The Beginnings of my Beading Artwork...

This is my very first post I'm doing for the blog. I am in hope it will come out well. I cannot create a website, not even if my life depended on it! So, this blog seems to make it real easy for me!

I have been in a terrible slump for most of the year now. I have Lupus as well as Fibromyalgia (FMS). I suffer from severe chronic pain.

I have been pushing myself to more or less get myself out and get things done. It's not easy to get out there when you know doing just that will cause a setback. However, I have been learning precisely just what my limitations are and I'm seeing results. So, that has been helpful.
I still do have to be very careful with exposure to anyone who is or may be ill because of my autoimmune deficiency.

I have finally succumbed to taking beading classes up north at a store called, "Beads by Design" located in Marietta, GA. I have taken Melanie Robbins class on Double Spiral and had a lot of fun learning the double spiral. I am still not finished with this bracelet. I should have finished this bracelet long ago! I have very little left to do and should be finished with it this week. I will post some pictures I took of it during the making of it, and the mistake or the major 'oops!' or botch-up I caused and of course the finished piece. I realize many bead artists do not take pictures of their work during the process of making what they are working on. They also certainly do not take pictures of the mistakes which I think is important for beaders, especially those that have never done the specific technique before. I figured by taking pictures of the mess-up that happened in one section of the spiral, it would be really good for others to see that it should not look like that. Actually, come to think of it, now that I've removed numerous seed beads (11's) from the messed up section, I'll take a picture of the area, and then re-do it again and take a picture of the corrected work so anyone can learn from this. When I was working on the double spiral, I was doing fabulously well until instincts kept telling me otherwise...Not only did I rely on my instincts, I relied by looking at how the actual spiral was quite choppy looking when it should have been a very smooth spiral. When the pictures are posted, it will make more sense.

I took Melanie's 2-hour class on September 5th called Ndebele pronounced: "N-da-bell-lee". Although I'm quite grateful for taking this class, it was indeed the most frustrating class I've ever taken. I work best by seeing my instructor personally do the work on her Ndebele spiral. But because she didn't do any instructions by teaching the technique in person, she taught the technique by her written instructions which I still am not able to understand very well. I still have to learn how to understand beading instructions and certainly figure out how to read the illustrations. It's easier said than done! Melanie laid out the samples of the Ndebele technique using pony or crow beads. That didn't help me at all. I am the kind of person who needs to see some techniques that go way over my head done personally by the instructor or by someone who understands the technique real well. The class was only two-hours and that too was weighing heavily on my mind. I do not live close to the store. It's about 55 miles away from where we live. I most unfortunately did not learn this technique. I was so frustrated and decided if I did another stitch and made yet another mistake that would have more or less or pretty much sealed my fate with beading. The Ndebele stitch is absolutely stunning. It's a stitch I'm very determined to learn. I will learn it one of these days.

I took another class of Melanie's on November 18 for her beaded Christmas light bulb. I thoroughly enjoyed this class! But when I came home from class, my youngest daughter (Nicole) was in town which I had absolutely no idea about... then of course with Thanksgiving approaching, Kiersten (my oldest daughter) came home from her apartment & a short break from college and work. So rather than focusing on my art and bead work, I spent all my time with Kiersten and we had a lot of fun! When Kiersten left Friday afternoon to return to her apartment, I decided to get back to my bead work. Well... I ran into a major problem. I cannot for the life of me remember if I'm at the end of the 14th row, or at the beginning of the 15th row or the end of 15th row and supposed to be at the 16th row. I am not able to figure out how on earth I can find out just where I am at. Another thing is, I decided to just go ahead and assume I'm starting my 15th row... I cannot remember how to do the stitch. (Memory is not my strongest forte). I can remember something after doing it repeatedly. But if it's something very new, then chances are I will forget.
I did call the store to schedule an appointment to get a brush up on how to do this. So, hopefully sometime next week or so, I can have a class to do the rest of the work.

I purchased a lot of 2-inch wooden beads for the project simply because I truly love handmade Christmas ornaments. My mother always made ornaments using quilted fabrics and stuff them with lovely adorned ribbon around the ornaments. Very simple and yet it says a lot. I have never received a handmade gift for as long as I can remember. So, I want to be sure I do this and leave more than plenty for Kiersten & Nicole and Marc so they always have something from me. I love the way the lined beads really bounce light off of the bulbs! I will take pictures of this after I get several made. I will not have these ready in time for Christmas. That's alright though because there will be future Christmas holidays and more than plenty of beaded bulbs to be enjoyed during the holiday seasons! I can bead the bulbs during the year and have quite a bit of them ready in time for the holidays. So I’m not worried about this at all. (I’m the kind of person who tends to take on more projects than I should)… does this sound familiar to you?!!

I purchased a 2-inch wooden round Christmas tree. Now I think it may be the wrong size. I think it will be a lot easier to bead around a larger tree. I'm going to give some to Melanie and see if she would be interested in playing around with this. I'm not quite ready to figure out what kind of technique to use and just how many beads to use, where to increase and decrease. I am not quite there yet. I do have some ideas but am not sure it would work with the tree. So, I'll talk to Melanie about it or another beader who loves challenges. I hope I will be as good as the bead artists are one of these days! It would be just wonderful to truly create my own designs. I have had a few ideas in mind for about 20 years that I would like to put into various forms of art and of course into beading!

I really wanted to take Cynthia Rutledge's class for her project called, "Alyeska's Jewel."
It's a bangle. It's lovely. I would have liked to take her "Circlet of Lace" class, but was told that it may not be a wise idea for me to learn that just yet. It's my birthday on Thursday, November 30th. My husband gave me the gift of taking her 2-day classes which I unfortunately had to cancel because I forgot a prior commitment I made. I have to do a speech for medical professionals on Friday, 01 December at a University. I cannot afford to pay for the two-day class and miss a full day of the 2nd class when I'm at another event. However, I'll ride out to Marietta on Saturday and look at her kits and go from there. I learned from the staff at the store that Cynthia comes out every year, so upon learning that, I was much happier! You can learn more about Cynthia Rutledge at

If you go to her site, take a look at two of her kits that I'm going to purchase... 1 kit is called Tibetan Bangle. You can see this at:

and the other one is called, The Sea Coil Bangle and this is at:

I will get both of them part of my birthday gift from my husband, Marc and also as Christmas gifts. I really like her Avalon necklace. I love what she names her designed work. She's quite an excellent bead artist.

In a different post, I will mention other bead artists and non-bead artists that I also like very much!
I will also list blog sites that I like very much. (First I have to figure out how on earth to do that)!

I'll post again soon! Till then, enjoy your art work and your beading! The end results will be well worth it! Life goes on and so do we all! Enjoy!