October 29, 2010

I Had Plans . . .

later . . OOPS, new motherboard, etc. Date and clock was wrong! Yea, it's still Friday. Duhhhhh

It's Saturday already and I had plans for a special blog post 2 days ago to celebrate 5 years of this blog. Murphy's Law of Computer failures took care of that plan. I've been without my desktop for several days.



Other than the inconvenience of it all, Lenovo has stood behind their warranty. As of yesterday they have now replaced every danged component in my black desktop except the hard drive. And, I'm going to replace the hard drive myself this winter as I'm running out of storage space. I still think it would have been cheaper for the company to have just given me another computer than have an on-site tech replace components one by one. One more thing goes wrong though, and they're getting it back, in itty, bitty pieces in a great big box!
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Book 3 is in it's final editing round. It's looking good for the eBook to be released before Nov. 15th. I forget just how much work all of this takes and then sitting and waiting for others to do their piece - making me look good, real good.

Keep an eye on this blog for the announcement.

October 22, 2010

Yellow wood road

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

This view from my bedroom window reminds me of the Robert Frost poem. This is very much a yellow Fall here in NH. I ran rural errands earlier. Trash got taken to the dump and things left in the "still-good" building there. Needed stuff was bought from the hardware store, where things crowded the aisles and the uneven floor in the old building creaked under foot. Then I took the time to kick some dry leaves down this same path in the woods. Chilly with the sun in and out from behind the clouds. It's a good afternoon to bake and use up the last of the peaches in the freezer for a peach/pear kuchen.

October 17, 2010

Advance Copy - Galley Proof Sale






ADVANCE COPY, Galley Proof Sale


Midnight on Sunday, Oct. 17 through midnight on Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010

(date corrected on 10/18/10)

(November 4, 2010)

Sale is extended until the last 15 copies are sold or I shut down to leave for Arizona.

This will be an emailed PDF copy, only through this BLOG

PayPal will be the only form of payment accepted
now that the e-book has been published the Galley Proof
is now $21

allow 48 hrs. delivery

it's 30 pages







The cover and layout will not be the same as the finished copy. However, all edited content is included. It will contain a special front piece & extra page of design hints with bracelet pattern. Only 50 copies will be sold during this advance sale. It's digitally signed by the author.



More information on the content can be found here.



This book contains a wealth of patterns that run parallel to the length of a rope. It covers the theory of how triangular ropes are designed with well-illustrated examples of each concept.

If you have mastered the basic art of bead crochet, you will want to explore these more advanced slip-stitched concepts.


October 15, 2010

Galley Proofs

In the printing industry, galley proofs are so named because in the days of hand-set type, the printer would set the page into galleys, the metal trays into which type was laid and tightened into place. These would be used to print a limited number of copies for editing mark-up. Galley proofs are also issued as advance reading copies. They contain complete, edited content, but final cover art and/or layout may not be the same as the published copy.
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I decided to issue 51 galley proofs of Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes.
The first copy, and only printed copy, is being donated to the Bead Society of New Hampshire at this Sunday's meeting. It will be auctioned and half of the proceeds will go towards their Bead Retreat Scholarship fund. The remaining 50 copies will be sold through this blog in PDF format with PayPal being the only payment accepted..
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This sale will run from Midnight, October 17th through midnight October 31, 2010, or until all copies are sold.
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The proceeds from the sale will allow me to go ahead with an Amazon print-on-demand copy of the book in January of 2011 . . . and have printed copies to sign at the Tucson Gem Show in February.
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So check back here next week if unique copies of beading books are something that you would like to add to your library.

October 11, 2010

Milestone - Book 3

Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes
A pattern book of 3-Dimensional ropes



The Summer's work is almost done. I printed myself a proof copy last night, only to run out of blue printer ink. It looks funny in shades of rosy pinks. But, it's ready to pass off to my layout/stylist graphic artist to tweak it into final shape. I need to re-shoot 2 photos that I'm not happy with, but it will go into the mail tomorrow. And then I wait for the final results.

November 15th is still a good date for the release of the e-book copy. When I get to Arizona, I'll work with Amazon's "print-on-demand" vendor to have a printed copy sometime in January 2011.


The book will have 28 pages of theory, designs, patterns and photos of beadwork. Intermediate and advanced bead crocheters will have something new to create with. I enjoy giving the community something different and can't wait to see what they do with this process.


I've had some fantastic help doing this book:
Mary Anne Weeks Mayo, picky good editor
Jessica Giffin, graphic stylist and layout artist
Bead fairies:
Crystal Fox, Elisa Gnatt, Bea Kimball, Jen Kubeck, Kim Latona, Linda Miller

Also Ken Campbell, Bev Herman and Mel Simmonds, who helped me keep my sanity and critiqued where I had doubts of making sense.

It's a book, and I think it's a good one.
Now I sit and wait. That's a very hard thing to do sometimes.



October 9, 2010

Saturday Finds


Not quite peak foliage here in New Hampshire, but getting close to it. It's supposed to drop into the 30's tonight and I expect we'll have a frost. It was a beautiful day to be out and about after a week of gray rainy days.



I had to go grocery shopping and decided to also poke around a bit in Jaffery. I haven't been down that way in quite some time. We stopped in at a new (to me) antique store and I had a hard time keeping my plastic in my pocket.



This pegged board came out of an old Starrett factory. It has that well oiled old factory patina to it. I collect balls in all sizes and it'll be the perfect way to display some of them. What you see on the board are "end of shift" marbles from a ceramics factory. I'm told it was take what clay was left over, roll it up into balls (glaze and all) and stuff it into the kiln before going home. Sort of beads without holes. Now I need to dig out a selection from my collection. I have a large mercury glass ball, marble water treatment plant balls, glass witch's balls, cue balls, and gemstone balls. I thought these few things were quite unique and the peg rack will be useful too.

The best find, though, was a large 6 1/2" circumference plastic rod. I had been playing with photographing beaded bracelets on a water glass and saying I'd really like a piece of large Lexan rod for a mandrel. . . . and there it was in this antique store.



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However, what the heck am I to do with all 3' of it? That's a bit of overkill for what I wanted it for. It just doesn't fit anywhere that I wouldn't trip over it.


All in all, it was a nice break, away from my desk, looking at what Fall is like in this neck of the woods.



P.S. now I need to find a candle pin and/or boccie ball for my collection.