blllllllah
I’ve had sort of a rough week health-wise. Since last week I’ve been waking up with a lot of acidity and nothing seems to calm it down quickly enough. Maybe I need a larger dose of the medicine for my acid reflux (I take a daily pill of Nexium 40, ‘the purple pill‘). Tuesday was the worse, though. Spent it purging nothing but clear, yucky liquid all day and I simply couldn’t keep anything down. The acid pain was too strong. Yesterday I felt a little better but I still took it easy on the food and only had rice water and some fruit salad. Today I woke up very sick to my stomach as well, but after several hours it calmed down, however, the reflux is still there. I may have to stick to rice water for a while and will head to the doc tomorrow so he can check my acidity levels.
We’re on tornado watch today, so I’m just here… running the laptop on batteries.
On nicer news, last week I met a few artisan jewelers from the Rio Grande Valley area. We met to chat at a little coffee shop here in Brownsville and after 3 hours of awesome chatting we ended up deciding we had to meet again. So this Sunday I shall be driving to the home of one of the couples. They invited a few other jewelers as well. I think we may be doing this every two weeks or so, as we’ve already talked (via e-mail) of further available dates. This is great. One of the ladies is a seed beader, her husband does weaving, the 2nd lady is a wire worker, and then there’s me with a little bit of macramé knowledge. I still do not know what the other ladies that will be going to the next meeting do. I was asked information on hemp closures so I will be taking several examples of that and exchange information with them. ^_^
Oh and I am working on another graphic. This one will have more Photoshop manipulation and so far I like how it’s coming out. Husband doesn’t…. but >:p who cares!
Satryian In The Making
I’ve been working on an image for Empy’s character Satryian. He wrote a post at DBZ:TNL2 that warmed my heart and I just HAD to portray it in an image. So I asked to show me a picture of what he had in mind for Satry and he pointed me towards his photo folder.
I began to work and came up with a lovely, lovely boy. I showed it to him and he said that it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. He wanted a little more muscularity, rounder chin, etc, etc. I protested that he had originally given me a girly picture (yah, I was protecting my lovely boy) and well, I ended up doing more tests for him, this time with his input.
Check ‘em.
The reference
The pretty boy
Pretty boy frame
Muscled up pretty boy
An older looking young man 
This ain’t a boy no more!I dreamt with this guy last night. Gaaaaah *drools* I think I have pretty much moved away from the Satryian look he wanted, so I’ll start again and use another reference image he sent me (can’t show this one because it is of an actual friend of his whose face features he matched up for Satryian’s look). We’ll see how this one goes. :D
Jewelry, White MOK & Turban Choker
MOK has turned out to be a very useful knot. Here is this other piece in my white practice thread. This one’s for me. ^_^ Oh check it, I also created a new knot! Well I wish to think I created it since so far all the knotting books and sites I’ve seen, I haven’t seen this particular design. :D I call it a Turban Knot because if you look closely it looks like.... a turban. Anyway it descends from a Monkey Fist. My various attempts at that particular knot were simply not coming out; however, I started to see a pattern on the way I was pulling my thread. I decided to modify the technique slightly and the turban came out. Took me about 30 minutes to do the darn knot and for it to come out in the middle of the string. These things are tricky. Even MOKs are difficult to control because at pulling, the knots may leave wider spaces in between knots than in other areas. Must use a tactful hand at these.
White MOK & Turban Choker
Turban KnotThe necklace/choker is 16-16.5 inches and the drop is of 3 inches in length (from the top of the turban to the end of the stone).
