The Bead Society, and other methods of stash enhancement

I came home from the Bead Society Show with a very small bag of beads that cost quite a lot of money, all told. I was trying to restrain myself, but somehow every time I bought something, it ended up being several somethings costing anywhere from $20-50 at each vendor. Really, I did restrain myself, because I could have bought so much more - I think I only bought things from four different vendors, and I spent something like $150 altogether. (Really, somebody needs to buy some of my jewelry, so I can tell myself I have an income to pay for this stuff!) I'll try to get some pictures of what I bought later.

It really is a nice show. It was on two different levels in a lot of different rooms - it seemed like the real business was getting done on the 2nd floor, though. I bought several different styles of things - I bought some charms, and some cute polymer clay beads, and then I bought some strings of glass that were on sale, and a cute clasp, and then my last stop was downstairs where I had seen some rather gorgeous pendants with bali-style silver on them. I forgot to ask about what kind of metal I was getting - I don't think it's sterling at that price. But it's damn pretty, whatever it was. (I didn't buy any lampwork, which I'm sort of sorry about. I love lampwork.)

My Fire Mountain order did show up today, which is good because I am intending to use some of that stuff for the class tomorrow. I got utterly carried away ordering Delicas - I wanted a range of colors but did I really need two tubes of yellows and three tubes of purples? (The yellows especially make me annoyed with myself because they don't look very different, unless you look very closely.)

(One yellow is "yellow silk" and the other is "lemon ice", as I recall. You can tell they're not exactly the same, and it's even more noticeable close up, but will it show up different in a piece? I have my doubts.)

I didn't quite get as carried away with the 4mm Swarovski bicones that are the other thing needed for this class - partly because I already had several colors. The colors I have are primarily pastel colors that I use for accents on earrings, and I wanted some brights.

One of those darkest colors is mocca; I'm not sure about the other one but I think it may be siam. The red-oranges on the right are padparascha and indian red. The pink is just rose, I believe. I'm blanking out about what the purple one is, but the blue is Capri blue AB because they were out of regular Capri blue. And the two greens are palace green opal and erinite, I believe, and they really don't look that different from one another in the picture, but they are.

(Obviously I don't really think I'll use all 14 delicas and all 9+ colors of bicone tomorrow at the class, but at least I'm prepared! And I have an idea that I want to make some more of these, maybe for Christmas gifts.)

Oh, also, notice the fancy-pants packaging that Swarovskis come in, now. I can see that it might cut down on theft in retail stores, but otherwise, I think it's kind of overkill. Even a single "cosmic crystal" oval or whatever they're called, comes like this. It seems silly.

Adding to the stash

I'm planning on going to the Houston Bead Society show tomorrow. I should probably hide my credit card beforehand. (I'll report back on that.)

I went to Hobby Lobby today, primarily to get another spool of copper wire to finish my ornament with. Other than that, I really restrained myself pretty well. Their Vintaj stuff was on sale, but I really didn't see anything I wanted immediately. I bought a few odds and ends of other things - some clear FireLine to use in the class I'm taking Saturday, for example - but nothing else major. I had some FireLine, but what I had was smoke-colored, and I suspect I'm going to want the clear. We're doing these donut things that use Swarovski bicones and Delicas. Which is unlike me to want to do, really, but the class samples were really cute. I keep saying I don't "do" seed beads - and I certainly think it's true that I'm never going to be a serious beadweaver or anything like that, but still, I keep dipping my toes in from time to time. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

Oh, I got a little package in the mail from Winchell Clay Works - I got another pair of little clay rounds (like the ones at the bottom of this entry, except blue) and also she was doing some destashing and I picked up some sterling chain that I really like, and a strand of sodalite beads. (Sooner or later I ought to do some destashing of my own. Except I'm not so good about letting go of things, as I talked about yesterday!)

Dying with the most toys

Oh y'all. This is about quilts, but I think every crafter can identify. It also makes me think of my mother, who spent most of her time during the last 10 years of her life making quilt after quilt after quilt. Of course, in many ways, that lady wasn't like my mother at all, since my mother had a significant other and tons of friends, not to mention me hanging around all the time. And my mother was also a big finisher, generally, and didn't leave many things unfinished at all. But still... I feel like I knew this woman.

I still have a ton of fabric. I have some of my mother's, but I also have plenty of my own. And it's going to be a while before I'm ready to part with that - even if I don't sew a single stitch (and I haven't in over a year now), I can't imagine letting go of much fabric any time soon. And of course there is my ever-expanding collection of beads. Ever, ever expanding, let me tell you. (I haven't even mentioned the Fire Mountain order that's somewhere in transit, for example.) I partly started the whole Etsy thing as a way to destash, although I think it's a big failure on that score; it just gave me an excuse to buy more stuff, instead.

I guess almost every crafter is a hoarder. Once I was at a quilt class, and somebody in the class said that she didn't have a stash, that she only bought exactly what she needed for each project and no more. Let me tell you, it was comical, watching everybody else's jaws drop. I think people like that are very very much a minority. (And what, she didn't buy any extra at all in case of mismeasurement and mistakes and such? What did she do with anything left over? Throw it away?)

I was primarily a scrap quilter - I didn't like things to be too matchy. Which meant there was essentially no way to operate without a stash. I do this to some degree with beads, too - at least, I like to make things that have an assortment of beads. For example, I really like these little earrings:

The beads don't really have anything in common except color, but I think it works. (I don't generally take this so far as to make my earrings really asymmetrical. Mostly I like pairs!)

Here's one of my "scrap" quilts: I collected greens for ages, and then chopped them up and this was what I ended up with. There are no repeated fabrics in this.

(I never have quilted this - it's still just the quilt top. I really am gonna have to do that one of these days.)