UFOs are the bane of my existence. No, I don't see flying saucers or little green men. UFO, in this case, stands for UnFinished Objects. UnFinished BEADED objects, to be exact.
My mind is always swirling with new ideas. Some of them are committed to paper, some float around in the vast recesses of my brain for hours, days, months, years. And some of them make their way out of my head and onto my beading board.
The problem is that once on my beading board, there's absolutely no guarantee that these beady bits of inspiration will turn into finished pieces. I have every intent of finishing them when I start them. And I'm happy to say that most of the time what I envisioned in my head translates pretty well for me once I pick up the beads and start to work. But I have a frighteningly large number of pieces that have been relegated to bins to live with other UFOs because I just haven't managed to do the finishing touches -- in most cases, closures, the addition of a "special" focal, or something along those lines.
Pathetic, right?
But I think every beader out there probably practices this bad habit, although maybe not to the extent I do.
Within arm's reach of me right now are at least a dozen UFOs. Yep. A dozen. Maybe more. I'm afraid to count them.
There's the piece you see in the first picture... a bead crochet rope using hematite rondelles with bright gold colored delicas. It was kind of an experiment to see how the rondelles would look if crocheted so they all lined up single file. The experiment was a success, and a happy customer is wearing her own custom version of a delica/rondelle bracelet. But alas, this one sits next to me without a clasp of any kind.
The second picture is another bead crochet rope I made using some gorgeous Czech glass beads with a picasso finish. I love the beads, love the colors, love the pattern (which was also an experiment). But it's also missing its closure.
Then there's a long bead crochet lariat that needs something for the ends... and a shorter bead crochet piece which is going to have a Lisa Peters giant bead focal (that goes with the rope wonderfully) but needs a closure. A freeform peyote heart. A short length of bead crochet rope (bracelet size) using some beautiful raku colored beads that coordinate perfectly with a MakuStudio raku button, but I need to figure out how to put everything together for that one. A whole bag of peyote tubes. Wonder what I was thinking when I made those? Hmmm. Another bead crochet rope with a diamond pattern, using bright coppery beads and silver beads. A necklace using one of Lisa Peters' gorgeous cabochons and some vintage watch parts, exploring my steampunk side - that one could be considered finished, as it's wearable in its current condition, but I just need something else to make it "right".
See what I mean? And those are all pieces I can see and reach without even leaving the chair in which I'm sitting. I shudder to think of all the pieces that are stashed away out of sight...
Ah well. I have discovered that I'm in good company.
Perhaps because I didn't want to feel alone in this plight, I posted a message on my Facebook page while back asking for others to 'fess up about their UFOs. Only two of my beady friends were brave enough to step forward.
Melody Murray (salamanderhouse on Etsy) sent me the picture above, with these comments:
This was going to be a cuff bracelet, with an art deco flavor. It wouldn't cooperate, it wouldn't be what I saw in my head, it tormented me and then it turned into this:
and continued to taunt me until I rolled both of 'em up together and shoved them in the back of a drawer. They still mutter imprecations in my direction every now and then. I don't think either one of them is finished with me...And my beading buddy and Cosmic Sister, Carol Dean Sharpe (SandFibers) sent me this picture of one of her UFOs, along with this comment:
Okay...this has been waiting for me to do something with it for years. I couldn't decide on what kind of rope to finish it up with and then I got sidetracked. Once I get sidetracked, I sadly seldom return to a project :( It's an LPA [Lisa Peters Art] cab, of course.
I know there's no logic to this reasoning whatsoever, but I feel a little better about my own UFOs knowing that others share in my plight.
Any UFOs hanging around your house? Come on. 'Fess up.
It's not Friday, and this is not my normal installment of Fabulous Friday Finds. But I found something priceless last weekend -- FAMILY.
