Author Archives: artandtea

Studio Wednesday

In my studio today, I worked on my last 2007 beaded journal page, my November page. Well, truth be told, it was such a gorgeous day weather-wise that I brought my beadwork out on my deck in the sunshine and enjoyed the fresh air. This is a photo of my greyhound, Buddy, who passed away in August 2001. We adopted him from Greyhound Friends in Hopkinton, MA, a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to rescue greyhounds, take care of them and find forever homes for them. Also, to spread the word about them and their plight.

Greyhounds are such amazing dogs, enduring the hard and challenging life of racing at the track. They are usually “retired” after a couple of years of racing because it is so strenuous on their body. Very sadly, most of them are destroyed after they can’t race anymore. In ancient times, greyhounds were the revered pets and hunting dogs in Greece, Italy and Egypt, not used for how much money they could make for their owner.

Buddy, whose racing name was “Paris Boy”, was retired at age 2 1/2 and soon after came to live with my family. The first week he lived with us, we discovered that he had absolutely no idea what stairs were. We lived in a ranch house and it wasn’t until we visited my in-laws down the street and he got excited and walked up their deck stairs to greet them that we discovered he didn’t know how to get back down. My SIL got his front and I got his back and together we lifted him gently down the stairs. Poor guy was petrified. He also was afraid of rubber balls which we found out when we tried to play catch with him and he ran away in the opposite direction of the ball. One thing that he greatly enjoyed was to go into my daughter’s room and methodically take all of the stuffed animals off her bed back to his “nest” of blankets in the living room. We discovered this upon returning to the house one day to find him in a pile of stuffed animals. He was very happy that day.

I’m not really planning my beadwork ahead of time with this page. I was just going with the flow of the beads in the moment and found myself creating a pair of wings for Buddy’s heart. Well, they’re supposed to be wings. There’s some white space at the top and bottom of the photo so I’ll fill that in with some beads. I’m hoping to be finished with this page in the next day or two as the 2008-2009 BJP starts on September 1st.

For this new BJP year, I’ve decided to create journal bracelets, probably 1-1 1/2 inches wide x 6 inches long. With an ultrasuede backing, I’ll secure each one over a metal bracelet blank. I haven’t chosen a theme other than to make each one into a bracelet. My intention is to create a piece based on whatever I’m feeling at the moment. I’ll sew on one bead at a time and see where it takes me.

I’ve been tagged

I’ve been tagged by Stephanie to share 6 random things about myself.

First, the rules and then the random.

  • Link to the person who tagged you.
  • Post these six rules on your blog.
  • Write 6 random things about yourself.
  • Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
  • Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog.
  • Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

The random:

  • I love the smell of coffee – freshly ground coffee beans brewing into a thick dark cup of java but I don’t like the taste of it. Whereas I never put sugar in my tea, I always put a generous spoonful of sugar along with plenty of milk or cream in my cup of coffee.
  • Instead of using an electric clothes dryer, I always hang my clothes up to dry and have for years. Outside on a clothesline or a portable clothes hanger in the sunshine and inside next to a woodstove or under a ceiling fan.
  • Even though I know how to swim and learned as a child, I am very afraid of deep water. Someday I would like to take swimming lessons for adults who are afraid of the water.
  • I am captivated by macro photography. A couple of weeks ago at work, one of our tea buyers found “tea fuzz” in one of the tea containers and put it under a microscope so we could get a better look. I wanted to take a photograph of it so badly. It made my day. Someday I am going to get a macro lens for my camera and take photos of teeny tiny things.
  • I am going to take a class to learn to speak Italian. I have wanted to do this for years now since I first heard Andrea Bocelli sing. I think I was Italian in a former life.
  • I have light green eyes. Before I started wearing my glasses all the time, someone once asked me if I wore green colored contact lenses. I don’t. Another person once told me that my eyes were light like an Alaskan Husky’s eyes. That was an interesting but strange conversation.

Six people I am tagging – (participation optional!):

Saturday Morning Tea

It is a gorgeous late summer morning here in New England with brilliant sunshine and low humidity. A soft breeze ruffles the treetops as I sit out on my back deck and listen to them sigh. A good morning for sitting out in nature and being still.

Several weeks ago I reviewed a tea called Heavy Baked Tie-Guan-Yin Oolong and I discovered that I had never reviewed a Jade Oolong, a tea upon which that particular tea is based. Well, this morning I brewed some up in my favorite glass teapot.

Oolongs are allowed to oxidize at varying times thus creating some that are more towards green tea and some that are much darker than that. A Jade Oolong is only oxidized for a short amount of time, about 18%. As you can see, this creates a tea that is very pale yellow.

A luscious flowery aroma greets me as I pour my first cup.

During processing, the leaves are rolled into curly shapes that gently release during the steeping. Sweet and rich, the liquor is buttery soft with a pleasing lilac note. I steeped the leaves in 180 degree water for 3 minutes.

If you want to try multiple steepings, shorten your steeping times.

My youngest son leaves for Basic Training with the Air Force in 2 days. He’s been trying to go early all summer but it didn’t happen. It seems his military training began earlier with this first exercise in patience. I’m so proud of him. Today we are having a big family dinner to send him off with good wishes and love. Between that and a little soreness in my right wrist, my freeform bracelet will also have to wait patiently for my return.

The Birth of a Freeform Peyote Bracelet – Part 2

Here is what I’ve accomplished today. You can see how I am starting to place the beads in such a way so that the colors are drifting into each other. This will soften that striped look. Because I’m using various size beads, the bracelet starts to get a bit wavy but I can adjust that as I go along by where I place the beads and how many I place.

Sometime I place 2 same size beads at once to fill in a space.

To add a larger size 6 bead, I sandwich it between smaller size 11 beads and make a little bridge by skipping more than the usual one bead.

Or, instead of staying on one side of the bracelet, I can move to the other side by placing size 15 beads (the lighter ones) across the top.

I love to add pearls because they give a lustrous, organic look. Another little bridge. Play with the placement and see which beads work best. Follow your inner voice.

Sometimes bridges can go across to the other side. Those green chips are peridot. I found them at a bead show I went to last spring. The clarity is amazing.

A closeup of one side.

And the other side.

If you want a thinner bracelet, all that’s left to do is to add beads in such a way to even it out and then add a bead/button and loop clasp. The clasp is beaded in a freeform way so that it fits right in with the rest of the bracelet. Because I’m having such a wonderful time with this, I’ve decided to continue beading and make this bracelet wider. Stay tuned for more progress…

The Birth of a Freeform Peyote Bracelet – Part 1

When I woke up yesterday morning, I discovered that the power was off. That was strange because we hadn’t had any storms overnight nor was it terribly windy. I called the power company to be told that they were working on the wires up the street and the power would be restored by 10am. Ok, I guess I could wait for my cup of tea until then. I waited patiently, writing 3 pages of Morning Pages and doing a little reading in my current book, Happy for No Reason. 10am came and went and I called the power company again only to get their automated power outage line. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had called in. Without lights, there was no working in my studio so I brought some beadwork out on the deck where there was plentiful sunshine. The power came back on about 7:30 last night when I was out having dinner with a friend who I hadn’t seen in 3 years.

So, what did I do yesterday, you ask? Out there on my sunny deck, another freeform peyote bracelet was born.

I chose 9 different beads in various sizes – 11s, 8s and 6s – and strung about 10-15 beads of each color for a total of 6 inches. I used 2 of the beads twice in my strand for a total of 11 sections. I always string an even number of beads on a neutral color Silamide thread. Silamide is a twisted 2-ply prewaxed thread that has been used by dressmakers for years. Here’s some great information about it. I’ve been using this thread for years now and I really like it. I used to always use Nymo but it tangled too much on me even when I waxed it. I think that the best thread to use is whatever you feel comfortable with and works well for you. Before I added all of my beads, I added one bead, leaving a 6 inch tail, and looped the thread around to go through that bead again. This creates what is called a “stop” bead which prevents the beads from falling off your thread.

In peyote stitch, I added the second row of beads, stopping to tighten every 3 beads or so. You can see how the sections are more accentuated now.

I then added a third row.

From now on I will start adding beads so that the bracelet doesn’t look so striped. I do this by drifting the colors into each other. In my next installment, I’ll show how I do this.

I absolutely love this way of beading. You don’t have to follow a pattern, only a technique and even then, you will be improvising on the technique here and there. Every freeform piece you create is totally unique and expresses your voice, what you were experiencing, thinking of and feeling in the moment. What colors shall I use? Shall I put this color next to that color? What size beads? The more sizes you use, the more textural and wavy your piece will become. It’s a wonderful way to experiment with different beads. There isn’t a right way or wrong way to do it. Just get in the flow and add one or two beads at a time and see where the beads lead you.