New beads and a podcast recommendation

It's getting proper chilly down the shed and I've had to put the little heater on in there first thing in the mornings. I'm not moaning; I love this time of year and I'd rather be cold than hot. 

I've made three more quintets and they're all currently for sale in my shop. A bracelet upgrade is available for all three sets.

Bead recipes are as follows...

Violet: CiM Foam encased with Effetre transparent Light Violet 041, with decoration and spacers in Effetre Lavender Blue/Pastel Ink Blue 247

Teal Green: CiM Foam encased with Effetre Light Teal 026 with decoration in Effetre Light Turquoise 232 and spacers in CiM Kryptonite

Dark Rose: CiM Gellys Sty encased with Effetre Medium Amethyst 042 with decoration in Effetre White 204 and spacers in Reichenbach 104 Pink Lady

While I was making these beads I listened to a brilliant podcast about a 'shaman' called Juliette D'Souza who about two decades ago conned people in Hampstead out of millions of pounds.

It's a shocking tale and also very sad. The podcast is called Filthy Ritual and it's available in all the usual podcast places.

Ditsybeading

I've always said that you never stop learning a craft. There's always new knowledge to be had, skills to be honed and new materials and techniques to try. Whenever I make a bead design that I've not done for a while I enjoy applying my current knowledge of glass to it. Oftentimes this knowledge is minor but it's knowledge that the me of three years ago didn't possess and it allows me to understand the bead better. I am aware that I'm probably sounding really wanky but I'll carry on anyway.

With these Ditsybeads there are several things required to get the effect I'm after. The most important of these is the dot placement for the petals and making sure they're arranged correctly so that when melted flat the petals stay in a nice neat flower shape and don't end up like a vague splat. The dot-melting part is also really important and it's not just a case of bringing the bead to an all-over even heat; I concentrate on one flower at a time in a very particular way.

Adding the flower centres is also carefully done so that the dot touches all five petals and then it's heated to be slightly raised but not too flat. If it sounds fiddly and time consuming that's because it is. I worked out the Actual Price* of one Ditsybead the other day and almost laughed my tits off at the thought of asking that much for it.

Anyway, all of the Ditsybeads scattered throughout this post have new homes now but there are more on the way.

*By 'Actual Price' I mean what the bead price tag should be if I paid myself minimum wage based on time taken, and also taking into account materials, gas and electricity. I don't factor in the cost of nineteen years of skill because that would be the Actual Actual Price and I would never sell anything at that rate.

In crochet news...

I finished this blue shawl last week. It was one of those patterns that was so straightforward it kept catching me out. You can be lulled into a false sense of comfort when there are so many unfancy stitches involved and it only takes one stitch too few or too many to muff up an entire row.

This pattern is called 'Destination Unknown' and it's by Lisa Cook of LisasAttik. I really love Lisa's designs - all those straight lines and blocks of pattern are right up my street.

The blue shawl is available in my Etsy shop.

This week I've been mostly...

Listening to:

Cast On by Brenda Dayne. This is a knitting podcast that I adored back in the day. I kind of stopped knitting when the whole knitting-is-racist thing occurred in 2019 and then I nuked my Ravelry account a bit later when they decided that only 50% of their users could talk about politics (Trump supporters weren't allowed to voice approval of him, and no, I'm not a Trump lover but I am pretty flipping fond of free speech) and those two things combined with the behaviour of certain knitting people I'd formerly greatly admired kind of shat on knitting for me. I think I've knitted three pairs of socks since then and crochet has filled the knitting hole. However, discovering that Brenda has got back to podcasting after a six year hiatus was wonderful. She restarted Cast On during the pandemic but I only realised this last week so I've got many episodes to catch up on. Brenda is even making me want to fish out the old pointy sticks. Maybe. We shall see.

Watching:

Ashes to Ashes. Every now and again I need a dose of DCI Gene Hunt and I do a Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes rewatch and right now I'm halfway through season three of the latter.

We cancelled our TV licence about a year ago so now we live in telly-gone-by and it's marvellous. Anything from the now that we do want to watch (rare) we get as a DVD, digital box set or download. I do not miss live television at all.

Reading:

Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain by Amy Jeffs

Metal bubble bath

Yesterday afternoon while I was tidying away my jewellery making stuff  I found a bag of tiny anodised aluminium jump rings. At just over 4mm diameter they're smaller than the rings I used for the shaggy loops earrings in my previous post and I wondered if the smaller rings would work for the same weave. A few hours later I'd made this bracelet.

It's unbelievably light and it has a wonderful fluidity and texture to it. Chris said it's "like metal bubble bath foam" and that's a really good description. It's frothy.

I've put it in the chain maille section of my shop.

The three pairs of chocolate 'Acorn' earrings I had have all sold but all is not lost; I've added them to the Available to Order page. I don't know how long they'll be there but probably long enough for anyone to buy some as Christmas presents.

