Cobblestone Path in funky colors

The deadline for my Iliad-inspired earring challenge is tonight at 11:59:59p.  I have not received any entries, so if you've made something, send your picture to traci@creative-pursuits.biz right away.  I'll leave the challenge open until I blog tomorrow.  That will likely be before 5p Central, so don't delay.  Click the above link for all of the information.  Remember... there's a $25 bead gift certificate for the winner!

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Tonight I finally finished the "Cobblestone Path" bracelet I've been telling you about.  When I'm not distracted by TV or knots in the thread, it takes me about six hours.  Most of the colors I chose for this bracelet have a metallic iris finish.  The color of the 6mm Thunder Polish crystals is Mexican Blue AB, and the Rizos are called Lime Azuro.

It's really hard to take a good picture of this bracelet - the subtleties of the colors get lost.  Here's the full bracelet:

And here's a close-up shot:

The green Rizos may seem like an odd choice, but you can see coating on the fourth one on the top and the last full one on the bottom matches the other beads.  Also, in person at some angles the crystals have a bit of a greenish tinge.

I'm so pleased with how this bracelet turned out, and I'm glad that I took the time to finally make it.  Now let's hope someone will want to buy it!

His and hers houses

The deadline for my Iliad-inspired earring challenge is tomorrow at 11:59:59p!  Please don't hesitate to send me your pictures at traci@creative-pursuits.biz.  Click the above link for all of the information.  Remember... there's a $25 bead gift certificate for the winner!
 

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Once upon a time, Steve and I built a pair of houses that would go on his model railroad layout.  We painted the roofs (that's the correct pluralization of "roof" - I checked) and the main parts of the houses then set them aside to dry before painting the trim and adding the finishing touches.  That was over six years ago.

See, we were dating at the time, and lots of stuff happened between then and now.  The houses had been sitting on Steve's in-process layout, and every time we looked at them we'd say, "We really need to finish those houses one of these days."

Today was the day.  I had planned on finishing that "Cobblestone Path" bracelet I've been talking about, but Steve brought the houses up from the basement and suggested we finish those.  I wasn't keen on the idea at first, but I remembered that this year is for finishing projects as well as for creating new things.  Besides, I was happy to share an activity with Steve.  If he's working on his layout, he's usually in the basement, and I don't see him for big chunks of the day.

Here's how we left the houses 6+ years ago, and you get one guess as to which one is mine:

We set about painting the trim, Steve's in green and mine in white.  I had problems seeing what I was doing even with a task lamp.  There were too many shadows and angles.

I'm not terribly happy with the paint job I did, even after two coats.  I spent an awful lot of time doing it and was extremely careful, but there are spots that don't look good, and there are a few spots of white on purple.  I wiped as much as I could off, but it's not perfect.  The light purple was mixed, and Steve said we could mix up some more for touch-ups.  I was afraid that it wouldn't be the exact color, which would mean I'd have to paint the whole house again.  I decided that it looked just fine as it is.  It was as good as I could do, and it looks a bit like the house was fifty years old with a number of coats of paint on it.  Steve said that was perfect.

The two houses came in one kit, Emery House by DPM.  Even though both houses are essentially the same, there are variations to make them look different, like where the front porch is put on or what features are added.

Included in the kit is a lot of metal pieces.  The above jumble mainly contains fences, but there are also other items such as a propane tank (that oblong blob on the right), streetlights, chairs and arms of chairs, and a whole bunch of other things we're probably not going to use.  What you're supposed to do is glue things together if needed and paint them.  Steve must like picking through this pile because a few times he had all the parts for something set aside and refused my offer of a little bag to keep them separate.

Steve won't need items such as the propane tank because he's modeling the Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway in 1906.  He has to really think about what was available in 1906 and what hadn't been invented yet.  The houses work fine, but things like power lines and propane tanks would not.

