More beads

Hello there. How are you?

This week has been different for me in that I've felt far more in control of the housework which has allowed me some guilt free shed time.

Wednesday with the children home went well. I managed to get my chores done and P very much surprised me by deciding to tidy the cutlery draw. He quite showed me up. It was a bit of a mess before but I was used to it and a tidy wasn't even on my mind. He made it look like this:



When I open it I think of him and marvel how someone so young can do something so helpful just because they feel like it. He and A then moved onto the cereal cupboard which they emptied, sorted out and put back in again.

Yesterday was a strange day because I stopped on the way to school to restart the car because some lights had come on. Once I'd stopped, I couldn't get going again so we started to walk. Very fortunately someone from P's year spotted us and we ended up with a lift. Turns out the car needs a new alternator which is several hundred pounds. What an incredibly boring thing to spend lots of money on.

I'm now waiting for the children to be dropped home by a friend. Today has given me much more time pottering about because I've not done the school run at all. It's actually been quite nice. The Ocado man came with my shopping which included one ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino so that I can work a few more rows of my blanket. The day has also included the making of a couple more squares for my scarf.

I cleaned and photographed the beads from yesterday's shed session. I did better with making the sizes the same:

These are that Sea Foam colour and I didn't realise some of them were different colours until I took them out of the kiln this morning. Some glasses look different depending on how long and where in the flame they are worked:


The sizes aren't bad are they? A bit more work on it is needed I think but this is definate progress.

Next is a colour called Mulberry that just looks black in this photo:


I took another picture to see if you can see the colour better. It's an improvement but not great:


I don't know if the one on the left is Mulberry worked differently or a different colour. The other three are black:


I decided that the bead method from Corina's book that I liked the most was the disk one (that's the method I'd used in the past and it suited me) and I had the idea that, if I could make the same size disk each time, this would result in same size beads. The theory is good but sometimes the circles of glass that make up the disk are thicker than other times. I made these from some wire I had to help me attempt to make more even beads:



I'm really pleased with this idea. When the bead goes in the kiln I can know if it's the size I'm after without attempting to compare it with one that's already in there.

I also made a few other beads just trying out the dots again but they aren't that great:



That cobalt blue which made the bumpy dots is a lovely colour I think.

This bead I really like:


I need to work out what colours I used so that I can add the photo to my Pinterest colour board. Haven't the colours mixed together beautifully? I think they look amazingly interesting.

Then I moved on to something a bit trickier:



Corina calls these 'Rainbow Beads' and has a step-by-step tutorial in her book on how to make these beads. There's a photo for every step. There's more work for me to do on this technique but it's not dreadful for a first try.

I decided I wanted to try amber and very dark amber:


The one in the middle isn't bad. The one on the right I tried shortcutting and thought I'd be clever and just swipe the colours around rather than dabbing them on as dots. It's doesn't look nearly as good does it? I need to practice these beads some more.

If Sunday is Mother's Day where you are then have a very enjoyable one. I am very much looking forward to breakfast in bed. Hopefully a bagel and scrambled egg - yum.

Have a lovely weekend.
Sally
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