I HATE TECHNOLOGY!!!

I'm in a grump of a moof right now - with a capital 'GRUMP' - and I have decided to take it out on my blog...

You may be slightly amused by the irony of this post 'I hate technology' and decide to vent about it on an online site using computers/phone lines/etc. But this much is true, I repel technology.. there must be something wrong with my body or something because every piece of technology I touch, dies soon after!!

The other day when I was at home, I went to check facebook. It said that my account had been disabled because it was apparently sending out too much spam and facebook wanted to verify who I was by asking me for some details, one of those being my credit card. I thought 'hand on a sec.. facebook has never and nor would it ever ask me for a credit card. Someone has hacked my account'. So I tried to contact the facebook staff (or whoever) to let them know of the situation and I gotta say, facebook has the WORST help section set up I have ever seen! When I finally found somewhere that said 'contact us' I emailed them and still haven't had a reply!

I asked Trent what I should do. I didn't want to check my bank account or emails incase they were trolling me. He suggested to restore it back to factory settings. I got my USB and saved my 'pictures' folder as that is what has all of my beading pictures and beading projects in it, took it out and restored my computer.

After all that jazz, I popped my USB back in to put the pictures back on the computer.. Stupid me, saved the pictures shortcut, not the actual folder that contained everything.. So I have now lost EVERYTHING!!! Thank god for facebook and some random USB I had at work, I could save some things, but unfortunately, I have lost most of my subscription bonuses from Beadwork magazine and a few other 'inspiration' photos that I loved.. I was quite devastated.

What has actually pushed me over the edge though is when I came to work today, our internet was down.. AGAIN! So I called bigpond who tried to blame it on the people from D-link as I tried to tell them "NO! If it was D-link then our printer would also be down and it's not". After the first person hung up on me and calling back the second time I finally got it back up and running.. not 30 minutes later, I tried to put a Medicare voucher through out EFTPOS machine.. no dial tone. This also meant that our fax machine was down too as they are both hooked together. And oh my god, did I chuck a thrombo! If it wasn't for the fact that we still had patients in the waiting room, I probably would have picked up everything that had a cord and thrown it out the window!!!

My boss managed to get the fax machine/eftpos back online (thank god) but seriously! I do NOT look forward to the future of technology.. I am going to suffer imensly..

Thank you for putting up with my rant, I feel much better now =)

Will be posting some gorgeous piccys later on tonight.. stay tuned!

Emma
xXx

Oh the frustration!

Let's face it.. It's always going to be a never-ending battle:

NYMO vs. FIRELINE

*sigh* As I was taught on nymo, I am a natural nymo user. I think that I used fireline once and then chucked a major wobbly because the thread snapped on me twice.

When I last went to my LBS, there were a group of ladies doing a class and as I nosied through, I was curious and asked what thread they were using. They all said Fireline and swore that it was the best stuff in the universe and when I told them that I used nymo in my work, they acted like I had just walked in and spat on the teacher =P lol. Not really, but my brain isn't working right now and I couldn't think of a different metaphore.. I asked them why do they prefer fireline to nymo and they said "We got sick of it shredding and knotting". A justifyable reasion, I thought. Because, let's face it, I am getting a bit sick of it too...

ANYWAY! Curiosity got the better of me again and I decided what they hey.. I'm gonna give fireline a shot. So I bought a reel while I was there.

I wanted to start on a project made of delica beads (a square stitched picture with a whimsical saying on it) in beige and bronze beads. As an automatic reaction, I reached for my box of nymo threads and grabbed my spool of brown thread and started the project. It wasn't until I finished my first section of thread and went to start another one - after cursing and swearing away at the knots I was getting in my nymo - that I remembered the fireline. I didn't want to switch threads though because it would have been REALLY noticeable..

I pulled out a section of nymo and started to 'prestretch' it. I only ran it through my fingers 3 times and when I went to sew one end in, the ENTIRE length of the piece and I already had a knot in it!!! GAH! So I cut that piece off (what a waste) and prestretched another section.. and it did the same thing!!! What is going on with mah nymo?!?!

I think next time, I'll defs be trying the fireline!

*end of angry rant*

Emma
xXx



My new motivation

PHEW! Things have been going CRAZY over here!!! And I have the best room mate and friend that a girl can ask for! I applied for a market stall in my local area today and got the ok back, so now I have been trying to frantically work andwork to try and get as much stuff made up as possible, including beaded flowers.

I have a wall full of vases that I had collected over a few months that I was going to fill with flowers and so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to try my hand selling them at this new market - you won't know if you don't try!

I have a big box of UFO flowers, so I pulled them out and thought 'I need some of this colour green to finish these and this colour red to finish my roses.. Easy!' So yesterday after work, I went to my LBS (local bead shop) to re-stock on these particular colours... Ah, but if only twere that easy... They don't stock them anymore! I went to the shop across the road and they had SOME nice seed beads, but not these specific colours I needed..

Needless to say, I went home in a huff (well, half a huff.. the second bead shop I went in had 60% off gemstone strands so I came home with a bargin ;) lol)

So I got home and was throwing my room apart trying to find something, anything, a meger SCRAP of these beads so I could finish these projects!! Then Trent came home and was trying to calm me down and he found some green beads that sort of matched what I was after for the first project, so I thought I would give it a whirl.. Anyways, I had been so busy chucking a thrombo that I realised it was 11pm at night, and once I see the time my brain goes 'OK! Time for sleep' and makes me tired - whether I was 5 minutes ago or not. So I went to bed. *sigh*

Woke up this morning, my brain still running a million miles an hour trying to figure out what I need to do, what I can do, blah blah. Stumbled down the hallway and into the bathroom to find this scrawled on the bathroom mirror:

"You are an amazingly powerful woman and can do anything! I love you xxxxxx"

I nearly broke down in tears right then and there! But let me tell you after reading that, I went straight into my room and knew exactly what to do.. I packed a bag full of beads to take to work with me that I can do on my break and after I post this, I am making a to-so list and I'M GOING TO STICK TO IT!!!

