Follow, follow follow follow, follow the...

Yellow Brick Road Bracelet

This is technically for the EBW Team challenge--but it's the September challenge, and we haven't even made it to August yet, so it's nothing special yet. And if it somehow magically sells between now and then, I might make a second one. Or I might not, since it's not like being in their challenges really does anything for me.

But regardless of that, this bracelet was fun to make, and even more fun to photograph.  See that lego walking down it? So awesome. No sea stones for this bracelet, no sir, just a mossy lump and some tiny plants.

I fear that it's not all that clearly a bracelet in the picture, and that worries me a little bit, but when I think about how often people do, rather do not buy things from me, I don't think an artsy photo is going to make one lick of difference.

The Whole Wide World

Planet Earth Pattern

Have I mentioned that I was making this one? This is the pattern that I made that I actually had the beads to make when I made the pattern. It used up most of my blue, too.

I should be able to pair this particular tapestry with a moon tapestry--they are exactly the same size for exactly this purpose--to make a nifty bag.  And by "nifty" I mean "amazing and beautifully crafted."  There are a few puzzles left to work on with it, of course.  For example; the strap. And closure. Closure is always good.

And after I've made it into a bag, then I need to make a second Earth so I can just have one hanging out on my wall.  Along with everything else.  I also will choose my colors with a bit more care before making that second one, hopefully so that the land and sea colors are more distinct.

Now that I have this lovely little tapestry finished, I also have the rather odd problem of mixing it with the World Map tapestry in my head.  They are very different, but I cannot call this one the 'world' and I cannot call the other one the 'earth,' which doesn't seem like it would be a big deal, but I usually consider the two words to be synonymous, but in this case they are not.

Don't You Forget my Unicorn

Unicorn Beaded Tapestry Pattern

I once recited the entire Irish Rover's Unicorn song from memory. I do know a lot of songs, but I hadn't realized I knew that one quite so well.

I'm making a second unicorn/lion triptych. So far I just have the unicorn finished because I needed a different red to make the lion. I have the red now, so I am planning to start that later today, but I put the unicorn up as its own pattern listing today.  I don't know if I'm going to sell the (attempt to sell the) finished triptych, although I do have one already, so maybe I will.

What I do plan to do is list the triptych as one pattern listing, and maybe suggest that people can turn it into an amulet bag as well.  Or just a fancy bag, but at 3x4 inches, it wouldn't be able to hold much--and it'll be a lot smaller if you use Delica beads, which, of course, everyone and their Aunt Gertrude does.

Mechanical Dreams

SteamPunk Dream Catcher

This isn't for sale yet because it's not quite finished, I just wanted to share it with the world. It's a little bit more colorful in person, I think this picture was taken with the flash, but none of the pictures I got tonight were very good.

I dissected an old clock to make this, and I now have another clock to take apart, although it's a wind-up one, since I'm waiting for it to wind down before I do that.  It's in solitary until it stops ticking.

Once that clock is in pieces, then I will make a second one of these (I also need to track down more chain), hopefully finish off both with bits hanging on the bottom, and then whichever one I don't want to keep will go up for sale. Not sure I should admit that, but they'll both be about the same in terms of quality and construction, although I plan to use all the same chain for the second one, instead of switching it up like on this.  If I ever get a third clock (or if the second one has enough bits), then I will try to make one using the coil of copper wire from the first clock to make the webbing.

And here you thought all I did was bead.

Vikery

Viking Longboat Pattern

I said I was going to try and remake this one.  Well, just recently I ran out of things to bead, and my one attempt to scrounge up inspiration failed, so I started re-making some of the old patterns I've been intending to remake.

I made this one, and another unicorn, but then I realized I needed another color of bead to make the lion that goes with the unicorn (it's going to be a remake of my triptych), so I couldn't do that.  I ordered new beads, and then I made another pattern, which I also need the ordered beads to make.  So I made another pattern, this time one that I currently have all the beads for and started on that.

Oh, and there's a third pattern that I made a few weeks ago, but have been putting off making because it's more than 50% black.  Also, I need some of the ordered beads to make it.  BUT! once those beads arrive, I will have even more new things.

I put this longboat up as a pattern, because there's no way I'll ever be able to part with it, even if I could remake it easily enough.  I priced it lower than the others, though, since it's smaller than most.

Plus, no one buys the tapestries, so I'm just going to try selling the patterns for awhile.  I've sold what, three of those? as opposed to one tapestry.

Hubris

Turtle Bracelet

I've been reading a lot of fairy tales.  I've always wanted to read tons and tons of them, but the library only had books of the same old popular ones, told over and over and over and over, so I held off on my love of them, and settled for reading everything else.

But then I got my kindle.  My lovely, delicious kindle, whereupon I can buy hundreds of fairy tale books--for free.  And I do mean hundreds, too. I have just over two hundred fairy tales books, all sorted neatly be length.  I'm reading from shortest to longest, so I doubt I'll ever really make it to Arabian Nights, but it's good to have goals.