First, a little history. My parents split up when I was an infant, and I didn't meet my father until I was 17 years old. At that time I also met my half sister (Bev) and half brother (Doug), who were five and four years younger than I. I won't go into the details here, but that was the last contact I had with any of them until last December when my half sister tracked me down and sent me a friend request on Facebook. It was strange for me to think that someone who only met me when I was 17 still remembered me and wanted to reconnect.
Over the course of the next six months, Bev and I emailed back and forth quite a few times, talking about our respective childhoods, our current lives, and about our Dad. While I wanted to meet Bev in person, I still wasn't sure I was ready to see my Dad again. There was just a lot of baggage, bad things I'd been told by my Mom and my grandmother, and it was a big step for me. Since he had never made any effort to contact me in the 37 years since our first meeting, I wasn't sure he even wanted to see me, but Bev kept telling me that I was always on his mind and that he was a different person than he had been when I was a baby and when I met him.
And so came last weekend. It was time for the family reunion of my Dad's family -- aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, etc., that I had never seen. Bev kept trying to talk me into attending, but I didn't make the decision until Friday. My husband, the understanding sort, didn't bat an eye when I told him I'd like to make the six-hour drive to Cincinnati to meet this family I'd never known.
Anxious, emotional, nervous, excited, curious... I can't begin to describe everything going through my mind during the drive. I still hadn't told anyone we were making the trip, so we checked into a hotel near the park where the reunion would be held, and then I called Bev and asked if she had a sister she wanted to meet.
The meeting took place in the parking lot of a nearby Skyline Chili (when you go to Cincinnati, for any reason, you have to have Skyline!). This sister I'd never known made me feel like family the instant we saw each other. I've spent most of my life with a very small "family unit" -- just my Mom and grandparents, all of whom are gone now (way too early), and my husband. Now I have a little sister (she likes it when I refer to her as the younger one).
I had decided that I wanted to meet my Dad before the reunion. It just didn't seem right to have our first meeting in 37 years be in front of a crowd of family, so after our Skyline dinner we followed Bev to his house.
She had already told me enough history that I knew he hadn't ever forgotten about me, as I'd presumed for years, but had always wanted to see me. My high school picture, the latest one he had, was always on display somewhere in their house (sporting a wonderful 70s hairstyle, I might add). And he'd been asking Bev about me ever since he found out she and I had started to converse via email.
More nervousness, curiosity, anxiousness... and then we followed Bev into the kitchen as she announced, "Hey, Pops, I got a present for you!" And there was my Dad, standing at the sink, helping my stepmom prepare food for the reunion. Not the man I remember, but still my Dad. And so happy to see me that he immediately started to cry. Any thoughts I might have had of a "reserved" greeting promptly went out the window, and I gave my Dad a big hug.
I spent a lot of time with my Dad, sister, brother, and stepmom (as well as some aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and a nephew) over the next few days. What I initially thought would be a two-day trip turned into a four-day trip, but that's okay. It was a great weekend.
I'm not sure I could have approached this meeting in the same frame of mind if it had happened twenty, or even ten, years ago. I thought about my Dad during that time, but most of what I thought I knew about him wasn't good. Looking back, taking everything I know now in context, I think the reality might have been different than what I thought. I also know from Bev that he's different now than he was when he was younger. Aren't we all? Life goes on, and everything we experience changes us. So he's not the same person now as he was when he was 21 (his age when I was born), and neither am I.
I'm not the same person I was a week ago. The big difference for me? Well, Bev keeps telling me that I can no longer claim to be an only child...
:-)
aka... MaryLou's Misadventures in Bead Crochet. And it's not so much me that came unstrung as my latest bead crochet project.
It began with a request from a very special customer who wanted to have a bead crochet lariat with a row of pearls in it. The request was for the row of pearls to be in a straight line - if you know anything about bead crochet, you know that it naturally spirals as you crochet, so putting something in a straight line requires a special kind of pattern.
The rope was also to use two shades of 22k gold delicas, beautiful matte finish beads that are very similar in color but have just enough difference to be interesting.
