A quiet bead week

I've made beads this week but I'm only just getting round to doing anything with them. This morning I made this bracelet which I've called 'Thames'.

The beads are smooth pebble-type ones in a transparent greenish-grey, each wrapped with a band of silvered ivory.

The bracelet fastens with a magnetic clasp (always feels space age) and it's in my shop as I type.

I spent last weekend in Hedge End celebrating my niece Robyn's eighteenth birthday. At the risk of sounding like an old biddy, I cannot believe how fast those eighteen years have gone. I was even more incredulous when she was waiting for me at the railway station. In her car. Which she drove me – her forty-four year old auntie who cannot and will not drive – to my sister's house in.

I can never resist a roundel

It took me two full days to recover from my weekend away. The trains were all to cock which made my outward journey over five hours. I had to go via Liverpool Street rather than my beloved King's Cross. I'd planned to go for a quick first journey on the Elizabeth Line but nope, that plan was scuppered for time reasons. But yes, ten hours of travel and doing the socialising get-together thing really knackered me out. That makes it sound like I didn't enjoy myself but I did; I had a lovely, lovely time. It's just I've become so used to it being just me, Chris, Nigel, and seeing three other people every Friday at the foodbank warehouse, that all that going places and seeing many people was very different.

All that travel did give me time to get a chunk of The Ink Black Heart listened to, though. I finished it last night and I absolutely loved it. I've seen a lot of people complaining that they can't get on with the formatting of the book as it contains a lot of transcripts of tweets and chat room exchanges. Reviews for the audiobook are similar but I honestly didn't have an issue with it. I've already started my second listen.

Many of the tweets and transcripts of online discourse in The Ink Black Heart are uncomfortable to listen to or read. If you're at all familiar with any of the threats and abuse that JK Rowling herself has been on the receiving end of these past couple of years, it makes the listening to or reading of parts of the book even more uncomfy. Social media is a problem. It has its uses but what it is doing to some people, and the knock-on effect that it has in real life, is deeply concerning. Never have I felt this more than I have the last couple of days on Twitter. I knew the social media problem was bad (and I could elaborate and go on forever here but I won't because it's just me and about two other people reading this blog) and that some people's moral compasses are truly broken, but the atrocious takes on the Queen's death and the way in which some people have spoken to others about her and the Royal Family is utterly disgusting. Personally, I find endless news stories of royal weddings, births, scandals and arguments quite tedious and I barely pay them any attention so yeah, I'm pretty much indifferent to all things royal. However, I was moved by the news that Queen Elizabeth was gravely ill and when it was announced that she'd died I felt sad. Many people have said it but the Queen has always been there. She was a constant, and for that to be no more feels slightly unsettling.

What really bothered me on Thursday and Friday, though, was seeing people second guess themselves with regard to showing how they felt about the news. I saw many tweets along the lines of "I'm not a royalist but... I'm upset she's gone/I feel sorry for Charles/it's the end of an era" etc and I saw people liking tweets but clearly not saying what they wanted to say for fear of being jumped on, ridiculed, unfollowed or blocked by people who had zero qualms about voicing their opinions on the matter. These people are so sure of themselves and the fact that they're on The Right Side of History™ they feel that they can abuse and belittle anybody who doesn't agree with them and who isn't a subscriber to whatever ideology they are. I say ideology because whenever I looked at the Twitter profiles of any of these shouty, righteous types, they all displayed labels – be it an identity flag, an '-ist' of some kind, a symbol like a red rose (socialist) or purple, white and green hearts (gender critical feminist), vegan, preferred pronouns, 'FBPE' (anti-Brexit) or the dreaded '#BeKind' – that show they are in thrall to some particular set of beliefs. I know a lot of people will consider some of those things I've just listed to be harmless, but I don't see it that way. The need to label yourself and others as belonging to this group or that way of thinking is dividing society into little factions who cannot accept any way of thinking that doesn't one hundred percent match theirs. Anyone who does think differently to them is called a bigot, far right, Nazi, white supremacist, TERF, bootlicker, and so on. The very fact that I can predict with very high accuracy the phrases and insults that one person will chuck at another after they've written something really edgy like "RIP Queen Elizabeth" shows that these are indeed dogmatic belief systems and my word, am I sick of it. 

And for what it’s worth, the only things I'd label myself are 'atheist' and 'realist' but I don't feel the need to state them in a social media profile.

Technology has evolved way faster than our abilities to cope with the sociological results of it have, and we aren’t equipped to interact with as many people via social media as we are expected to. As a result, quite a few people seem to have forgotten how to be human. If you feel sad about the Queen dying, say so. Don't back it up with a disclaimer about not being much of a royalist. And if you are a royalist and you have a large collection of corgi ornaments and commemorative Diana plates, that's cool too. Just say how you feel. If people disagree with you, let them. Just be you. Honestly, those three words are my life advice to anybody. Just be you. Some people will like you and some people won't and that's just the way it is, both online and offline.

