Beading and Mule Puke

Oh brother. :( Now, you all know that I have been MIA these last several days. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that my wretched sister got me addicted to Farm Town on Face Book. I'm writing her out of my will for this. Another reason was that my hip was killing me. Ok, it's getting better. Yet another reason was serious dementia caused by trying to weave beads.

My friend Pam in San Jose has been trying to teach me, long distance, how to bead weave. The poor baby. I am driving her to drink. She sent me beads to use and a ton of really cool cabochons. And about 40 lessons, none of which I could do. Sigh.....

So, tonight I dragged out this natural stone cab that is tan and kind of mustard and dark brown. I love it. So, I spent an hour trying to decide what color beads would look really nice. I laid the cab right on top of them so I could see. Didn't help.

After hours of frustrating beading (with Farm Town breaks) I finally "got" it and was beading happily along. Following Pammie's directions. I ran out out thread about the time my Hunnibunni comes home so I leave the half done thing and we toddle off to the library.

A small aside here. Running out of thread is an amazing experience as when you start out, you cut about 6 miles of thread and need to hire a helper to pull it through the beads until the length becomes manageable. Actually, it never does become manageable as there is a "tail" hanging off which all the book insist must be a quarter mile long. Now you have not one, but TWO impossibly long threads hanging off your bezel, the diameter of which is about 2 inches. WHO thinks up these things?

And another aside... you also have to put a "stop bead" on your tail. :D Sigh......... This thing is supposed to keep the other beads from falling off. It's a total PITA. One book used painter's blue tape. I LOVE blue tape so I toddle off to the tape drawer and get some. Need I tell you the total annoyance of finding that not only has my thread wrapped around everything on my table but also the blue tape has stuck itself to my beading mat? I, of course, don't notice this until I am pulling the last half mile of thread through the needle when all the beads go air born because the tape is stuck to the mat, the map lifts off the table and flings all the loose microscopic beads half way across the room. I, naturally, bellow, "SHIT!" which causes our peacefully snoozing kitties to add themselves to my air born beads. I also cause our poor neighbors to reach for weapons as they have no idea why I'm bellowing. I seem like such a nice person.

Ok, when we get home from the post office, I pick up where I left off. Right. Stopping old thread and restarting with a new piece is a feat that needs a degree in architecture or engineering. Or both.

So, the directions say to make 3 to 7 rows. I do 4 or 5, I can' t really tell. All the beads are the same color, yanno? And they are smaller than gnat shit. So, I sits there beading away when I arrive at where I began ( because I am making a circle, yanno?) and oooops! Something is not right. The beads are kinda drunk looking. Well, that's ok. I continue on. I can hear all you experienced beaders groaning and laughing. You are right.

So, I make my 4 or 5 rows. Then I dutifully get the kind of burnt orange delicas and continue on. Wow. I did good. Mostly. Then I have to switch to even smaller beads. We had gnat shit, paramecium shit and now we have nano shit sized beads. All of this is making a nice cupping effect. So, I get all done and ready to finish the back.

But first, it's time to put the cab in to see how it looks before I do the back side. It looks like mule puke. Not only do the colors look gross but my 4 or 5 rows were 3 or 4 rows too many. It kind of looked like a 5 year old kid trying on her mommy's winter coat. I am most definitely not amused.

WHY do the colors look awful, you query? It is a mystery. They looked great with the cab laying on top of the beads. I think it transmorgrified or something the second I put it in the bezel. Anyway, tomorrow I will make another attempt with different colors. Or a different cab. Or both.

You didn't really think I was gonna show you a picture, did you? :D

I'm going to play Farm Town.