Fresh from the desk: Push to Pageant Weekend!

Hot Springs is a small town, but for some reason or another, the Miss South Dakota Pageant has been held here for decades (if not since the beginning... having some trouble finding the dates for that, but it's not terribly relevant for my purposes).  Having grown up here, left, and moved back, I can't quite figure out why something so big would stay here, but it's a huge deal for this little town.  There's a whole weekend's worth of events structured around the pageant.

The event that's of most interest to me at this point is the annual Arts & Crafts Festival held in Centennial Park.  It's a wonderful display of art, handicrafts, local businesses, local musicians, all of that.  Someday I hope to be able to afford a table there (as well as the 3 days the event runs... I'd have to miss a day of work for that now), but this year it isn't in the cards.  I'd need to sell everything I have to break even, so it's not an option.  What I will do, however, is set up my table on Saturday morning on my usual corner at the White Elephant and hope to catch some of the parade traffic there.  It may or may not work, we'll see.

Partly because of this and partly because of my decision to build my inventory and post more listings online, I'm beading like mad this week.  Tonight I made two memory wire necklaces, a pair of earrings to match a necklace I made yesterday, and reworked the green necklace I made a couple of weeks ago.

This one has a yellow carved bone pendant and two similarly yellow carved soapstone beads.   I employed my trusty color wheel to come up with the purple glass beads, and luckily I had a large amount of varying shades and finishes that were the first package of beads I ever bought.  I thought it was time to try to use them up.  That's a bit of a theme for me lately... I have lots of partially-used packages of beads that really just need to be worked with.  I'm not a huge fan of using straight-across complementary colors on the color wheel... they tend to be a little too jarring for me, but after I worked with this combination a little it started to grow on me.  I may try it more, if I have the right beads for it.  We'll see what the public thinks this weekend.  This is also the first memory wire necklace that I've beaded the whole way around.  It really is a bit of an experimental piece, but what else to do with such a stunning pendant?

This one is more typical of my style.  I have a package of dainty large leaf pendants, so I chose one of the smaller ones and added a symmetrical arrangement of shell and wood beads in greens, browns, and white, natural greenery tones to complement the leaf itself and lend their different textures.  I love this piece, and it went together in about 10 minutes flat, so we'll see what the public thinks of this one also.  Personally, it's one of my new favorites.

After making the green necklace a few weeks ago, I immediately started second-guessing myself.  I took it to the Saturday show right after and I wore it for a little while, and my suspicions were confirmed.  It was too long, it didn't lay right, and the daisy chain stitch just didn't work with the heavy soapstone centerpiece.  Tonight I cut it apart and put the soapstone where it belongs, on a piece of hemp surrounded by shiny glass beads, unfinished wood beads, jade-green pony beads, and pale green soapstone.  It's long enough to be about 18", but I prefer to tie it tighter.  The center bead just lays better when it's closer to a choker length.  This is a much better use of it.

Yesterday I made this necklace.  One of these weeks I'll take the time to get some good photos.  Maybe after Saturday.

It's simple, purple and white, 16" daisy chain with a faceted purple glass pendant and two small white shell beads on each side.  It's sparkly, just sparkly enough to be a little dressy but not overly formal.  Purple may be my new favorite color... it keeps showing up in my new clothes, new beads, new designs... I'm okay with that.

Luckily for me, there were smaller matching purple beads available, so I got them at the same time with the goal of making matching earrings.   It's still a daisy chain, still the same white shells around the purple pendant, but in earring form they almost look like a helix, don't they?  I like it.  Lots.  Again, we'll see how this set does this weekend.

Tomorrow I need to make more bracelets and anklets like this one just because they're fun (and to use up leftover beads).  No two will be exactly the same of course, but I should try to do matching bracelets and anklets just in case.  Hooray for progress!  It was a good night!

Fresh from the desk: Changes in motion

Just a quick update.  I decided to let go of my extra day job up in Rapid City.  It always ended up wasting the whole day for not enough profit, so I told them last Monday that it would be my last day there.  They were a little bummed but they understood my situation and the agent was actually going to ask me soon if it was still worth it.  It was an iffy experimental job really, they needed some work done and I needed a little money but it was just not quite practical.

Good thing I told them when I was there, actually, so I got a chance to really say goodbye.  The next day, my boss at my main job and I sat down to chat about my progress with various areas of my job, sort of a mini-evaluation but I wasn't really nervous about it.  As it turns out, he can give me a $.25 raise and one more day per week, so now I'm up to 4 days!  We'll keep it up while business is decent for sure, though if the economy doesn't pick up by the time winter hits we may need to go back down to 3 days.  That's alright, it's definitely great news!

Lessons with my violin student have been going okay.  She's only 6, and she's a touch on the hyper side, and not being a mother or babysitter or ever having any siblings, I don't know what to do with a wired 6-year-old!  I have a few ideas to use at the next lesson, some rhythm games and such, so maybe I'll be better prepared when her mind takes off in a different direction.  I'm still thinking I should put an ad out for more lessons, get a few on one day a week.  I need to get a few things planned out first before I launch into that, and I want to take a viola lesson from my cello teacher just to be sure my technique is on the right track.

Crocheting is going well!  My first project is a blanket.  It's a surprise present for a friend (sssshhhhh! lol) so I'll hold off on pictures until it's done.  It's a ridiculously easy pattern that's coming together fairly quickly.  Oddly enough, it seems to be the perfect thing to do after supper when my cat insists on sitting on my lap (and I mean insists... he'd climb onto my dinner plate if it was in the way) but I can't handle just sitting there not working on something.  He doesn't mess with the yarn, we just turn on a movie and chill for a bit.  

I had a few custom jewelry orders to work on over the past week or two, and the most challenging was definitely a pair of earrings to match a necklace owned by the woman who was my babysitter when I was 2 or 3.  I barely remember from that... but since I've been home, I've seen her and her husband around town a lot so we keep in touch a little now.  This picture didn't turn out the greatest... the lighting was a little odd that day, but the necklace had a few red lampwork beads and several square and round faceted red beads, each flanked by a small hematite, spaced out on 3 strands.  I suspect the red beads may have been plastic... they weren't heavy enough to be glass.  What she wanted was a pair of drop post earrings like these that I had on display in bright red and amber, but with round darker red beads to match the necklace.  It was tough to find them, but I did after much shopping, and it was easy to put them together.  I forgot to take the necklace with me when I went shopping (oops... good thing I studied the color when she handed it to me!) so I didn't really notice the little hematite beads until I got everything home and started working on it.  Luckily, i always keep some hematite beads on hand since they're so versatile, even if they were a little larger than the ones on the necklace.  She loved them!  She has some graduation parties to attend this weekend and next for some grandchildren, so she was glad to have a matching set to wear to them all.  Success!

I've been away from home way too much the last few weeks so having a 3-day weekend with minimal plans is sooooo nice for me right now.  Speaking of that, I need to plan some meals.  Enjoy your weekend!