December 31, 2010

Goodbye 2010

May your new year
be filled with
joy and happiness.
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Happy New Year






Meanwhile, here at the Tombstone Winter Studio it really is winter. Thirty degrees, spitting show and sleet. I actually dug out a coat, hat, gloves and heavy woolly socks. I can't see the Huachuca Mountains under the clouds, but I'm sure they are snow capped by now.

December 24, 2010

Happy Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas
&
Best wishes for the Season

I had some black steel wire left over from my recent necklace projects. This quick idea came to me with my first cup of coffee. Little bits of wire, round nose pliers, bending, wrapping, spiraling around a toothpick and adding some orphaned crystals gave me a 15 min. completed project. Hang it on your Christmas tree, in a sunny window, or add it to a last moment gift package. Feel free to take this idea and run with it. Bend your own wire, use up some of those orphaned beads and have something just a little bit special to give to someone who might need a holiday lift.

As for me, I'm singing, "The weather is delightful, nothing frightful . . ."
Frost on the ground early on, bright sunshine, classical music on the radio, and no snow anywhere.

Have a happy, joyous Christmas.

December 19, 2010

Quiet AZ Sunday

The sun is out in full force and it's a cool 60 degrees here in Tombstone AZ today. It's sort of a puttering, lazy Sunday before the last of the Holiday rush. Had a nice brunch of home made waffles and NH maple syrup (local made by a friend).

I finished all of the components for this necklace while driving West last month. I'm finally getting around to putting it all together. It's been out & put away several times and I think it's really time to get it all done. Hopefully my table will stay clear of other projects long enough to finish up.


I confess . . . I collect old cookbooks and read them for fun. It seems that when you collect, you collect all sorts of odd things. Besides beads, I do cookbooks, returnable pie plates, balls, kitchen tinware, frosted glass shards, rusty metal and other interesting trivial bits & pieces. This book's title bothered me until I figured out that I'm used to seeing cooky spelled cookie. Somehow this seems appropriate reading for this time of the year. In fact, it has been back porch reading, in the warm sun today. Warm sun, rocking chair, good book and a glass of something cold - my idea of relaxing.

Last night the sunset was fantastic. Watching the sunsets from my studio window is one of my favorite pastimes here in the winter desert. Each one is better than the last. No clouds in the sky, so tonight may well be no color with just a flash of light as the sun goes down.
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It's a nice feeling to let Sunday develop as it will with no plans, lists, or ideas of gotta do. The best part is that I still have the rest of the day left to unfold as it will.

December 17, 2010

Take it to your beading table?


Bead Crocheters . . .
What would you think of having your bead crochet patterns on an Android Tablet? Being able to design on the same tablet and taking it to your beading table to string from either the graph or a stringing table? Yes, I know it isn't an "i-anything", but the 8" Android tablets are way less expensive and more in the price range of beaders like myself.

Do any of you have (or plan to have) an Android Tablet? If this project keeps going like it is right now, The programmer will be looking for someone other than myself, to do some testing. What I've seen so far impresses me as it's so quick & responsive and I can rotate the graph to see how things line up. I can't wait to see how the stringing table, with the working line highlighted, looks. I'm excited and never realized something like this might be on my wish list. For heavens sake, I don't even use a cell phone.

If you want me to get back in touch with you, you'll need to give me your email or other way to contact you.

Oh, and another thought:
. . . other nice thing is that you can put other beading patterns on this if they are PDF's. This tablet (sigh, the programmer's, not mine) has the full content of "Bead Crochet Ropes" & "Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes" on it in PDF format and I can scroll through the pages with a flick of a finger. Could I even think about getting rid of my piles and piles of paper patterns?

December 11, 2010

Wire Play ~ Done

This is the first necklace that I finished. It was a learning piece and I think the clasp should have been a lighter weight wire than what I made. All, in all I'm happy with it and it has that nice combination of wrought-iron looking wire with pearls and faceted gemstone beads.


Once I was comfortable with what the wire did, I bent, twisted and hammered away on the components of this necklace. I'm most happy with the way this one finished up. I had fun rummaging through my collection of beads to combine with the nice blackened wire.

