The Bead Spot

I still have yet to finish the green bracelet I was working on. It's getting close, but because some beads are still loose after I cut the strings on it Monday, I can't move it. So the only place I can work on it is at home. The place where I have the largest block of time for working on it, though, is at work on my lunch break. Yesterday at lunch, I just started another that will be in exactly the same style as the green one. Hopefully, I will finish it a lot faster than the last one so that I can move on to some other projects before the festival, which is coming up fast. I probably shouldn't have started another time-consuming project this soon. Hopefully, I'll have the green one finished by Friday, then I'll post a photo here.

I usually wait to cut the strings on any project until the end. Last night, though, I started thinking I might be better able to see how to unravel the tangled herringbone bracelet if the strings weren't in the way. So I cut them. In one spot, though, I cut a little more than the extra string. One leg of the bracelet came undone. Since I'd have to go back and restitch that area anyway, I went ahead and cut another leg of the bracelet off. Now, finally, I have all three sections of the bracelet untangled and lined back up. I'm working my way through reconnecting them, which hasn't taken as long as I thought it would. If I had known that fixing the tangle would've been this easy if I cut the strings, I would've done it a long time ago. Now this bracelet is back on track. Woo hoo!

I spent the bulk of my lunch "beading time" trying to undo the tangled mess my herringbone bracelet has become. After an explanation of what I'm trying to do, I let my husband have a shot. He can't figure it out either, which bums me out a bit because I was hoping a fresh set of eyes could figure out what order the strands should be in. I'm running out of time before the next festival arrives, and I want to get more beadwork made to take with me. I don't have the time to keep trying to figure out how this went together. And really, I don't understand why it doesn't just fall back into place. The black bracelet I made in the same style wouldn't do this. I think I need to just set it aside for a few days, and just not plan on having it ready to sell anytime before the holidays. *sigh*

I held off with a post yesterday thinking that I might be able to finish the green herringbone bracelet I want to list on Etsy . Then, I could post a photo of it. Well, those tangles within the bracelet have me much more stumped than I would've thought. I cannot for the life of me figure out how I had it. The streams of beads just aren't lining back up. Hopefully, I get it soon, because once I do, all I have left is attaching the clasp.

I am within sight of the finish line on the herringbone bracelet I'm making, however, I ran into a couple of snags. Literally. The first happened Saturday. My daughter was napping, so I hauled out my bracelet and worked on it for about an hour. Then, with evening approaching, I decided to wake her so that we could go for a walk before it got dark. (She LOVES going for walks.) I set the tray table I was working from off to the side, woke her up, got her in the stroller and left. When we got back home, I set her down inside the house then turned to make sure the front door, which has settled a little, was closed completely. When I turned back around toward her, she already had the bracelet in her hand. The string was both over her shoulder and up under her armpit. I don't know how she got it so tangled so quickly. With that straightened out, I folded it up and packed it away to take to work with me. When I took it out during my lunch break, I could tell the braiding withi...

Bead stoppers are tightly wound metal springs with loops on each end. Beaders thread the end of their stringing material through the stoppers to keep beads from sliding off of the string. As a cheaper alternative, some beaders (myself included) just tie a bead that stands out from the ones they're using in their project to the end of the thread. This is called a stop bead.

I'm still having trouble getting a decent photo of my beadwork when the beads are shiny. I looked everywhere on my camera for the option to take it from automatic to manual settings, but I don't see anything that will let me do that. I don't know that I can really get a better photo without the aid of the camera's automatic settings, but I thought that with more options available, I might be able to find a combination that works. Hopefully, one day I'll get the hang of it -- without having to buy a new camera.

For years, I’ve kept a sketchbook, and when I have a fully formed (and drawable) idea for a beadwork project, I’ll scratch it out on paper. As I strive to turn my hobby into a little more of a money-maker, though, I’ve wondered about the other ideas I have, the ones that aren’t yet patterns, just general thoughts I have about things I can make in the future, such as “Kids Halloween bracelets,” or “Halloween wall hangings.” I’ve decided to write down such generalizations on the top of a single notebook page, then periodically, I can flip through the book and think a little more about the specifics. Then in the space below, I can write things like, “witches flying” or “rows of pumpkins,” etc. My hope is that this will help me to always know what my next project will be.