Back on (Am)Track

First of all, a bit of catching up: After I put up my last post, the Gruffalo and I became very occupied with downsizing. From our own experience and from listening to friends in our age group, it appears that we spent the first half of our lives acquiring stuff and are now engaged in the process of getting rid of most of it.

After nine years in a large, isolated house in an urban/wildland interface (yes, that really is a thing) we moved into a two-bedroom house in a gated community in central Orange County. It is actually very nice having a home and a yard that we can deal with ourselves. I was raised in the city that gives Orange County its name, so it feels like coming home.

One downside of our downsizing experience is that getting my studio set up was a low priority. There were so many other things to deal with, including unexpected plumbing issues in the new house, that my tools and supplies were the last thing to be unpacked.

Once the studio was in workable condition, however, I started on a new jewelry project at once. I started stringing this necklace at home and finished it while riding the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to Los Angeles Union Station earlier this week. I took the train to meet my sister KK and my friend EmmyK at FIDM for their Academy Award nominated costume exhibit. My first love was sewing, and this exhibit (and the Grammy exhibit later in the year) are total catnip for me. If you have a chance to visit this exhibit, prepare yourself to swoon over the costumes from Into the Woods. The level of artistry is amazing...I know who I will be rooting for on Oscar night.

I call this necklace & earring set Back on (Am)Track...

Materials for this are seed beads and labradorite beads (longest strand), glass pearls and labradorite shards (center strand), lapis lazuli round beads (shortest strand), silk stringing thread in sizes 0 (light blue), 3 (grey) & 6 (navy blue) and a purchased clasp.

Here is a close up of the lower portion of the longest & center strands:

Here are the matching earrings,using teardrop shaped labradorite drops, seed beads and lapis round beads:

And here is a close-up of the clasp, which I have had in my stash for years. I chose it because the ring has been wired with glass pearls, which tie in with the center strand:

The longest strand measures 36", which makes it a good necklace to wear with a high collar or a very deep v-neck.

While I have not been active in jewelry-making for a while, I have been taking watercolor painting classes...but that is a topic for another entry.

Working Mother

This past Mother's Day weekend, I sold my jewelry at the Sunset Beach Arts Festival near the shore in Huntington Beach, California.

Besides being my first outdoor show, this was the first time that I had to do more than submit a vendor fee. To be able to participate, I had to submit photos of my work, apply for a special seller's permit and affirm that my work was of my own design and creation.

With all of these hoops to jump through, I was thrilled to be accepted as a vendor. Major thanks to Gayle of Las Damas (the event sponsor) who gave me lots of telephone support during the application process. She also placed us in a very good spot, especially so considering that I was a newbie.

The event was a lot of fun. When things were slow, the Gruffalo and I visited with our neighboring vendors, including a fellow fan of Breaking Bad who has the same name as a character on the show. Note: Major SPOILER ALERT for this link.

Some of my most recent work received the most attention, like this cuff and necklace, both embroidered on silk shibori ribbon and backed with Ultrasuede:

The ribbon is pleated and then dyed, giving it a watercolor look. I use the pleats as part of the design. The cuff has a turquoise cab and the necklace is completed with a spiral peyote rope made of coordinating seed beads. The two piece toggle clasp is also stitched from seed beads using variations of peyote stitch. The necklace was one of the items that I sold at the Sunset Beach event. The buyer was so thrilled with her purchase that she emailed me to gush about it.

Another recent piece that was sold at this event was a St Petersburg stitch necklace with jade dagger drops:

The woman who purchased this piece on Saturday liked it so much that she sent her friends to visit my booth on Sunday.

This next necklace did not sell, but several people tried it on and asked about having one custom made in a different color. I am waiting for email confirmation that these people actually want to place an order before I go ahead with additional work. Here is the necklace in two different colorways. This is a netting stitch with long magatama drops:

Because I was working on Mother's Day, I did not get to attend the family get-together. However, all of the fam dropped by my booth at one time or another to visit and, in the case of Smallest of All, to help out. Smallest and her boyfriend arrived just in time to help us take down the canopy, thereby robbing our fellow festival attendees of the inevitable slapstick spectacle had the Gruffalo and I taken it down by ourselves.

