Ontario Spring

Wooly Flowers

Cashmere, angora and lambswool, with vintage stamens and seedbeads and needlefelting. Beaded loops on the backs so I can string them onto a crocheted rope with buttons and beads.

It must be admitted that several cashmere sweaters were seriously inconvenienced in the making of these flowers!

Beach Excitements

I went for a long beach walk this afternoon...it's still very cold here and the wind off the lake was bitter, but the sun was shining and calling me. I'm glad I went. I was refreshing and I found lots of treasures. There wasn't another soul on the beach, I walked for an hour and a half and didn't see anyone other than two Canada geese, who looked at me disapprovingly and stalked away into the lake.

I love glass with writing on it. This seems to be a date.

Some pale blue Fire King Delphite glass, some china and a remarkable knobbly bit of orangey-red glass. This is a fragment of some sort of hobnail piece, a vase or toothpick holder, or one of those Fenton glass shoes.

A big piece of blue glass, not very frosty, but it has the letters "ER" on the top edge...my sister's nickname!!

A massive frosty chunk of aqua glass, this would be gorgeous cut to a perfect rectangle and set in silver for a ring or a pendant. Stones with holes. The humble beer-bottle glass. I wish beer came in blue and pink and purple bottles. That would be an improvement in every way.

A perfectly heart shaped stone and a heart shaped 1957 dog tag!!! Love these!

I came home cold and windblown but tickled with my finds.

Excitement!

I just found out that both of my submissions have been juried into the 2010 Bead and Button Show Bead Dreams competition. I'm excited!

The Big Bad-A-Boom necklace features a weighty 8g fine silver chain with seven strands of enamelled lampwork beads from my Bad-A-Boom series. They're strung with freshwater pearls and each strand is topped with a handmade hook, so that the strands can be detached. This way I can wear the necklace with one strand, or five, or all seven, or just the chain alone.

The Flying Pod Vessels are lampworked glass with fine silver collars and wings, and handmade fine silver chains.

A Warm Wooly Canadian Flower

Because even our flowers need long johns to keep warm right now!

Meet Peewee

Remember this? Learner's permit, February of 2009?
Meet Peewee!

I got my drivers license last week. This was a big achievement for me as it meant conquering a phobia of very long standing, and I'm proud of myself. AND I'm proud of myself for being proud of myself! It was a little delayed by an interminable strike by the driving testers and some other stuff, but I did it. Assuming that all goes according to plan, Peewee will be coming to our house next week. And maybe I will be able to get it away from SO (who really, really likes it!) long enough to drive it! It's a 2009 PT Cruiser and I am enamoured of it. This is, of course, the first car I have ever owned, so it's only right and proper that I have a little car crush on it.

Don't worry Valentine...we still love you best, and your grimy yellow fish.