I gave you a rundown on most of the wire experiments in Wire Play. I did clean all of the wire with rubbing alcohol and then rubbed it down with paste wax. The wax cleaned more of the coating off. Once it was buffed out the surface color was very stable and no longer left black streaks on my hands. It also left the wire feeling nicer than in it's untreated state. I think these spools of wire will go on my studio shelf and get used from time to time. However, that galvanized steel wire has already been relegated to the garage - not nice stuff to work with.
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Wire work isn't my first, nor even fifth choice for beadwork. However, one of these will be a gift, and I did have fun playing with it as a complete change of pace.


December 7, 2010

Wire Play

I've had a request from a family member to recreate a Vogue necklace in less expensive materials. Not the actual design, but something that resembles it. The original was done in gold and faceted gemstones and cost the earth. I'm going to use it as an inspiration to make an industrial-looking necklace for a gift.
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I started with galvanized steel wire from Home Depot. Well, that's where I was when I wanted materials, and wanted them right now. Research said that I could use vinegar and salt to either remove the galvanized coating and/or darken the wire. Yes, it worked to a certain extent, but the results were all a dull, ugly gray with a not-so-nice feel to it. Plus, the 18 GA. was almost too stiff to bend right. I might try the 24 GA for some wire bead crochet with 8/0 or 6/0 beads.
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That meant another trip, this time to an ACE hardware store. The guys in there have learned to not ask what I want it for and just tell me where to find what they think I'm talking about. This time I got Dark Annealed Steel Wire in 24, 19, & 16 GA. It was in the fence and stove pipe section.
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The thinner wire was in nice small packets at very reasonable costs. The large wire only came in a 5 lb. spool - cheap at $4, but what the heck am I ever going to do with 5 lbs. of this stuff?

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One thing I've learned is to not use my jewelry tools for this stuff. I went out to the garage and grabbed the utilitarian, heavy duty pliers and cutter.
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The wire also comes with a black, greasy coating. Again, research said to clean it with rubbing alcohol. Right now I'm trying to figure out how clean is clean. Will a quick rub of paste wax keep the finish at a color I want? That's next on my list to try out.
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So, I've made a few jump rings.
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...and tried out a couple of components. I like the way the gray rock pearls look. I'm thinking of using them as singles in the necklace and as dangles with multiples.
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I'm not sure I want any bling in this necklace, but a grouping of faceted and matted gemstones along with the gray pearls.



Today I've got to get some more yard cleanup done while this beautiful 70 degree weather is here in Arizona. Then maybe I'll have some time to get back to playing with the wire. It's always fun to try something different, even if it turns out to be a one-time project. I've always found that stretching creativity in another medium gives me fresh ideas all the way around.

November 28, 2010

balls, balls, balls

Over the years I seem to have collected enough balls to now call it a collection. Everything from clay, glass, plastic and gemstone.
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Finding display artifacts has been a challenge and I think I like the old manufacturing parts holder and candlesticks the best. In NH I also have a steam-bent wooden container full of smaller balls.
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This is one that I'd love to have, but alas .....

no room for something that big, nor the $8,000 to make it mine.

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So here's a quandary. Last year I bought the small set of pool balls at a flea market and yesterday I found the larger vintage set. I only want 4 balls out of each set, leaving 24 orphaned balls. The large vintage set from Belgium is probably worth about $75 according to eBay.
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Should I split the big ball set up or try and resell them as a whole set? Gary Wilson, gem/rock wizard, from Tucson Gem show says the older pool balls are solid color and he cuts them up for cabs and other jewelry items. Should I chance it and cut into one of the vintage balls and see if they are solid color or not? I really don't have the space to store the extra balls as it would mean taking space that beads would occupy.
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Maybe one of you might like to buy my extras (1 or more) and relieve me of having to agonize over splitting something that maybe shouldn't be split? Comments on what to do would be welcomed - please.....

November 22, 2010

Settling in for the Winter

It took the quail less time to settle back in than I have. We got back to Arizona Sat. evening, put some bird seed out on Sunday and this morning nine quail were here for breakfast. It was 30 degrees overnight and the quail had their feathers all fluffed up, looking like big puff balls. They are so much fun to watch every winter.


Now that it's Monday, I can run over to Sierra Vista this afternoon to re-stock my own pantry and look at the new addition to the town - great big, brand new, huge super Wal-Mart. Oh what fun!