So off we go. I didn't have any bead crochet software, so I used my old standby for making quick graphics - Microsoft Powerpoint. (I've used it for years to do all sorts of things for which it was never intended.) I began laying out the design, and as I played around with some different concepts I thought a pattern of diamonds made from the gold delicas would look nice. I eventually wound up with this:
Looks like a viable pattern, doesn't it? The two shades of gold (which don't have that much contrast), with the dark blue showing where the pearls will go.
The next step in the process, because I know that the spiraling effect of bead crochet can result in some surprises, was to print that out on paper and wrap the pieces around a pencil, lining up the edges of the beads to make sure the pattern didn't go wonky. I was very careful to match up the beads when I made my paper model, and I was so excited to see that everything lined up perfectly!
Having completed those steps and received a big thumbs up from the customer, I proceeded to write out the stringing order for the rope. Bead crochet, you see, requires that you string all the beads for your project before you begin crocheting. And when you string the beads, you don't string them from left to right / top to bottom like you would typically work in other techniques. You string from left to right and from bottom to top. The last bead you string is the first one you crochet, and with a repeating pattern you have to make sure you start at one point in the pattern and end at the same point so you have a continuous design (well, in this case I have to do that because the ends of the rope will be joined in an invisible join).
So I wrote out the stringing pattern (B for bright gold, A for dull gold, X for pearls): B 2A 2B 2A B X 2A 3B 2A 2B 2A 2B 2A B A B 2A B 2A B 2A B 4A B A X A B 3A B 4A B 2A B 2A B 2A B A B 2A 2B 2A B B 2A B X B 2A 2B 2A 2B 2A B A B 2A B 2A B 2A B 4A B 3A B A X A B 4A B 2A B 2A B 2A B A
Fun, right? All of that stuff before the first bead is strung.
But now I have the pattern written out, so I pour out the little piles of delicas onto my beading mat and separate the pearls (the customer purchased them and had them sent to me, but I can't use all of the ones in the strands because some are too large for this project). Thread the needle with my Coats and Clark heavy duty nylon upholstery thread, and I'm off!
See anything wrong with the process so far?
I didn't.
It wasn't until I had completed the 12th repeat of the pattern, having strung 1536 beads, that I happened to notice that the spacing between the pearls in one section of the pattern was UNEVEN. That can't be. There should be the same number of beads between the pearls every time, or they won't wind up in a straight row.
Aaaaaaaaaaaargh.
That was Sunday night. I looked back at the pattern, looked at the beads, looked at the pattern, counted, recounted, and decided I needed a night's sleep and a fresh mind to figure it out. Monday morning dawned with pouring rain, the perfect weather for sitting down and focusing on a problem. I came to realize that I was off by a row -- instead of 33 beads between each of the pearls, I had one instance of 25 beads between the pearls in each repeat of the design. It's an 8-around pattern, so I had to figure out how to alter it to add those 8 beads back into the design so the pearls would line up like little soldiers.
Back to my Microsoft Powerpoint, back to fiddling around with the design, and I finally have it! The pattern is still symmetrical, but it's slightly different now; and this time I know it's going to work.
The unstrung part? Yes, you can take that literally. I had to UNSTRING those 1536 beads I had strung before and sort the two shades of delicas back into their little piles. I'm lucky to have good eyesight, a good task light, and just a touch of OCD. Really. Just a touch.
Now it's time to get back to stringing. One last picture, though. This is a little bracelet I made for that same wonderful customer... this one using rondelles in the pattern (no design in the delicas though). This one presented its own set of challenges, as the holes in these tiny little rondelles (which are only 3mm in diameter) were so small that I had to thread each one like a needle. I couldn't fit any of my beading needles through the holes, and the thread I normally use wouldn't even fit, so I strung these onto 10# Fireline. I have to say that crocheting with the Fireline wasn't too bad, although I still prefer the nylon upholstery thread.
