New beads and a giveaway

I had an urge to make rounder-than-usual beads yesterday. These not-quite-round rounds have cores of CiM Lilac and they're encased with CiM Yours Truly which is a lilac sort of colour. The spots and spacers are Effetre Light Turquoise 232.

I've got three lots of pairs for sale in my shop and I can tumble-etch them for you if you like.

I've also made some more spacers, this time in Effetre Ivory Lapis Medium 292.

Shiny

Tumble-etched

These are quite beachy, I think, and they look really great tumble-etched.

Spacers are available to buy on my website.

Giveaway

When I was 'warming up' ready for round beads yesterday I made a bead pair in the same colours as the ones at the top of this post, but with only a smattering of little spots. I tumble-etched these for a photo to show what the glass looks like etched and instead of listing them for sale I thought they'd make a good little giveaway.

The winner will receive the beads pictured above - one pair of lilac rounds and a pair of coordinating spacers. The lilac beads are about 12mm diameter and the turquoise spacers are about 8.5mm diameter and they've all been tumble-etched to a silky soft finish.

If you'd like to enter my giveaway, please fill out this form on my website.

The draw is only open to people in Great Britain. (Sorry, everywhere else. Blame postage prices/Brexit/the EU's ridiculous postage rules/Trump's tariffs/whatever else winds you up.)

I will put all the entries in a hat and draw a winner on the evening of Sunday 2nd November. I'll announce the winner here on my blog and they will also be notfied by email. (I won't be using your email address for anything else and your message will be deleted once the draw is over and done with.)

Good luck!

Sea Foam and Banana Cream

The long discontinued Creation is Messy Sea Foam is an opal glass in a fresh, minty green. The level of translucency (or opacity, depending on how you like to look at these things) depends on how long the beads spend in the kiln and whereabouts they are positioned in the kiln. This means you can end up with a batch of beads all made from the same glass but that are all a bit different from each other which is really nice. They're quite ethereal.

I've put aside some of these Sea Foam ones so I can make a shimmy bracelet with them. I was fully intending to do that this morning with my extra bonus clocks-gone-back hour but when I got all my findings out I was peeved to discover I've run out of some of the jump rings I need for the job so I've ordered those and they should be here on Tuesday.

I made a few spacers with another discontinued glass - Vetrofond Banana Cream. Not only is the glass long gone, but the company is too. A fellow lampworker, Palala Beads, kindly sent me some yellow glass a couple of years ago and two of the rods were Banana Cream so that's how I came to have some. The glass is a bright but at the same time slightly muted yellow. Remember foam banana sweets? That colour.

The Sea Foam and Banana Cream spacers are available in my shop.

I'm off to plant my spring bulbs now. I've gone for daffodils, some green tulips, purple crocuses and mixed muscari. Oh, and I got three of those big alliums just for novelty's sake. One of the nearby neighbours had a 'free spring bulbs, please take' table out on his lawn the other day so I snagged a bag of those too. I don't know what they will be so that's a mystery bulb bonus, isn't it? Cheers, kind neighbour man.

It's sunny here in Cambridge but also nicely chilly. Lovely. I hope the sun is shining wherever you are? Enjoy your Sunday! 

Plain and simple loveliness

You know the other day when I was wanging on about how lovely spacer beads can be? I took the photo above to kind of prove my point. These ones are Effetre Dark Ivory 276 and Effetre Ivory Lapis Dark 293 and although they're only little 8.5mm spacers beads, they're an excellent example of how glass is a very lovely thing in its own right.

This streaky ivory and lapis blue mix is so pretty. Every single bead is unique and they remind me of planets, oceans and the sky.

A customer who purchased some of the dark ivory spacers asked for half of them to be tumble-etched and again, I took a photo of them to show how nice plain and simple beads can be.

Spacer beads can be purchased in my shop.

In crochet news...

Thanks for all the lovely comments about Stig. He's such a bright and cheery fella, isn't he?

