Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Vacation!!!

I am actually on my first vacation that has yet to involve beads. Staying with family and vegging for the most part. This has been a blast! Amusement park! Ren Faire!!! Enjoying the unusually cool summer days. Lots of very mellow music on top of all that.

But the beads keep creeping in....

In my dreams - wherever I am, I see beads! At the mall, the clothes are covered in BEADS! The jewelry is beady! Even the accessories are covered in beads! I saw a biz card case covered in them and if they had not been in colors I don't do.... I would have snatched it up! Makes me want to bead a piece to put on a similar case....

The beads creep in. I have design ideas and I can't wait to get home to try them out!

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Rambling in the summer

Wow! I'm in a rambling mood today! Last 1/2 of the month will be a rambling time, so that might be why I'm in that kind of mood. I'm going to my cousin's for a week or more. My sweetie is coming to visit me. I have a few beady ideas in the fire. My web site is starting slow but steady. It’s raining right now and that is very unseasonable… but I'm enjoying it in spite of that! Rain is better than 100+ degree weather in my book!

I'm pretty excited to have a nice quiet couple days with my sweetie before I go on vacation. This vacation is already packed with fun things! Going to an amusement park and a Ren Faire!!! Spending time with family that I reconnected with last summer and this is a VERY good thing.

Beady possibilities are in the works. I really want to teach other people about beading. It's the most important thing for me. I want other people to get the pure pleasure I get from beads. So if all works out – that will be happening soon!!!

My web site is getting more visitors every day!!! All that hard work is finally paying off!!!
http://www.violetbead.com It's my site - I get to have all the say and I get to charge less because I'm not giving anyone else a percentage of my money.

So I might be quiet for a couple weeks but that will mean I'm having fun! Have a great time this summer! Life is too short!

Friday, June 10, 2005

Fair Weather Friends

Egos get in the way in life quite often and it's really sad... In designing, there has to be some ego involved, but there is a point where it goes a bit too far. I took a beady class a long time ago from a pair of instructors who talked about a beady group they were part of. They got together once a week and beaded. Sharing ideas and information. I dream of having that one day, but every time I try to achieve that, the egos keep getting in the way. I get tired of it, so tired that I occasionally think I am wasting my time making beady buddies. It often comes to bite me in the ass. I want to have beady friends who are willing to share what they know as well as learn what I have to share. Instead, I often find people who have things but won't share them, however they want all I have to share with them.

Case in point this week, I had an acquaintance (My SO's term for this someone who was probably never my true friend in the first place) that had posted inaccurate information on a bead related subject to her blog. I have a real problem with this because there is enough wrong info out there, when it's something I can give facts about on, I try to get the facts out there. No matter how much factual information I handed to her, she kept pushing her opinion, which was NOT supported by the facts from one of the parties involved. Another party in the same beady circle asked me about the situation on IM. I gave my side of what happened. I am afraid that my comments may have been passed along... to the one who isn't mature enough to say something to me personally. It was also alluded to that I moderated the person in question on my bead list. True - she was moderated but the WHOLE list gets moderated when the topic can be volatile. It was not a personal affront: 98% of that list is moderated and it states as much on the front page of the list. I am guessing that due to this, she left all of my e-mail lists, since another party in that same group mentioned it. This is apparently supposed to wound me. Whatever!

It's not about being right - it's about being accurate. I didn't tell the woman I'm right and you are wrong - I told her - this is what the company involved said were the facts. It was the request of the owner of that company that I send her the information. She had closed the blog to further comment and he couldn't correct the facts there and he since didn’t seem to know who she was, he asked me to please make sure she got his information. One person said it was a disagreement and it was not. I didn’t disagree with her; I fed her information, which she refused to use. She then deleted her ENTIRE BLOG. How mature! It's "I can't post a simple correction to keep the blog accurate" - "I can't be wrong, so I won't have a blog at all!" Then she didn't RSVP for the bead meeting we have once a week, but I can’t read much into that because she didn't always RSVP in before all of this happened and seldom showed up at all.

A close non-beady friend pointed out to me that she just might have gotten all she wanted to get from me, that I am no longer of any use to her, so she just did things in the last couple weeks to create a space between us which will just get bigger and bigger and finally become a gap too big to bridge. After sleeping on it, I think my very intuitive friend was right. This person didn't always share the projects she had that I was interested in, however, I did share a couple of my personal favorites with her. On hindsight, I can see that now but I was naive enough to think she would eventually be forthcoming. It's sad but as my SO said - IF she was really my friend, she could take being given correct information and moved forward in this relationship. Maybe it was never a real friendship after all... It was only an acquaintance and it makes me sad that I so believed it to the more than that.

That said, I do have the blessing of a few beady friends, though most of them don't live close to me, who share freely with me. They are the ones I can bounce beady ideas off of. I can send my directions to and they will tell me where I screwed them up! I can vent my feelings to them and not get judged. They are the people I count in my blessings every day. Without them I would probably not be the beader I am today. They encourage me, set me straight, and smack me around when I need it. They are far from being fair weather friends. They are my friends when we agree and disagree. I guess I should focus on them and stop sweating the small shit huh?

