Seed beads and my aging eyes

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Six or seven years ago, my mom, who does beadwork, too, commented that the size 11 Delica seed beads I like to use were way too small for her to see. She works mostly in seed beads, too, but she sticks with size 10s as much as possible.

It made no sense to me that one size would make that big of a difference. But now I get it.

The last time I did a marathon of seed beading, I realized that I couldn't see the beads well enough to work if I had my glasses on. It seems my distance vision has gotten bad enough that my glasses are too strong to see tiny items (such as words on a page or seed beads in an earring) very well at all.

Because I like to watch TV while I do beadwork, I chose shows that I could mostly listen to. I wore my glasses, but pushed them up on top of my head while I stitched beads together, then dropped them back down on my nose if I thought I needed to watch something on the TV screen.

I hope my vision doesn't get much worse than it is now, but I'm glad that I bought a magnifying glass several years ago that could help if and when I can no longer see the beads just by taking off my glasses.

Or maybe I'll need to find a stronger magnifier.






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