the New Old World

this is sort of what the star will look like. all I have here is crappy plastic beads and sewing thread. hope you can get the idea at least.

these are some illustrations of where the beads go in the basic star, and how to make it different. the method is still the same.

Daddy's computer won't let me upload a formatted document, so I'm just going to re-type it. trust me, it was pretty. bulletted lists and so forth.

materials needed:

small amount of beads in 2 colors

beading thread

beading needle

Thread Heaven or beeswax, what ever you have on hand is fine

Scissors

Something to put the beads in while you're working with them. trust me, they will try to escape.

step 1. cut a manageable length of beading thread and prepare it by stretching and conditioning it.

step 2. pick up 5 beads in color 1. tie the working thread and the tail thread together so you have a circle of beads.

step 3. pick up 3 beads on your needle. the last bead you put on your needle is the point of the star. pass the thread over the top of that bead and back through the same direction you went through the first time. pull it up tight against the circle. pick up two more beads on your needle and go into the next bead in the circle.

step 4. repeat 4 more times.

this completes the star portion. If you want a bigger star, just use more beads in each leg of the points. if you want a more elaborate star, go around again. the possibilities are infinite!

step 5. to make your star into a pentacle, it is necessary to put a circle around it. make sure your active thread is coming out of one of the point beads of the star you just made. string enough beads to reach to the next star tip without distorting. Lay it down on the table if you need to. There is not a set amount of beads for this step. make this step with color #2 beads.

step 6. continue around the circle in this manner. how you finish will depend on what your finished item is intended to be for.

After your circle is in place, you can use the method you used to make the star points to make your item bigger. I have used this pattern to produce a sort of netted basket to hold a tiny flask of scented oil. You can use big beads, or wooden beads to make a trivet for your kitchen.

Just leave it alone!

Last night at 12:30 I was watching sort of a show on SciFi. I was listening, anyway, not sitting in front of the tv. Suddenly, it was a cop show. Where did my Sarah Jane go? Comcast! In its infinite wisdom decided that would be a good time to re-assort its channels. Why? There were plenty of numbers not in use, why throw them all up in the air and just leave them where they fall? And could I find a list somewhere to print? Or an apology from comcast, gee, sorry to screw up your show and all, but we need to do this right now. here's a new list of channels for you. sorry. That would have been nice. It was bad enough when NBC and CBS swapped. I know, that was a really long time ago, but I still have to stop and think what channel Days of our Lives was on, and which CSI goes where. USA took Criminal Intent, my favorite because of the smart cop. Bobby Goren. He can frisk me anytime. But it will have to wait, because I still haven't found USA. maybe tomorrow.

Walkin' out

This is my house. Well, my half of the house. My front door is around the right side, through a really disreputable gate, past a flower bed that's seen better days. The Christmas lights are still in that tree and around the windows, which are between living room and dining area inside the house. There's a dog leash wrapped around the base of the tree for hooking up Jager while anybody is working out front. he will jump the fence if you are in earshot but he can't see you. I think he's actually digging a tunnel in that aforementioned flower bed. So to get out of my neighborhood, I go across the lawn and turn right into the first field. Well, I did until like yesterday when the people who own the other half of the house put up a rustic rail fence with plastic screen nailed to it. I think they're trying to keep people from walking across the lawn. It would have been funny last winter if they had been here then, because when husby parked behind me in the driveway, I would scoot out across the lawn, between the tree and the house was just enough room for my little VW to get by. Bet they would have just loved that.
They have called the cops on us around 4 times already, once for the bonfire in the back yard when we burned the old fence, again after the cop who they sent sat by the fire with us for a while and didn't make us put it out. (this happens at least once a year. we have an above the ground firepit which is totally legal in our development. it's just that they see kids and assume we're going to burn down the neighborhood) Once when they saw Jager pulling a kid on a skateboard for about 9 feet in the street, the animal control guy came out to see if we were abusing our (gasp) ENORMOUS pit bull. And at least one other time because they saw me "dragging" said dog by his huge spiked collar. I had gone to the mailbox, he jumped the fence, and I was guiding him gently, no really , I was, back into the yard. Chris, the animal control guy said that she said I was holding him up in the air by his collar. he weighs 65 pounds.

