Sylviebead Journal

The birth of a project.


Sometimes it starts as an idea that I get while I'm driving, or sitting in an airport, or laying in bed after hitting the snooze button for the 3rd time. Sometimes it smacks me in the head while I'm beading... a big AHA moment (but those are rare). Sometimes it's a doodle, sometimes a dream.... sometimes it just doesn't happen at all.

Right now I have about 20 bead projects zooming around in my head, doodled on scraps of paper, sketched in notebooks... about 10 UFO (unfinished objects) lying on beading trays... and none of them are close to being a project.... except one. And I'm sooooooo close to having "it" but not quite there yet. (and I have a deadline, so I need to get to "it" pretty quick!)

Right now the birth of a project is yards and yards of unspooled wire, size 6/0, 8/0/ 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads strewn across a bead tray... baggie upon baggie and tube upon tube of colors laid out along side piles of my lampworked beads.... HOPING to be useful as-is (which means I'm really hoping not to have to invent a new lampworked bead for the project... hoping that I can use ones I already have made).

Some days I get really jealous of other beadwork artists/pattern designers. They have TWO jobs as a beader.... make a beautiful project and write a pattern. ME? I'm doing too many things at once. I'm making the beads that go into my projects, making glass beads that have NOTHING to do with the projects (but are a part of the bead booth) and FINALLY designing a project and writing a pattern. I told someone while I was at Tucson that I envy the bead girls that write in their blogs "beaded sample number 34 of the new project this week" ??!!!! Some days I feel I bite off more than I can chew designing beadwork projects with my beads in them.

This is one of those days.


I'll take some pictures of the project when it's done.... but for now, I'll plan to take a picture of the mess of beads and wire on the tray and hopefully post it here later.


coffee - yes, but it didn't help

music - no, watching cheezy chick-flick TV series while beading