While I was painting my trim, Steve painted his trim (two coats!), painted and glued in posts and fancy trim for his house, painted my posts and fancy trim, glued window glazing in his house, pawed through the above jumble, painted a dog on his doghouse, and started making lunch.  He's a lot quicker than I am.

Since this picture was taken, he added some different coloring to the dog to make him look more realistic.

After lunch I watched as Steve glued the external components in:

Here's how the house looks nearly finished:

You can see there's some paint up on the dark purple peak.  I'm choosing to believe that the HO scale (1/87th of normal size) people who live there are crappy painters.

I added my own glazing inside the house so there would look like there were windows:

Steve put a piece of dark paper inside each of the sections so you can't see straight through the house.  It gives an illusion that the house has rooms.

Here are both houses finished:

I wanted to show you how they're going to look on the layout, but the section where Steve wants to put them is nowhere near finished.  For now, he put them in another section (that's also not finished, but it looks a lot better than the other one):

Even though this wasn't what I had planned to do today, I'm glad we were able to get our little houses done!

Upcoming knitting projects

The deadline for my Iliad-inspired earring challenge is fast approaching!  You have until 3/31/2014 at 11:59:59p to send me your pictures.  Click the above link for all of the information.  Remember... there's a $25 bead gift certificate for the winner!

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I am 2/3 of the way done with that "Cobblestone Path" bracelet I've been talking about since packing for the LBS retreat.  I was hoping to finish it this afternoon to show you, but a nap occurred.  I should be able to show it to you tomorrow.

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So since I have nothing finished to blog about, I'm going to tell you of a few upcoming projects I'll be starting soon.

The first one is a baby sweater by the same designer as the Owl and Pussy Cat baby hat I showed you at the beginning of the year.  I'm on her testing group now, so this baby sweater is newer than new.  It will be exciting to test the pattern out and give my feedback.  You might recall the designer is from South Africa, and this sweater is inspired by their Baobab trees (the second picture on that page is closer to what the sweater will look like).  When I'm done with the sweater I'll post about it.  I'm also getting a new kind of KnitPicks yarn, so I'll be sure to review it.

The second project is for Steve.  I made the mistake of asking him last night what he wants for his birthday, which is next week.  He said that what he wanted could be done by next winter... A Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) scarf!

I lifted the picture from the Wertzone.

As soon as Steve said that, I groaned.  First of all: scarf.  Scarves take forever.  Second of all, this scarf will take five forevers, as even the short version is really long.  Finally, though, I agreed to make it as long as we can find a suitable pattern.

Then just as I was starting to blog today, Steve pops his head in and says, "The scarf can be for Christmas.  I just thought of something else I'd like for my birthday."  He's lucky I wasn't holding any knitting needles.

I haven't forgotten that I still need to finish the damnable hooded cardigan.  I'll be a very busy knitter this year!

Purple dainty flower earrings

When looking through my supplies today, I found a vial of purple Thunder Polish 6mm crystals with only two left.  I was looking for a quick project for today, so this was perfect. I grabbed some purple Rizos, 11/0 seed beads, and 15/0 seed beads and made a pair of my "Dainty Flower Earrings":

If they look slightly familiar, it's because they're designed to go with my "It's Got Legs" and "Cobblestone Path" designs.

If you'd like the instructions, e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz for purchase information.

Gray SuperDuo Rosette bracelet #1 (with modification)

The deadline for my Iliad-inspired earring challenge is fast approaching!  You have until 3/31/2014 at 11:59:59p to send me your pictures.  Click the above link for all of the information.  Remember... there's a $25 bead gift certificate for the winner!

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Remember the SuperDuo Rosette bracelet I showed you a few days ago that was designed by Sam Wescott?  When I was at Knot Just Beads yesterday I found a bunch of gray, black, and gray/black mottled beads that I thought would be perfect for this design.

