The Jewelry Architect

I was both delighted and dismayed to find my copy of Kate McKinnon's latest book, The Jewelry Architect, in my mailbox today.

Delighted, because I have been looking forward to this book for months now and I was not disappointed with the contents thereof.  The photographs (by Joe Hancock) are beautiful, the design of the book (edited by Jean Campbell) is compelling, the instructions (on a multitude of projects, including stringing, beadwork and wire and metalwork) are logical, easy to follow and include step-by-step diagrams and photos, and the various designs (several of which I've had the pleasure of seeing and touching in real life and as good as these photos are, they really don't do them justice) are all mouthwatering - they make you want to rush to your bead stash and start putting things together!

Dismayed, because my clearly dimwitted postal person decided that it would be a good idea to bend the padded envelope in which the book was packaged and shove it into my mailbox, which measures maybe 5 inches square.  As a result, I now have a damaged copy of Kate's book that doesn't lie flat and has a big bend all the way through it about 2 inches from the spine. 

Luckily, the bending process didn't damage the DVD that is included with the book and stored on the inside back cover.  (Did I mention that the book comes with an instructional DVD?? How cool is that?)  No doubt it will flatten out after some time spent pressed underneath my barely liftable 2,500 page copy of the Random House Dictionary but the back cover is permanently creased. We are not amused. You can be sure I will be visiting my nearest Canada Post location first thing tomorrow to lodge my complaint. 

If you'd like your own copy of this book, you can find it here: amazon.ca. I would suggest to you that no beading library is complete without this volume.

P.S.  You can also visit Kate's website by clicking here: Kate McKinnon, selecting "Journal" from the menu on her opening page and then looking under "Beadwork Instructions" in the top right of the sidebar on the newly opened page) for free instructions on how to make 2 of her designs, the Groovy Cuff and The Corset Stitch. She promises to upload more instructions and videos in the days to come, so keep watching that space!

Right Angle Weave

I took a class at Bead Junction today on the beading stitch known as Right Angle Weave or RAW for short. The class was taught by the very patient Patricia Huff. I say "patient" because there were 3 of us and at any given point, none of us seemed to be at the same stage in the process but that didn't seem to matter to her. Thanks, Patricia!

RAW is one of the main beading stitches that I was not yet familiar with. We started out with bugles so we could clearly see the right angles being formed. Kate McKinnon has a great way of explaining this process, as if the four sides are the ceiling, floor and two walls of a room and you're making an apartment building (or for those of us in Toronto, yet another condo development!).

Then we switched to size 8/0 seed beads in two contrasting colours. As you can see from this photo, I definitely have the hang of it in my piece on the left but compared to Patricia's on the right, which is much straighter and uniform looking, I need a little work on the tension of my thread, in order to make the beads line up the way they are supposed to. But I like the finished effect either way!

I'll need a bit more practice but when I'm ready, I'm looking forward to making Kate's Groovy Cuff kit and some of the designs in Marcia DeCoster's Beaded Opulence book.

Okay, gotta go practice!

Have I Bought Anything Yet?

Of course I have! I'm talking about Kate McKinnon's Soul Clearing Sale, which I wrote about in yesterday's post.

I logged onto Kate's site when I first got in to work this morning and was disappointed to find the sale hadn't started yet. Then again, Kate is two hours behind us in Tuscon so I really wasn't too surprised, but that's how excited I was. By 9:45, the first items were listed and what a delightful selection there was. By 10 a.m., I had made my first choice, my payment had cleared PayPal (the choosing took the time, the payment part was almost instaneous - I do love PayPal, it's so safe and easy) and the Bone Box was mine!! (I hope to have a photo to post shortly, I'm just waiting for permission from Kate.) I have been dreaming up a necklace in my head and collecting components since I was in Mexico in January, and I have a feeling the Bone Box will be the perfect focal piece for it. I also love the fact that it has one of Michelle Goldstein's bones in it as I think they are fabulous.

For the rest of the day, I've been checking back to her site from time to time (quite frequently, really, but I'm going to pretend it wasn't that often, lest my boss should read this and think I'm not getting any work done!) to see what has been newly posted, as Kate is adding items throughout the day as other pieces sell and will be doing so for the next two weeks. Apparently you can set it up so the computer notifies you that something new has been posted on her website but that seems to take the fun out of it for me, it's much more of a thrill for me to do it manually.

