Bluebonnets...

ready for picking soon:





It's funny, because in these pictures these canes look HUGE. In reality, they are about 3mm, or about 4 times the diameter of the lead in an automatic pencil. I'll leave the blue canes pretty much as they are, as they'll be stippled on, but the green striped canes will be pulled down quite a bit smaller. "Pulling them down" involves reheating the cane, and stretching it out a bit, so it's thinner in diameter. I also use this reheating/pulling process to make the cane look more random when applied - rather than the nice, straight, neat cane you see here, it will be bumpy, wavy, more like mother nature intended. These will be painted on to the bead - think about making a long comma stroke, but with glass.Of course, it's not all naturalistic - if you look closely at the striped cane close-up (the cane closest to the bottom), you can see the tiny stripe of goldstone I added...in the picture, it looks kinda like pixelization, but it's not - it's sparkle!

I made most of the blue canes last night - all except the darkest blue. I made those and both sets of green cane, light and dark, at 5:30 this morning. I'm ready to make bluebonnet beads first thing Saturday morning!

So what have I been up to?

Here I am, sitting waiting for my class to start. It's actually every afternoon this week - and yesterday was really good. With all the stats classes I took, SEM wasn't one of them.

I have been making beads - like crazy! I'm doing a trunk show at Nomadic Notions in July, so I've been torching, torching, torching. Probably cranking out 6 to 8 sets every weekend. During the week, I try to take an hour after Tony has gone to bed and make materials - twisties, complex cane, encased case, etc. - to use in the weekend's work. It might not seem like it, but this saves a LOT of time when it comes to actually making the beads. People at bead shows invariably ask, "How long does it take to make a bead?" Well, once all the parts have been made, not very long. But a single complex cane or twistie can take 15-20 minutes to make. And, if I'm lucky, I get enough usable cane to use in three or four beads. Maybe.

This weekend I'm going to concentrate on focals. I've got a few goddesses, a few thimbles, but absolutely no bluebonnets and very few other type focals. So, tonight I'll probably start pulling the encased case for the bluebonnets. I use three or four different blue (basically very light to very dark) color combos on each bead to mimic the bluebonnet colors; I've also got to make a complex striped cane for the stems and leaves. And then the canes for the background paint brush. I'll be busy!

Not too proud to admit it....

Okay, how sad is it that I'm updating - while I'm sitting in a class on Structural Equation Modeling! LOL Nothing like jumping back in in a wacko way.

I HAVE been contemplating getting back in the saddle, so to speak. I just got so busy - home, work, home, work, Tony, the girls, home, work...you get the idea. Judging from the last update, which was right before the Houston bead show, I was busting butt getting stuff ready for that, then there was the end-of-semester at work, and working on the house. A new floor - finally! - and I didn't have to do any of it! But, I was without a kitchen for 2 or 3 weeks. Gee, that was fun. Although I can't say it was all bad having the refrigerator in the living room.

Anyway, to those of you that have emailed or that I've seen at bead shows - YES - everything is fine. I think I just needed a break. Truthfully, I still need a break, but I guess I'm beginning to realize that I'm not gonna get one.

Class is resuming - I did post on a break - what! you thought I posted DURING class!? Gotta go.