This is the first field. You're looking at a court here, I veer right into that court and then up into the next field. For a big development with a lot of courts and streets with similar names, there are a lot of open field spaces that aren't part of anybody's property. They are full of trash and junk, and this one is full of dog shit. There's a sign, you know, about picking up said dog shit, but you know, there are so many Canadian geese, and their shit is the size of small dog shit, I think it's pointless. Seeing that sign just means watch where you walk.

Our development is called Birches West. No birches. might be west of something or other. All of the names of streets and so forth are astronomy terms. I don't get what sense that makes, but I like the street names. Regulus, Altair, Fomalhaut, Cirius, Ursina, Procyon. it does mean that you always have to spell your address.

My Feet

This is where it starts. My own 2 feet in my cool blue sketchers. No more car, no more driving, anywhere I have to go, I have to walk or take a bus or ask someone to take me. I hate it. I didn't drive until I was 24, I was afraid. I couldn't see through the winshield and I couldn't tell where the perimeters of my car were. I took the bus a lot back then, and walked. And rode my skateboard. I'm a lot older now, and I don't think I'd ride a skateboard if I had one, fear of falling. I might be able to ride a bike, but I don't have one. I want my car back. It's been 30 years since I have been without a car, and I hate asking people to do stuff for me, but I don't have any choice about it right now.

And so it goes

It's the middle of the night and I'm sitting here unable to breathe through my nose. Yes, in actuality right now all it's doing is holding up my glasses. My computer glasses. I don't know what compels me to blog now after an entire day of opportunity, but so it goes.

Today, I submitted my very first design to a magazine. I made a hat for Vlad the Impaler. It was a genius idea, I have lots of those, but this time I brought it out of the realm of speculation and into the real world. Does it look like I thought it would? No. But I think that's because I lack the ability to actually picture in my mind a thing that has not existed yet. That little personal design flaw is what makes me bad at chess and other strategy games, and utterly fearless when it comes to making it up as I go along. I know it's a wildly original idea and nobody on earth would have ever even thought of it but me, but it's not perfectly constructed. The pictures, however, are excellent, trust me. I can't share them, that wouldn't be fair, but oh how I hope that my brand of lunacy is just what the Zabet ordered. It requires multiple techniques, all of them really basic though. The first skill needed is drinking beer. Always a good start.

#2 son is about to turn 23, and that's a huge milestone in his life. It's the first birthday he's had in a while that he may face sober, for one thing. His birthday last year brought on my desire to throw him a little kid party, since I didn't actually know him when he was a little kid. He invited all his friends for a barbecue, and I did a Spiderman theme in plates, masks, blowing horn things, cake design and a number of other crazy things. It was the greatest party, I was still awake around 4 supervising the extinguishing of the bonfire while the last die-hards were playing beer pong. the ensuing disaster didn't happen until the next morning, but by noon #2 son was out of here in handcuffs. long story. It took a year to get everything straightened out, and the last year in our lives has been more or less hell for all concerned. Now it's over, but we are all drowning financially. Seriously, hunger is right around the corner. Thought we might move, but we can't afford it, even to move to a smaller place, maybe with utilities included. we'd lose the yard and the garden and maybe even our pets, and maybe we couldn't all live together anymore, but I did not know what else to do. But now we know we can't do that. So now it all falls on me. And, truthfully, I don't know if I can stand up under this.

I've been coughing and sniffling for a couple of days now. I punched the kid for giving me this cold. At my age, I've had most of the rhinoviruses (rhinoviri?) in the world and hadn't been sick for a number of years, but this one got me good. Couldn't have come at a worse time. Well, maybe it could have, the way things have been going, worse is just an unanticipated event that comes next.

okay, that's my quota of whine, whine, whine---

On a lighter note, my friends over at Anticraft keep me laughing with our new mutual fetish of men in kilts. It seems like every topic in every category dissolves into lusty remarks and graphic speculation about hot men in kilts and what they might or might not wear underneath. And whether or not it is blue ribbon worthy:http://theanticraft.com/forum/index.php?topic=458.15
All of this lunacy was inadvertantly started with this:http://beckybooblogs.blogspot.com/2008/03/pattern-for-beholder.html
my apologies to Becky and whoever that guy is if they happen to see this and not like being drooled on by women from their teens to their fifties. verbally. ad nauseum. And apologies also to the moderators of the various boards who finally had to sort out all this drivel and put it in a board of it's own called y'all're naughty. And then somebody mentioned lumberjacks----