
Just wanted to say hi and say let me know if you have time for a visit when you're down here for your Mom's b'day (Happy birthday Kandice's Mom!
)
No, I'm not talking about the band A-ha here. Even though I love them. What I mean by this is that moment when a basic technique that has been alluding you finally falls into place.
Sometimes we beadmakers just have one of those weird blanks in our brains that just keeps us from being successful at one small thing - one simple skill that we *should* have no problem with.
For me, it is the encased triangle bead. That easy (yeah, right) round encased bead with little pointed triangles inside. Some people call them harlequins. For some reason.
I've been encasing beads for years. I can do encased stripes like nobody's business. I finally tamed the encased floral (in a similar *eureka* moment) last year sometime. I've layered a whole bunch of transparent and opaque glasses and have made all kinds of encased shapes in a bunch of different sizes. So what the heck kept me from being able to do an encased triangle bead? Who the heck knows.
But a couple of days ago, at about 2am, over the seriously loud TV volume (I can still hear Picard's "make it so"!), the neighbors probably heard my squeal of triumph as I watched my encasing pull the triangles out perfectly on my first ever really good encased triangle bead. I yelped "sweet!!" as I turned the bead on the mandrel a few times, bathing it in the flame before slipping it into the kiln. I was on a high for the rest of the session. All that over a simple technique that for some reason had been alluding me for **years**. And I have no idea what finally made me try that one last thing that clinched it for me. And I couldn't even tell you what that thing was - just that I can now make these beads with ease.
Sometimes it just makes no sense at all - but I wouldn't trade that high for anything. Yey!!
