Thursday, April 9, 2015

My new project - and why it is always good to work on a beading mat

So, I have a new project I'm working on... Beaded Lanyards.

My mother-in-Law is the representative for her work in a group which meets several times a year. They wear name badges on lanyards during their conference.
I had made several lanyards for her a few years back, and just recently received a commission from one of the attendees for two lanyards.
I now have a new goal: I plan to make one lanyard each night, every night, until she comes to visit at the end of April. That should end up being about 20 lanyards.

These are the ones I've made so far:
The first two are the commissioned pieces, the last two are for my mother-in-law to take.





Now, on to WHY IT IS ALWAYS GOOD TO WORK ON A BEADING SURFACE:

When I was restringing one of the lanyards to add additional beads to the pattern in order to achieve the (roughly) 30 inches which is my standard, I dropped the string! If I had been working on my mats like I normally do, this would not have been a problem, but in an attempt to make the process move along more quickly, I took a "shortcut" letting the stopper end of the wire rest in my lap, allowing gravity to work in my favor. BAD IDEA! 

When I was almost done, the wire slipped through my fingers and the majority of the lanyard fell to the floor! The TILE floor. The sounds of beads bouncing is a beader's worst nightmare. I spent the better part of half an hour in a panic on the floor searching for beads. Under the shelves. Under the freezer. Under my work table. In boxes and around corners. 

Now normally I wouldn't worry much about dropped beads, but the particular piece I was working on was a re-work of a necklace I had been given and I didn't have any spares of most of the beads. Luckily, I was able to recover all of the beads I NEEDED to.  

I am now on the hunt for the material those mats are made from in order to make a larger mat for my work surface.


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