Beads Beads Beads

I've been making some pretty beads the last few weeks.  I have some in the kiln firing today.  But I should back up ... I've been taking short trips. This month I've been as far north as Amarillo and as far south as Galveston.  On the way there and back I sat in the passenger seat of the car and made beads. It's a nice way to pass the time.

I brought with me a brown iron-rich stoneware clay.  I used only these two 'tools', an aluminum knitting needle and a little do-dad that I grabbed and threw into my texture basket some time ago.

I made lines in the middle of each bead with the knitting needle.  I thought the lines would add great texture and the glaze (if I picked the right glaze) might pool nicely in the ridges.

One thing I have to do now that I didn't do a few years ago is wear reading glasses when I create beads. I have lost most of my near sighted vision due to the normal aging process.  Without glasses anything a foot or less from my eyes is incredibly blurry.

This most bothers me when I'm eating because I can't see my food!  I haven't started wearing reading glasses during dinner yet, but I see that happening in my soon to be future.

(um, getting back to the beads) ... so I took this little do-dad thing, and I don't remember where or what it came from, and I pressed circles in each side, with one in the middle and four on north/south/east/west, for a total of five round circles.

I liked this look.  And I almost stopped there, but we were miles and miles away from our destination and there was not much to do so I picked them back up and poked a bunch of holes around the circles with the knitting needle.

Last of all I remembered to put a stringing hole in each bead.  About a month ago I sat down for about three hours and created some incredibly detailed beads.

Unfortunately I forgot to add holes to every single one of them. I actually bisque fired them that way.  I don't know where my mind was ... it obviously wasn't in the right place.  I have them in a bag and I may or may not drill holes in them. I might just paint them with acrylics or something and use them as jacks (you know that game we all played as little girls and sometimes as big girls?).


(um, getting back to the beads) ... so I put these in the kiln when I got home and I did remember to put holes in each one, and they came out yesterday morning. I coated each one with a lovely Wisteria Purple glaze and they are firing today.

I was going to wait until they came out of the kiln tomorrow morning before sharing this blog story, but then I decided that it might be fun for you all to wait with me because I am always waiting to see how they come out and perhaps you would want to share in my anticipation.  lol!

Thanks for stopping by!