It's fun to watch and see what is posted and how quickly things disappear. She had two regular sized black Ott lights together with at least one new bulb listed for only $75 US, which I thought was a pretty good deal, as those things are pretty darned expensive but so very useful, I was seriously tempted but then decided I really didn't need to have her ship them all the way up here to Canada. But they went up and then disappeared, so someone else knew it was a bargain! Some items that I thought would disappear in an instant are still there, which surprises me, they are so lovely. I am particularly admiring the Flower Circlet necklace, it has the most beautifully shaped petals and patina. I'm sure its destined owner just hasn't logged on yet. There is also an Orange Spiney ring which is just my size and totally funky, but I hesitate to shop too early, in case there is something else over the next several days which I might covet even more...

Durfort Dreams Bracelet

When I was in Milwaukee this past June, one of the pieces I made in Susan Lenart Kazmer's class was this bracelet, which I call "Durfort Dreams". I had been collecting the bits and pieces for a while but hadn't gotten around to combining them just yet but figured that Susan's lessons on cold connections and joining found objects would be just right for bringing this piece together, and they were!

The various charms all have significance, mostly to remind me of my time in Durfort but also to remind me of Susan's class:

- a bezel charm has a picture of a fleur-de-lis that was on the lid of a copper pan sold in a shop in Durfort;

- another resined charm holds a picture of a sunflower overlaid with french handwriting;

- a peace sign, to remind me of the peaceful feeling of every day village life;

- the coloured ribbon strung through the chain itself reminds me of the lights over the stalls at the night market in Avignonet;

- I found the flattened "Pacifico" bottle cap one sultry summer afternoon in the town square in Soreze;

- the metal cross represents my trip to the cemetery;

- there is a bead with a pink sequin and a cubic zurconia, which were given to me by my friends Colleen and Heather, who took Susan's class with me and also went to Mexico for Kate's workshop there;

- I made the PMC charm with a black and white picture of a woman that I got from Kate's collection of images and Kate's name stamp as a reminder of Kate (although this piece definitely looks a little too shiny and silver compared to the rest of the antiqued brass bracelet, I shall have to get myself some liver of sulphate and add a patina to it);

- coincidentally, the resined charm next to this one on the bracelet is one I made in Milwaukee using a combination of the same B&W photo (showing more of the glamourous woman elegantly smoking from a cigarette holder and wearing nothing but a string of pearls), the copper fleur-de-lis and a postmark that says Paris;

-one charm is a mix of ribbons and beads which was my experiment with a certain technique of Susan's for twisting ribbon, it didn't really work the way it was supposed to but I kept it anyway;

- a little circle charm that is a two copper discs enclosing a stack of papers with a French postage stamp and a piece from a French dictionary and a picture of an owl that can be fanned open to show the contents - again, this was one of the techniques/designs Susan taught us;
- the letter charms are an "F" for my last name and a "K" for Susan's (because she also teaches workshops at La Cascade, she was quite excited to see my piece and we swapped stories of our times there);

- the painted copper piece was made by one of the women in the workshop, Sydney a.k.a. The Copper Woman, who very generously shared pieces of her art with all of us;

- the owl bead reminds me of the little owl that crossed our path on the last night, and was made by Karen Elmquist, who was in my class in Milwaukee (I love how that one circles around to join the two experiences!)

- there is a French blue bead and an old key;

- one of the charms is the picture of the group of us at the night market that I am so fond of; and

- there are two coins joined together as one charm, an French franc and a Euro, representing the old and new currencies of France.

I had fun putting this bracelet together and it brings me a lot of joy to look at the charms and recall the various people and places that it represents.

Durfort Workshop 2008 - Day 1

On our first full day at La Cascade last summer, we were treated to our first breakfast made by Nese, who would be cooking for us for most of the rest of the week. It was a simple buffet of fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, breads and jams but it was all very French and very tasty.

After breakfast, we headed up to the 3rd floor studio and Kate gave an introductory talk, telling us what she had planned for the week. She also showed us various pieces that she had made. Just before lunch, we went for a walk to the town square of the village and Kate showed us the path to take if we wanted to walk to the next village, Soreze, about 20 minutes away by foot.

Durfort has a history of being a village of copper craftsmen - the shop in the photo was filled with copper items. Some of the streets have what they call a quench running down the middle - the copper artisans would bring their hot metal pieces out to this stream of water to dip them in the water and cool them off. It's very picturesque, although a little disconcerting if you're trying to drive a small European car up the street and trying to keep the wheels out of the trough!

