dryad

What do you do while you're at work? I make jewelry. Normally I wouldn't bring my bead supplies to work because it's kind of a pain in the arse, but loom work is less so.

My original plan was that I might need some sort of pretty bracelet to cover my rose tattoo when I get a new job, as that one is the most visible. Even though I'm moving to a very liberal town, it never hurts to be prepared. Also, I get damn bored at work during the day.

So I found a nice ivy photo, used the magic of computer programs to make it into a bead loom pattern, and set off. However, there were problems from the start. I was having trouble getting the loom to cooperate, the beads were being ridiculously different sizes, the needle was getting severely bent, etc. But I trudged on.

Here are some pictures of my progress:

The problems continued at this point. I realized that the original design was too big for the loom that I have, and I was so annoyed at the misshapen needle that I could barely go on. I decided to take out just a few rows (that white gap at the end in the 2nd picture) to make it smaller. I used my tiny scissors to undo one row at a time, which was not easy work. Then tragedy struck - I snipped on of the black support threads. there was no way to fix a major boo boo like that, so I was forced to destroy the entire thing, after I'd already put hours and days into it.

I started all over from scratch. I ordered new needles, thinking that would solve all my problems, but they turned out to be so thin that they were useless to me. So I went back to my old needle, which still needed the occasional straightening, and continued on. Finally, after about a month of work, I had this:

You see how it completely fills the loom? I admit I had to cut the design even shorter, so the last leaves aren't finished. But I was done. All I had to do now was get it off the loom and tie it off, thus making it an actual bracelet. Now I have this:

I was thinking of putting it up for sale (and wearing it in the meantime) but it was so full of problems that I'm really not happy about it. Besides the design being cut off, the green beads and the white beads were different sizes, so the ends where I tied it together don't match up exactly. So this is my bracelet now.

What have I learned? Well for one, I need a bigger loom. Two, make sure the beads are the same size before I start. Three, good thing I didn't have anyhing else to do at work, so I could make this.