Beading in West Palm Beach Florida

I started this post right after returning from Florida--but it sat on blogger unfinished for a while--so now the snow is melted (mostly--welcome to Colorado!) and weeks have passed since we were in Florida enjoying sunshine, ocean breezes, and beading at a really fantastic shop--Beads Gone Wild and the Crystal Creations Bead Institute!
If you're ever in West Palm Beach, Florida, you need to find this bead shop--they have everything, plus a great classroom space. Glenda, the owner, works really hard to bring in bead instructors from all over to teach at her institute. What a great group of students, too! We had fun sitting around a big oak table and beading and talking and sharing cake. It was so wonderful to have a few days devoted to beading and teaching.















In the evenings, Kelly, Hannah and I would do a bit of exploring. We found the beach right away. Hannah hasn't stopped talking about the waves. She didn't want to get in them--but she sure liked watching them. We made sand castles and watched the sea birds and crabs. It was a bit chilly for sea bathing, but we got our feet wet.



Here's a video of Hannah trying to catch a lizard.

And here's Hannah the day after we got home--bundled up for winter and helping me cut boughs from our trees for our Christmas decorations.

Spirals

When Knitting Daily editor Sandi Wiseheart asked me to make a guest appearance on her blog on November 12th, I cheerfully agreed. Little did I know what I was getting myself into . . . I mean really, I participate in online chat groups, recently joined Ravelry.com (I'm sixswansflying), and I write an editor's letter in Spin-Off magazine four times a year. And many readers respond—okay, in reality, it is a very small fraction of the Spin-Off readership who respond to my editor’s page letters, but after each issue goes out I can expect a smattering of emails and snail mail letters—some with constructive criticism, some with stories to share sparked by something I said, some with ideas for future articles. I love it all.

So, back to the Knitting Daily post. It came out on November 12th, the week we were going to press. I wrote about a cardigan I’ve been knitting for my Dad since 1996 out of a lovely brown millspun yarn that he selected (but quite frankly, puts me to sleep). That’s more than a decade ago—I started it six months before I started working at Interweave Press—a lot has happened in the intervening years. I got quite a bit done that first holiday season that I started working on it, but soon lost momentum; that momentum would gather again each holiday season until his birthday in February. Pretty soon, a pattern emerged—I’d pull it out as the temperatures dropped, and tuck it away again once the crocuses appeared. Each year I made a little progress, each year I was determined that this would be the year I finished it. After a while, it occurred to me that had I spun the yarn for the sweater, I would have finished knitting it years ago. I even confessed my spinning snobbery to the massive group of knitters who read Knitting Daily daily. I was a little bit afraid to confess this. But this confession went over pretty smoothly.

What I didn’t expect was the instantaneous responses—comments came pouring in (Oh—Sandi did warn me, but did I believe her? Her posts might generate hundreds of responses, but she’s lovely, adorable Sandi--but I certainly didn’t think mine would.) So far I’ve received hundreds of notes from knitters (and spinners) with stories of their own about UFOs and WIPs, their spinning, their sheep, and punctuated through out—encouraging, urging letters (some gently and some not so gently) to finish my sweater for my Dad.

Before. He. Dies.

Having just lost my very dear Grandmother rather suddenly and unexpectedly, these admonitions from people I don’t know are hitting a very raw, tender spot. I forwarded the post to my Dad with the promise that this year is the year that I will finish the sweater. His response? Totally in line with the wonderful man who is my father—how could I have been guilt-ridden? He knows me. He understands me. He confessed, that as a word-man (he’s a professor of language, literacy, and culture), the story I wrote about the sweater probably means more to him than the sweater itself. Well, of course I believe him—but also, I think he’s being very generous with me. I think he’s demonstrating one of his most admirable qualities (and he has so many), he loves his children for who they are. As one of the knitters said—that sweater is a promise to my Dad—and by not finishing it, I’m not keeping it the promise. Well, that made me sit up straight and listen. But I think it was more the encouraging stories of projects that took years, but were eventually finished that really helped me see that finishing the sweater will be a wonderful and good thing.