Based on the first bracelet I made, I decided to make a slight adjustment and put an 11/0 bead in between the Super Duos that envelop the 3mm center bead.  Here's how that looks before the embellishments are added:

I think that's cute just the way it is, but I wanted to see how it would look with the embellishments.  So I tucked that away in the back of my head and added the embellishments:

While the first picture looks cute, the second looks more polished.

Here are both bracelets next to each other:

My next one will be made to compliment the gray one so I can wear them both together.

If you'd like to make this bracelet, you can purchase the digital download here.  While you're there, check out the Wescott Jewelry shop, where there are some other tutorials and a lot of beautiful finished jewelry.

Green Quadrille earrings

In the last few weeks I've posted a number of examples of my "Quadrille" design (which is different from the "Quadrille" in the new Beadwork magazine). Today I taught a class on this design at Knot Just Beads, and I was able to make a pair of earrings to match my first sample:

I had hoped to stitch other things to show you today, but unfortunately it didn't happen.  I did buy more supplies for a few SuperDuo Rosette bracelets like the one I showed you a few days ago.  I'm also still working on a "Cobblestone Path" bracelet and am looking forward to finishing that in the next few days.

Owl earrings

Today's post will be short, as I'm still recovering from the weekend.

In preparing for the Art Glass and Bead Show, I bought a lot of supplies. When I ordered from Goody Beads, not only did I save money, I also got these cute lampwork owl beads for free:



I usually prefer to make earrings with components of the same color. A few times I've mixed colors up, and I've been surprised at how cute the results were.
 
So tonight I made a pair of earrings with the green and blue owls using the "filler" beads that were in between each of the owls:



I'll save the black owl for a bracelet or necklace. If you'd like to make your own adorable owl earrings, you can purchase these beads here.  They're not free, but they're on sale!

Sam Wescott's Super Duo Rosette bracelet

If you missed my mini tour of the Art Glass and Bead Show that I posted yesterday, click here.  There are so many neat vendors to meet!

I still don't have any entries for my Iliad-inspired earring challenge.  I hope that means you're busily working away!  In that post I requested that folks help me pay for the $25 prize and to help me continue blogging by clicking my ads.  I'm happy to say that I am over the threshold and should receive my first check next month.  Yay!  Thank you all so much!  I hope you're clicking because you're interested in the ads and not because I asked.  (But either way, I'm very happy.)

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On to today's project.  Yup, you read the title right - I have made someone else's design.  When I was looking around Etsy and the 'net in general to make sure my newest designs (including the Waltz rope) weren't rip-offs, I came across a really pretty bracelet on Etsy by Sam Wescott called SuperDuo Rosette bracelet.  I sent her a message telling her that I really liked it, and by the time I was done complimenting her, I broke down:  "Okay, okay... you talked me into it. I'm going to buy it."

Her tutorial is a digital download and is only $5.  I was happy to pay it, and tonight I was finally able to sit down and make the bracelet.  The instructions were very easy to follow, although I did modify it slightly around the clasp (to make it face the way I wanted it to face) and to do a little reinforcing.  The diagrams were easy to understand, and it didn't take long before I was stitching without looking at the directions.

Over the weekend I bought some amethyst round beads that I was hoping would work with the design.  It calls for 3mm beads, but these were slightly bigger than that.  After a bunch of messing around and realizing I'd have to modify the pattern too much, I dug around until I found some 3mm beads.  They're faceted round, but they still work.

Since I was digging around, I'm not positive how thrilled I am with the colors.  The dark 15/0s on the outside are metallic amethyst gunmetal.  They're so pretty, and I've been wanting to use them in something.  I'm just not positive they mesh well with the white Super Duos and 11/0s.  Well, that's what I get for rushing to pick beads (I was antsy to get started).

I am still going to wear it, though.  It's a very dainty bracelet, and I could see wearing it on its own or with other bracelets of different but similar colors.  Because of how large my wrists are and the shape of my arms, I don't stack bracelets like a lot of women do, but I could with this one.