Time for more stringing now. I've done 10 repeats of the pattern so far, with about 140 repeats to go... or as many repeats as I can do before I run out of pearls. :-)
It's late in the day again, but here are this week's Fabulous Friday Finds! It's been a busy week here... working on some custom orders, playing in the kiddie pool we bought to cool off (since our house has no AC), taking elevations at our property (I know everyone is probably envious about my getting to walk around for three hours in 85-degree weather carrying a 24' long pole), watching fireworks on the 4th, and attending an auction (who knew you could buy honeybuns at an auction?!).
Anyway, I have some new finds. Hope you like 'em!
My first Fabulous Friday Find was sent to me by my friend Carol Dean Sharpe (aka SandFibers) when I posted a picture on my Facebook page of the paper mock-up I made of a bead crochet pattern I designed. As much time as I spend on the computer, you'd think it would have occurred to me to look for bead crochet software, but noooooooo. I've been doing it my own weird way, using Microsoft Powerpoint! (Hey, don't knock it -- it works.)
I have the software downloaded, but I haven't used it yet. From this picture, it appears that you can create patterns for loom / square stitch, peyote, and bead crochet! And according to the Brunold Software website, the bead crochet design technique is described in books by one of my bead crochet heroines, Judith Bertoglio-Giffen.
Best of all, the software is FREE. We all love free, right? :-)
Fabulous Friday Find #2 for this week is a monster. Specifically, a monster named Carl Boobermeister.
Carl is one of those art dolls who's so ugly he's cute. Well, kind of. I know his mother probably loved him.
He's the creation of an artist named Alyshells, and he's just so weird and funny that I like him. A lot. And I like a bunch of Alyshells' other creations, all of whom have interesting names and stories. The cool thing about these creations is that many of them come with portrait cards. So you can leave your doll at home and carry his/her picture around with you to show off to your friends.
I also love Flubbin Tubbin. What a hoot.
Visit Alyshells' blog for more monster goodness. Or check her out on YouTube. Monsters! Boo!
If you've read any of my other Fabulous Friday Finds posts, I'm sure you realize by now that I am enthralled with polymer clay. So it should come as no surprise that I have a fabulous polymer clay artist whose work I want to share.
My French is very rusty, so I can't really tell you very much about the artist, whose name (I believe) is Sylvie. Her website is called Maniguette, and I know her by her Flickr photostream, Fimo Maniguette.
Her work runs the gamut from jewelry to objects, and all are wonderfully detailed, with amazing colors and shapes. The bracelet I chose to feature here looks like something from outer space! And if nothing else, you must look at this pendant! Amazing. Remember that it's made from polymer clay.
Well, this is odd... I had more Fabulous Friday Finds to post this week, but Etsy is not cooperating. Phooey.
I do have one more to share, though. Once again, if you've read any of my previous Fabulous Friday Finds posts, you know I like art dolls. And the art dolls created by Alexander Mergold just blow me away.
I'm not sure where or when I first saw them, but I visit his Facebook page pretty regularly just so I can see what he's posted.
There's such a variety that it's hard to imagine they all come from the same person. Realistic looking people of every age, silly creatures, puppets, animals... you name it.
Of course, I had to choose the Mad Hatter to post here.
Cuz I love him. Even before Johnny Depp's portrayal, he was my favorite character from Alice.
Just look at that face!!!! He's ready to engage in rhetoric. I just know it.
Well, sorry there aren't more finds. But I'm at the mercy of Etsy tonight. Maybe it's a good thing. It's past my bedtime.
G'night!
:-)
Da da da DA! Two weeks in a row. I'm back. We'll see if I can keep up this time with the Fab Friday Finds. I almost didn't make it, but since it's only 11:00pm here, I think I'm still good. :-)
The first Fabulous Friday Find for this week is a ring I saw on Flickr, by an artist named Ponsawan who is participating in the Ring-a-Day exercise.