Anyway, the book I'm currently reading is Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew by Josephine Peabody. It's as if the author knew the stories and wrote them down, but without any care for actually getting them right--not that they are wrong, just, they aren't exactly faithful translations of the original Greek myths.

But that's not why I brought the book up (no, indeedy, that all goes in the review I'll be writing as soon as I finish it...). I actually wanted to discuss hubris a bit.

All these Greek tales--or at least more than a few of them--deal with the idea of hubris, or of arrogance which leads to a fall, also known as overconfidence or pride.  And this is an oddly important idea to me, since I'm surprisingly humble, so I like to see the arrogant ones getting taken down a peg of three.  But the Greek idea of hubris is entirely different from that which we have today.

See, in the Greek, the heroes will be arrogant, claim they are better than any other mortal, that they are, in fact, better than the gods--which they often ARE.  The gods, of course, take offense to this, challenge the mortal, and then, whether they win or lose, usually enact some sort of revenge which ultimately lowers the mortal far below others.

But in our moralizing tales--and I don't mean fairy tales (not even Disney-ified ones), but rather the wholesome children's TV shows and such--in those tales the closest they get to hubris is when the hero claims that they are really good at something that they are not good at.  The lie then gets out of hand, and the hero finds himself in over his head, admits that he was lying all along (or otherwise gets help which turns the lie into truth), and then he looses and receives psychiatric help.

So when you finish hearing the modern tales, you think, I should not lie about my abilities because I cannot control that lie.  But after one of the Greek stories you learn, I should not brag because there will always be someone better than me, or someone I piss off by doing so.  Quite possibly someone who can kick my ass to the stars if they so choose. 

The two are very, very different lessons.

ROAR!

Dragon Braclet

I actually listed some brand-new things a few days ago.  Be happy for me.

I was working on a bigger project, which is now finished (and also not for sharing), the pattern I used for this bracelet was a part of that. It's based on the scrolling dragon I've used for other things, but since that was too long to look like anything, I shortened the pattern, flipped one dragon over so it's a two-part pattern, and then added feet. I think he looks pretty good, although I'm not too sure about the red I used here as a background. I should really go find a weathered piece of 'barn wood' in the garage or something. Then it could be flat AND a good background at the same time. A novel idea.

Turtle

I've been meaning to catch up here--or to start again, rather, since catching up would be very, very silly at this point.

Let's see. I've changed the shop-listing to doing a bunch once a week, and then if I have anything interesting to list I'll go ahead and do so whenever.

Etsy has a new set-up for listing things, which I actually like quite a bit, except that I cannot save the changes I make to 'expired' listings--I either need to renew them Right Then, or I lose my changes. This seems like a rather silly way to run things, but that's pretty much how Etsy rolls, so whatever.

I've been making lots of things, but aside from a few earrings and pendants, nothing has gone up for sale. My older sister requested a ...series of four fairy tapestries for her birthday, which sounds like a lot, but they were small.  It took me forever to finish them, if only because I don't like to put the hanging rods onto the tapestries, and I put that off for as long as possible.  The panels themselves only took about three hours apiece. (12 hours isn't very long, right?).

I'm also working on a something that won't go up for sale, and a while back I made something that I don't think ever got mentioned here: The Turtle Beaded Tapestry

Turtle Beaded Tapestry

I've always liked turtles. Even after I got bit by a snapping turtle, which wasn't very fun at all.  This guy is more a frame work for a geometric design than an actual turtle, but I still think he's awesome.  I'm still debating putting him up, and delaying on putting his pattern up, although I should go on that. The background is beads chosen at random, which I would not use if I were to make this turtle again--certainly the light blue is far too strong.

Actually, I'm hoping to make him again soon, but using the Czech beads, rather than the Japanese ones, so I can pick from the colors I like and not the colors I have, although he turned out quite well, and he helped me lower the number of Japanese seed beads in my life significantly, which was nice.

Octopi

Octopus Earrings

Something new. Earrings, AND octopusesiples. Someone said they look a bit like jellyfish, and I can't completely disagree, but it's hard to make different shapes with this beading technique, so that's about the best I can do.


I also somehow look at the dark bead at the end of each leg and see them as shoes, which then somehow magically translates into a tapdancing octopus in my head. Weird.

I'm pretty happy with them, though. 'course, next time I think I'll make the top loop a different color--maybe the dark color--so it doesn't make the 'pus look so pointy on top. Maybe that'll help with the jellyfish problem.

Penguin Set

Penguin Earrings and Pendant

I told you I made more than one of these, right?

I got to babysit my niece this morning. She took a lot of naps, which was nice because then so did I.  She's taken to growling, which is pretty funny, if a bit strange.  Apparently it's just something some babies do, though, so whatever.