The embellishments on the outside are done after the bracelet is completed.  For an even slimmer version, that could be left off.  I almost didn't add the embellishments because I liked how delicate it looked without.  However, for this first one I wanted to make it as written.

I'm looking forward to going on quests to find the perfect 3mm round beads and the Super Duos and seed beads to go along with them.

If you'd like to make this bracelet, you can purchase the digital download here.  While you're there, check out the Wescott Jewelry shop, where there are some other tutorials and a lot of beautiful finished jewelry.

Thanks, Sam!

Home from the Art Glass and Bead Show!

There's a week left for my Iliad-inspired earring challenge!  I'm offering a $25 gift certificate to the person whose entry gets the most votes.  Click here for all the details, and "like" my Creative Pursuits Facebook page for updates!

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Steve and I are home safe and sound after a wonderful weekend at the Art Glass and Bead Show in Madison, Wisconsin.  The house is just fine (I had a neighbor and a friend keep an eye on the place), and the cats are well.  We gave them "battle pay" (canned food), and they seem to not be mad at us.

Because I was at the show, I wasn't able to make anything for my 2014 resolution to "create or work on something every day and blog about it", right?  True, I couldn't create anything concrete like a pair of earrings or a scrapbook page, but I did make some friends.  Yeah, that sounds corny, but I'd like to think it's true.  I decided to walk around and take pictures of some of the smaller vendors at the show and introduce you to them.  I ended up with pictures of 13 vendors, so I'm not going to give a whole lot of information on each one.  They were all very nice, and I enjoyed chatting with all of them (and all the other vendors, faculty, and show-goers, of course)!

The links below go to the vendors' websites.  I hope you click on them and take a look at their work close up.  Many of the vendors are lampworkers, meaning they make "Art Glass and Beads", which is where I'm guessing the name of the show came from.  I'm not going to go into detail on what they can do - their websites can do a much better job than I can.

My first stop was Brenda Schweder's booth.  She sells her "Now That's a Jig" for wireworking and did some mini workshops on the show floor:

I took a picture of Brenda and Kat working on something over in the mini workshop area, but I didn't think Brenda would want me to post her butt.  You're welcome, Brenda!

Next up is lampworker Diane Tarullo, who is from Downers Grove, Illinois.  Her acorns have electroformed copper on top glass:

When I started out, I had a notion that I'd get snippets of video from folks with business tips for artists, but after Brenda's and Diane's, I realized that my camera's battery and my time would run out.  I'm still going to show them, but not today.

Here is Sher Berman, another lampworker from Illinois (Deerfield, this time).  The necklaces below are bead crochet:

Next I chatted with Suz and Shona from Glass Garden Beads.  They sell jewelry-making kits in cute little purses from a number of different designers and are based in Northfield, Minnesota:

Cathy from Aardvark Art Glass was next to me to my right.  She's from Madison, Wisconsin and has really cute glass fish and silver hedgehogs (among a lot of other things):

Another neighbor of mine was Allison of Bliss Beads Studio.  She's from DeKalb, Illinois, and had a lot of beautiful beads and finished jewelry for sale:

Across the aisle from me was Margaret from Mostly Buttons.  I imagine you can tell what she was selling (hint, it was mostly buttons!).  The buttons are from The Czech Republic and the world.  Margaret hails from Toledo, Ohio:

A little ways down was Julie Nordine of Credit River Art Glass from Credit River, Minnesota.  My mother has one of her glass hearts from a few years ago:

Next to me on my left was Jes Durfee from Duluth, Minnesota.  Not only did he have interesting glass marbles, pendants, and figurines (including a few minions from Despicable Me!), he was a lot of fun to be next to and to chat with:

Even if it did take 4 shots to get a good picture of him!  :)

I talk a lot in my blog about the bead society I belong to (the Loose Bead Society of Greater Milwaukee, where I was on the Board for four years), so I enjoyed chatting with the President and Vice President of the Madison Bead Society, Pat and Ingrid:

If you're in Madison and haven't checked them out, you should!  Being in a bead society has been so beneficial to me in so many ways!

