliers.
19. Go to garage again for a flathead screwdriver.
20. Bring insulation from old dishwasher back into house to supplement the thin layer of insulation on the new one (did I mention that the new one only cost $373.45? -- apparently that doesn't buy the thicker insulation).
21. Go back to garage to remove the 90-degree elbow for the water supply so it can be attached to the new machine. Listen to husband complain that the new machine should have come with all the parts needed to hook it up.
22. Go to garage to locate the roll of teflon tape needed for the elbow.
23. Connect elbow to inlet valve in dishwasher.
24. Reroute flexible plastic drain pipe so it won't get caught up when the machine is slid into place under the countertop.
25. Have husband push flexible plastic drain pipe through hole in cabinet while pulling on the other end. Stop! Don't pull so hard! Wait! You're going too fast! It's kinked! Okay.
26. Listen to more expletives and grunting while husband tries to fit arm underneath machine to hook up the water line.
27. Help push dishwasher into place under counter. Stop! You're crinkling the insulation! Wait for me to move my side! Pull the machine back out. Everything's crooked! Okay, try again.
28. Where's the wrench? I need the wrench. It's not level, and the only way to move the legs up and down is with an open-end wrench and a 1/4" socket wrench. Sorry. I still don't know where anything is in the garage.
29. Open and close door to new dishwasher numerous times. It's not as nice as the old one. Are you sure it's right?
30. Call the local family-owned appliance store to ask them whether the door is operating the way the one in the store operates. Yes, it's different than the old machine. It'll work better once the dishwasher is attached to the cabinet.
31. Open and close door a couple of times to test it.
32. Pull dishwasher back out from underneath the counter so some of the extra insulation can be cut away, as it's interfering with the operation of the door.
33. Use a utility knife to cut the insulation, even though it makes a raggedy cut and sprinkles fiberglass bits all over the place. Real men don't use scissors, I'm told.
34. Push the dishwasher back underneath the counter. Test the door seventeen more times. It's working, but it's not as nice as the old one.
35. Connect the flexible plastic drain line to the y-connector on the sink drain.
36. Go to the garage to get the tape measure to make sure the sides are at the same height.
37. Connect the wires that are sticking up out of the hole in the floor to the corresponding wires on the dishwasher. The wires don't seem to be long enough. Maybe they slipped down the hole a bit.
38. Go to basement to see if the wires can be pushed up any more. There's a little more slack now.
39. Connect the wires, now that they're just long enough to reach.
40. Where's the electrical tape?
41. Bring me some of those wire nuts.
42. Tighten the metal band that holds the flexible drain pipe to the y-connector on the sink drain.
43. Go look for shorter screws to use in the brackets that attach the dishwasher to the underside of the countertop.
44. Replace the front panel of the new dishwasher to hide all the electrical connections and plumbing underneath.
45. Replace all the stuff that was removed from the cabinet underneath the sink.
46. Carefully peel off the blue plastic protective coating so you can admire the shiny white front of the new machine.
47. Gather all the tools and supplies used for the installation so they can be put back where they belong. By now we have one moving blanket (for cushioning against the ceramic tile floor), one set of knee pads, two flathead screwdrivers, one Phillips screwdriver, several socket wrenches, several open-end wrenches, teflon tape, pliers, wire cutters, electrical tape, utility knife, flashlight, painters tape (I honestly don't know what that was used for), paper towels, and numerous screws.

There. All done. Elapsed time? Somewhere in the range of six hours, including the trip to the store. But hey. We saved $119 by installing that baby ourselves!