Ponsawan's work is incredibly varied, so I had a really hard time choosing what picture to post here. I eventually wound up just posting one of her most recent works because I could not choose!!!
I love finding people like this who are so talented that the ideas flow out of them like water.
As I usually do with these finds, I visited Ponsawan's Etsy shop (silastones) and some of her other links so I could see more of her goodies. You can find links to her other sites on her blog.
Her creativity is remarkable to me, especially after having read of her daughter's auto accident in 2008 and knowing what she must be going through to help her recover from a brain injury. I applaud Ponsawan, as it's obvious through reading her blog and the one she's devoted to her daughter (Ada) that she's doing everything she can to care for her. And all the while, she's creating art.
I've been busy beading some custom orders and working on house plans, so I haven't been spending as much time as usual looking at lampwork beads on Etsy, but I saw these when they were in a treasury with one of my cuffs.
They're from an Etsy shop called mylampworkgarden, a shop filled with beads of all sizes, colors, and patterns. I think I'm gonna have to do some shopping... :-)
These are called "Ammonite" beads by their creator, a lampwork artist from Ontario, Canada, and they really do look like a fossil. There's something about the square shape of the beads with the organic quality of the design that's just downright cool.
I never really spent much time playing with dolls when I was younger (tomboys don't play with dolls, unless they're G.I. Joe dolls), but now I keep finding dolls I like! Maybe after we get our house built I'll have a shelf full of dolls - does this mean I'm starting my second childhood?!
When I came across this doll on Etsy, I knew she was going to be a Fabulous Friday Find. She is AMAZING!!! From the expression on her face, to her perfectly poofy hair, to that posture -- I love her.
Her name is Eli, and she was created by a very talented artist from Lithuania, named Dorote.
Dorote's Etsy shop name is tirelessartist, and although she only has a few listings in there you can see more of her work in her blog and her Flickr photostream. There are even some tutorials on her blog, for any doll makers who might be reading this post.
I'm going to go ogle some more.
And if anyone feels like giving me a doll for a gift, this is a nice place to start. :-)
Okay, my last Fabulous Friday Find is a little different than anything I've posted before. You'll need to turn the sound on to fully appreciate this.
One of my friends on Facebook posted a link to a video of the Cactus Cuties from a 2008 performance. At the time of this video, these little girls were only 6-8 years old!
Click here to look and listen to five amazing little voices, singing in beautiful harmony -- and particularly fitting to the upcoming weekend, this is the Star Spangled Banner.
I missed a few Fridays, but now I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things, so I've gathered up a big new batch of Fabulous Friday Finds for you this week. Even though I wasn't keeping up with blog posts, I was still keeping track of goodies I came across as I prowled the internet.
First up is something I came across on Facebook. I don't remember how I came across it, but this is one of the coolest things I've seen.
The beautiful pendant you see here is the creation of an artist named Matt Cole. Pretty, isn't it?
Guess what it's made from.
Go ahead. Guess.
Natural stone? Polymer clay?
Nope! It's made from a bowling ball!!! Can you believe it??? I used to bowl (not very well), and I never would have imagined my ball could have been turned into something like this. Wow.
Be sure to click on his name up there and look at the rest of his art. You'll be amazed.
I don't know about you, but I really like ravens. I have no idea why, other than that I was enthralled by Edgar Allen Poe's poem when I was in junior high school and have had a fascination for those big black birds ever since. In fact, back when I was making stationery, my Quoth the Raven captioned critters cards were some of my first paper creations (and some of my best sellers).
They're popular subject matter for a lot of artists, and you've probably seen lots of them even if you weren't looking for them.
I came across Lauren Gray's raven when I went to browse through her shop when I saw one of her unusual trees. Lauren's Etsy shop is called TheHauntedHollowTree, and in it is a variety of works including this raven, her very stylized trees, and a lot of other pieces which live up to the shop's name. The interesting part for me is that she uses pyrography to create some of her amazing art.
