right wrong left write

   My mistakes acrue as I attempt to get it right. I've done a bit of experimenting with color and contrast for my photos. If you have your own blog you have already done this, or perhaps you're one of those people who takes excellent photographs from day one. Thats not me, as you can tell if you peruse my photographs, PLEASE DON"T.  I have this strange passive aggressive relationship with my blog. Perhaps I should be keeping a journal instead. I just don't want to put this blog out there. But I like the format of a blog and the idea of an actual, if imaginary, audience.
   I also preordered a copy of Kate McKinnons "Contemporary Geometric Beadwork" first and second book set; which is now in pre-order. I've been looking at the cover of this book for a while and seeing and reading about all the amazing things people were making. I thought it would be too advanced for me. But I've been toiling away at my little two dimensional shapes and yesterday I read from Kate's blog, which led me on a journey of discovery to her youtube videos and back to  the photos of the actual beadwork created from the book. Wonder of wonders, my work paid off, I could see what Kate was doing and understand it. I think I can do it at least the modified right angle weave, which she calls MRAW

pentagon

getting it wrong to get it right

Here I am feeling like an idiot. I can't find my blog. Finally I find it in history. Why doesn't it come right up when I access google + I find a post from someone else  who isn't happy with Blogger.  I try to link it. No such luck. What is the propriety of reposting someone elses post, anyway. So much to learn, so much to get wrong.
This reminds me of my biggest character flaw, the propensity to do things wrong. If I do something new, chances are very good i will do it wrong. This makes beading very hard for me, because of the regularity of the patterns , the mistakes show up and multiply especially if you don't correct them. Then, I find myself correcting a mistake only to repeat it a little further down the way.
Beading is teaching me mindfulness in a big  way

blog hop!

making new making do

new winter bead

christmas winter bead

two winter beads

Its 6 months now and I've never used Thread Heaven. Was it stubbornness or ignorance. I finally bought a little square box of the rubbery wax and smoothed down a tangled size 0 thread. Yes, little? thin threads too. I've tried to work with size 15 beads before, only, again and again, to have the beads refuse to fit on the thread. So  thats 2 new things in one day. As for what I made, it looks like half a bead canoe. I hated the color scheme and tied the edges rather than the middle so it assumed this half canoe rather than the flower shape it was supposed to be. Working on I made two winter beads working with a schema from Marcia DeCoster called Bellisimo Beads. Its the first piece of right angle weave I've done that came out right and it changes looks when you use different beads.
Then I changed the name of the blog from "never quite right" to "needles and pins" I am also windw shopping clasps in preparation for joining the blog hop that is resposible for calving this blog. Allthis and its only 2:30, theres lots of time to try something new.

winter bead on dowel

little boat bead

thinking with a bead brain

The things I like best about beading are that it constantly challenges me. Nothing is so perfect that I think;" Okay I'm finished!" There is always something new to learn, some new stitch or technique to try. I sit down in the morning and by the time I go to bed I have finished pieces of jewelry that can awe me or dismay me. There are the beads, in all their many colored many shaped glory. I also like the mindfulness and  even the repetition. You do repeat your actions but you must always pay enough attention to the pattern that you don't make mistakes. I am even coming to appreciate the mistakes. I have learned that mistakes matter. Sometimes you can fudge around them but sometimes the little mistake throws the whole design off. Then theres nothing to do but pull out the threads or even the scissors and starting over. Sometimes many times. But I do it. And I'm cheerful about it. I'm learning to deal with fustrations and mistakes and all sorts of things you would think I should know how to deal with already, at my great age of 60. But each day the beading teaches me more about my life.
Finally I have ambitions. For a while I had no ambitions, now I want,   make,  participate,  create. All my life I was searching for my medium and now I've found it and its like I'm in love with life all over again.

Just plain wrong

This is the post I promised myself would be in my blog. Its pictures of some of my diasasters, the thing that came out wrong, stubbornly, ugly and just a mess. Unfortunately I've made a lot of mistakes in my 6 month career as a beader.

first off is this cube, done with cube beads even

another picture of cube with squished sides

an attempt  at cubic right angle weave, what ever did I do wrong?

breakthrough

These represent a conceptual breakthrough for me. For days everything I made went wrong. I would go through my beads again and again, unable to settle on color and size. I  was able to do some work in right angle weave which was the last stitch I learned. Its easy and hard at the same time.
Working from Diane Fitzgerald's book on dimensional peyoteI finally realized how to make her two dimensional shapes. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I used these rainbow capri blue beads which gave them the look of antiquity. My favorite part is that when you start adding the second layer of beads it looks so pleasing.

pictures of beadwork

I made these diamond beads based on instructions from Diane Fitzgerald's book "Shaped Beadwork"
These pentagons  were fashioned from cube beads. I love cube beads. They are my favorite bead.

please don't post it

Ok, I'm starting with this obsession I've had . Last August I discovered little beads.
Actually, I started with a jewelry class at the local senior center. This meant I had to be old. But I don't seem to be old enough for the senior center. I am constantly asked my age, to the point where it feels like some form of discrimination. They never ask to check my ID, which of course has my age on it.
The main reason I started this blog was because everyone seems to be having a great time and there is a whole community of beading bloggers, and, well, I want in. I'd like to just pretend to post it. But, I suspect you really have to be right out there.