Mother Love

Two days ago I saw a friend and colleague in the corridor. "How are you?" I ask. She shakes her head and then explains that her mom, who has been very sick for the past few months, died two days before. Knowing she was very close to her mom, I give her a hug. Reducing her to tears in a crowded corridor. As she is running out sobbing I feel so bad for setting her off. In a desire to cheer her up and apologise for upsetting her I proceed to design and make her a necklace. Who would have though guilt (or maybe its sympathy?) could be such a good inspiration! So I spent the whole rest of that day designing this necklace in my head and the entire evening and the next morning putting it together. Thus here it is my Mater Necklace.
Mater is Latin for mother.

The strap is made with ostrich egg-shell beads and amethyst rounds. Lucinda got the ostrich beads for me from the Bushmen of Botswana when she was there on field work. Whenever I use these beads I think of her.

I chose black for the base colour in the peyote tube with a star burst pattern in gold. I wanted the whole design to sort of symbolise mothers. So there is a dove, flowers, feathers and leaves, an owl for wisdom and a clock for time. The peyote strip says mom, I wanted to use the Latin, Mater (hence the name of the piece) but it would have been too long. From the beginning I wanted to use the amethyst heart bead (next to the dove) so that gave the colour palette, black, gold and amethyst.

Part of the inspiration for this necklace was Heidi Kummli's Peace necklace. I have been reading her book The spirit of bead embroidery and on reflection the thinking behind her beading gave a strong influence to this necklace. So thanks Heidi!

So this is for you Lucinda!

PS have a good Christmas break everybody I dont know when I will blog again, so happy new years if I dont get to it next week.

Crochet kick

Hi guys
Cant wait for the holidays to start. Not because I am going to relax and do nothing but because I have so many crafty tasks and stuff I have got to do at home ;)!

The latest Walkerville Market went reasonably well, I wasn't there I was hiking in the Drakensberg which was fun! So my poor mother had to hold the fort in my absence. On that note We will be at the Walkerville market on this Saturday 15 Dec, where the choir will be singing carols and on the  17 Dec (which is a local holiday) where there will be a beer making demo. The final Walkerville market for the year will be on the 22 Dec where Santa will be holding court of the kiddies. So make a draai out this way for something to do.

Recently I have gotten onto a crochet kick, which was a great way of making the long car journeys go further! I have been trying my hand at many of the blocks from Jan Eaton's book 200 Crochet blocks.I have been itching to get some wool and start trying my hand at a blanket but couldn't decide which patterns I wanted. Then I heard two days ago that a friend of mine just had her first baby. I am so excited for her! So now I am inspired I'm gonna make a blanket for her little girl. I still had no idea what I wanted to make so I hit the Internet looking for inspiration.



This is a blanket make from Jan Eaton's designs that will be my inspiration for my first crochet blanket
The details about this design can be found at The Purlbee

 This is where Pinterest really comes into its own. Yes its a great way to waste time and fun to look at all the pictures but what I really like is that you can pin loads of pictures from sites and go back to those sites later without having to remember web addresses or try and retrace your steps through the search engine, really Pinterest is a "social media" thing well worth using, and this is coming from someone that hates facebook!

I have found time in the last week or so to do some beading and I will get the pieces on the blog and website soon as I can, although I have already sold two of them!
See ya.

Sorted

I have spent many evening in the last few weeks sorting out my bead stash. It had gotten to the point where you couldn't open the cupboard without something falling on your head! All the beads were in shopping bags and shoved into any nook or cranny. In short, it was chaos! So I began to sort everything, all pearls together into one box, all gemstones into another. Having first spent a small fortune on plastic boxes ;) . All findings of a type (like earring findings) together in compartmentalised boxes. So now I have a perfectly (more-or-less) sorted bead stash, only one problem...I cant find where I put anything! and the cupboard is so full that to get out whatever box I need, I first have to take out another three! Sigh.

The show on Saturday wasn't great. I like the fact that it was a nice substantial show, but the weather turned unexpectedly bad and I didn't think to take a coat so I froze! I think perhaps the bad weather also scared off the crowds. So we didn't make many sales (one, in fact). But another stall holder, a silversmith, with some lovely pieces there, was impressed with my designs and asked if she brought me some pearls and gemstones, weather I would be interested in making some stuff for her, so I will be back there this Saturday to see what happens.

I sat down to make some new things one evening last week and had one of those sessions where nothing wants to work! I think the problem was that I had two different ideas in my head and no real plan about what I wanted to make. Sometimes sitting down without a plan can produce a great design but often all it produces is an unholy mess, that takes me several days to clean-up, in fact I still havnt done so!


Ok I have talked far too much again!
Keep well and stay sane while doing your Christmas shopping.Cheers




I dont know if I ever showed this to you. Its a bracelet I made for one of my best customers, she wanted something to give a friend for her 70th birthday.