Thanks to my family for all the love and support, this past weekend and always. Special shout-out to the Gruffalo, whose admiration for my work makes him an excellent salesman. Dear Gruffalo also skipped his afternoon nap two days running, a huge sacrifice.

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all!  

Gatsby-esque

The Gruffalo and I are at the age when the adult children of friends are starting to get married. We recently attended a lovely wedding in Portland, Oregon for our friends' daughter.

The dress that I wore to the ceremony and the reception was short and somewhat flapperish. I spent some time before we traveled out of state to make jewelry to go with the dress.

Here are the two necklaces and earrings that I made:

The 'pearls' are actually glass. They are knotted on a length of cord. On the jewelry form for this photograph I doubled the pearl strand. For the party, I wore it full length. The choker is a separate piece. I also made a bracelet that looks like the choker, but without the dangles.

Here is a closer shot:

The round elements are actually beaded beads. They are made up of several bead sizes & shapes stitched together to form an element that dimensional and identical on both sides. The components that make up the beaded beads are two-hole (twin) beads, 4 mm crystal bicones and seed beads.

I enjoy the whole roaring twenties, Great Gatsby-like look. It is fun to take elements of a period style and incorporate them into modern-day clothing. I would never dress head to toe in flapper style (unless I was going to a costume party), but this jewelry, worn with a short, drop-waist dress, made me feel very elegant.

Despite my love of the art and style of this period, I have not (and will not) see the new film adaptation of Gatsby. Sometimes a favorite novel should be left in the realm of literature. (Major exception: the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird.) And I do love Fitzgerald's best-known novel in spite of the controversy over his writing methods.

Oh, and congratulations to the newly-weds. We had a lovely time and were so happy to share your big day with you. This wedding, I must say, was the first time that I have seen bridesmaid dresses that would actually work in a non-wedding setting.

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day to Mrs. K

Last week The Gruffalo and I were out for a romantic Valentine's evening. Halfway through the meal, he received a call on his mobile.

The call was from a dear friend who wanted to ask a favor: the friend's 90-something year old mother had just been put under the care of hospice, and the friend wanted The Gruffalo to drive out of state with him to be at his mother's bedside.

The man that I married is the one in our circle of friends who gets these sorts of calls. That's just how The Gruffalo is. After dinner we went back home so that The Gruffalo could pack a bag. He & his friend hit the road in a car fully stocked with granola bars, Beatles CDs and lots of memories.

As a result of the above, I spent the weekend alone at home with the critters. The dogs got lots of extra walkies and the cats made several suicidal attempts to dash outdoors to enjoy the sunshine (we live in coyote country, and our cats are hairless; I keep reminding the felines that our resident predators would not even have to peel them to eat them). As much as I missed the Gruffalo, I had a nice weekend.

During the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, I had gathered several red, pink & clear beads with every intention of making something special to wear out to dinner. The time got away from me and I never got beyond gathering the supplies.

With some extra time on my hands this past weekend, I started to put together this necklace, which I am naming after our friend's mother. The Gruffalo, a very proper British gentleman, never refers to this woman by her first name, so this necklace is called A Valentine for Mrs. K:

I set myself a goal to use only supplies on hand and to use no tools except scissors to create this piece. Everything is strung on waxed paper cord and knotted. No metal findings at all were used. There are two simple strands on each side with a ten strand twisted center portion. The beads that I used were glass pearls, crystals (bicones and rondels), stone chips and metal tube beads. The closure is a button:

I wanted to use a Czech glass button for the closure but all of the ones in my stash that were the right color were far too large, so I settled on a button from my sewing box.

There are some things that I like about the final result: I like the rock candy look of the stone chips. I like the length of the finished necklace (hence the first photograph on the jewelry form so you can see where it would lie across the neck). And I like the contrasts: rough (the waxed cord, the stone chips) & smooth (glass pearls), shiny (crystals) & matte (silver tube beads), rounded (knots, pearls again) & frayed (knotted part that attaches the twisted portion to one side).

While this was coming together, I was thinking about Mrs. K and about what it means to be a mother. We take all of the strands of our family's life, try to make them hold together and somehow create harmony out of elements that might not naturally go together.

Mrs. K is at the last stage, when all of the strands slowly slip out of your hands until the last one that holds you in this life is released. As of this writing, she is still alive, but her hold on that last thread is weaker every day. We wish her peace.