Anyway, that's enough of me wanging on about the ills of social media. And if you think it odd that I clearly despise what Twitter is doing to us all yet I'm on there joining the noise, that's because the only way to fight this shite is to push back against it at the source. It's not always fun and I have to be in the right frame of mind to do it, but do it I shall. Well, until I get my account suspended for wrongthink, that is.

Beachy wearables and new Strike excitement

There's a definite change in the light. I noticed it on Saturday; the morning sun had a mellow glow to it, rather than the bright peak-of-summer glare. I do so love the end of the summer and that gradual slide into autumn in late September.

I made a batch of beachy beads on Sunday and yesterday I spent a few hours turning them into jewellery.

The resulting 'Seaside' bracelet is very similar to the 'Seashore' one that's in my shop but this time I've used antique copper baeds and findings instead of sterling silver.

I also made a long necklace with some of the beads.

I used pearly ivory-coloured seed beads and oval sterling silver spacers for this 'Beach' necklace.

It measures thirty-three inches long and could also double up as a wrap bracelet.

Both the necklace and bracelet can be found in my shop.

I'm off down to the shed now where and I will lose myself in beads and the new Strike book.

The first thing I did this morning was download the audiobook of The Ink Black Heart and devour chapter one. I was like a child on Christmas morning! It's so good to have a new Cormoran and Robin story.

Write what you know

I'm well and truly back in the beady swing of things. In this post I'm going to prattle on about the last couple of weeks and here and there I'll drop in some photos of beads I made during May to pretty up the post.

CiM Oobleck with black and white

Most of the month was spent catching up with trying out new-to-me Creation is Messy colours, and seeing how they work and what they are like to use. I've mostly been making these little 'potpourri' sets because the variety of beads within them allow me to get a feel for what the glass will and won't do in various applications. For example, a glass that works well as a base might not work well as stringer. This is the case for CiM Mermaid (not a new glass, I know) which looks marvellous as a spacer or encased as a base bead, but spreads when used as stringer. Sometimes you can use that effect to your design advantage. Glasses which do the whole stringer spready thing normally make weird two-tone dots and spots too, where they get a dark patch in the middle. So it's that kind of thing that I look for when testing new glass.

'Portillo' Potpourri featuring CiM Harvest and Mermaid

Sometimes you get a glass that does everything really well. CiM Harvest is one of those. It's a glorious streak-free orange that works equally well for base beads and stringer, where it retains its uniform colour and crisp edges.

'Seville' Potpourri

One of the CiM colours that totally passed me by was Pixie. This is a bright blueish green and it's fab when its encased but it sort of reacts with itself if you faff with it too much; it feathers and webs on itself. Because of this it is absolutely pointless trying to use it for the kind of stringerwork that I do.

'Seafoam' Potpourri featuring CiM Pixie

That's the thing with glass; you have to use it, learn what it does, make a mental note of its quirks, and then store all those notes away in your bead brain files because one day one of those quirks will be just the thing you need to create the particular effect you're after.

'Grellow' Potpourri

My bead brain files are beginning to overflow. It's why I keep my Tumblr full of glass recipes. I have a very good memory but fourteen years' worth of beadmaking (which must equate to absolutely thousands of beads) has me saying "What glass did I use for those ones?" or "What did I actually do to get that effect?" more often than I'd like. I wish I could back up the bead department of my brain to a hard drive, or download it every now and then so I have a copy of it, but sadly the technology for this does not yet exist. To get around this, I'm going to do the next-best thing - I'm going to write the book I've been tentatively threatening to write for yonks now.

'Mokey' Potpourri

I’ve always intended to write down all the stuff I know about lampworking but this past month or so I’ve come to the decision that it’s actually time to pull my finger out and get on with really doing it. “I’m going to write a book” sounds a bit pretentious, doesn’t it? Like I have things to say that people might want to read. The thing is, I think I do. I’m entirely self-taught and everything I know I have found out for myself through mistakes, hard work and learning from the glass. Do that for fourteen years and you’re bound to accumulate valuable beadmaking information.

So what’s the plan?

I’m going to get the bulk of the thing written and the tutorial photography sorted. When that’s done, I’m thinking I will crowdfund it on something like Kickstarter or Unbound or somewhere, so people can pledge to buy the finished article and I can get it printed into an actual factual book. I’m very keen on it being a real book you can hold, as opposed to a PDF or digital thing as these are open to unauthorised sharing. The working title for the book is ‘Everything I Know About Making Lampwork Glass Beads’ and that’s exactly what it will be. There will be step-by-step tutorials and information on all aspects of making and selling lampwork beads. It will be written from my point of view and my personal experience so it’s not a general ‘how to’ guide as such; it will literally be all my bead knowledge put together into a book. So if you want to know about making borosilicate beads, goddess beads or selling at craft fairs, this will not be the book for you because I don’t do any of those things. Does that make sense?

Bzzzzz

I've made a start on the book. There is a plan thing all typed up which lists all the areas I want to cover. And there are many. There is to be much typing in my future and this book is not going to be some flimsy thirty-four page pamphlet. I've had so much positive feedback about my book plan so far, with many lovely people telling me they're going to buy it, but it's going to take me a while to write it. I'm not putting a time or deadline on it because times and deadlines and I do not mix, but please know that I am working on it. Thank you for all your encouragement and enthusiasm. I will keep you all posted with updates and news of how the book is coming along.

