Oh Dear . . .Peaches, Bead Book & Vacation

I'm feeling pushed. Somehow too many things have come down to needing to be done TODAY!I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow morning to go see the Bay of Fundy - be gone a week.

Meanwhile Laundry needs to be done, fridge cleaned out, mail put on hold for a week, suitcases packed, and sundry other life things. So, along comes a gift of another bushel of local peaches . . . they are not perfect and dead ripe. They also won't hold in the house for a week.

I gave away 2/3rds of them and still had a lot left. I spent yesterday evening making another batch of peach salsa and peach hot pepper jelly.

This morning I'm wondering if this peach hot pepper jelly will set up. If it doesn't I'll have to find a use for hot pepper syrup. Don't think it would be good over ice cream.

Bead Crochet eBook

I've hit a milestone in getting my "Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes" book done. The copy is off to the Editor and my layout person is expecting all of it on her desk the first week in October.

This is the other part of feeling pushed . . . I'm only 1/3 of the way done with all of the photos for the book. When I was supposed to be doing photography, I was dealing with peaches.

I hate being hurried as that is when you make mistakes and compromises you later regret. So I guess we'll see how far I get today between life's other chores.

I have some really great bead faeries. They help out by testing patterns and making samples. This is one of their samples. This is one of the projects and ropes in the eBook. Isn't this Triangle Twist bracelet a simple, beautiful color combination. It would also be great with coral and turquoise for the fall.

Hopefully the November 15th publication date is still a good one. I'll have definitive information here on the blog when the time comes closer.

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Now back to work and hope I can cram it all into today's time frame. Then off to relax and look at the scenery driving north, up the coast of Maine, New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia.

3rd Book Teaser

I think I've twisted my brain with this one. It's taken me three tries to work one bead bug out of it so that it's a smooth transition from triangle to twist all the way around and back again.... 3 different colored sides.

It's the last pattern page in the book and I was sure that it would do what I graphed it to do. That is until I woke up in the middle of the night and just had to string it one more time to make sure I didn't have a brain flip and get something wrong. I'd much rather be sure myself than have a book owner frustrated with a pattern that doesn't work because of my mistake.

These primary colors look neat and show off what's happening with this bead crocheted rope. However I can see it done with metallic base beads and maybe freshwater pearl drops. It would be an eye catcher, "how ever did you do that?" type of bracelet.

I'm still on schedule for an early November eBook publication. I have a great Editor making sure that the i's are dotted. My Graphics Gal has saved me layout time in October unless they come in first in a Korean Design contest. You'd think I had more pull with my daughter, the Graphics Gal!

Heeding My Own Advice . .

I got this nice German Profi crochet hook about a year ago and I love using it. It's marked 1,00 which I presume is a 1.0 mm. I've been doing larger 8/0 bead crochet lately and have not been happy with my tension. When I teach and people complain about their tension I tell then to go up/down a hook size and try and change the position of their loops on the shank of the hook.

So today I drug out my old faithful, Susan Bates #11 at 1.15 mm and put both hooks together. Well, no wonder I'm having tension problems.

Look at the difference in head sizes. More importantly, look at the difference in shank sizes where I generally work my loops. When I went back to 11/0 and 10/0 beads my tension was way looser than I wanted it to be. When I swapped back to the Susan Bates hook, all the tension problems went away.

So, I guess I should have taken my own advice. Or at least I should have taken a good look at the hook differences some time ago. These Profi hooks have been discontinued, but I did manage to find one that is more the same size as my Susan Bates.

HINT:

tension too tight; go up a hook size, or two and/or

try and work your loops back from the hook head.

tension too loose; go down a hook size and/or

try and work your loops closer to the hook head.

Home Depot Beading Supplies

I was looking for closet furnishings over the weekend and also found some great end caps for . . . bead crochet ropes.

Now the white would have looked better on this rope, but it was the only 11/0, 6-around rope I could put my hands on to give these a trial fit. Nice, very nice looking. Another plus is that they are a very soft plastic which helps keep necklaces metal-free.



Closet Maid TM makes these to fit on the ends of their shelf wires. I found them in white, bronze and these nickel colored ones. The Small ones are a perfect fit on 11/0, 6-around ropes. I'm pretty sure that the large ones will fit an 8/0, 6-around rope but, didn't get any to try out. Twenty of these for around $2 makes them about 10 cents each. Not too shabby at all.



You'll still need to poke a hole in the end of the cap, but that is easily done with a regular sewing needle.


Between these and the screw covers there are a few color choices that just might work for you. These nickel colored ones with flecks of sliver in them would be a nice neutral color for most dark ropes.

I can't believe that I'm shopping for beading supplies at Home Depot!