Edited to add: A few days after I published this post, Mrs. K released the final strand of her life and passed into the next world. Her son, our friend who asked The Gruffalo to travel to Mrs. K's bedside with him, had a birthday in early April. We gave him this necklace as a birthday present, which might seem an odd gift for a man, but there is no one else that I can imagine has a greater claim on this piece than he does.

Puzzling Pieces

The Gruffalo and I attended a charity luncheon and fashion show in Del Mar this past weekend.

The event was for the benefit of TACA, which stands for “Talk About Curing Autism”. The speakers included one of the founders of the organization as well as a mother who talked about her family’s journey so far. I can’t begin to understand what people go through when they are living with a family member on the spectrum, but I deeply empathize with any parent who is struggling to provide his or her child with the type of life that every child deserves.

Before & after the luncheon various vendors had tables set up outside the ballroom. The Gruffalo was a huge help in setting up my table and adjusting the props so that everything was displayed beautifully. He also helped me chat up the shoppers who came by my table, which represents one of the many ways that our relationship is filled with wonderful synergy. I can produce jewelry designs all day long but I am pretty shy about promoting myself and not very much of a salesperson. The Gruffalo, on the other hand, is amazingly good at sales and very, very charming. He is not shy at all about telling a woman that she should buy the necklace that she has draped around her neck or helping someone try on a bracelet that they are admiring. 

We met some wonderful, hard-working women who have started their own companies and are using this sort of event to grow their business. Many of the women who were selling their products are raising children who are on the autism spectrum. Traditional 9-to-5 office jobs are mostly out of the question for caregivers in this situation so these women have built other ways to provide family income.

The fashion show was staged by representatives of Jockey Person to Person. Yes, it is the underwear company and, no, it was not a lingerie show. This line includes all types of clothing and the models included Jockey reps, mothers of kids with autism and a young woman who is herself on the spectrum. Everyone on the runway looked gorgeous and worked that catwalk like the sassy, amazing women they are . Plus I really, REALLY want the leather-look pencil skirt in the fall/winter line. (This last line is brought to you by blatant holiday gift hint-dropping directed at any family members who may be reading.)

I will post photos of other finshed pieces from this event in later blog posts, however I wanted to acknowledge TACA and salute the good work that they do in this post.

Once I confirmed my vendor registration for  this show I made three necklaces with a puzzle piece focal. The puzzle piece represents autism awareness (in the same way that various colored ribbons symbolize various causes). The way that this condition manifests is often a vast, confusing, shifting and interrelated array of symptoms with various degrees of associated impairment. Individuals on the spectrum can make great improvements in their cognitive and motor abilities, but there can also be mysterious and sudden declines. The medical community (and, for that matter, the public at large) has an ever-shifting understanding of the spectrum. Families often become frustrated in their efforts to seek answers and help. The purpose of TACA is for families with autism to support other families with autism.

The necklace is a single charm on a silver-tone chain that has been embroidered with seed beads and crystals.

Special thanks are due here to my daughter, Smallest of All, who designed my logo and helped me prepare signs and price tags before the show, samples of which you can see in this photo.
 

I donated one of the three necklaces to the raffle and sold the other two. If I had make 10 necklaces I could have sold all of them. A woman came to my table before the luncheon and told me “I put all of my tickets in your bag and I am going to win your necklace”. She was indeed the winner. Congratulations!

I now owe TACA a check for a portion of the money that I made from the charm necklaces that I sold, which I will gladly write and mail off to the event organizer later today.

One of the banners in the ballroom demonstrated to me the combination of hope and feisty determination that I witnessed again and again at the benefit: All of the professionals tell us to send our son to an institution. We’re hoping for Harvard.

To the organizers, vendors, family members and other attendees of the TACA event, my wish for you is recovery and that, one day, the final piece will slip into the puzzle.

Owl Be Seeing You

The Gruffalo and I live in what is called ‘an urban/wild land interface’. It is one of many pockets around the Los Angeles area that consist of homes located in, well, the wild land. We are not far outside of the nearest city but where we live feels very much like the country.