Not only have I posted it here, but I have also posted it on facebook and beading daily forums.. Just to show off how amazing my best friend in the world is!!! And how can I let down one of my favourite admirers?

I loves him soooo much! If anyone is going to pull me out of my funk, its my poodle, Trent :)

You learn something new every day..

And that certainly was the case the other day!

After flipping through endless beading magazines and books, trying to find something to bead (with my ever shrinking stash of beads) for what seemed like HOURS, I finally came across my next project.. It was the 'Haberdashery Bracelet' by Callie Mitchell as seen in the June/July 2011 issue of Beadwork magazine, page 60.

I dug through my collection of swarovski and delica beads, trying to image just how much 3 grams was in my unmarked baggies and how those swarovski colours would look against each other. In the end I finally got together the materials I needed to at least attempt the bracelet.

Now, when I am doing a project, VERY rarely is it that I actually read the instructions.. I can usually just go by the pictures. Then something caught my eye (dramatic drumroll please...) The base of the bracelet is beaded in odd count peyote stitch. I try and stay well and clear of odd count peyote just coz it is so fiddly trying to do the odd turn around.. I hate it! However, I was not about to abandon the project and go in search of another just because I don't like odd count peyote, so I went and did a little research..

I always knew that there were several ways to do the odd turn: There is the figure eight turn, the anchor turn, the 'no turn' turn..

The figure eight turn

The anchor turn

But I came across one that I hadn't seen before:

The under thread turn

This is the 'under thread' turn. On the very rare ccasion that I do use odd count peyote stitch for whatever reason, I have always used the anchor turn, but upon careful consideration, I thought that this would be the stitch for me to use.. As there is quite a bit of embellishment on this particular bracelet, I didn't want to clog up the beads with unnecessary thread..

Seemed logical at the time did it not?

After a few hours of working intermittently at this bracelet, I had finished it to my desired length and I was really, really pleased with how it turned out! I was a bit worried about the colours not matching or one throwing off the other, but I was really excited about this bracelet.

I lay the bracelet flat onto my bead mat to arrange the crystals on it for the embellishment, when I noticed something a little 'off'.. I called Trent in to have a look to see if he could pick it.

Can you see it?

Trent couldn't when I asked him if there was something about the bracelet that didn't quite look right. He was looking at things like the colours, or misplaced beads but he couldn't pick it up.

I didn't know if it was my eyesight or not, so I conducted a little experiment, just to see what would happen..

What happens, when we place something with a straight edge to the edge of the bracelet? 

Oh, you see it now don't you?

My tension had been a little TOO tight when doing my under thread turn and, as a result, slightly curved the entire band to that side.. I hadn't noticed until I had finished the entire length of it! *sigh*

Once I pointed it out to Trent - and then even after I took the page away from the edge - he said that he could notice it, and that's all he could, but only because I had pointed it out. I noticed it, because I made it and - lets face it - I'm a little anal (for want of a better phrasing...)

But what is to stop a potential customer from noticing...? Someone might pick up said bracelet and say "OMG! That is gorgeous!", only for the person next to them say "Oh, but its wonky, therefore defective..."

Oh the frustration!!! The hours of hard work that went into this bracelet, only to notice a slight oopsie that sends me straight to the verge of freak out mode! I know that it probably makes to difference to anyone else, and the majority of the people won't even notice (especially when it has the embellishments added to it) but its the little things! But I digress...

Ah, but all in a days work and hey.. I suppose that this is why I called my blog 'My Beading Journey'. Because it wouldn't be a journey without learning new things along the way..

It is now time for me to de-stress and try to force myself to go to sleep... First night of the end of daylight savings, so my body clock is all buggered up :( stoopid daylight savings... (someone remind me again, WHY we have it in the first place?!)

Emma
xXx

I need to be more gentle

When it comes to my beadwork, I have a bit of a short temper.. If something doesn't work out for me, I chuck the biggest thrombo ever! I have been known to scream, swear and - on some occasions - voilently throw my object across the room.. But I never actually stopped to think about who actually cops the most brutal thrashing of all...

My needles.

I am forever buying new needles because I keep breaking them from being too rough. I just finished a project that I was really proud of the other day and I took the tail thread off the needle and looked at my needle - it looked shocking! It hand more kinks and bends in it than a Friday night at a burlesque lounge! I had even somehow managed to ever-so-slightly bend the eye of the needle, smack bang in the centre, nearly closing the hole and now making it IMPOSSIBLE to thread onto another project..

I am in the middle of my first commission piece (excitement! more to come..) and I have just done the same thing! I realise now why I keep losing needles as well.. I don't lose them so to speak, the buggers run and hide so they don't suffer the same grizzly fate as their bretheren!!!

So, as my new order of business.. Ima TRY to start taking it a little easier when it comes to my projects. When something starts to bugger up on me, take a deep breath and walk outside for a break and some fresh air.. maybe make myself a cup of tea.. and again BREATHE! Hopefully, by doing so I will have plenty a straight needle to choose from when starting my next project!

Emma
xXx