GLOW was next.  No, they weren't the Glorious Ladies of Wrestling but the Glass Lampworkers of Wisconsin from Madison and the surrounding area!  They said I should link to Karen's information from Lady Crown Glass.  Here are Karen, Sue, and Carla:

These ladies were fun to talk to and so nice!  I'm sure you can't see it in the above picture, but look what I spied on their table:

A purple acrylic hand display!  I said, "Ooh!  That would match my booth perfectly!  If you ever decide to get rid of it, let me know, and I'll buy it from you."  Sue said, "I bought it for $10 - give me $10 and it's yours."  I was so giddy I gave her $11 so she could make money on the deal.  After that I started waving to people with the hand, and asking people if I could give them a hand.  I think I was getting loopy - it was pretty close to the end of the show.  Thanks, Sue!  My husband started handing people their merchandise using the hand.  He was getting a bit loopy, too.

The GLOW ladies said I just had to go talk to Steve and Terry from Bokamo Designs because they're super nice:

So I did, and they were!  As you can see, they had an awful lot of leather cords and materials for making bracelets.

My final picture was taken just after the show closed.  I chatted a lot this weekend with Tanya McGuire from South Dakota, who makes glass disks, beads, flowers, and many other whimsical things.  Here she is with her husband, Jeffrey (I sure hope I got that right - my brain is a little fried right now!):

Whew!  That's everyone!  I hope you enjoyed my tour of a few of the Art Glass and Bead Show vendors as much as I did.  Please take a look at their websites, and if you see them at another show, stop and check out their stuff and tell them Traci says hi!

Art Glass and Bead Show so far

Hello from Madison!  Steve and I just got back to the hotel, and I'm going to post a quick blog then go relax. I was supposed to teach a class tonight, but unfortunately I didn't have any registrations. I'm okay with that, though, because we're both pretty wiped out.

We got down here yesterday afternoon around 2:30 and set up my booth:

This is what happens when Steve comes along with me:

"Go behind the table and look like a proprietor!"

When he's not around, I don't have to be in any pictures.  :)

After setting up, we checked in at the hotel and had a quick dinner. Then it was back to the expo center for the Make 'N Take event. That was a lot of fun, and my beaded wire-wrapped keys were very well received!  We got back to the hotel around 11. My head was buzzing and various parts of my body were throbbing, so I didn't sleep well. I'm fine with that - I'll sleep a lot next week.

Today was the first day of the show, and it went very well! Steve and I were both very busy talking to people most of the day. I am so happy he's with me. When I'm checking people out or talking to one person, I don't have to worry about neglecting other customers. He's also helped a few other vendors out when they needed to step away from their booths for a few minutes. He's such a gem!

We're back at the show tomorrow from 10:00 to 4:00. I hope you can come by and see me!

Karen's iris tea light cover

As I mentioned yesterday, today I am busy at the Madison Art Glass and Bead Show.  I'm writing this Thursday, so it's weird writing as if it was Friday.  Ooh!  A perfect excuse to use the future perfect tense!  I will have been very busy setting up my table, and as this is posting I am going to have been participating in the Make 'n Take event.  Wow.  That's hard.  Enough of that.  Steve just looked at this and said the "going to have been" might be future progressive.  He suggests I break out a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to review my time travel tenses.

Today, er, in this post (that's better) I'm showing you a tea light cover that my friend Karen made.  I've mentioned Karen before.  She is my biggest fan.  Seriously - I hate to brag, but she has all or most of my designs, and she brought me to Terry's Treasures bead store in King George, Virginia, where they sell tutorials of my designs.  She's a good friend and always is very enthusiastic about everything I do.  It's so nice for someone I've never met to be so supportive of me.

