The Menthol One

I finally got round to making that shimmy bracelet I mentioned. The bracelet has spacers made in CiM Sea Foam, Effetre Copper Green 219 and Effetre Light Turquoise 232. There are also a few faceted Czech glass beads in a pretty aquamarine colour.

All the findings are silver plated and nickel compliant. I'd love to be able to make these in sterling silver but have you seen the price of it lately? Also, I'd have to get them hallmarked because of the amount of silver they'd contain and can I be arsed with all that? No. So yes, consider these shimmy bracelets costume jewellery, not for everyday wear, and not to be worn while washing up, showering, wild swimming or doing thirty lengths in the local pool.

The bracelet makes a soft glassy rattle as it moves which is always nice.

If you fancy giving this 'Menthol' shimmy bracelet a home, it's available in my shop.

It's properly autumning out there now, isn't it? My favourite local cherry tree has got its full Autumn '25 look going on.

The neighbour's front garden tree is in full leaf drop mode and every now and again the wind gathers the leaves in a heap in front of our porch. I say porch because that's technically what it is but you can only fit one person in it at a time so it's a very tiny porch. Porchette? Sounds very Hyacinth Bucket, that. But yes, the leaves gather and when they do I take advantage of it and go and pick them up before the wind changes and blows them all over the show. This morning I was out there at 6:45 in my pyjamas, Harry Potter dressing gown (looks like Hogwarts house robes complete with large sleeves and pointy hood) and my garden Crocs (just terrible) picking up leaves with a flattened Amazon box and a Pizza Hut box (I couldn't be bothered to venture into the garage to find the actual leaf scraper things we own) and obviously, even though I'd chosen an early hour to do this task, three neighbours walked by and said good morning. None of them flinched at my get-up, though. Ah well.

Talking of Harry Potter, I've just spent my Audible credit on their new full cast recording of The Philosopher's Stone and so far it's really good. I'm looking forward to hearing Hugh Laurie's Dumbledore.

I'm away to give Nigel his thyroid medicine now. His most recent blood test came back yesterday and there's been no change and it's "perfectly controlled" so that's excellent news. His hyperthyroidism will get worse as he gets older but right now it's stable so I'm happy with that.

That little snaggletooth!

I was less happy about Nigel getting into yet another fight the other week because he's now getting over an abscess from a cat bite which happened in the altercation. This isn't our first abscess rodeo and they're never pleasant to deal with. The picture above shows him pre-abscess burst but the front of his neck is now totally shaved; the vet buzzed his fur away around the abscess site so we can clean it easily, and she also had to shave the other side to take his blood for his thyroid test. His mortal enemy, who I call Ann Widdecombe on account of the black markings on his white head that make him look like he's sporting a Widdecombe bob, was strutting around our back garden this morning so shortly before my leaf gathering in my wizard robes I was out there shooing him away while hissing "Piss off, Ann Widdecombe!" in an attempt to stop Nigel growling, hitting the back door with his paw and doing that 'no-no-no'-miaowing that cats do when they're angry, so yeah, I'm pretty sure the neighbours definitely think of me as 'The Mental One' or something similar.

Have a good day!

Very autumnal

The customer who purchased these spotty 'Festive Glow' beads asked me to make them into a bracelet for her. 

These beads have been waiting for a home for a year (I sound like a cat rehoming centre) so it was nice to make them into jewellery and finally send them out into the world. 

I made some matching spacers to go betwixt the spotty beads and the result is a very autumnal one. Job's a good'un!

I need to make some more beads to restock my virtual shelves so I'll be in the shed for a chunk of this weekend.

In crochet news...

I've been making a load of tiny motifs out of sock yarn.

I'm currently working on joining them all together, but what are they going to be? Hopefully I'll be able to show you in the next (or maybe one after) gripping episode of this blog. Stay tuned etc.

Have a nice weekend!

Languishing no more

I start to feel sorry for beads in my 'For Sale' box that have been sat there for ages waiting for a new home. It's like they're not getting to fulfil their potential and after months of them languishing in a dark box I take out the beads and turn them into jewellery.

'Rainy Day' bracelet

'Rainy Day' earrings

I've had some polka dotty 'Rainy Day' beads and some spotty 'Iceberg' ones sat doing nothing for far too long so last week I made them into bracelets and earrings.

'Iceberg' bracelet

'Iceberg' earrings

These pieces are currently available in my shop.

Beads, bracelet and a little giveaway

I can't quite capture the real-life sunshiny vibrancy of this orangey-yellow glass in a photo. It's a very summery colour and I've paired it with lavender-blue here. There's no encasing which always makes me feel a bit weird because the thing I love most about glass beads is the way the light shines through it but sometimes it's good to keep things really simple. Also, a lot of yellow glasses do not tolerate encasing and they can crack. I'm unsure if this particular yellow is a fussy bugger one and obviously an easy way to find out would be to actually make an encased bead with it, but it's been too hot in the shed to squander limited torch time on making 'risky' beads that might crack - that's a cooler weather task.

These are Effetre pastel yellow 418 and lavender blue/pastel ink blue 247. The beads are currently available in my shop and I can etch them and/or make them into a bracelet for you if you like. All details can be found here.

