End of the Year Beads

It is the last day of 2014 and I have been enjoying looking back over the year and seeing all the changes that have happened.

My grandson was born in March and I have enjoyed getting to know him. My granddaughter turned 2 in April and I cannot believe how tall she is and how smart she is, but I am a Granny and Grannys usually have this opinion about their grandchildren.

I took up knitting again and so from September until just before Christmas I was busy knitting Christmas socks for my daughter. I am a slow knitter.  I knit left handed Continental style, except I still hold my yarn in my right hand...I don't think there is actually a name for this because it does cause me to knit a bit backwards.    I took a sock knitting class a few years ago and the ladies who taught me were a bit surprised at my knitting and actually taught me to knit correctly and I did ... for a while.

BUT this is a blog about ceramics and so you may be wondering about the picture of greenware beads above.   Since Christmas I have been making beads instead of knitting.  I have a short attention span so if you look you will not see many duplicate beads in the batch above.

I have a love/hate relationship with doing things the same way every time.  Many times I sit down to make a certain type of bead and by the time I'm finished I realize I haven't made any of the type I set out to make. This is why custom orders are so difficult for me.  I try to make something like I've been asked but some other design takes over and before I know it, I am forcing myself to pay attention and make the custom bead, but it is not fun.  This is the real reason I do not take on custom orders often. They are not fun.  There are many artists who enjoy custom orders.  I am not one of them.

Every so often a customer sends me an email or convo and it just so happens that I have been thinking of making a bead like the ones they have described and I make them and it is all easy and it is all fun. But that is rare.

So as the new year is about to begin, I wonder what sort of beads I will make in 2015.  I am beginning to tire of my 'sprig' beads and so I sense some sort of change beginning, but I do not yet know what.  I hope to work more with metals.  But I just ordered a new kiln so I know that ceramics is still definitely going to happen.

I hope whatever sort of year you are about to have is wonderful, too!

Thanks for stopping by!
Natalie