While I was gone the burned out house to the East of mine was bulldozed down. Now I can see Tombstone's Courthouse from the beadroom. It also lets in a lot more morning sun. Nice bright Arizona sun in a clear blue sky, that's one of the big reasons for being here in the winter. I probably have a touch of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and the light filled days always make me feel better with tons more energy.


Then, to get filled in on all the local gossip, I'll go have coffee with my neighbor on the West. She was my high school room mate from Illinois. We often comment on fate; who would ever have thought we'd be wintering next door to each other in Arizona 47 years later?
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I'll leave you with a photo of my welcome home visitor......
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Last night, I looked up and this guy was sitting on top of the window molding. He got caught in a jar while I did my best to find out if it was a dangerous spider. Turns out that we think it's a 3" Huntsman Spider, not dangerous, but beneficial. So, I evicted him outside, across the road.

November 21, 2010

Back in Tombstone


The sun is bright, it's high 60's, there are mountains on the horizon and I'm back in Tombstone AZ for the winter. The house was opened back up for me, but the yard needs lost of work right away. The grass and tumbleweeds are thigh high, evidence of a good monsoon season this summer.




We didn't find any outstanding things to stop and look at on the trip across country. However, just the country is always worth looking at. I had heard of the Dismal Swamp and the name always fascinated me. It's nothing like the New Orleans swamps as it's almost more tidy than what I think a swamp should be.





Here are the remains of an old gas station in Texas. I loved the sign on the door which advised one that the Sheriff's posse would most certainly chase you with guns drawn if you defaced the building.


The old Texas county seat, courthouses were beautiful in fanciful brick and high towers. By the time I decided I needed to photo at least one of them, what we saw were modern buildings. It's not the first time this has happened and I seem to have a list of missed photographs.

Once you got west of the Mississippi River you really begin to notice the sky and watch the weather approach. We were lucky that we only hit spitting rain and heavy overcast on just two days of the 9 day trip.


We had to drive through the White Sands National Monument once again. We wanted to test a lingering New England mindset that driving on something that white would be slippery. They plow it like snow, it looks like snow, but it is white gypsum sand. Funny how the subconscious tells you one thing when reality is something else.

I love the patterns that the wind makes on the dunes. It's too bad that there were so many people prints in the dunes that it was difficult to find unspoiled wind patterns like this.
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I was tired of sitting in the car at around day 7. I had finished all of my pre-strung bead crochet, my body wanted to do something besides sit and I got more than a bit cranky. I was tired of strange motel beds and even stranger motel decor like bright pink bed sheets and swagged drapes with huge tassels. Granted, we got off of the interstate and looked for clean, cheap motel rooms. Too bad that they tried to modernize 1950's motels and just missed the mark most of the time.
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It's good to be back in the South West where there are mountains on every horizon, it's warmer than New Hampshire and there is abundant sunshine. It'll take a couple of days to re-stock the pantry, clean up the house and get back into work/beading/designing mode. But first will be Thanksgiving with my sisters, nephews, nieces, grand-nephews and general crazy family.

November 10, 2010

Over and Out . . .


The bead cabinet is empty, so is the fridge and we're 95% packed. We'll pic-nic here in the house tonight, winterize it tomorrow and leave by noon.



See you all on the other side of the country in the wild west of Arizona sometime around Thanksgiving.
Shutting down the computer after this blog post.
Open road, here we come.

November 6, 2010

Heading West

It's time to pack up the car and head to Tombstone AZ for the winter. It's getting so we've less and less light and lots colder temps here in NH. Gray, overcast, wintry-like days just give me the shivers. Tomorrow I'll start cleaning the studio and packing the beads into their travel bags.


This week I'll be putting the house into cold storage mode and hope to be on the road by next weekend. It takes longer to shut the NH house down for the winter than it does shutting the AZ house up for the summer. So many little details of things that might freeze.


We're going to try again to do the Chesapeake bay bridge and hope that nasty weather doesn't shut us out of that route like it did last year. Then we'll do a swing through the Carolina's. Georgia, Alabama and visit friends in Memphis. From there we'll head mostly west to Arizona. I've never visited some of the Eastern seaboard, so it'll be a good change of route.

This was my NH yard in 1997 and I'm getting too old to navigate in these conditions any more.
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This blog will probably lie dormant for the next month, but I'll post travel updates to FaceBook as I progress across country.

