Catching Up

Here's a photo I took several days ago out in front of one of the studios. When I saw it, I wondered how a plant could have grown up and been in full bloom seemingly overnight. But it's not a plant. It's just some flowers that someone put there. It's lovely though. Too bad we don't have more plants like it around. Mostly we have succulents which are very interesting, but they're not large and exuberant like this. They tend to be small and subtle. Sometimes you have to look very closely at them to see their colors and blooms. They do attract a lot of attention though.

Yesterday I was off, but I still wound up going to one of the bead suppliers that I like. I just went to get some Fire Line, a steel "string" that I use for beadweaving. They were out of it, but I still wound up buying a variety of beads including some crystals for my amulet bag. However, I realize that I really need to take the bag with me so that I can get the color I like best.

I was also looking for some large fake jewels that I could embroider onto a bracelet. They didn't have what I was looking for exactly, but I did get some big crystal beads. Anyway, they say on the label that they're crystal, but I'm not sure. They have a slight aqua tint to them, but I think I can change the color if I put them against various colored seed beads.

And I got some strands of pearls. I can't ever seem to resist buying a few strands. Recently I've been trying to find small ones. Most everything is large now because of the way they're produced. Freshwater pearls are produced in mussles, not oysters. And they live on farms. They have a nice life. They don't lose their lives when the pearls are harvested. They can make more than one pearl at a time and they are implanted with pieces of shells, so they can wind up being very large pearls if the pieces of shell that are implanted are large.

But I want little pearls that I can use in my beadweaving. I made one bracelet with some pearls on it and sold it already. I think I have to be careful not to use white pearls, but I think the colored ones are nice. Some of them have an aurorea borealis look to them that is like some of the beads and crystals. Of course, sometimes it's good to have a contrast, like matte finish beads with some sparkly ones. My next project is going to be a bead embroidered necklace on a background of black matte beads.