In the Garden of Beadin'

I haven't told you about my newest hobby yet... A few weeks ago during our annual Berkshires quilting retreat, Marion and I took a private bead weaving class at Yummy Treasures in Pittsfield. Last year we took a wire-wrapping class there and made pendants, so we were eager to try something new. Originally we were going to take a kumihimo braiding class, but ended up taking bead weaving instead.

We left the store with finished bracelets!

Marion's bracelet is lavender and mine is dark purple.

The bracelets are strung with a beading needle and made using nylon thread, seed beads, and crystals. It took us about three hours to make our first ones shown above. I thought it was great fun and bought some beads to make another.

This is my second bracelet in progress.

Although I love black and pink, I don't like this. It reminds me of a giant caterpillar and that's all I can see when I look at it. I'm going to take it apart and remake it in different beads. Right now I'm planning to make it royal blue and black.

Before we left the Berkshires, we made a second visit to Yummy Treasures and bought some more beads. On Saturday, Marion and I got together and worked on bracelets together with our beads from Yummy Treasures.

Here is Marion's second bracelet!

This time it only took us about two hours, now that we know the technique. Marion and I love all the same colors, so I definitely need to make a turquoise bracelet and a lavender bracelet too!

Sadly, I didn't have enough beads to finish my bracelet in progress, shown below.

Love, love, love this! The name of the beads is Water Lilies.

Of course, this necessitated a trip to find our local bead store! Who am I kidding, we were going to check it out anyways!

Happily for us, Bead Addiction is right down the road from one of favorite Chinese restaurants as well as one of our favorite quilt shops, All About Quilts. A Marion and Nancy trifecta (or perhaps a Bermuda Triangle for my VISA card).

Sadly, they didn't have the beads that I needed for my project. So Marion and I bought some new beads and signed up for a class.

Here is my newest bracelet in progress. I think it is going to be a gift for my youngest sister-in-law. I've sent her a photo to see if she likes it.

This morning I couldn't sleep so I got up at 5:30 a.m. I was hoping to work on my new beading project but our printer was out of ink and I couldn't print out my pattern. When Mike got up several hours later, he printed it out for me. We spent part of our day working in the yard and then we went to the garden center. Mike bought a variety of heirloom tomato plants and I got some perennials. When we got home, I was tired and I ended up taking a 3 hour nap, which resulted in me being wide awake at 9pm (normally I'm winding down and thinking about going to bed), so instead, I went over to my Studio and worked on my bracelet for two hours.

It's midnight so now I'm going to force myself to go to bed since I have to get up for work tomorrow!

Hope you like my bracelets. I've already promised to make some for my friends Kat, Colette and Mary Kate, so there will definitely be more for you to see.

Don't worry, I haven't stopped quilting!

Thanks for visiting.

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

P.S. My new friend Beth at Yummy Treasures was happy to mail me more beads to finish my bracelet.

P.P.S. My friend Kim G. has warned me that beading can be as addictive as quilting! I think it's too late...