But all this thought about process reiterated what I’ve known for a long time . . . that I am not a linear thinker. Sure, I knew I was creative (I was an art major, afterall), but this experience helped me see my creative process in a new light. I work on things a little at a time. I work in a continuously growing spiral. If all my projects were lined up in a room, I would work a few minutes on each one until they were all completed. And I do complete things. To the more linear thinkers (my wonderful husband for instance)—this way of working may not make sense—but it works for me. Some projects have deadlines and require more attention than others, but basically, this is the way I handle my life. I get up in the morning, on my way downstairs, I take a load of laundry to landing, while in the kitchen, I clean up the dishes while I wait for my morning tea to heat up, I add the dishtowels to the laundry on the landing, I need some thing from the pantry in the basement, so I take the laundry downstairs, start a load of laundry, pick up the item from the pantry, take it up stairs along with the clean load of laundry that was in the dryer. Back in the bedroom, I start folding the laundry. I do a little bit at a time and it all gets done. Part of this is because of my attention span—sometimes I walk into a room and I’ve forgotten why I’m there (I’ve always been like this—I can’t blame it on age)—but I start working on something else. Eventually, I make it around to the thing that I forgot about. This organic way of working is reiterated in my creative life and in my work life.

My creative life is dominated by spinning and beads—both resonate with the spiral. I bead photographs with a spiral that starts in the center and works out, I spin yarn—the ultimate spiral. It is a spiral that is connected to the most basic elements of life, the spiraling pattern of DNA, the gentle growth pattern of a fern, the curve of a snail’s shell. This spiral begins in the center, and grows slowly out and around, reaching out and touching things on all sides as it moves in a pattern that grows outward, and yet repeats itself, each time in a different iteration, each time the same and yet different. And then it is complete and a new spiral begins. And sometimes these spiraling lines overlap, connect and grow. The twist, the spiral is always in the yarn, sometimes asleep, but always ready for life.

A bit of weaving

I did a bit of weaving this weekend--color samples for Liz's book. They'll end up being coasters after all is said and done.
I love the rigid heddle loom. I think this was Liz's plan in asking me to help out. She's such a rigid-heddle-loom pusher! I wove off the end of one warp with a bit of my handspun and made a little doll blanket for Hannah to use.
Hannah and I wove together a bit, too. I guess that's part of my plan!

So--I have completed 1 of the 26 warps I need to weave...and my deadline was November....I'll need to find out if that is the beginning of November or the end.
And there is the class that I'm teaching in Florida the weekend before Thanksgiving--that means bead kits to make. And the beading daily project I promised Michelle. And the portrait of Lady Godiva that I'm beading. And then the magazine goes to press November 14th. Hmmm. No wonder I'm having crazy dreams at night about moving to Nova Scotia and walking sheep for a living (yep on leashes!).











I did a bit of spinning to relax after I figured out how many things I promised to complete in November. That helped a lot.


And I received a batt in the mail from a friend! I'm going to admire it for a little bit before I spin it up.

Missing Grandma Helen

Helen Katherine Bomer Clarke
Born December 15, 1912
Died October 6, 2007

Nearly 95 years old--what a good long life--I was lucky to have spent so much of my life in hers and yet it is hard to give her up.

This is the last photo I took of her--at the end of September.

My sister keeps saying, "Everyone will think we're crazy, but this was a real shock for us."

And it is true--Grandma had such a tenacity for life. Though she'd often say things like, "I sure hope I don't see another birthday!" when we'd say something about the party we were planning or "I think he forgot me, too" when a 95-year-old friend stated that God had forgotten her, her actions spoke louder than her words. She pulled through traumas that literally would have killed people half her age. And we noticed that she stopped talking about her desire to move on after her great-grandchildren arrived--boy, did she love them. She loved us all--but she really lit up when her great-grandchildren came to visit her.

We have weekly dinners on Monday nights--Monday night dinners (we're going to continue the tradition). When I lived up in Fort Collins and then Loveland, I used to come down on the weekends and stay with her. We'd go on morning walks around City Park. She had to cut back on her walking as she got older (when she got into her 90s)--she'd walk around the block, or go to the church and walk around the sanctuary so she could sit on the pews when she needed a rest.



She was fiercely independent and really never thought of herself as a little old lady, though she was the littlest and the oldest any of us knew. Once, walking up to church with my dad a few years ago, she saw that the sidewalk was crumbling in a spot and remarked to my dad, "Someone should fix that before some little old lady trips over it."




I only ever remember her with gray hair and hands knarled by time. She was 34 when she had my dad--two years after her husband Jack returned from WWII--and 36 when she had my Uncle Andy. She aged dramatically after Jack died when he was 49 in 1963. You can see it in the photos. My dad was 16, Andy was 14.


She wanted to do things on her terms, and she did. Even though some would have considered her a pioneer in women's rights in many ways, she would have loathed the association. She was scorned for wearing pants in the southern United States when she went to visit her husband when he was on leave from the war and was thrown out of a hotel for bringing him a bottle of scotch.




She graduated from Western State College in Gunnison with a degree in physical education in the 1930s.




































She earned a scholarship that covered her tuition, and got a job that covered her room and board by working at the
Mary Lawrence Boarding House (now a bed and breakfast in Gunnison, Colorado). She wrote in her memories that, "What more could she need than that . . . NAIVE!" Her sister Thelly went to Western State at the same time, but only had a job that covered meals during the week, so on the weekends she didn't have meals--and Grandma would sneak into the kitchen at the Boarding House and make sandwiches to give to Thelly so she wouldn't starve on the weekends. Grandma also used to sneak out to meet with Jack.


This photo is taken in Pueblo, Colorado when Grandma was a little girl (on the left), with her Grandma Layton (who everyone says was rather harsh), and her sister Thelly. Grandma really liked the dog. This is on Grandma Layton's homestead where the family lived after they moved to Colorado from Missouri when Grandma was 5 years old. Her father, John Bomer, worked in the steel mills.




Grandma graduated from high school in 1929, when she was 17.



















Helen and Jack were married in 1936 in Grand Junction.
Her house was always full of people--family and friends--and later when my dad and his brother were older, their friends. In fact, their friends often found refuge at Grandma's house--she was very welcoming.

Grandma and her friend Janie Seraphine are reflected in a mirror Jack and Marsh are carrying.


This photo was taken in 1943 before Jack went off to war.




















Here she is in Mexico in 1945. The story is that Jack returned from playing Craps with $1,700, so they took the month off from running the Clarke Agency and went off to Mexico and traveled around until they ran out of money.



















Here's Grandma with Uncle Andy--all the photos from 1949 have a smudge on them--I think there was something on the lens.



















Jack, Mark, Helen and Andy in 1962.



















This is my dad and grandma and their wiener dog--I think this photo was taken after Jack died.



















I'm in this photo--it is of my mom (and me) and my dad at his college graduation from CU Boulder, 1969.




















Grandma visited us in Egypt when my parents moved there to study at the American University in Cairo.



















Grandma and Andy visiting us in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1975.




















Grandma and me in 1989 at her 50th high school reunion.













Grandma Helen and Hannah in March 2007 in her kitchen, Monday Night Dinner.

I miss kissing her on the cheek and forehead. I miss the way she would gesture with her hands--throwing them up in the air and grinning when something delighted her, shaking a bony finger in your face if she disagreed or wanted to make a point. I miss her expressions--"Hot Dog!" (said to me and Kelly when we got engaged), "Gad about" (said to my sister who has lots of friends), "Are you going back to the dump?" (said to my brother after she saw his studio apartment for the first time)--he still laughs about it.
I miss how when I'd leave, she say, "Be a good girl" and how she'd laugh when I said, "You, too!".