I made another batch of 'Hydrangea' spotties:

One of my customers opted for a bracelet upgrade for these which is great because now I have some photographs to show you exactly what these beads look like made wearable.

If you fancy your own 'Hydrangea' spotties bracelet you can order one here. The beads can also be purchased loose so you can do your own thing with them

I had a couple of leftover lavender ones from this batch and I thought I'd offer them as a giveaway here on my blog. I've not done a giveaway for donkey's yonks!

To have a shot at winning this pair of beads with coordinating spacers you need to do the following:

• Entries for the giveaway are now closed. The winner has been announced here.

I will put all the names in a hat and draw a winner on the evening of Friday 1st August. I won't be using your email address or details for anything else and your message will be deleted once the draw is over and done with.

Good luck!

Iced Tea

This is CiM Burnt Sugar which is a transparent brown that has a warm rosy tint to it. It catches the light in such a pretty way. I've used it over CiM Foam here (I'm almost out of this and I will really miss it when it's gone) and the scrolls are Effetre White 204.

I can tumble-etch these 'Iced Tea' beads, although I think they look best left shiny. There's also the option of a bracelet upgrade if you'd like me to make them wearable for you. All the details can be found here.

Talking of bracelet upgrades, one of my customers asked if I could turn a set of the Bubblebumps beads into a bracelet for her.

I made some pink spacers and strung the beads with turquoise seed beads and sterling silver.

The result was a very juicy-fruity and utterly summery bracelet. I hope my customer likes it and enjoys wearing it.

In knitting news...

I have got some pairs that aren't striped in the Pile-o-Socks but yeah, here are some more striped ones.

These are Yarnsmiths Merino Sock in 2K172 Duckling and 2K045 Off White.

I was going for a custard cream thing and now custard creams are all I think of whenever I look at them.

Apparently it's going to be another warm day today so I'd better go and water the garden plants before I head off to the foodbank for a hot and sweaty morning hefting crates of food about in the warehouse.

Have a good Friday and enjoy your weekend!

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!

Bead creations and Christmas cats

I made some more Stormy Seas jewellery. There are a couple of bracelets...

...and I also made a few pairs of earrings. 

The beads are only about 9mm diameter so the earrings are lightweight and easy to wear.

The Stormy Seas bracelets and earrings can be purchased in my shop. I can no longer guarantee delivery in time for Christmas but I will continue to post orders as I receive them and on days that Royal Mail are doing their thing, so feel free to buy beady things and they'll be with you when they're with you.

In other news, I made a couple of catnip mice, one for Nigel and one for Enca, my sister Sally's cat.

They're made with wool felt and their tails are Icelandic lopi wool. I grow and dry catnip for Nigel every year but I normally just put some in an old odd sock of mine and tie the end up and he's more than happy with his nipsock. This year I decided that I should actually make a mouse to stuff with catnip. I don't know why because this involves sewing, which I loathe. I found a catnip mouse pattern on the PDSA website and I spent far too long sewing these two. I've hidden Nigel's away and I wrapped and posted Enca's with the other presents I was sending to my sister. The parcel of presents arrived with her yesterday and during the night Enca decided she was opening her Christmas present early and by 'opening' I mean ripping apart the wrapping, biting the ears, tail and arse off the mouse and leaving toy stuffing, catnip and ripped bits of felt all over the dining room floor. What a catnip-crazed maniac!

Utter carnage

Meanwhile, Nigel is taking his usual interest in the Christmas tree. 

He absolutely loves it and always tries to climb it. This year Chris has made a reinforced base for the tree stand to avoid it toppling over if Nigel gets too enthusiastic with it.

Adjusting that blue tit bauble

Nigel's off to the vet this evening. He's got to have a blood test to check his thyroid levels. He was at the upper end of the normal range when he had a blood test back in the summer so this is a follow-up to see what's what. He's twelve now and the older he gets the more I worry about him. I spend more time stressing and fretting about the cat than I do anything else in my life! I'm sure other pet owners can relate.

I'm going to go and tidy the spare room now. Half of it is home to my jewellery making and bead packing desk, all my packaging supplies and my yarn stash. It's all getting a bit out of hand and very messy in there and I cannot move without knocking something over or something falling on top of me.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

New jewellery

Remember the grey beads from my previous post? They're now a necklace.

This grey glass is so pretty. Swirls of transparent and opaque grey with a subtle pearly, shampoo-like gleam. I've strung the beads with plain round sterling silver beads.

The necklace measures about 22 inches long and it fastens with a lobster clasp.

I've also made a wintry bracelet.

The lampwork beads have cores of CiM Foam which I encased with Effetre Pale Aquamarine 038 and then coated in silver foil which I then burnt off, leaving behind tiny fine silver microspeckles. As a final step I etched the beads to a frosty finish. I used Dip 'n Etch as tumble-etching wouldn't have worked in this case.

The twinkly, frosty beads are strung with white opal Preciosa crystal beads and Japansee silver-lined clear seed beads. All findings are sterling silver.

The 'Mystic Grey' necklace and 'Twinklefrost' bracelet are currently for sale in my shop.