I made oodles of these beads yesterday. They are very simple but I needed simple yesterday - just a very light coloured aqua glass with green silver-rich frit melted in and then reduced to give the shiney irridescence which the photograph doesn't quite capture but you get a bit of an idea how pretty they are. 
Something made me mad yesterday morning, I haven't been as angry as that for a l-o-o-ng time and when I went out into the studio, my hands were shaking and I just felt cross all over. I couldn't make anything until after I'd written a letter absolutely laying into the offending party (not a member of my family and not likely to be anyone who reads this). I won't go into all the boring details as it'll take far too long. Just someone being extremely thoughtless and in the big scheme of things the problem they created will just go away in the course of the next few days. When I get like that, it completely blocks my creative abilities and so I needed something that I could mindlessly get on with. DH gets annoyed that I let something like that interfere with my work but I'm a sensitive little soul! Once I'd written the letter, I calmed down quite a bit as I felt like I'd dealt with it. But I still had a total blockage on all the lovely new ideas I had woken up with that I was going to try. Hence simple beads, repetitive making over 30 of them but it enabled me to get my inner calm back. They are going to make some really smashing jewellery, sometimes it's quite difficult to fit complicated art beads into jewellery designs. However, the jewellery has to wait today, because the weather is nice for the first time this week, I'm going to get all my gardening duties out of the way. The letter has been posted today but I cut it down dramatically into something a lot more professional and matter of fact - rising above it all! The good news is I am back to myself now. I've had a lovely morning trying lots of new things out on beads that are presently annealing in my kiln so hopefully I will have more interesting beads to show off tomorrow!
I have been away for the last week in Northumberland, we stayed in a self-catering cottage called The Haven in Bamburgh. We have stayed there before several times and it's very aptly named. The weather was amazingly good it was dry ALL week and sunny a lot of the time! Lucky, lucky us! We did lots of walking, eating and relaxing. No work, no internet connection, no mobile phones. Missy our dog had a lovely time too - she has been in a sulk since we got back cos she isn't getting as much attention as she did when we were away! She is missing all the lovely long walks in scenery like this:
It was my birthday whilst we were there and I got loads of super presents from my family. One of which was a book on the history of Middle Eastern and Venetian glass beads. I have finished reading it and it has tons of illustrations. I have several ancient-bead-inspired ideas which I jotted down in a notebook and I'm going to get started very very soon!I also read Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer (the third book in her Twilight series) whilst we were there and also finished off two pairs of socks! I was really pleased with the design that emerged from this Fortissimo sock yarn - isn't it jazzy?!
I have been trying to take photographs of my Pandora beads but the weather has thwarted me. On Wednesday and Thursday it was really overcast and I like natural light for my jewellery and bead photography. This afternoon it was bright enough but windy. I take the photographs outside on a sheet of A4 photocopying paper but keeping it held down was a nightmare! Photography is something I do under suffrance, I have to do it in order to market my wares but I would rather be beadmaking or jewellery making!
I took these photographs of new products added to the website today and then gave up - I will try again with the Pandora beads next week.
But fortunately, not the painful kind! Today the gravel arrived for the top dressing of the new driveway and path to my studio. The pile on the right is a bit of limestone that's being saved for a a new pathway at the front of the house, the other two are of the gravel.
Here is a picture of the new pathway (minus gravel at the moment) which goes up to my studio and will be a boon in wet weather. There used to be a hump where the bare earth is; the machine in the background removed it and so it's now level. When I was wearing my boots with no grip, I slid down the incline and ended up with a muddy bum so no more falling over for me!
The guys are coming tomorrow to spread out the gravel, topsoil/level the bare bits and reseed with grass. It's going to look really great when it's all finished then it's up to me to plant out the huge area under the ash tree.I haven't posted any pictures of new beads for ages but I have been working on some - particularly Pandora beads. I have found it very tricky with the greater quantity of glass to stop them from going lopsided. I think I was putting them away in the kiln too early and the glass was slumping from still being warm. It couldn't possibly be my technique ... well actually I think some were! However, when I'm twirling them to make sure they're level and not lopsided, I'm now looking at them end on which I don't have to do with smaller beads on normal sized mandrels. I'm also waiting a bit more before putting them away - bigger beads hold heat for longer. As a result, the beads are far more even and some are even saleable. I'm going to open a shop on Etsy for selling these as well as having them on the stall on Saturdays. I have been silver coring some today and hopefully will photograph and post them tomorrow.
We decided not to do the market today; given our last experience when it rained all day we couldn't face it. Especially when the forecast says this horrible wet drizzly patchy rain is going to last all day in East Anglia. So we are at home. Sincere apologies to any of my regulars who turn up expecting to see me there; it's very rare that I don't show up!
I forgot to mention in my blog entry yesterday that whilst I was not beading much during the driveway works, I have made several of the sterling silver letters of the alphabet in the initials pendants range. I now have a better idea of how long they take to make and so am able to reduce the price from £35 to £28 - great value.This one is a stylised version of the letter P.