November 3, 2010

Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes

It's done


is now complete and available from Bead Patterns as an e-book for $19.95.


It has take me 5 years of procrastination, trial and error crocheting, and collaboration on a software design program to bring this book to actuality. It contains a new way of graphing rope patterns; one that allows you to see your patterns as they really are. This is a stepping stone to being able to design patterns that run parallel to a rope, especially dimensional ropes. Flat Caterpillars, Triangular ropes, Square ropes and other parallel patterns will be easier to see on the Zipper Graph.
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Comments and photos of what you crochet using this book will be welcomed. As it was designed as an e-book, I did not include a gallery. I would like to put a Gallery on Bead Line Studios web site. So, please let me see what you come up with using this information.
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Enjoy
...and now I can pack for Arizona and a couple of weeks vacation on-the-road.

October 29, 2010

I Had Plans . . .

later . . OOPS, new motherboard, etc. Date and clock was wrong! Yea, it's still Friday. Duhhhhh

It's Saturday already and I had plans for a special blog post 2 days ago to celebrate 5 years of this blog. Murphy's Law of Computer failures took care of that plan. I've been without my desktop for several days.



Other than the inconvenience of it all, Lenovo has stood behind their warranty. As of yesterday they have now replaced every danged component in my black desktop except the hard drive. And, I'm going to replace the hard drive myself this winter as I'm running out of storage space. I still think it would have been cheaper for the company to have just given me another computer than have an on-site tech replace components one by one. One more thing goes wrong though, and they're getting it back, in itty, bitty pieces in a great big box!
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Book 3 is in it's final editing round. It's looking good for the eBook to be released before Nov. 15th. I forget just how much work all of this takes and then sitting and waiting for others to do their piece - making me look good, real good.

Keep an eye on this blog for the announcement.

October 22, 2010

Yellow wood road

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

This view from my bedroom window reminds me of the Robert Frost poem. This is very much a yellow Fall here in NH. I ran rural errands earlier. Trash got taken to the dump and things left in the "still-good" building there. Needed stuff was bought from the hardware store, where things crowded the aisles and the uneven floor in the old building creaked under foot. Then I took the time to kick some dry leaves down this same path in the woods. Chilly with the sun in and out from behind the clouds. It's a good afternoon to bake and use up the last of the peaches in the freezer for a peach/pear kuchen.

October 17, 2010

Advance Copy - Galley Proof Sale






ADVANCE COPY, Galley Proof Sale


Midnight on Sunday, Oct. 17 through midnight on Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010

(date corrected on 10/18/10)

(November 4, 2010)

Sale is extended until the last 15 copies are sold or I shut down to leave for Arizona.

This will be an emailed PDF copy, only through this BLOG

PayPal will be the only form of payment accepted
now that the e-book has been published the Galley Proof
is now $21

allow 48 hrs. delivery

it's 30 pages







The cover and layout will not be the same as the finished copy. However, all edited content is included. It will contain a special front piece & extra page of design hints with bracelet pattern. Only 50 copies will be sold during this advance sale. It's digitally signed by the author.



More information on the content can be found here.



This book contains a wealth of patterns that run parallel to the length of a rope. It covers the theory of how triangular ropes are designed with well-illustrated examples of each concept.

If you have mastered the basic art of bead crochet, you will want to explore these more advanced slip-stitched concepts.


October 15, 2010

Galley Proofs

In the printing industry, galley proofs are so named because in the days of hand-set type, the printer would set the page into galleys, the metal trays into which type was laid and tightened into place. These would be used to print a limited number of copies for editing mark-up. Galley proofs are also issued as advance reading copies. They contain complete, edited content, but final cover art and/or layout may not be the same as the published copy.
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I decided to issue 51 galley proofs of Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes.
The first copy, and only printed copy, is being donated to the Bead Society of New Hampshire at this Sunday's meeting. It will be auctioned and half of the proceeds will go towards their Bead Retreat Scholarship fund. The remaining 50 copies will be sold through this blog in PDF format with PayPal being the only payment accepted..
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This sale will run from Midnight, October 17th through midnight October 31, 2010, or until all copies are sold.
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The proceeds from the sale will allow me to go ahead with an Amazon print-on-demand copy of the book in January of 2011 . . . and have printed copies to sign at the Tucson Gem Show in February.
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So check back here next week if unique copies of beading books are something that you would like to add to your library.