Anyway, a few months ago Karen bought some keys from me.  Remember the iris key I showed you in January?  No?  Fear not.  Here it is:

A week and a half ago I got this in an e-mail from Karen:

I liked your iris pattern for the tubed key so well that I took it and turned it into a tea light cover. The pictures are attached showing how I took your pattern and created it on peyote stitch graph paper. I hope that you approve.

Of course I approve - I love that my pattern is being used in another way!  She sent me a few pictures:

You can see my original pattern on the left, Karen's graph paper setup on the right, and the candle and stitched strip on the bottom.  I wish she had told me she was doing this ahead of time and that she had an iPad (which she mentioned in an e-mail a few days ago) - I would have sent her the PDF of the pattern, and she could have used knitCompanion to read the chart much easier.  If you've missed my review and my update of the review, click here and here. Keep that in mind for next time, and I'm not just talking to Karen.  :)

Here's how it looks around the unlit candle:

And here it is glowing from candlelight:

I feel I must give a disclaimer - if you're going to have a cover like this, please don't leave a burning candle unattended.  Theoretically it should be fine since the beads are made from glass, but you never know what could happen.

It's so cute that I'm going to have to make one for myself! It will look so cute on the shelf above my desk.  Thanks for the idea and for letting me post about it, Karen!

Quadrille kit samples

This will be my last post before going to the Madison Art Glass and Bead Show.  The car is packed, and we're just about ready to go!  I've had stuff on the floor of my studio for months - there have been lots of shows and other preparations - and now with all of it either in the car or in the dining room (so I could figure out what needed to go in the car), it feels positively spacious in here.  Expansive, as I told Steve.  Frisco walked around with a bewildered look on his face earlier.  I'm going to have to get it all put away right after this weekend so it doesn't get bad again.  I'll have a few months before my next event, so it's a perfect time to straighten things out.

This will also be my last post about Quadrille.  I know I've talked about it a lot, but that's what I've been working on.  Yesterday I showed you the new earrings (my cousin Dawn said, "Ooh!"), and the day before that it was the new bracelet.

On a side note, remember yesterday I told you of my printing problems?  Except for going through an awful lot of ink (Steve even needed to pick some up on the way home), I have had no more problems.  Whew!  I'm so proud of myself for not only fixing it myself but for not getting upset.  That's huge for me!  (I get frustrated quite easily, especially lately because I haven't been feeling well.)

Yesterday I also told you I made samples of all of the Quadrille colors, and I'm ready to show them to you now:

I wasn't sure about the green, but seeing it stitched up, I think it looks nice.

Here's the sample board that will go on the table:

 This is a hastily-taken picture because Steve was loading the car.

Late last year, I rearranged my sample boards and consolidated some designs on a few larger frames.  I'm glad I did that, because I could just grab this frame and go instead of making another one.  Since I seem to do everything at the last minute, I really appreciated not having to spend time making a new board.

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Okay - here's how posting for the weekend is going to go:  Tonight I'm going to write tomorrow's post on something my friend Karen did and schedule it for 10p.  Saturday I'll try to post something after my class (so it will probably be around 10p as well), and Sunday I'll post when I get home.

One more thing for tonight... Thank you all so much for clicking the ads.  I hope you're clicking on things you're interested in and that you're not clicking just to click.  In any case, thank you.  I am SO close to reaching the threshold to get my first check.  That money will fund the Iliad-inspired earring challenge I'm hosting, and it will help me continue to blog every day.  Keep clicking, and I'll keep blogging!

New Quadrille earrings

Yesterday I showed you a new bracelet I made with my "Quadrille" design with purple crystals instead of purple fire polish beads.

Today I made the matching earrings:

It's good that I did because I found that I'm going to need to add a few extra Super Duos, Rizos, and seed beads just to make sure everyone has plenty.

