Bead Crochet Ropes - DVD

You can now easily find the DVD for sale at abba dabba Productions. I will eventually have it for sale on my web site, but only after I get myself (and my beads) to Arizona and somewhat organized. Hopefully that will be around December 15th.

The most amazing thing, in my mind, is that my programmer friend in Arizona has taught himself to bead crochet from the video in about a week's time. This is a man who had never beaded or crocheted before. He has had to ask me a million questions about beads and bead crocheting while working on the Bead Crochet Element Designer software. He finally found success by using large wood beads and nylon cord. He called today to announce that he is now down to size 8/0 beads and is excited that he got it to work with "those small beads"! I won't say that it will work for everyone, but with a testimonial like that from a sixty year old, motorcycle, computer guy, maybe you should give it a try - it's a classroom on your computer or TV.

Of course it's snowing and there is freezing rain promised for tomorrow morning .... I'm suposed to be on the road for Arizona then. Catch you all later.

a NH ending

It's Time ...

..to shut things down in New Hampshire, pack the car and head for Arizona.

Tomorrow we celebrate Thanksgiving and an early Christmas with my Son's family. My Granddaughter and I had fun this afternoon making pies. It's already snowed and we've had a week of temperatures in the teens and twenties. My friends in AZ tell me it's been enjoyable 70 degree weather out there. Friday I'll clean off the work tables and get all the beads packed away and ready for their journey west.

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If all goes well, we should be on the road Sunday morning. Maybe I'll have time and inclination to post while traveling. If not, look for a post on the trip later in December.

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the photo... well, I just got a new camera and had to try it out. The detail is fantastic of a box of finished bead items and broken vintage beads that is sitting on my work table.

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Have a very Happy Thanksgiving

and think of the small things each of us/you has to be thankful for.

It's a Good Day

I just got notified that the first copies of my instructional DVD, "Bead Crochet Ropes" are in the mail to me. It's been a long wait, but it's finally published. Although I'm not too happy with the way I look, after all I have to realize that I'm not 20 anymore and will see 65 next year. My wrinkles are well earned! I'm pleased with the results and think it will be one more step in helping people learn the sometimes frustrating craft of tubular, slip-stitch bead crochet. The DVD's are available to purchase through the production company, Abba Dabba. Although they are not up on their web site yet, if you are interested, an email or phone call to them will work. They have an 800 phone number. Cost is $34.95 + shipping.

On the software front, I've finally gotten a couple of design elements up at Bead-Patterns. As these are for downloading and then importing into the Bead Crochet Element Designer, it's taken some time and work to figure out how to handle them. You don't get a pdf nor do you get something you can print out, you get a *.bce file that you have to save to your BCED folder and then open in the program.

There is a free design element, Boxed, to try things out and see just how it works and the Double V's you see here, for sale. If you try this out, let me know how your experience was. If I get good feedback, I will work on getting some design libraries up.

After weeks of frustrating, non-progress, in everything on my work table (or computer) things have jumped ahead overnight. Now if the weather would just quit being so cold, I'd be totally happy. It's 21 degrees, windy and snow flurries predicted!

Studio Play Time

Some how I got sidetracked this afternoon ..... I was seeing what was on the Internet for bead crochet "how-to's" and ran across a couple of videos on how to do Viking chain knit. That's something that has intrigued me for awhile. I've had this 40# spool of wire under my beading table for about 18 months, thinking it would work great to practice Viking knitting with wire.

See where this is going?

Yes, I then spent a couple of enjoying (frustrated) hours playing with wire. The big spool wire is a stainless alloy and tended to work harden very quickly. I couldn't manage to get the hang of weaving with it so I grabbed a spool of much softer, coated magnet wire that I use for twisted wire earrings. Hallelujah, it was just what I needed and soon had a rhythm going of lopping and pulling through. I still like the idea of the stainless alloy wire for this technique and the next spare moment I have will try that again. I really like the look of the chain after it is reduced through a draw plate. I don't think my first attempt is all that terrible and may use it in something.

I think this will be a very effective bead crochet pattern if I can ever get the danged thing strung right. I've taken out the strung bead sequence 4 times now. It doesn't help that it is 39 rows long and I was watching NASCAR races while trying to read, count and pick up beads. Maybe I need to try doing just one thing at a time when it's a long stringing table.

I spent the other day playing with a very rough version of the next iteration of bead crochet design software and came up with 6 rather neat patterns. Now I just have to get them strung (correctly!) and worked up. I guess I'd better do it at my work table without the TV going!

Bead Crochet Tip:

If you want to set up a travel bracelet project and don't want a big 'ol spool in your kit, then use a floss bobbin and wind 10 yards of thread onto it. That's what you see in the photo and you can find them in the embroidery section of craft and sewing stores. Ten yards is an ample supply of thread for at least a 9" bracelet and enough extra to handle any errors you might have to cut out. It makes for a very compact on-the-go bead crochet kit.