Many of my friends participate in the yearly NaNoWriMo endeavour, and I'm always envious at those who've had the time and patience to reach the goal and complete their novels in time. I've not attempted a novel since my first attempt at the challenge a few years ago (I still haven't completed that work, one intended as an expansion of a short story I wrote in high school), but occasionally I start a short story instead. Friends hosted a writing night during the challenge month, and not wanting to be excluded, I went with netbook in hand and came up with a concept for a new short story. It's been a month since then, and my story remains incomplete, but I'm hoping to find the inspiration to finish it sooner rather than later (perhaps this should be a goal for my next blog post...).
Since summer I've had a drawer full of beads and findings staring me off and on in the face... since occasionally I will pull out that drawer and stare it down for a little while, waiting to see if I'll be inspired to create something. Happily, I found some inspiration when I learned my grandmother wanted clip-on earrings of a certain length.
Now, when I intend to start a beading project, I seldom go in with a specific pattern in hand, preferring more often than not to go in with a vague idea of what I want to do. I'll then spend an hour or more standing in front of the walls of beads, staring at them all. Picking up a hank or two, trying to imagine what I could do with them. Would these work well with those? Maybe not in this context, but I could see them together like this, but that's not what I'm really trying to do... I'll go back and forth several times, starting with one colour scheme and set of findings and eventually leaving the store with completely different ones. (I'll confess here that I'm still a novice with beading, so I do not have all the terminology. Maybe someday I'll learn it, but for now, as a hobby, I at least know what I'm talking about, even if no one else does.)
For my grandmother's earrings I took inspiration from a bracelet I found in the store, and chose one with faceted beads, clear and pale blue and lavender, along with round silver ones. I took apart the bracelet and threaded some of the beads onto a head pin. From there I decided to make a necklace to go with it, attaching some beads in a cluster with jump rings to a length of chain finished with a toggle clasp. I picked up a second bracelet to make it a complete set.
With 2 pairs of clip-on earrings in the package, I decided to make another pair of earrings for her, from aqua beads I found in my drawer, and while I was still on a roll, I made a pair of the same with earhooks for myself. Unfortunately, I did not have the presence of mind at the time to photograph the faceted bead projects, but I have taken a picture of the aqua earrings I made for myself:
I'm happy to say that Gramma loved her gifts!
Then I got my Mom's Xmas wishlist, which included a request for a necklace in metallic and earthy colours. I set to work again, staring at the wall of beads, talking to myself, picking up and putting back several hanks of beads, and finally leaving the store (with a bag full of beads) after an hour.
The starting point I chose was a wood & metal pendant featuring a leafy tree design, which I'd seen before and knew I wanted to make something with it. From there I chose small round metallic beads in copper, aged gold, and hematite colours. Finally, I felt I needed accent beads to give the piece more character, and chose tiger's-eye stones to use as spacers between single- and double-strand sections. I chose aged gold crimps and a lobster clasp to finish. I took cues from the arrangement of the metallic beads on the strands to figure out an order as I was stringing them. Copper, gold, copper, gold, silver, gold, copper, gold, copper... and so on. I held it up my own neck as I went to determine when I'd gotten to the halfway point, then added the pendant, and continued along, mirroring the previous order to the end. (Though I did run out of copper beads to make it perfectly mirrored. Maybe one day I'll choose my bead quantities more intently.) I finished it with crimps (which are neat - they're soft metal beads that you can squish with pliers to hold strands in place; I'd never used them before).
The finished piece, held up in natural light, and on my beading tray with overhead light and camera flash:
Another hit! Mom loved it.
With my discovery of crimps, I expressed my thoughts on a piece I'd made for her birthday this past year, for which I'd used silk thread finished with a simple knot inside a magnetic clasp. This piece is randomly strung agate & jade stone and metallic beads, making it fairly weighty. I learned (from one of my nifty beading books, also where I learned about crimps!) that a necklace that weight will strain the silk, so I offered to restring it with wire and finish it with crimps. I'm glad I did, since the thread had already stretched out an inch.
The restrung piece, in soft light on my living room chair:
Mom was pleased to have it back so soon, and to have it feel more sturdy.
It wasn't all beadwork this holiday. I also did some baking! Vegan chocolate peppermint cookies (recipe) topped with crushed candy cane bits:
These cookies were a bit more challenging than my usual attempts at cookies. There's the added step of dipping them in melted chocolate after they've cooled. I tasted the uncoated cookie and found them quite bitter - the recipe doesn't call for any sugar! Otherwise, honestly, I might have skipped coating them. I used 71% dark chocolate chips, so they still aren't overly sweet, but very chocolaty. When dipping them, I kept accidentally dropping or breaking the cookies into the chocolate! (The recipe says use a fork.) I found it worked better to drop the cookie into the chocolate, flat with the topside down, then lift it out by sliding the fork under it and flipping it onto a second fork to place it right-side-up on the cookie sheet. The dipping process went much faster once I started doing that! I sprinkled crushed candy cane bits over top and placed the tray in the fridge to set.
The nutritionist side of me enjoys that there's not too much sugar, along with wheat-free coconut oil & chia goodness (I used rice milk & chia seed instead of applesauce & flax), while the chocoholic side of me rejoices at the combination of, well, chocolate, rich and dark, with peppermint.
I also had lots of melted chocolate leftover, so I lined a container with plastic wrap and poured the chocolate into it. Now I have a big round bar of peppermint-flavoured dark chocolate in my fridge, waiting to be nibbled away. I love mint and chocolate.
Now, my husband, on the other hand, doesn't like chocolate much, and the combination of chocolate and peppermint, he likes even less. I met his request for oatmeal cookies, but put a holiday-inspired twist on my usual recipe (adapted from Simple Oatmeal Cookies recipe in "La Dolce Vegan" by Sarah Kramer), by adding gingerbread spices - cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, & cloves - and organic dried cranberries and eggnog-flavoured almond milk. The result was Xmas in a crumbly not-too-sweet oatmeal cookie:
I also baked a vegan chocolate-chocolate-chip cake, which was delicious, but so fluffy I made a ruin of it just by cutting into it and attempting to lift a piece out of the pan. Oh well.
So the holidays are over, but I'm hoping that this pull toward my much-neglected hobbies will not decline or fade until next year. I hope, in fact, that as business starts to pick up (focus on positive outcomes!), I'll still carve out time to spend on these hobbies and other things. I'm welcoming 2013 with hopes for a happy year of being closest to my own "me"-ness as I've ever been.
Happy New Year! :)
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