We are surrounded by wildlife; sunbathing lizards, suicidal squirrels, lawn ornament rabbits, fat & sassy coyotes, gate-crashing rattlesnakes (they prefer to coil themselves on back porches, we have learned), shy foxes (only glimpsed twice), tufty bobcats, sashaying skunks, cranky raccoons, soaring hawks and, once, two horses that had left their stable and were chilling in our front yard. The bats are coming back to our part of the world. They left the area after the Medfly insecticide spraying in the 1970s killed off much of their food supply. It has taken decades for the bats to return and their presence is very welcome. They keep the swarms of little annoying black valley flies under control.

The first time that I cared for The Gruffalo when he had a bad cold, I told him that he looked like a peeved owl, and he really did. Wide eyes, wild hair sticking straight up in a crest, look of intense concentration. Since that time, the owl has become my spirit animal whenever someone is sick. When The Gruffalo was hospitalized with a serious illness I wore an owl-emblazoned bracelet every day.

There is one owl in our neighborhood who escorts me along the road to our home when I drive home at night. I am not making this up. This owl will swoop into sight and fly just ahead of my car until I drive into my garage. It has happened often enough that I can’t dismiss it as coincidence. I mentally refer to him as my Guardian Owl and I wave ‘thanks’ to him every time he leads me home.

The piece pictured above is made of tile beads with an iridescent owl bead in the center. It represents a stylized tree trunk with my Guardian Owl perched in a knothole. I am almost finished with one side of the twisted rope necklace that will complete the piece.

Bead Here Now

I grew up in a Southern California town that is so close to Disneyland that we could watch their nightly summer fireworks from our driveway. The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana was a frequent weekend destination for my parents, my sisters and me. My most vivid memory is of the various beaded items in the Native American displays. I used to have dreams about being able to go inside the display cases to examine the beaded adornments more closely.

When I was about 9 years old, I saved up for a kit that included a wood & metal loom, needles, thread, seed beads and instructions for beaded patterns. The instructions were beyond confusing. The only thread included with the kit was white, and it very quickly got soiled & frayed from my constant pulling out & re-stitching rows. The headband that I (finally) completed was a truly horrible thing, even for a first attempt and I set the loom aside, convinced that I had no skill for this particular type of craft.

My Mom is an accomplished seamstress with great creative instincts, and she taught me to sew and embroider after I abandoned my bead-weaving loom. I continued to sew for myself and, later, for my kids. Sewing, especially hand-sewing, was a wonderful creative outlet for many years.

Then, five years ago, my husband The Gruffalo became gravely ill. I spent more time in the hospital than at home. Reading was impossible, and even the most tiny sewing project was too bulky to tote back and forth to the hospital. A few weeks before my husband got sick I had taken a bead weaving class at my local bead shop. Bead weaving projects are eminently portable: a few tubes of seed beads, needle & thread take up very little space. The pattern I had learned was just distracting enough to take my mind off the beeping and blaring of hospital equipment. I could set aside the project at a moment’s notice to follow my husband into radiology for yet another test. In those tense weeks spent watching over my husband I re-discovered my childhood love of beaded things.

My husband got better, slowly, and came home to finish recovering. I took more classes, learned more stitches and acquired (ahem) a few more beads. Scratch even a casual beader and you will find a magpie with an insatiable hunger for little shiny trinkets. In fact, one of my favorite teachers (more about her in later posts) called herself The Magpie online. The Gruffalo, now fully recovered, arches an eyebrow when I tell him that I have to go to the bead shop and says “Yes. I was getting worried that you might run out.”

My repertoire of skills now includes wire wrapping and metal clay techniques, but I keep coming back to bead weaving. It allows me to produce pieces that I can gift or sell while still delighting the 9-year-old girl inside of me who wanted nothing more than to get closer to the intricate, intoxicating beadwork on display at The Bowers Museum.

It has only been very recently that I have taken the stitches and techniques I have learned and started to design my own pieces. Sometimes I will start with a published pattern and make modifications based on my own taste, other times I will start with a pile of beads and no idea what the finished piece will be.

The purpose of this blog is to write about beading and to post photos of my projects, including work in progress. I’m happy to address any comments about my work as long as the criticism provided is constructive. Tips, techniques, resources, pitfalls and personal stories will all be fair game for blog posts and comments. I hope you enjoy and can join the conversation.