If you've read any of my previous Fabulous Friday Finds, you know I also like little tiny houses... and Lauren has another Etsy shop, saysthetree, that has tiny miniature wooden houses!
Woot!
My third Fabulous Friday Find is a spoon rest. For those of you who like cooking, it's a spoon rest. For me, it's a cool little ceramic saucer. I'd really prefer never having to cook, but that's a whole other story. I can still like the saucer.
Anyway, this spoon rest is just NEAT! It's in an Etsy shop called LennyMud. When I first came across the shop, I figured it was curated by an artist named Lenny... but it turns out that Lenny is the name of the artist's studio cat.
I like this. And lots of other stuff from LennyMud. I think I'm going to have to do some shopping here after we get our house built... And not necessarily just for my kitchen (despite my aversion to cooking, I realize that most people expect there to be a kitchen in a house - hmph).
This next piece is something for steampunk lovers. Lovers of the weird and the wonderful. Cuz it's weird, and it's wonderful.
This Unzipped Heart is the creation of Marie Segal, and you can find it in her Etsy shop.
Marie's polymer clay creations are diverse and amazing. I didn't even know she had these steampunk pieces until I went back to visit her shop earlier today to do this post. I was originally attracted to a completely different creation, one which has found a new home, her Laughing Woodland Creature pendant. I just love that face!
My next Fabulous Friday Find is another polymer clay creation, this one by Janice Abarbanel. Janice is a fellow member of Bead Art Originals, and I've long admired her work, frequently visiting her Etsy shop (Naftali).
Janice created a turquoise and brown urchin for one of the recent BAO color mosaics, and I really liked the texture of it. As much as I like turquoise and brown together, I forgot all about that one when I spotted this charcoal gray and silver urchin sitting in Janice's shop.
And then it was mine.
It arrived in today's mail, and it's GORGEOUS. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do with it, but I love it. The colors. The texture. Gorgeous.
And mine. :-)
Never fear. She has more. In other colors, too.
Lest you think I spend all my time prowling around the halls of Etsy and Facebook, I also spend time prowling around Flickr. I honestly have no idea what I was searching for when I came across the work of photographer Kelsey B.
Kelsey is a photographer, and although the picture you see here is really cool, the ones I want you to check out are the ones in the set called My Face is a Canvas. Once you're there, you'll understand why. (I chose to link to the For the Love of Cherries photo in order to respect Kelsey's copyright - she has disabled downloading of her face pictures.)
Okay, I know I said I hang out in other places besides Etsy and Facebook, but I really do find fabulous things there! Jt look at this piece!!
My last Fabulous Friday Find for this week is a site one of my beady friends shared on Facebook. This amazing necklace/pendant was created by Joan Babcock in a technique called micro-macrame.
Remember macrame? Did you EVER think it could look this incredible?!?!
Seeing Joans creations makes me want to sign up for one of her classes (my friend Linda took one at Bead and Button, and I am envious). I'm planning to attend B&B next year, so I might just have to see if her classes are offered again...
Well, that's it for the Fabulous Friday Finds for this week. Thanks to those of you who commented that you missed my finds. Thanks to everyone who reads these and follows the links -- I'm sure the artists I show off here (most of whom I've never met) appreciate it. Enjoy!
My mind is always swirling with new ideas. Some of them are committed to paper, some float around in the vast recesses of my brain for hours, days, months, years. And some of them make their way out of my head and onto my beading board.
But I think every beader out there probably practices this bad habit, although maybe not to the extent I do.
Melody Murray (salamanderhouse on Etsy) sent me the picture above, with these comments:
and continued to taunt me until I rolled both of 'em up together and shoved them in the back of a drawer. They still mutter imprecations in my direction every now and then. I don't think either one of them is finished with me...
