Playing with Beads and Chain

Just messing around...trying to get a bit of beady enthusiasm back...I found a picture of some truly lovely earrings (torn from some magazine, sometime, sadly I cannot give credit where credit is due), which were intricately fashioned from a single piece of wire, with semi-precious bead chips lined up on the bar of the "trapeze".  I thought, hmmm, I'll bet I could make something similar, but using maybe eye pins and chain in place of the silver wire; easier and less time-consuming.  So I began to play.  And this is what I made:

Easy as can be!  Eye pins, some beads, jump rings tiny and medium, and some earring wires.  I'll be playing around with this concept, changing things up a bit, using different beads and chain...very simple, yet satisfying.  I have to say, I truly enjoyed my hour at the beading table.

Trying hard

I'm trying hard to get my "mojo" back...my desire to create and to take pleasure in the process. It seems to me as if I need to approach this process the same way I would approach any problem...by beginning. By picking something up and starting. Getting started is the surest way (for me) to keep going. It's hard, however, to begin something that I'm not already excited about. 

I have been making artist trading cards for various swaps...I never stopped doing that.  However, I find myself using the same techniques over and over.  I think it's time for a major shakeup...I've bought a couple books, and plan to "take classes" to learn new techniques, and will put them into practice.  Stagnation: not good.

Additionally, I have once again been crocheting...always the quest for the perfect, perfectly pleasing granny square. I am the QUEEN of crocheting, joining, and ripping out. I become...dissatisfied, I guess...with whatever I've made. I have an unbelievable number of partially-completed afghans and such, but when the urge to crochet strikes, I always seem to start something new. I get so inspired by what I see online! I want THAT, I say to myself! So I start, become dissatisfied, and before you know it, I have little balls and squiggles of yarn sitting all around me, which used to be parts of granny squares.

Ahem. Moving on. This weekend I was determined to start something I've had in mind for some time (oooh, saw the original on Flickr and FELL IN LOVE!!)...a pink, green and white cotton hexagon afghan. I started by making hexagons of all the different pinks and greens in my stash of Rowan Handknit Cotton (and also Jarbo, which looks and feels identical, but is much less expensive for some reason)...but very quickly decided that it did not look cohesive and I needed to use only a few colors. I settled on four: a lime-y green called Gooseberry, white, a very pale pink, and a darker rose pink. And using just those colors, I feel happier with the result. The pieces look cohesive, which is pleasing at this point. Probably by row four, I'll decide that it's boring and that I should rip it out and start over, with a different color scheme. (Sometimes I don't like myself very much!) So. After all the anguish, here's what I've done:

 

So there you have it...my pursuits of late.  Next comes the jewelry; I've kind of dropped out of life, and haven't joined any challenges or blog hops in the longest time (two months).  Must rectify that immediately.  It all gives me so much joy (usually), and I'm hoping I can get that back.

I seem to have lost my way.  I don't remember when I published a blog post last (actually, it's been two months, I checked), and unfortunately it seems that unless I do this every day, it slips off my mental "to do" list...and then two months have gone by with nothing to show for that time. 

Honestly, I must have done SOMETHING during the past two months...but I feel stagnant.  I don't think I've learned anything new, which was not part of the whole retirement plan; I don't think I've created much of anything, either.  I bore myself!

So here I go again, promising myself that I'll do better, and hoping to use this electronic vehicle as a tracking device of sorts.  Does this happen to other people, or (God forbid) is it specific to me?  Right here, right now, on Mother's Eve, I promise (to myself) to do better.