Learning and Growing

Here's a photo of what I've been up too recently. I've been making jewelry with seed beads. It's called beadwork or beadweaving. How did I get myself to this point? I'm actually not sure. I did buy a bunch of seed beads to make into multi-strand necklaces for my enamel pendants, but then somehow I've progressed to beadwork.

Well, I do know that I've always wanted to try beadwork. Unfortunately in the past, a number of books and magazines showed rather uninspired pieces. But I thought I could make some pieces that would be striking looking. That's what I've been working on. I did find one book that has lovely pieces in it, ones I would aspire to in some cases. In the meantime, I'm learning the various "stitches." I'm making progress, becoming more proficient, but it will take time.

When I first started, a couple of weeks ago, I felt so clumsy and awkward. I spilled beads everywhere, and they're too tiny to pick up. I can scoop them up off my worktable, but I certainly can't see them very well on the ground. In addition, my knees are not good enough to tolerate crawling around on the ground.

I found that if I dumped some beads onto a paper plate, that made it easy to pick them up with a needle. That was fine until a breeze came along, lifting the edge of the plate and scattering beads everywhere. Now I have a small but sturdy plastic storage container with a snap on lid to hold beads. I've been dumping little piles of beads in it, the colors all mixed together. Then I pick out the beads I need for the patterns I've established. And having all the colors together in one container gives me ideas for new color combinations.

It will be a matter of finding the colors of beads I want, learning the techniques, creating some new ones, and then putting everything together. It will take time, but when I learned wirework, it took time as well. I'm prepared to follow the process through until I'm happy with the results and I can see myself growing in the discipline.