October | 2015 | something to do with your hands

Oh dear - long time, no post. Well, I’ve been busy. Busy making beads, which are finally ready to list. They’ll be hitting the shop at 6.30pm (BST) on Wednesday, 21st October. Working on this last batch of beads has really given me pause for thought. I’ve got into a kinda feast or famine cycle of making either all beads or all jewellery at one time. I don’t like it. I find myself wanting to be doing one thing when I’m doing the other. And, really, I think the two should be integrated so that one will inform the other more and push things forward. So, I’m giving some thought to how work this out. Anyway, you’re perhaps more interested in seeing these new beads. I’ve spent quite some time working on a number of ideas that have lead me to make some larger, more time consuming pieces. I’ve made more moths. Some, like last time, have lots of multi-coloured detail -

But I’ve made a couple more from porcelain and did the wings with sgraffito in black and white.

Boy, did that take some time. It was one of those things where you have to work through a number of delicate stages where, at each, there is the possibility that you’ll muck the whole thing up and have to abandon all your hard work. Fortunately, this time, I managed to avoid doing that.

I’ve also made some more kinda primitive pouch type things.

Not sure I’d call that second one a pouch but it’s in the same kinda vein. The last lot of large focals are these large hand-painted beads.

There’s more sgraffito on this one.

I’m happy with the way all of these have turned out, but I worry about putting so much time into individual pieces. It means I need to charge more for them if this bead making thing is going to work realistically, in the long term. I got a bit of a telling off last time for not charging enough for things, like the moths. It’s made me reassess how much I charge for certain items so a few things will be going out at higher prices. I should say it was an affectionate telling off: if you’re looking for someone to blame, blame Petra! I’m just telling myself if they don’t sell they can just sit in the shop looking pretty….

There are more cones, on which I’ve been trying different glazes and things.

I’m crazy for crackles at the moment. There are a few small pairs two, including these. Love the soft colours on them….

What else? I’ve done a bit of autumn -

I never tire of seeing that molten red glaze when I open the kiln. I made this acorn mould about a year ago. I nearly forgot that I’d had it waiting all this time to be relevant.

I’ve also made more lots of rounds with glazes or finishes that have been popular. You can buy singles of all of these.

And there’s lots more headpins, although not quite the baffling number I managed to produce last time.

Another hit last time was the sets of earring beads.

These are one of the things where I’ll be charging a little more this time. I was so unsure whether there’d be any interest in them, I initially put them out at a rather low price. They won’t be much more - just enough for me not to feel I’m giving my time away! I’ve also been working one these chunky randoms sets.

There are quite a few and they’ve got all different types of ware in them and lots of different shapes, colours and sizes. I spent ages combining and recombining them when putting the sets together. I think that was me missing making jewellery.

As ever there’s a good range of earring charms of this kinda sort-