Printed Native Stripes

As of July 5, 2015 it's live on Amazon and you can purchase your own printed copy ... enjoy

Give it a week and the last of the String Along files will be ready to have printed copies from Amazon.  I'm just waiting for a proof copy.  This is still one of my happy pieces even if I've seen ropes done in elegant colors.  You can see what others have done on Pinterest.

I'll let you know when it's ready

Bling & Color

I was talking to a new beader and mentioned that I wasn't a big fan of things that expensively sparkled and glittered. I much prefer the Czech Fire Polish crystals as the Czech seem to come up with the most luscious of colors.


Then as I was sorting out an attic box I found my inherited purse - It does glitter very nicely -  I guess I do have an odd piece here and there of blingy, faceted glittering stones.


The construction is fascinating and it's quite heavy.



It's fun to take out and just admire.

 These are a few Fire Polished crystals that I picked up in Tucson this February.  See what I mean about great colors.  I'll take the color over the sparkle any day.

Book organization

Patterns & Graphing went out of print last year and I've finally gotten a printed republished edition up on Amazon.

You can also get an eBook copy from Bead-Patterns.  The nice thing about eBooks is that you can print out individual pages to scribble notes on.

And the prices have gone down also.





Urban Stripes has been an eBook for some time now, but I finally got the higher resolution photos together to do a POD edition on Amazon.

I personally still like paper copies of patterns, beading and other books.  
Amazon printed copy is here



When I did my first Bead Crochet book 14 years ago, I thought it might be just a 30 day wonder. Digital cameras were new and expensive, there were no Print-on-Demand services and downloads were scarce. I'm amazed (and grateful) that sales of all of my books continue as new beaders discover what they can do with bead crochet.

African Stripes

I don't move as fast as I once did, but it's still fun to dream up patterns in this technique.

Circus Bangles

Back to usefulness

A couple of years along now with a diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis, I am back to being semi-useful, functional. Sixty eight years of a very active lifestyle changed to one where I have to carefully plan what and where I am going to do day by day.  Medications have helped enough so that I can enjoy my beads once again.  I won't bore you with any of the details, but my blog posts will probably be sporadic.


It's hard to believe that in 25 years I've gone from this.....

 to this ....






"The evolution of my bead hoarding"