I'm currently working on a second Starlite blanket. I had quite a bit of yarn left over from the previous one so I took that as a sign to make another.

I may well put the blanket in my shop when it's done, if a friend or family member doesn't claim it in the meantime, that is.

Talking of crochet in my shop, I've reduced the price of all of my shawls.

Almost all of my shawls double up as scarves and although they're mostly cotton mixes and therefore not overly-cosy, they're just right for this time of year when there's a bit of a chill in the air but you don't want to be getting too hot. Do you know what I mean? You sort of go "It looks chilly out there - I'll put my coat on" but within five minutes of walking you're clammy in the armpits and undertits areas and regretting your wardrobe choice, wishing you'd just opted for a jumper and lightweight scarf instead. That's the level of warmth my shawls-that-double-as-scarves are good for.

That's all for now. I'm heading shedwards to make more spacers. See you soon!

Stig

Remember those little crochet motifs I posted the other day? Well, here they all are made into a stegosaurus. I've named him Stig and he seems very at home next to one of my ferns.

This was such a fun little project. Stig is made from African flower motifs in merino sock yarn. I crocheted him with a 2mm hook because the motifs need to be quite dense and tight so that no stuffing can work its way through the holes. Stig measures about 40cm from nose to tail tip.

The stegosaurus is made up of triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, heptagons and one octagon so he's pleasingly geometric. The project was like creating all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and then having the fun of joining them all together. The only effing and jeffing that occurred was while I was sewing his plates on because I absolutely loathe sewing. Apart from that he was a joy to make.

The pattern is Puff the Magic Stegosaurus by heidibears and it is fabulous - so well-written with very clear instructions. This designer has many different African flower animal and creature patterns and I'm sure I'll make another one at some point. I quite fancy having a go at the dragon or sheep.

A space for spacers

I have so much glass in my shed and I don't think I will ever use it all so I've decided to turn some of it into spacers. Some glass doesn't suit my style of beadmaking, or maybe it's the other way round, but it makes very pretty plain, undecorated beads.

The other reason for making spacers is that some days, and it's more often than not, I just cannot seem to make fancier beads that I am happy with. One factor at play here is obviously my over-critical fussiness about my own work, but the main issue is my eyesight. I just can't seem to find the right spectacles/prescription for the job. I've tried explaining to various optometrists what I do and they tell me to wear my reading glasses for beadmaking but this doesn't quite work. I've tried my varifocals but they wind me up because I have to constantly and consciously move my focus about which feels awkward and unnatural and I end up making mistakes all the time because I can't properly and clearly see what I'm doing. I honestly work better without any glasses (except for my safety didys, obviously) but the optometrist is adamant that I wear specs at all times. My usual and favourite fiddly and precise polka dots, scrolls and linework are now exceedingly tricky to execute and it's very disheartening. Maybe I need a magnifier or have I read somewhere that they can cause problems with your eyes? I don't know. Perhaps I should go back to the opticians again and try and get through to them what I need my glasses to do? Or should I simply accept that my eyesight is not what it once was and evolve accordingly beadwise?

I still very much want to make beads but on days when my eyes are titting about I shall just have to settle for less precise designs (spotty beads, anyone?) and plain beads. Plain beads don't have to be boring; encased spacers are lovely, whitehearts are good and a smattering of mica is always a bit magical. Spacers are useful for adding to designs featuring more decorative beads, but they're beautiful in their own right too. I love bracelets made with plain spacer beads as they're unfussy and really comfy to wear.

I've made a space for spacers in my shop and I'll be filling this new section with spacers as and when I make them. I'm selling plain single colour spacers as strands of twelve with optional tumble-etching and I'll also be selling spacer mixes.

I've got absolutely loads of spacers knocking about in various bowls, jars and yoghurt pots so I shall sort them out and add some assortments over the next few days. Right now there are some dark ivory ones and a mixed strand of reds, pinks and purples, but do keep an eye on the spacer beads page because I'll add to it often.