Off to the Bead & Button Show in the morning. In my 8 classes there are nearly 3 dozen beaders who have beaded with me before. It is such an honor and priviledge to have them choose to bead with me again when there are sooooo many choices. I look forward to seeing people I only get to see once a year. Plus I will see my friends from Japan.
I've packed my camera and computer and will keep you up on the latest, while I am there.

Dragonfly buttons are out there but, I don't recall seeing any like this red, black and gold one. Marianne gave it to Janet and Janet made it a Polygon bezel, expanding on the bezel technique we focused on last week. Can't wait to see what she does with it!

Here are a few more bezels Janet whipped up since last class. We are loving these polygon bezels.

A few of you have said that you liked seeing Fran's bracelet in the May 14 entry. When you told me you could googledthe info and purchase her recipe for the design published in Bead, I just had to share that here. Kudos Jennifer Airs.

What a beautiful weekend and Memorial Day we had. Monday we went to the New Paltz Craft Show that is held Memorial weekend and Labor Day weekend each year at the Ulster County Fairgrounds.

Of course we had to drop by and see Diane and her fabulous bags. Susan, Judy, Phyllis and I have admired, if not collected her bags for years. My purse doubles as a backpack and can be worn across the body like a messenger bag. Nericcio Leathers was our first stop.

Later we encountered Victoria Tane at her booth. When I asked to share a photo of her and her jewelry/booth, she said that photos were prohibited to protect the craft artists. Of course. Oops. Glad though to share that pic of Diane Nericcio. Victoria uses antique and recycled elements in her jewelry designs. The pieces we saw featured pencil eraser caps, chandelier crystals, machine parts, telephone wire and embroidery materials into lovely and wearable jewelry.

Everyone in class at Beadzo on Thursday evening (I'd have a link you could click to but there is not website for Beadzo. Their phone number is 845-757-5306 in Tivoli NY) decided to bezel 14 and 18 mm rivolis with my new recipes using polygon stitch. Everyone finished the first one in under an hour! Needless to say, they made multiples. We discussed the earrings, bracelets and pendant designs that they will become. This is a mad hot way of wrapping cabs and rivolis in a beaded bezel.

Yesterday I spent the day at Mohonk Mountain House hiking and feasting with my folks. It was a spectacular day. Tree hugger that I am, I was in my glory. The catkins, as I've said in previous entries, thrill me for the way they look like earrings. The new growth on evergreens also inspires in me, designs for jewelry.

The drape of spruce branches and the delicacy of these blossoms on display in the lounge also make me want to capture them in beads.

On August 3 and 18 this summer I will again demonstrate feltmaking in the Barn Museum at Mohonk Mountain House, from 1-4pm.

Today between stints in the garden, I documented the various Polygon bezel recipes that have been collecting on index cards. As soon as that shipment of rivolis come in, I'll polish off that necklace for Bead Gallery, Inc.

Marianne forwarded a you-tube video of DNA that will pull at the threads of any beader. Like me, you will probably long for it to be bigger or clearer but, you'll get the idea. It actually is best viewed on my iTouch. Last night, while discussing it, someone teased about how I sometimes remark to a new beader that they "have beader's DNA". After seeing this, we might imagine we have beaded DNA.

In yesterday's class, I taught the new polygon beaded bezel. Honestly, they ARE even prettier on the reverse side than the front! Most of the bezels I've been working on are for rivolis. Many of these are featured in the necklace I am designing for a Bead Gallery Inc workshop. Currently the workshop is described as a day of bezels, but soon (and you'll hear it here first!) I'll have completed the necklace that features these beauties, and then we'll post the picture.

This is Marianne's glass cabochon from the front and the back. The bezel recipe can be tweaked for a flat bottomed cab.

Ellen bezeled a transparent glass cabochon. This permits the viewer to see the amazing beaded backside from the front. Hmmm, makes me think it might be interesting to bezel those transparent glass pebbles used in floral arrangements. Anyway, here are the front and back views of Ellen's bezeled cab.

Many of you know I've been deeply immersed in adventures in a South African stitch called Polygon. (Sure wish I could have offered my 2 cents when it came time to name it.) Many of the current workshops I am offering focus on this little known and under-used stitch. I am so jazzed by the versatile scope of this stitch and exhilerated by the innovations that have immerged as I explore it, that I am in process of writing another book, just to share my explorations and discoveries with the bead community.