After a very tasty lunch with a green bean and tomato salad featuring the best cherry tomatoes I have ever tasted in my life, omelettes and bread, we were back in the studio from 2 to 5 pm. Kate walked us through her book, Structural Metal Clay and described various techniques. http://www.katemckinnon.com/smcbook.html

After class, I took a walk to the local cemetery with Jennifer. We had been warned that there was a storm coming in and as we walked about checking out the tombstones, we could see these amazing cloud formations over the mountains in the distance so we didn't stay out too long and made it back well before the rain started.

Dinner was roast chicken with potatoes and carrots and salad and lots of wine. Everyone was chatting and getting along very well. One of the women in the group was travelling with her husband and he joined us for dinner. They were from Germany, 2 of us were from Canada and the rest were all from various parts of the U.S.

After dinner, it was still raining and since everyone was a bit jetlagged, we had an early night after a little bit of show and tell, when my roommate Carin (from British Columbia) brought down some of her lampwork beads to show us. They were gorgeous!! Here's a picture of her marble bracelet, I loved the big beads!! It's a year later and I still haven't made a marble but at least now, I know how and what tools to use!

(Commitment update: 10 workouts in 13 days, including an hour of tennis on Saturday, 90 minutes of intense cottage cleaning on Sunday prior to the jewellery party in the afternoon and a 40 minute walk today)

More about Kate and PMC

Precious metal clay, or PMC, is fine silver metal clay with which you make metal objects. For jewellery makers, it means you can make your own clasps and toggles. It's just another way to differentiate your work from someone else's and express your own individuality.

Of course, for Kate McKinnon, it's much more than just making findings - she makes entire pieces of jewellery from the PMC - necklaces, rings, bracelets. Check out her website to see what she does - I especially love her architectural pieces.

Here are some pictures from the first class in PMC that I took with Kate, in May at Beadfx. One shot is of Kate with some of her tools and the other is of some of the pieces I made.

She was in Toronto teaching for 5 days but I didn't hear about it until the night before the first class and was only able to attend for one day, but I was fascinated by the process and knew I wanted to do more.

I was checking out her website a few days later and noticed she was going to be teaching a week long class in southern France at the end of July. Since I had just been to Paris at the end of March and was looking for an excuse to go back to France, I thought taking Kate's class sounded like a fabulous idea. I took a deep breath, signed up for the course, went to France and it was amazing! The people, the PMC, the village of Durfort, the flea markets, the countryside - everything was tres magnifique (but more about that trip later).

It's an Addiction with a capital "A"

My friend Sharon wrote about her addiction to Raggedy Ann dolls the other day in her blog http://www.psychiccottage.com/blog/, which got me thinking about my own harmless addictions. The current one I have is to beads. I am loving them more and more every day. I enjoy putting them together to see what I can make as well as seeing what other people do with their visions and talent.



Overall, it's a relatively harmless addiction, although somewhat damaging to my wallet, as the more beads I see, the more I want to buy to make more stuff of my own, or to take another class to learn how someone makes what they do. Having a 9 to 5 job tends to interfere with the creative process, given that I have to go to work Monday to Friday instead of staying home to play with the beads all day but at the same time, it pays for the beads!



I am also getting somewhat addicted to blogs. I like reading other people's postings, to see what they've got to say about the world and themselves. I especially enjoy reading blogs that my friends have written, because it's a way of learning more about who they are and what interests them and finding out what we have in common. It's a fascinating glimpse into their psyche. I also like reading random blogs of total strangers. It's a bit voyeuristic but also quite interesting and informative. And of course, I'm having fun writing my own.



The best part is when my two addictions join together in a delightful way, as happened today. Kate McKinnon (http://www.katemckinnon.com/) is the woman who taught me how to make things from precious metal clay earlier this year and she has a fascinating blog, full of her amazing metalwork creations, news of the day, political commentary, baseball, nature and you name it. One of her postings today is a link to the website of a woman named Michele Goldstein, who makes the coolest glass beads - check it out: http://michelegoldstein.bigcartel.com/ - I am totally loving her skull beads and little bones! I'd love to know how to make them and will hopefully be able to take a class from her some day, but for now, I am just totally in awe of Michele's very cool fabrications!!

And then of course there is my addiction to the game Free Cell, which isn't related to beading at all, I just love to play it whenever I can...

Here's a picture of Kate and me that was taken this past May when she taught PMC at Beadfx.