I also stitched up samples of each of the four colorways I'll have kits for, but I will have to wait to show you until tomorrow.  I'm trying to print out instructions for the Make 'n Take event (then there are the Quadrille tutorials to print!), but my printer has suddenly decided to stop printing black.  The colors are fine, but the black is completely absent.  I'm all over the HP site and forum and am trying to find a solution that works for me.  There are many solutions, but so far none of them are working.  I really do not want to take the printhead off and physically wash it.  That sounds both icky and potentially dangerous.

This is really poor timing.

Update:  After a few more troubleshooting failures and me taking some time to relax and not think about it, I ended up doing the icky and potentially dangerous washing of the printhead.  It took two 10-minute soaks to get most of the ink out, and... it worked!  It worked.  I'm so relieved I don't even know what to say.  It's only 1:00a, so that went much better than I expected.  My hands are really filthy.  Must update blog before washing hands!  :)

On a much happier note, don't forget my Illiad-inspired challenge!  The deadline is March 31st.  You don't want to miss it!

New Quadrille sample

When I was at the LBS retreat at the beginning of the month, I started a purple version of my Quadrille design:

I really loved the colors, but as you can see, I didn't have enough beads to finish the bracelet (in my size, that is).  I wanted this to be one of the colorways for my kits, but I couldn't find the 4mm beads that are in the curves in bulk.  Instead, I ordered some really pretty medium amethyst AB Thunder Polish crystals.

When they came in, I wasn't sure if they would look good with the other beads.  Tonight, I made a bracelet to see how they look:

They're a little subtle, but I think they're pretty.

In case you're wondering if I made the whole bracelet this time:

One reason I made the bracelet was to test the colors.  Other reasons include: purple (duh!), testing that my kits will have enough materials and Fireline, going over the tutorial another time, and so I had something to blog about tonight.  :)

Tomorrow I'm going to make earrings and samples of all the colorways.

The Madison Art Glass and Bead Show is in just a few days!  I sent out a newsletter about my involvement in the show and my other upcoming events.  Did you get it?  If not, click here to catch up on all the action (including where I'm teaching the above bracelet!), and click here to get on my mailing list.

LBS Brick Stitch program (finally!)

You know all that preparation I've been doing for the Loose Bead Society brick stitch program?  Tonight was the night!  If that doesn't sound familiar, you can catch up here, here, and here.

For the LBSers who asked about my bracelet, click here for the instructions I told you about.

The program started out a bit shaky with me in front of a very crowded room trying to quickly and succinctly explain how to do brick stitch without them having much context.  There were a lot of confused faces looking at me, which made me stammer around a bit more.  Eventually I cut them loose to start working, and I walked around helping out and answering questions.  I also walked my brick stitch bracelet around so they could see how repeating the motif could make a bracelet.

I got many wonderful compliments from folks, and that meant a lot to me.  I worked very hard on this design and the instructions, and a number of people helped by choosing colors, making kits, being table captains, and more.  I'm very glad this went so well.  Yeah, a number of people had problems "getting it", but not everyone stitches.  Of the people I talked to, even those who had problems did eventually understand it enough to finish the project.  At least that's what it seemed to me.

I only took a few pictures.  Carol took some pictures of me because I foolishly asked her to so I could put one in my blog, and she e-mailed them as soon as she got home.  Isn't she great?  Thanks, Carol!

Here are a few women who I specifically asked if I could put them in my blog:

That's an action shot.  It looks like she's really fast, doesn't it?

They're smiling, so they must be doing well!

Something I found interesting was that a few people made some variations while they were learning the stitch.  One person left out the Rizos (the bumpy beads in the middle), and a few people attached the bottom of the stitched part to the frame instead of letting it dangle.  One of the bottom-attachers (that sounds naughty, but it really isn't), added some embellishment around the attachment:

The picture isn't as clear as I'd like it to be, but you get the idea.  I didn't catch her name, so if anyone knows, please e-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz, and I'll add her name here.

I really hope everyone enjoyed themselves.  I did!

Here's a happy Traci: