The Bead Spot

A few days ago, two of my nephews -- one 11 and the other 8 -- showed me the projects they had been working on. The 11-year-old had made three dream catchers, which would rival anything I've ever seen at an arts and crafts show, and his brother made an earring, which also looked pretty good. He hadn't put the hook on it yet, but I liked what I saw. My mom apparently had showed them how, and I was very happy to see that they had spent part of their summer doing something constructive rather than just goofing off, which is how I always spent my summers.  Side note: I suck at photography. I've tried to take photos of my projects, but I just can't get the bracelets to look sharp like a lot of the jewelry I've seen on Etsy. I know I need to use the macro setting on my camera, but I honestly can't tell the difference between when I use it and when I don't. Maybe I just need to keep trying playing with it. Or maybe I just need a better camera. (Or maybe a...

Earlier this evening, I was sitting in my kitchen waiting on the turkey filets I had bought from Walmart to finish baking when I had an overwhelming urge to write something. So here I am, writing my first post in quite a few months. I had no idea it had been as long as it has since the last time I did this. Life, you know. Anyway, here is a quick update on what I've been working on. • First, there is this: This is the same gourd stitch bracelet I mentioned in previous posts, and yes, it's still a work in progress. I am only a handful of rows away from finishing it, but I noticed that it seems to bow a little across the top. I can't decide whether I want to pull another string through it to try to tighten it up that way or if I want to just pull out the stitches and begin again. Decisions, decisions. My husband says it's not noticeable. As a matter of fact, he says he can't see what I'm talking about. However, I think he is trying to spare me fro...

For the past several weeks, I've been working on a flat bracelet, using size 11 Delicas in a gourd stitch. I should've finished it within one week, however, I've had to undo my work three times now. Why? Because it's awfully difficult to see a mistake when both the dominant bead color and color of the string are black. In one instance, I had completed about 15 rows before I noticed that I didn't pull the thread tight enough, causing some looping. Really, even with all of the unraveling and redoing, I should've completed this bracelet a couple of weeks ago, but I have a tendency to put something down for a while if I start to get frustrated. I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of February, though, and maybe a couple more. I've seen some magnifiers at Fire Mountain that I'd like to get. I think they'd really cut down on the need to redo. I'm just having trouble deciding which would best suit me.

Thank you for stopping by Amlou's Bead Spot. In future posts, I plan to include photos of my work and comments and concerns about projects I'm working on, but for now, I'm just going to introduce myself by tossing out five random facts about me and/or my beading hobby: • When I was about 9 years old, my great-aunt gave me my first loom, which she made herself with two nails and three pieces of scrap wood, two of which had notches cut across the top to hold the thread. I wish I could say that I've been beading ever since, but the truth is, I was kind of a lazy child. I learned how to work the loom when I got it, but then I put it away. A couple of decades passed before I dug it out of the closet, dusted it off and took an interest in beadwork again. The loom has since fallen apart, and I have purchased others that work just as well, but every time I use them, I feel a little nostalgic for my old wooden loom. • I don't consider myself an expert ... yet. :) When I ...