Whoops!

Okay, it's been forever and a day since I've logged on and posted anything. Lady Liberty is a thing of the past and so far, isn't finished. I have since completed a thousand and one things in other areas. We've moved to Texas as well. Needless to say, I switched to Facebook and spaced my blog. However, I think that it's time to move on this again. :-)

Recently, I came across a cute pattern for a purse and made one for my son's teacher. Since I showed it off, I have already received two orders for them! I'm making them for "free" in exchange for word of mouth. ;-) My friend calls it "self promotion." Or if they insist on paying, I'll put it at a much lower price. I also have one more purse in mind that will be for sale from the very beginning. Ut, oh. I just thought of another color combination I want to try. Yeah, I'd better get off my lazy tail end and get a move on!

The strangest thing happened yesterday though. I decided that this purse was so dang cute that I needed one! As soon as I hugged it as it was partially finished, EVERYTHING went wrong. And I mean everything. I finally got smart and just put it away for the evening. Hopefully, I can finish the next 3 steps on my purse and call it finished. And I'm serious there. I stopped with only 3 more things to do. But I was messing up so spectacularly, that it seemed the right thing to do. Oh, and wait until you see the REST of the doodads going into my purse. It will be awesome. And, of course, each piece is sold separately. hahaha


This, by the way, is the purse I made. Adorable, huh? It IS missing a button to hold that flap down. I hope to escape to Hobby Lobby today and pick up a few fun buttons. Or, maybe, I should buy some of those larger buttons that you cover yourself... Ooh, that's an idea.

Okay, enough with the ideas. I'm off to finish up my purse. Hopefully, photos of it later today and you'll see how different they look with different fabrics. :-)

Lady Liberty Update

In all realities, the name of the pattern is "She Stands Tall." However, I renamed it to "Lady Liberty" the other night. I like it better. :-D Anyway! I realized that, when you switch how you're attaching the beads, it changes how they lie and the tension in the thread. Oops! As I'm doing this in sections, it's very important that they line up when they're finished. So, the second section I was working on, along with almost half of the first section, are a complete wash. In a way, it's annoying and aggravating... However, I learned something important, so I guess I won't be too upset over it. :-D

I've also decided to make myself a loom. I came across this pattern and decided to give it a try. All I'll be out is a single piece of wood and some wood screws. Not too pricey if it doesn't work. However, several comments on the page lead me to believe that it will work just fine. Unfortunately, I need the wood cut in about 3 places to create it. Bummer for me that I don't know how to use power tools and we don't own a hand saw. LOL Fortunately for me, my father-in-law will be home soon and I know he'll cut it for me. :-) Then I'll create my loom.

That leads me to a question my husband asked me, "Since you're having to completely redo 'Lady Liberty,' why don't you just wait for your loom to be finished?" It's a loom pattern, so his question makes perfect sense. Thank goodness he understands me so well. LOL He knows how much I enjoy doing handwork and the more intricate things by hand. In time, I might be willing to do things like this on the loom. Makes more sense actually as this is 100 X 101 beads. There's just that sense of peace and accomplishment I get from doing it by hand. As I told him, I'll just do the quick simple stuff on the loom, like my bracelets and the like. Stuff that I plan on selling to fund my larger tapestries. I hope to be able to sell my tapestries later on. We'll see. :-)

For now, I just want to quietly work on "Lady Liberty" in my own way. It might take longer, but it's worth it in my mind.

Now... to pick up some pretty silver-colored bugle beads to see if my latest design idea will work. Though I suppose I should finish up Kokopelli first. See how he turned out... LOL

Writing, among other things

Not too many people know this, but I've started writing. I stretched my wings and allowed complete strangers to read what I write. Boy, was that a huge stretch for me. Until November 2008, I'd never let anyone outside of family and a few teachers read what I write. Imagine my surprise when everyone agreed... I write well. I guess I believe it now. My dream of becoming a published author began to take shape in my mind... And then, BAM! It happened again. What's that, you might ask? Well, I have this weird habit of only working on one thing at a time. Well, I only work on one thing that interests me at a time. I do have a family with 3 young boys, 2 of which are in baseball, so I really only have time for one thing for myself at a time.

As you can tell by the name of my blog, I'm a quilter. I was solidly a quilter for 7 years before my eye started wandering in other directions. Normally, I quilt in the colder months. Generally from late fall to early spring. This year, however, I got caught up in writing, so no quilting. Now, I'm into beading. I like it... it's a lovely cool hobby. :-) I just do that, though. Switch from hobby to hobby without much thought of what I left behind. Strangely enough, not writing anymore haunts me. I know in my heart and mind how important it is to me. I just can't seem to convince myself to sit and keep writing.

To top it off, I was reading a few things the other day. Did you know that a lot of agents and publishers won't even look at you very close if you don't have a popular blog and a large following on Twitter? Well, I don't use Twitter and this blog has never been popular. Heck, I'm not even sure how many read it! LOL I did have a large following out on writing.com though. Does that count? ;-) The true readers loved my writing. I think that's more important than a general blog that looks like every other blog. Then again, I never had high hopes of being "officially" published. I was looking more along the lines of being self-published due to the fact I have serious issues with rejection. Even the bestsellers can be rejected several times before finding their 'home.'

