Sound the Klaxon of Ennui

What noise would the Klaxon of Ennui make? I reckon it'd be a big, long, loud sigh or maybe just the sound of someone going "Urgh" in a really mopey way.

I've wanged on so many times before about how my apparent 'maladaptive perfectionism' affects my beadmaking but it's reached crazy levels to the point where more often than not I think I'm actually sort of afraid to make anything. I think my brain is saying "What's the point in making beads when you won't be happy with any of them?" and I simply don't know how to overcome that feeling.

When I'm having a particularly naff time with beadmaking I look at photos of beads I made years ago in the hope that it'll spur me on but I usually just end up despondent at how past me made so many different beads in such quantities and I get quite doldrumsy again.

* S I G H *

Anyhow...

I dragged myself into the shed on Monday and decided to make lentil beads. Years ago I had a lentil press made for me that does 8, 10 and 12mm lentils but I asked for it to be made to take a 1.6mm mandrel and that is the exact size they made the mandrel groove which is no good when you've got a dipped 1.6mm mandrel in it because the bead release cracks when you press the bead, so the press has been sat there literally gathering dust for about nine years.

I've been a fan of tiny lentil beads ever since I bought a strand of eight of them about two decades ago. They were transparent ink blue and white ones made by Corina Tettinger and I turned them into a bracelet.

Bracelet made with Corina's beads

I was, and still am, wowed by how Corina decorated such small (about 11mm) lentils. These beads are not easy to get right, even though they're pressed. Too much glass and you'll get a lip around the edges and too little and you'll get a misshapen bead with sharp hole edges. When you're adding decoration that is melted flush with the bead's surface you have to take into account the extra glass that this will add, so all in all it's a beady tightrope walk. 

I decided that Monday was the day to dust off my tiny lentil press and have another go. After recently working with and getting used to 1mm mandrels I decided to see if they'd cooperate with it. They do but blimey, remember all that stuff I just said about them being not easy to get right? Yeah. A whole day in the shed should not result in only a dozen correct beads but that was what I ended up with. The photo below shows my water jug at the end of the day. That's a lot of lentil failures.

Interesting fact: 'lentil' rhymes with 'mental'

And I can't fully blame my bead perfectionism for all of these rejects because some of the beads were just bad in that they had sharp holes or too much glass. Sharp bead holes are my number one pet bead peeve; if I see them for sale anywhere I get really annoyed. (My number two pet bead peeve is people describing random spots as polka dots but that's where we really are entering the realms of my pedantry and nobody wants to go to there.) What also didn't help is that I chose to use Effetre Light Red 428 for the lentils. Don't get me wrong, this is one of my favourite reds but it goes a bit streaky and you can end up with darker and lighter reds within one bead. This isn't a huge problem but sometimes it can look a bit jarring, especially as such a small and simple-looking bead, and because of this I rejected some of the beads after I'd cleaned them.

Pleasingly tiny lentils

Anyway, I turned the twelve 10mm red lentils into a bracelet. What I like about this shape is how comfy they are to wear. The beads sit nicely and not too high so you get a sleeker lampwork bracelet look than you do with round beads.

Can you see the light and dark red variation?

The smaller bead hole definitely makes for better-behaved beads when you're making jewellery too as the beads don't wobble about as much on your thread or wire.

I've got a few strands of smaller-holed beads for sale in my shop.

Blue 'Spots & Dots'

Black and yellow 'Spots & Dots'

'Light Sapphire' Spotties

These were all made on 1mm mandrels so with bead release and cleaning the holes end up at about 1.2mm.

I've still got more leaf beads to photograph but my eyes had enough of doing that yesterday. I got new glasses on Saturday so I'm trying to get used to a new prescription plus the fact that they're varifocals and it's not going well. To say I hate them is an understatement. I'm keeping going with them as they say it can take a couple of weeks for your eyes to get used to varifocals but I'm constantly seeing things as out of focus and I have to keep bobbing my head about like a pigeon to see properly. Things like washing up and chopping vegetables have suddenly become challenging tasks as my depth perception is out of whack. It's very tempting to go back to my old glasses but the one thing the varifocals do well is that they allow me to knit and see the telly at the same time. Before, I'd have to choose the glasses that would enable me to see the television clearly but that I'd have to peer under or over in order to see my knitting clearly, or to opt for my readers so that I could see my stitches but have to put up with the television picture as a blur. The varifocals do a great job of letting me do both so that's a win and it's why I'm persevering with them in the hope my eyes will soon adjust properly to everything else.

Talking of knitting, here are those finished Dear Björn socks I mentioned last time.

The pattern is by Nataliya Sinelshchikova and the yarn is Malabrigo Ultimate Sock in shade 214 Magenta. The pattern is in the 52 Weeks of Socks book and it's also available on Ravelry. The socks are a tricky knit but the results were worth the effing, jeffing and many instances of ripping back and re-knitting.

I've got another pair of socks finished but I'll save them for next time as I think I've droned on for quite long enough today.

Have a good Wednesday and I'll see you soon!