Jewelry, Black MOK Choker
Finished a couple of chokers using the multiple overhand knot technique. I used black silky thread and finished the piece with a copper wrapped pendant with stones that were given to me by my Grandma. The one on the left fits me a little tight at around 14", the one on the right is approx., 16-16.5 inches and fits more like a collar. I think I am going to make more of these and try to sell some via e-bay or my website. They look cute and it is easier for me to make several similar (as opposed to other jewelry, which is more difficult because I can’t always find the same materials or stones). I’ll let you guys know if I sell any. ^_^
Black MOK Choker with copper wrapped stones
Multiple Overhand Knot
So I learned a new little lanyard knot called a Multiple Overhand Knot. These knots are good for securing items such as keychains, whistles, etc, to thread in a way that the knot will look ‘pretty.’ It is easy to follow; Make a loop and do an overhand knot, followed by another (within the same loop), and so on. The ones shown in this image are 4 consecutive knots and you can see at the end of the string how it is that the loop is done.
How to do the MOKFairly simple eh? Well... sort of. Anyone can do loops... but I noticed that if you switch the way you loop, or if you are not careful at pulling the strings your thread will just twist strangely and make the knot wrong. See below.
^_^
Tagged
I was tagged by Lore:
Here are the rules:
- Go into your archives.
- Find your 23rd post.
- Post the fifth sentence or close to it.
- Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
- Tag 5 other people to do the same.
"Kawaii! ^_^"
... and that was counting my title! My 23rd entry happened to be one of those 'What type of Anime are you?' so the entry really didn't have many sentences. :D
I tag:
T.S and Marianne only 'cause those I read have been tagged already (and others I read don't really know I read them :D Me's such a lurker).
Jewelry, Sugar
The town’s local bead store had a sell for being 3 years in business. They had what seemed pretty good prices in pearls and I got lots of those and a couple of strands of semi-precious stones. I spent 80 bucks at the store <_> and I still need to order my silver clasps and some Swarovski. *gulp*
Well Hubby came home telling me that a co-worker was changing plants and that he needed my help to buy her a good-luck gift. I decided to make her a set with some of the new stones purchased.
SugarI am not entirely sure what the green and the blue are. There were so many ladies in there fighting for strands (they had them all piled up on tables, their tags with names no longer available) that I did a quick scan and just grabbed cute, happy colors.
So the 'ingredients' are: 'Potato' fresh water pearls (6-8mm), blue quartz (4mm), and what appears to be jade (13x10mm). The green in this picture looks too lemony, but it is actually a pastel shade and it has little swirls of whitish. Looks a lot like jade but it could also be Aventurine... if there is a green aventurine.
It’s a mommy set.
White Series 1
See all the dangling thread? Heheh. Yeah, still a long way to go.Okay, so here’s what I’ve been working on. The top one is the peyote stitch choker. It is 10 inches in length and unfinished. About 15 hours of work so far. It is going to be very classy. ^_^
The second I did today. It is not finished yet since I need to add clasps and some strands to make this one a necklace. As it stands it is 10 inches. Two and a half hours of work so far and it’s been difficult! It kept twirling and then adding those little pearls... arrgghhh!!! The holes are so darn tiny!!! Well, I am sure the finished work will be just super-cute.
The Advantages of Delicas
I’ve been wanting to do nice beaded projects for a long time; however, the price and availability in my area of the tools has put me off for a while. I’ve done loom work before and while my designs come out cute, the end product always seems to be slightly off, with little gaps in between beads or uneven edges. Well last week I found out that there was a Hobby Lobby in the next city, about 30 minutes away, and I told Hubby to take me over there so I could look around and see what the big fuss is about this place. It’s very similar to Michael’s but has some different bead products and prices are just slightly cheaper. By cheaper I mean 15-35 cents but with the trip that I have to make to the place (and gas use) the savings is basically unimportant.
Anyway, I found the famous Delicas! Tiny 11/0 seeds with a big whole and very standard size unlike regular glass seed beads that are very irregular. I found them at 2 dollars per 4 grams and the 25 yds of no-stretch thread at 1.75. Okay... so the prices aren’t that expensive... but when you look at it in big projects I can use up to 2 bottles (30 grams each) of seed beads (for loom projects) and these cost about 1.98 per tube. So with delicas that would be a total of about 30 bucks just for tiny little glass beads. It is quite an expenditure when you add it all up.