Perhaps it's time to sit myself down for 30 minutes a night and work on my current book and see if it won't lead me somewhere. I can still picture exactly where I left off my characters. I think it's time to get them moving again. LOL I can try it. If nothing else, I might at least finish a book. I've never done that before. I'm normally a short story writer, so this book idea came out of no where and surprised me. :-)

With that, I'd better go get cleaned up and get around. I get to take 3 boys grocery shopping... I'm NOT looking forward to that. *sigh*

Beading Merrily Along

Welcome back to my insane world of beading. Well, technically it's welcome to any insane world I happen to be residing in at the moment.

I'm not sure if I mentioned how many beads my latest project has in it. Since I don't remember, I'll post it here. :-D It has 10,100 beads. Well, technically 10,101 right now as I messed up last night and accidentally added a bead where one shouldn't have been. Now, don't start quizzing me on why I didn't go back and remove it. I will ask you a question though. Why is it that I always find my largest errors, usually ones that should be fixed, right after I tie in a new thread? To fix the error, I would have to remove several rows of beads, even if the mistake was right before the tie in point. *sigh* Too many knots. The thread has already been trimmed after being hidden. Usually, I just try and bluff my way through the mistake. :-D

By the end of this evening, I do believe that I will be a whopping 1/5 of the way finished with my latest project. That's not that bad as I think I've only been working on it for about 2-3 days. Each section holds 2,020 beads, so that is not too bad. I'm cruising merrily along. If I keep this up, this little mini-tapestry might even be finished within 2-3 weeks. Too bad I'm already looking around myself going, "I want to do another one. Where's a pattern for a new one?" LOL

With that, I'm going to go take another look at where I'm at in my project and then get a move on for the day. There's plenty I need to be doing and I just need to be content to work on my beading in the evening. :-)

The Economy

You know, in my opinion, the economy isn't all that terrible. Now, before you lynch me and point out all the people who have lost their jobs, let me point something out. We wouldn't be in this situation IF people had used common sense. Apparently, that is lacking when money is involved.

Let's start with the unions. Were they needed in the past? Absolutely. Are they needed now, I'm not so sure. The unions were put in place to guard people from unscrupulous business owners. However, I'm not sure that the unions aren't what we need protection from now. They chased our companies out of our country. With constant increase in pay, the companies had to increase the cost of their goods to cover it, which then caused the unions to step up and ask for more pay. See the nasty cycle there?

Next step is the fact that the "American Way" got skewed. It used to be that you worked hard for what you wanted. You got it by the sweat on your brow. Since when did loose lending practices that guaranteed a home for everyone enter into that equation? When did credit cards come in and replace our savings accounts? See that nasty cycle there? We started getting what we wanted when we wanted it without any work. With the quick and easy loans for everyone, our housing prices skyrocketed. People borrowed more to own that "perfect" house. Usually with way more space and rooms than they needed. Last time I checked, it wasn't a law that every child needed his/her own room with more toys than they could possibly ever play with in a year.

What's going on now is an equilibrium move. Our economy is righting itself. The ability to buy everything we wanted it when we wanted it killed us. Now, we can't pay our credit card bills. Now we can't pay our mortgages for our expensive homes we didn't need in the first place. So now our homes are being taken from us.

Was our family perfect when all of this was happening? No. However, we "equalized" almost 2 years ago. We now only spend what we earn. We don't have any more credit cards and refuse to get another one. We make every single payment on our home and car every month. We have no threat of losing either one. We can put food on the table and even do fun things periodically, like put our children into the local baseball league for the summer. Now that we're equalized, we need to begin storing as much money as possible into savings. That will take the place of our credit cards. At least that way, we'll be making interest instead of those horrid companies. Yes, we've been much happier since we started living within our means.

And that, my friends, is what the rest of the country is learning now. They're learning what it's like to equalize. Unfortunately, it's going to be painful for awhile. It took us 2 years. How long will it take the rest of the country? I have no idea. Unfortunately, we chased most of our major manufacturers out of our country. We're lacking the jobs that used to support our country. I personally believe that it's time to penalize them within an inch of their lives. Their pockets is the only thing that matters to them. So hit them where it hurts the most. Let them know that if they bring back their companies to the US, it will be better.

As a country, we need to support what companies are in the US still. We might pay a little more for those products, but it's very important to keep them here. I've been squeezing extra money out to buy Huggies or Pampers for a long time now. They're made here in the US. It's just little things like that will help out our country and our fellow workers.

It's time to reset our values and go back in time to when family and friends meant more to us than money. Then, our country's economy will stabilize and we'll be a much better country for it. Money only makes you miserable. Think of that the next time your credit card bill comes in and you're wondering how you're going to make that payment.