Wednesday, April 27, 2005

More about beading class

I had a great time at my class last night. There were four of us at the table and a very fun and sparkly young woman who was the teacher. She had lots of experience, and wore a beautiful cuff of gray pearl beads that she had made herself. Everyone in the class seemed to have quite a lot of experience and two people left with a finished project. One young lady made a gray pearl necklace with an organza ribbon to tie it with. It was stunning. I decided not to use the black pearls because it would take too long to cut them off their existing string (never thought of that), so I used some turquoise that I've had for years that needed stringing. I called it my "rustic" necklace.

Knotting is clumsy at first, but the the instructor taught us her trick of holding the tweezers down and pulling the knot and the bead together at the same time. She showed us how she sits with her legs crossed and uses her knee as a workspace. Several times I was so interested in the knot, that I forgot to pull the new bead down..and had to unknot and try again. Unknoting is hard to do, so you don't want to make that mistake often. I was the only one who ever did that particular mistake...but I managed in the end to get a nice start on a string of knotted beads. The knots are not as tight as they will be when I get more experience.

The class lasted until 9:00, but I left at 8:00 becaus we were pretty much through with the instruction part and it was clear I would not leave with a finished project. It's nice to have a class and be able to go upstairs to buy whatever you need for the project. The instructor convinced me that red silk looks really "cool" with my dark gray beads, so I will try that. I can't wait to come home tonight to get started.

Have a grrrreat day!