Drawing your own heart

Bernadina wrote me and asked me to give her some direction about drawing hearts to bead--I thought photos would work best--though maybe a video would be even better.

I'll work on that.

In the meantime, here are some photos of how I draw my hearts (for beaded pins). This process can be applied (of course) to anything you want to draw--doesn't have to be hearts. I just have a thing for hearts--I imagine it has something to do with my mom's birthday being on Valentine's day.
Paper: I draw on my thesis bond paper left over from my grad school days at CSU. It has a nice weight, a good tooth, and is archival. It also stands up to beading really well--I've sampled other archival papers and while they have the other qualities, they tend to crack along folds. You can still use them to bead or even just typing paper (it may not last for your great-great- grandchildren to enjoy is all).

Pencils: I like to use quality colored pencils--these are Prismacolor. They are available at most art supply stores and craft stores. They make a nice mark even when you don't apply a lot of pressure. I keep a pencil sharpener handy for a nice point.















The first heart--lop-sided for a little bit of asymmetrical visual interest--drawn with a darker value pencil. It's not perfect--but it will do--I know that it will evolve as I draw.















Then I go over the outline and refine and enhance it.














Change colors and begin the zig-zag line around the heart. I love making this kind of hatching line. I could fill pages just doing this. I love going to restaurants where they provide crayons and a paper-covered table.















I always have a little trouble keeping my lines even when I'm going around the left side of the heart. Oh well--that's just the way it is.















Now I just start layering colors.































See how undulating hearts are created by the layers of colors--just scribbles around the heart shape.














I keep darker values on the outside edges and lighter values on the inside to create a glow.















Every once in a while I emphasize the outline of the heart.
















Notice that I'm starting to really overlap colors--that will really make the beading fun as the colors blend together creating new colors.
















Here I added the complement to red, green for a little bit of visual interest.


I worked on the outline a bit--fixing the left side of the heart and emphasizing the outline. Now that I'm happy with my heart, I'll cut it out and stitch it to cloth--and it is ready to bead. The colored pencils will transfer to the thread as you're beading, but it doesn't show through the beads. If you don't like that, you can seal the drawing with a fixative or scan it in and print it on your printer. Just know that inkjet inks will run when they get wet--so don't cry too much over your inkjet-printed hearts.

Done!

Friday September 7, 2007

I took Friday off of work and beaded all morning (except for the time between 9:15-10:30 when I got Hannah ready and took her to my parent's house for her day with Grandma Pat).

1:08 pm














2:47 pm















4:08 pm















4:38 pm--it's time to go pick up Hannah.














10:34 pm--Hannah and I had dinner with my mom and then Hannah fell asleep on the way home, around 7 pm--about an hour and half earlier than she usually does--though sad to miss our bedtime rituals--it was good to have more time to bead.














Saturday, September 8, 2007
7:50 am














8:29 am














11:13 am














12:51 pm--I took Hannah to the park and beaded for a while as she played in the sand. She took her nap when we got home and I was able to finish beading and frame the piece.














3:51 pm--beading is done!














Now it is time to frame

Stretching the silk noil on the interior frame using a staple gun.














Folding the fabric under at the corners and stapling.

















Stitching the beaded piece to the silk noil stretched on the frame.




















Very carefully cutting a hole in the fabric that is stretched on the interior frame, but not cutting the fabric of the piece stitched to the top of it.


















Stuffing the piece with 100% New Zealand Merino wool to give it a 3-d effect.

















All done--framed, now ready to pack for shipping.

Sunday Hannah and I went to Golden to walk along the river and play at the great playground by the river. Kelly's brother Kevin made it to the 4th round in Super Gas (out of 7 rounds of elimination) in the race in Earlville and moved up in their points for their ranking in the division.