Guess where I've been?

With these cars in the parking lot, it just has to be the Fall New Hampshire Bead Society Retreat...... The Barbara C Harris Center in Greenfield is a beautiful place to hold a bead retreat. As it's only 7 miles from my house, I didn't stay over, but day tripped.

We gathered, beaded, ate, yakked, ate, and beaded some more.

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For me it's a much needed step outside of the normal routine, a chance to recharge creative juices and keep in touch with a delightful (& sometimes zany) group of women.

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Why is it that I can sit at my work table in the quiet studio and string in mistakes - not once, but three times? This raised double "V" pattern looks like it will be as awesome as I imagined, but I've still got something off kilter. After trying to fix it twice, it's still not right. As a matter of fact, it's so off at this point that I'm not sure I can fix it short of starting all over.

Then I can sit in the midst of a group of beaders, all of whom are talking non-stop, and string 2 very complicated, experimental patterns with nary a hitch. Is it saying that I work better in chaos?

This is a flat caterpillar variation that I'm going to be teaching next weekend. It gives the bead crocheter much more design space on one side and isn't any larger than a standard 6-around, 11/0 flat caterpillar. Some time after the workshop, I'll post at least one of these at Bead Patterns.


We had great bead vendors at the Retreat. This bead strand found it's way into my stash. It's recycled old vinyl records made into what I would call sequins or heshi. The colors are great and as a strand it feels quite nice.

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Like my Granddaughter would say, "they're way cool!"

Life is good when you can spend two days at a bead retreat in a beautiful setting and do nothing more strenuous than bead, eat and not have to clean up.