'Hydrangea' Potpourri

In other news (this is becoming like some kind of regular blog-closing feature), I've finished all the Cormoran Strike books and am eagerly awaiting the release of the fourth one as I am absolutely hooked. I'm now reading (actually reading with my eyes, and not listening to) J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy which is as addictive as Branston pickle Mini Cheddars. I've never jumped aboard the Harry Potter train but I'm in love with Rowling's work. I know I'd probably love Harry Potter too and I shall read them one day.

'Nautical' Potpourri

I'm still moving my legs at semi-speed on a regular basis and on Monday I completed my first ten mile run. Ten miles! I've written about that here if you fancy a read. I've got a quarter marathon (6.5 miles) on Sunday so all being well I will have another medal to add to my fledgling medal collection.

'Beach' Heart

I'm off for a gentle three mile jog now and then I shall spend the rest of the day in the shed. See you later!

General update

Remember the spiral stringer bead from the last post? Well, here it is as part of its set. That vibrant acid yellow-green is new CiM 'Oobleck' and I will be writing more about it shortly, along with my thoughts on a few of the other new Creation is Messy colours.

I'm still getting back into the beadmaking after a couple of months away from it. I don't think I posted about it here, but I gave up my archaeology degree. Here's what I posted on my Facebook page about this:

"You know how you shouldn’t do something if it makes you unhappy? If you’re not happy in a relationship, or your job, or just in your general life situation, we’re advised to change it if we can, right? Because life’s too short and all that. Well, I’ve made a change and… I am no longer a student.

I started my archaeology degree because I wanted to learn more about the subject and I wanted to get myself a qualification that would allow me to get a good and interesting job if I wanted to at some point in the future. The course started off OK. I was loving it and I was doing well as far as grades go. However, in about November I began to hate it. I hated the workload, the pressure, the having to write in a totally unnatural, wanky academic fashion (if I’d done uni when I was supposed to, I’d probably have found academic writing as a 40 year old a lot easier), and I began to hate the subject. I began to hate it to the point where watching history and archaeology programmes made me feel sick. In fact, I couldn’t watch them because I felt like some kind of fraud. How could I watch Alice Roberts enthusing over some old coins or a fossilised Viking turd, when inside me I had this gnawing “I don’t want to be doing this degree” feeling?

I have a shelf full of utterly fascinating archaeology and history books that I haven’t had time to read properly because I was only using them to scan through and pick out relevant references and quotes. That’s a waste of books.

I said to myself I’d give the first few months of my second year a go and see how I felt. Well, I did that and I felt bad. There’s no fun in reading stuff that makes absolutely no sense to you, no matter how much you translate it and use the BBC Bitesize website to help you try and understand it. And when you have to regurgitate all that stuff your eyes have read but your brain didn’t understand, in the form of 8000 words written in the absolutely correct way, well… basically I was buggered. Yes, I could have struggled on. Yes, I could have just done the best I could for the next two years, but you know what? When I can’t sleep for worry, when I keep getting styes (my number one “You are run down, Laura” signal), when I want to vom every time someone asks me how the degree is going, when I feel that weight of dread in my stomach whenever I look at any of the books or papers, and when I simply feel so unhappy every day, it is not worth it.

I thought vocalising my “I want to quit” thoughts to my husband would make me feel like a failure. But I don’t. I know I’ve made the correct decision because of the feeling of utter relief and lightness I’ve experienced since quitting. I had a go at being a uni student. I thoroughly enjoyed some of it. My love for archaeology and history remains, but now I will learn about it in my own way, in my own time, and without having to cite every single ruddy thing I ever want to communicate. (Tits to you, Harvard referencing!)

TL;DR – I quit my archaeology degree because it was making me unhappy."

So there you go. Back to the beads I go. I have missed them and I even tidied up the shed last week!

My workbench, before and after the tidy-up

My shed is still the same undecorated and unfancy wooden box it's always been, but it's a lot more uncluttered than it was. Here are some of the beads I've made post-tidy:

'Fiery' Potpourri

'Sage' Luminobeads

'Purquoise' Spotties

In other news, I'm still running. I don't know what I'd have done without my running during the whole degree worry stuff. It kept me sane. I ran my first 10K race last month and in September I'm doing a half marathon. You can read all about my running over on my running blog if you like, and I've set up an Instagram account for all my red-sweaty-faced running pictures.

This week's shed listening has been The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling. I listened to the third book in the Cormoran Strike series, Career of Evil, after watching the BBC adaptations of the first two stories, so then I went back to listen to the actual books.

Gratuitous photo of Tom Burke as Cormoran Strike

The books are far more detailed than the television programmes and you learn way more about the characters. I'll be getting The Silkworm when my next Audible credit comes through. The Strike audiobooks are narrated by Robert Glenister and he does a marvellous job of it.

Right! Off to the shed for me. Its black and white today, I think, possibly with a splash of that Oobleck thrown into the mix.