AHHHHH but it would be sooo worth it.
Check this:
Top piece is a swatch of black seed beads, as is normal with them, they are inconsistent in size and sometimes shape. Those are the most inexpensive beads. There are also Czech beads, but they are still not entirely perfect. Right next to it I added the delicas. Looks sort of weird because I was actually using wire to weave them together, but you can still notice the difference. Delicas are more standard in size and a little squarer allowing for a better fit within the pattern.
The lower image definitely shows a better representation of what these delicas are capable of. I used a brick stitch and that little inch test took close to 2 hours to make. But it’s beautiful. I kept staring at it and stroking it lovingly. It felt so good, like snake skin.
I’ve discovered that hand weaving is waaayyy more tedious than loom work, at least to me. I have been doing a choker with a peyote stitch (the one showed above with the black and white seeds) which is almost the same as brick stitch, except you work vertically (with brick you work horizontally, but the end result is about the same). So far I’ve done 10 inches on the choker, over 15 hours of work. I am on the finishing stages, adding a little edge but ran out of supplies so now I don’t know when I’ll finish it.
Artbeads.com also sells delicas (I just noticed! They used to only carry silver and Swarovski) so I want to thick up of several projects so that I can make one order of everything together. I think the order is gonna pile up... But at least I pay no shipping with them!
No Pain, No Gain
But I don’t think my pain is actually giving me any gain. Had a nice Saturday, did step aerobics and then Yoga while Husband took part in a racquetball tourny with work buddies. He did pretty well and won all his matches. Did some shopping and ate out the remainder of the day.
Sunday, though, Dad called us at like 7 am asking us to go with him to a new trail that has been built in a recreation center. I didn’t want to go ‘caue I awnted to sleep late but Husband wanted and well, we went and took the bikes. One part of the trail is not finished and we went around a mostly drit trail with tall grasses and the such, then we got tired and turned around and took the other way, that area is completely finished, the trail being little red gravel around the park and then changes into a nicely paved ‘sidewalk’ that goes around a man-made resaca. The resaca is a runs all along the back of nice homes, all gated, with a couple of bridges and an underpass. Quite nice and very comfortable to go along. We biked a total of 6 miles and there were other roads we could have taken but the sun was already getting too high so we didn’t want to get too dehydrated and turned around to go back to where Dad had parked the van.
Dad had taken the same trail but walking because he had his doggie Leche and our Tushi, as such he only went half way what we did. On the way back we went over one of the bridges and then the underpass, I had to take a sharp turn to the left to get towards the actual park and there was a lot of dirt on the road and a particular area had mud, I don’t know why they didn’t also paved the park trails, instead those are all gravel. Anyway, I was coming sort of fast (well, for my standards) and I pressed the breaks to slow down and make the turn. My back wheel touched mud and it slipped out of my control. I fell to the left side, did a turn and the bike went along with me.
I shouted, mostly so that Hubby would be aware and wouldn’t suddenly turn and run over me, since he was about to get out of the tunnel as well. He had already been slowing down and quickly went to check on me. I was crying because it just hurt so darn much!
My pant was glued to my left knee so I could imagine the scrape had been pretty ugly. Took me a bit to pull it off and no flesh was cut or bone showing. Whew. I’ve heard ugly stories. But the scrape is quite painful. I did a 360 with my knee as anchor and pinned on loose gravel. I also scraped my left elbow and forearm but not as badly because I tried to press it against me while I raised my head. My right leg is bruised from the bike’s pedal.
Right now the area has finally dried (yesterday the big scrape kept weeping and weeping) and it hurts if I bend or stretch the knee too much. The area is all purple and warm but not puffy. I guess now I wont’ be able to do any exercise for a while so that sucks. Definitely can’t bike or the scar will tear, won’t walk too much for the same reasons, no aerobics, and no Yoga unless it’s just the upper stretches and I avoid the knee-mat exercises. I guess I can do weights.