October 11, 2010

Milestone - Book 3

Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes
A pattern book of 3-Dimensional ropes



The Summer's work is almost done. I printed myself a proof copy last night, only to run out of blue printer ink. It looks funny in shades of rosy pinks. But, it's ready to pass off to my layout/stylist graphic artist to tweak it into final shape. I need to re-shoot 2 photos that I'm not happy with, but it will go into the mail tomorrow. And then I wait for the final results.

November 15th is still a good date for the release of the e-book copy. When I get to Arizona, I'll work with Amazon's "print-on-demand" vendor to have a printed copy sometime in January 2011.


The book will have 28 pages of theory, designs, patterns and photos of beadwork. Intermediate and advanced bead crocheters will have something new to create with. I enjoy giving the community something different and can't wait to see what they do with this process.


I've had some fantastic help doing this book:
Mary Anne Weeks Mayo, picky good editor
Jessica Giffin, graphic stylist and layout artist
Bead fairies:
Crystal Fox, Elisa Gnatt, Bea Kimball, Jen Kubeck, Kim Latona, Linda Miller

Also Ken Campbell, Bev Herman and Mel Simmonds, who helped me keep my sanity and critiqued where I had doubts of making sense.

It's a book, and I think it's a good one.
Now I sit and wait. That's a very hard thing to do sometimes.



October 9, 2010

Saturday Finds


Not quite peak foliage here in New Hampshire, but getting close to it. It's supposed to drop into the 30's tonight and I expect we'll have a frost. It was a beautiful day to be out and about after a week of gray rainy days.



I had to go grocery shopping and decided to also poke around a bit in Jaffery. I haven't been down that way in quite some time. We stopped in at a new (to me) antique store and I had a hard time keeping my plastic in my pocket.



This pegged board came out of an old Starrett factory. It has that well oiled old factory patina to it. I collect balls in all sizes and it'll be the perfect way to display some of them. What you see on the board are "end of shift" marbles from a ceramics factory. I'm told it was take what clay was left over, roll it up into balls (glaze and all) and stuff it into the kiln before going home. Sort of beads without holes. Now I need to dig out a selection from my collection. I have a large mercury glass ball, marble water treatment plant balls, glass witch's balls, cue balls, and gemstone balls. I thought these few things were quite unique and the peg rack will be useful too.

The best find, though, was a large 6 1/2" circumference plastic rod. I had been playing with photographing beaded bracelets on a water glass and saying I'd really like a piece of large Lexan rod for a mandrel. . . . and there it was in this antique store.



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However, what the heck am I to do with all 3' of it? That's a bit of overkill for what I wanted it for. It just doesn't fit anywhere that I wouldn't trip over it.


All in all, it was a nice break, away from my desk, looking at what Fall is like in this neck of the woods.



P.S. now I need to find a candle pin and/or boccie ball for my collection.

September 30, 2010

Not very Interesting

I went to the Bay of Fundy to see this; a Tidal Bore. Not exactly what I had envisioned when I was about 12 years old. I guess my younger self thought it would be more of a wall of water rushing along. OK, I waited 54 years to see the ocean run upstream in the Bay of Fundy. I can cross it off of my life list of things to see and do!



The fossil beaches in the Joggins area of Nova Scotia were quite interesting and I could have spent many more hours combing the beaches for interesting tidbits.



We had to watch the tides as there is about a 30 ft difference between high tide and low tide. If not careful, you could find yourself all the way around the bank to the right with no way to get back without swimming.


Here's a record of what was growing many years ago in the dawn of time. Beautiful fossil patterns in the shale.






Like sea glass, these pieces of coal have been washed, smoothed and rounded by the water and tide action. I thought they might make a different and interesting pendant with a beaded bezel. I need to figure out if they would be hard enough to withstand the wear.






Not everyone is interested in the flotsam that washes up. I am and came home with rocks, rusted iron and pieces of driftwood. I guess if I ever find them in the way I can burn them for a bit of warmth.

I like what NanC Meinhardt does with sticks and beads. I may well try my hand at some freeform beading around one of these pieces of driftwood.



I could show you many more photos of water and scenery, but it
was my vacation and I hate to bore people with loads of vacation photos. I'll leave you with one beautiful touch of color on a very gray day. Nice wooden chairs, painted great colors.