Beady, Beady, Beady Weekend

Ever wake up and realize you need to go to work to get a little "down" time?

The past weekend was beads, beads and more beads. Saturday was two back-to-back classes at Beads 'n Stitches in Hicksville, NY. The 10 am session was diagonal peyote (I think I'll be hearing Maryanne's voice yelling, "What are do doing? You did a two-step when you should have done a three-step - you can't count, can you?" in my sleep), with an hour's break before starting on toggles and bails. The afternoon session was interesting too, but I didn't complete my braclet - I'm not comletely happy with the colors I chose. I picked a Volcano Swarovski Cosmic Square, silver-lined orange delicas and olive green triangles to work into a Russian Spiral. There wasn't a terribly large selection of triangles, and the olive worked the best. I love the orange with the Volcano, but not the olive green triangles. I'll finish it eventually.

Sunday was even better. I drove to Danbury, CT. to the Bead Fiesta show to see my very dear friends Mike and Marie Dick, who were vendors there. It's difficult for us to get together - Marie works nearly full time on her Etsy stores, East of Oz and Bead Brats, so it's easier for me to see them at local shows. We had a lovely visit together. Needless to say, I bought some great stuff from them (a strand of hypersthene, a strand of wonderstone and two strands of tiny, perfectly faceted peridot briolettes, which will go into a Cellini spiral with pink pearls and gold delicas). I splurged a bit at a few other vendors - two really great pieces of dichroic glass, some hanks of metallic rocailles, a few really great pink borosilicate lamp work beads from Maureen at Pumpkin Hill and a bunch of tiny Swarovski bicones and rivolis from Eureka. And some leather cord to make a necklace for my friend Gary.

The beadyness didn't end there.

Monday was Presidents' Day, and rather than sleeping late like I would have preferred, I met Valerie at the Roslyn train station at 10:30 for a slow ride into Manhattan, a subway ride down to the Lower East Side and a 3 hour visit to Leekan's new location on Rivington Street. What a change from their old location in Soho, which was a showplace. First of all, the new store isn't really a store, yet. There is no retail space (that will come in the spring), and the wholesale area is still taking shape - right now, it's like a garage that's been painted yellow. The lighting's poor, the floor's worse, but the beads are beautiful, and Ana and Jill are just delightful. Annie and Paddy are still Annie and Paddy, and Reggie the Bedlington terrier wouldn't stop barking at us. While we were waiting for our orders to get wrapped up, Val and I went to lunch. We ended up at Loraley, a German restaurant that's right across the street. Food was very good (I had a cup of potato and bacon soup with a plate of rye bread and gouda cheese, Val had sunnyside eggs on grilled ham and rye bread), but the coffee was pretty awful, like the coffee I'm drinking right now. The picture is of Valerie wearing a strand of softball sized African brass beads. They were so heavy that she had to struggle to stay upright.

I just want to say, I wasn't planning on buying anything, but there were some wonderful Thai silver beads that I just couldn't resist. And a Thai silver link bracelet. I am soooooooo weak.

Walking back to the subway, we passed one of the relics of Jewish life on the Lower East Side, Yonah Schimmel's Knishery. I demurred - but Val got a some - $16 for 4 cheese knish. Oy vey! From there, we made a pointless trip uptown to the Nippon Club to see the The Kakei Collection (I had gone to the opening last month, Val was sick). However, the Nippon Club was closed for the holiday. We schelpped back to Penn Station via the 1 train out of Columbus Circle (I really wanted to take a cab), got stuck in Jamaica, hopped on the train to Mineola, when we got picked up by Val's dearest. I eventually made it home for a late pizza dinner with Dad. By the time all was said and done, I had just a little time to actually put a needle and thread to some beads before I needed to go to bed.

I need to take a serious break from buying beads. Seriously. If just to give me time to actually make stuff!