Looking back over 30 years of contemporary beadwork, consider just one stitch: Peyote. It is the "entry level" stitch that most off-loom beaders learn. It launched many of us into Netting, Herringbone, Brick... And, yet, its versatility is so expansive that some beaders spend their entire beading careers in Peyote land, never yearning for more. Look at Judy Walker's THE BEADED SPHERE or Diane Fitzgerald's SHAPED BEADWORK: Dimensional Jewelry with Peyote Stitch to see the fruits of their years with this stitch.

Beaders outside of Africa were introduced to Polygon stitch in an Ornament magazine article in 1997 by Valerie Hector. Her book, THE ART OF BEADWORK, provides the history and fundamentals of this stitch she describes as "beaded tubes with 3 or more sides, containing parallel rungs supported by vertical spines".

I took the "3 or more sides" as a challenge and have been teaching 2-sided polygon projects for years. In teaching here and abroad I find beaders are hungry for new recipes and new techniques. Just as Polygon has rocked my bead world, I think Polygon will feed that hunger in all beaders. Here is a stitch with all the sculpting and shaping that our other stitches offer, plus the added dimension of texture, to explore. Yeah, I hear some of you reminding me that it is a tubular stitch. Au contraire mon amis. Approached with the spirit of adventure and knowing that all things are possible, I am beading it circular and yes, even flat! It produces a leather-like feel and is reversible! Don't you just love the sparks that fly that propel us through new discoveries?

Fran and I are in process of kitting Fireflies at Sunset Necklace(see left) for both Monday and Friday sessions, plus some extra for Meet the Teachers Event at Bead & Button Show, May 31 to June 7.

Upon close inspection of the beads, the sparkly nature of the piece is what sings out. The optical illusion provided by the color-lined drops, is that they are tiny illuminations in the background of shiny and matte beads.

Interesting though, that when I prepared the gigantic bead soup of the background beads, even though the shiny beads outnumber the matte, it is the matte beads that get all the attention. Nestled into the bead soup (at right) is the necklace, which, in that surround, also looks mostly matte. Just thought I would share that little adventure in matte/shiny/drop bead-land.

Friday morning I met in New York City with the manager of Kinokuniya Bookstores' main store, located across the street from Bryant Park. Kinokuniya is a chain of Japanese bookstores across the US. On behalf of my acquaintance Akiko Takana, I brought my collection of exquisite art books on beading, beads, and feltmaking published by MariaShobo in Japan.

Of course I brought my 3 books HANDFELTED JEWELRY AND BEADS, HOW WE FELT and MASTERING BEADWORK(Interweave Press), shown above and right, plus the feltmaking book I wrote for Japanese crafters, shown below, published by Patchwork Tsushin Co. Ltd. My English manuscript was translated into Japanese by Motoko Natsubori.

We scheduled the first of what will be a series of workshop/seminar/booksigning events. On July 4th, from 2-5pm, I'll teach a beginners Peyote beadweaving workshop. The registration closes at 20 and the $25 fee includes written directions, beads, needle, beading thread, and hands-on instruction. I'll have photos and description within the week.

Having regularly scheduled workshops/booksignings in this amazing store thrills me to no end. There is a cafe upstairs where I will have bento box lunch and green tea. Did I say that they have a tempting display of sweets to enjoy with that tea? And on the lower level where the vast array of craft titles can be found, is a stationary and gift shop. I could spend days just taking it all in. Perhaps this destination will re-energize my Rosetta Stone Japanese lessons. When I returned home from Tokyo in January, my dedication to learning Japanese, declined.

Before heading off to Fashioning Felt at the Cooper Hewitt, Elaine, Fran and I enjoyed coffee and the best croissant EVER at Lily O'Briens, around the corner from Kinokuniya.

The felt show was wonderful but much smaller than I'd expected. The catalog contained several more pieces than shown. In fact the catalog showed colorful versions of some of the same grey or white pieces in the show. Wish the show had more color. It was gratifying to see how thoroughly they described in word and video the feltmaking process.

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Please forgive me for not getting to the sexy photos and things I'd have shared today, had I not been working on posting the calendar. Check it out. I'll finish editing it Saturday so you can just click on the workshop and "get there".
Tomorrow Elaine, Fran and I are going to the Fashioning Felt Show at Cooper Hewitt mentioned in the earlier post. We are meeting Jeri.
And yes, on the way I have an appointment at Kinokuniya. If we schedule a booksigning, you will be the first to know.
You will always be the first to know!

Oh hey, maybe one quick picutre. Here is the incredible new bracelet Fran has been working on for some time. It was inspired by Jennifer Airs Lotus Bangle she saw in a UK Bead magazine.