In non-bead/jewellery news, I've just finished reading another book. I read and listen to a ridiculous number of books, of all different types, and I only ever think to mention the occasional one here on my blog. Maybe I should do more book blogging? Anyway, the one I've just finished is called Dark Folklore by Mark Norman and Tracey Norman.

This is a fascinating read about the darker side of folklore, myths and social and cultural beliefs from all around the world. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on urban legends. Mark is a folklore researcher and author who writes and hosts The Folklore Podcast which I highly recommend to anyone who likes a bit of social history, folklore and information about ancient beliefs, customs and festivals. Marvellous stuff.

An episode of sporadic bloggery

Alright?

I thought I'd write one of those sporadic blog posts that I very occasionally do, just for something to do really. They've not put Holby on tonight and I was sat here doing nothing so I decided to do this instead.

Well, these are some pretty weird times we're in, aren't they? The news footage of empty London is weird; it's like the start of 28 Days Later but real. The social distancing thing is barely making a difference to my life, if I'm honest. I'm just glad that Boris has said we can still go outside and exercise because if I couldn't go out for a run every now and then I'd go loco. I stopped going to the gym a couple of weeks ago. Being with (and being one of) those sweaty people huffing their breath everywhere in a sealed, air-conditioned room suddenly seemed insane. And there would have been so much wiping down of equipment with sanitiser and paper towels that a session in the gym would have felt more like some kind of lycra-clad extreme housework rather than a workout, so the gym is a no-go zone for me for the foreseeable.

I get a workout on a Friday morning, though. Since the start of the year I've been volunteering at the foodbank warehouse and there's plenty of lifting and shifting involved with that. I really enjoy it. I never knew that I could get such satisfaction from packing a box; arranging a selection of items in a crate so that the crate still stacks but nothing gets squashed or damaged is my kind of challenge. It's like a puzzle from the intelligence round of The Krypton Factor but with baked bean cans, packets of biscuits and Fray Bentos pies instead of differently shaped blocks.

What else has been going on, apart from a tonne of Creation is Messy testing while a pandemic wreaks havoc across the world? Well, I ran another half marathon the other week.

Red face clashing with neon green shirt

After my first half I said I'd never do another but I had a guaranteed place in the Cambridge Half Marathon as a result of volunteering at the 2019 one and it seemed daft not to take it. It's a flat course in the beautiful city in which I live, and I knew the medal would be good, so I decided to go for it. I did two months of training with many long runs along the river in stupidly windy conditions (oh, the days of being stressed out at the constant stormy weather seem so insignificant and long ago now) and on Sunday 8th March I ran the 13.1 miles a whole twelve minutes faster than my first half marathon. Woohoo! I also raised £200.00 for The Trussell Trust. Massive thanks to all who donated.

The medal was indeed good

I bought myself a thing. A few months back there was a beautiful old kaleidoscope on an episode of The Repair Shop and I was captivated by it. I had a toy kaleidoscope as a kid and I loved that thing. I got on Etsy and found a fella called Roy Cohen who is some kind of kaleidoscope genius. I favourited his shop and vowed to return to it when I had some spare cash. That moment happened a couple of weeks back and I purchased one of his mini teleidoscope necklaces.

Teleidoscope necklace by Roy Cohen

This magical little thing transforms anything you look at through it into a kaleidoscopic groovescape. I love the fact that I can wear it wherever I go. Looking at stuff through it is endlessly enthralling and it makes even the most quotidian things all pretty and psychedelic. The photo at the very top of this post is my jar of CiM glass rods.

Cyclamen plant viewed through my teleidoscope

The teleidoscope is so beautifully made and the craftsmanship is exquisite. I shall definitely be going back to Roy's shop for one of his larger traditional kaleidoscopes at some point.

When working I'm filling my ears with the usual audiobooks and podcasts. I'm currently listening to The Last Witness which is the second book in Denzil Meyrick's DCI Jim Daley series.

These are crime fiction thrillers set on the west coast of Scotland. They're a bit gritty but the characters are fab. The books are sort of Irvine Welsh meets Val McDermid and I'm really liking them. It's always good when you find a series of books you enjoy and you know you have a wodge of them to look forward to.

On a similar crime-related note, I'm obsessed with the mortem podcast. It's not for the squeamish; it's all about forensic pathology, so it's very death and dissection heavy, but it's absolutely fascinating.

When I fancy something not-so-grim I opt for Off Menu, an always amusing podcast by James Acaster (I love him) and Ed Gamble. It involves food and funniness and it's always guaranteed to make me laugh out loud in the shed.

I think I've gabbled on enough now. I've got an episode of The Good Doctor to watch so I shall go and do so.

I hope you're OK. Hit me up on Facebook or Instagram if you're feeling bored or isolated. Comments on here are pretty pointless as I get so many spam comments it's really hard to filter out the actual genuine ones, but yeah, Facebook or Instagram are good places for a bit of interaction if the old social distancing is getting to you. The links I just gave you are to my business accounts but you can send me a friend request on my personal Facebook (be warned, I do sometimes swear and I barely mention beads on that one) or you can follow my personal Instagram if you like.

Stay well. X