I'm back

I've recently had the longest break I've ever had from beads. I had Covid so I didn't work for a bit and then that bit turned into weeks and then more weeks. At one point I didn't think I'd go back to lampworking. I was ready to get rid of the shed and everything in it but fortunately Chris advised me to just leave everything where it was and to just wait. I seemed to have simply lost all enthusiasm for going down to the torch and glass. I stayed indoors and crocheted instead. I crocheted and I knitted and I crocheted a bit more. I even thought about going and getting a job at the Post Office. (I don't know why but whenever I've considered getting a job I always think about the Post Office.) I felt a bit lost and like I just wasn't supposed to make beads anymore. I was feeling that my beads are rubbish and boring and my refusal to 'make myself the brand' and be sucked into creating social media content - churning out videos and reels and all that guff - meant that my beadmaking days were probably over.

And then one day last month I got up and decided that I was going to go down to the shed and make some beads.

Before I lit the torch I sat and looked through my Flickr gallery and my own Instagram, surprised at just how many beads I've made over the years.

And then I made beads.

Afterwards I felt like a total idiot for feeling the way I'd been feeling.

My beads aren't rubbish or boring. I know they're not fancy sculptural beads or ones that contain inclusions and metals, or big massive focals - they are simple-looking, honed-over-nineteen-years, unfussy, small beads - but they are my beads, and that's fine.

I make beads for me. No, I don't wear them or keep them but the making of them is for me. The act of creating a bead is a little challenge and that challenge is what I love about making in general. I've tried a huge amount of crafts over the years but none of them has ever satisfied my makery urge as much as beadmaking does.

So on I go, continuing to do my own bead thing in my own way.

This past week I've revisited my Ditsybeads. I've always liked these even though they take a lot of faffing to get right. I timed it yesterday and each successful one takes me about fifteen minutes to make. That's quite a while for a 12mm bead. I'm such a slow beadmaker and I set myself such daft standards but again, without those things my beads would not be my beads.

Anyway, that's quite enough of the self-obsessed introspective blah-blah. Next time I'm having an "I'm burning the shed and everything in it!" drama queen moment, this post will serve as a reminder to myself to keep going.

I'm going to write a boring blog post now about new postage rates for my webshop for balance.