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Bring accurate isn't about being right

Something that gets confused often is accuracy vs never being told you are wrong. I personally have no problem being told I'm wrong IF the info is accurate. I would much rather have accurate info out there than to see people making choices based on opinions rather than facts. In the last month or so, I have come to realize that I am a fact addict. Being a beading designer and instructor, I hate to see inaccurate information out in the bead world.

  • I hate it when Japanese size 15 seed bead gets called a size 14. When they are made in Japan, they are sized as a 15. They got called size 14 initially because of the Czech seed beads being popular in a size 14. They did it for marketing but when others tell beaders not to buy one because it won' go with the other is a bunch of hooey!
  • I also hate it when people tell others that a little clear Krylon spray will make a galvanized bead stable. I have done it and it makes them awful. I just steer my students away from them all together!
  • I hate it when a teacher is so strict as to not let the students learn anything in their comfort zone. Just because the teacher likes English needles, wax and working with short thread doesn't mean his or her students will feel the same way.
  • I hate it when "the copyright police" tell people they can't sell or give away a pattern they bought over the internet. You bought it and once you are done with it, you can do whatever you want with is as long as you don't copy it.
  • I hate that some bead authors out there publish their work and expect other to buy it - whether it be on the internet or a magazine or book and don't allow them to make and sell the designs. I want the people who spend their money on my designs to know that I have no problem with them selling pieces made from them. Please don't mass produce them but make bead money from them!
  • I hate it when people get pissy on the internet and if they are somehow proven wrong, they unsub from the lists and delete things. Why not say - oops - I was wrong - no biggie - that makes me HUMAN just like the rest of the world! Being able to say I am wrong is one of the life lessons I learned from my first office job. My boss could be a jerk but he could also appologise for it. It isn't painful. How mad can someone be at you when you come to them and say you screwed up? Not very!

It's all about putting the accurate info out there and letting the people use their brains and make their own choices. Use the thread you like - use the needles you like - bead on what you like to bead on - wax if you like to wax.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Wait for all the info......

Bead thread is such a debated issue - Nymo - Silamide - Power Pro - Fireline. Which to use when and how to deal with the drawbacks of each one of them. We all have our faves for individual reasons.

Nymo - is for when I have many passes or tiny holes.

Silamide - I was a nymo or nothing gal till Shala made me try Silamide again. Then I fell in love with the twisted thread that came in many more colors. My trick to threading Silamide is using my flat jawed pliers and making the end flat before threading the needle.

Power Pro/Fireline - for when I need extra strength or am using beads that can cut thread.

Then came this new Superlon and C-lon. While in Nebraska in April, I was introduced to them and told that they were the same thread. I then saw another blog about it and heard that superlon was inferior to C-lon. Also many other beaders loved one and hated the other - even making public statements to that effect. Today I was informed that they are one in the same - from the very same manufacturer only sold under 2 names. The first clue was the exact same number of colors and the exact same 36 names. Then it came in the same sizes. Would have been enough to get most people to come to the same conclusion - IF they had all the info to make an educated conclusion with.

Needles have the same bunch of preferences. There are English needles - Pony Needles and my fave - Japanese needles! I much prefer them because they don't become a bent piece of modern art when I am working with them. They are thicker, so there are times when they don't work well but I have now found 2 different manufacturers (different needle sizes and lengths, so I'm pretty sure they are 2 different ones! LOL) The newer one to me has a much thinner needle that will help with the times when I need a thinner one. I also prefer longer needles.... I have no clue why but it's part of my style of beading. I set things up just so when I bead. As I have said before - I bead for happy. I put the beads in triangle trays - on a plate or tray. I do my beading and when I'm done, I use a funnel to put them away. I HATE mixed beads! That and most plastic beads make me itch!

I guess I have my own specific things I need to bead with and goodness knows that I have lots of opinions! But I would hope that I would get all the info on a new product before I would make any public criticisms of it.

Friday, June 03, 2005

Yard Sale of the Century!

In the paper today:
Garage & Yard Sales - C2-BEADS Tubed, Strands, Loose, Crystals, Misc. Fri, Sat. 9-1. 1/2 mi off Lake. 2922 Quartz Hill. Cash, MC, or Visa

Can you even believe how thrilled I was when a friend told me about this one???? a BEADY YARD SALE??? and it was wonderful... but then I was the first customer - got there about 8:15.... Early magpie gets the sparkly stuff! I knew the lady who had it and had a nice time catching up with her on my 2 visits to the yard sale... well when I got home I realized that I had 2 colors of wolf charm. I can't make earrings for my neice with one silver and one copper can I? So I just HAD to go back and get another of each so I had matching pairs! I got Japanese 15's and 11's and Czech glass on strands! :-) Was way better than a visit to one of the 2 sucky bead shops in the area.... both over priced and one ripped me off when I taught there - so I won't darken her doorstep again! What a way to start a wonderfully beady weekend. Tomorrow I go demo beadwork at a mountain man type of event. Should be a blast! I will come home sunburned and happy.


What more can a bead addict ask for?

Next week all work and no play so I am gearing up!