Thinking of making a needle book and maschma

I feel like I tend to blog about things I'm thinking of doing rather than showing the results of what I have done. Partially it's because I procrastinate, partially it's a matter of not having the time to do it so I'm stuck just thinking about it and partially it's because I write to try and sort out things I hesitate about. Writing about it sorts out the thoughts -- at it gives you motivation to produce a result once you declare to the world what you are about to to do as well as it's an opportunity to ask others for input.

If you follow this blog you must have noticed that the idea of a needle book and thread storage have come up. Last time I mentioned making a maschma, for example. This post is about those thoughts once again.

I've been thinking of making a needle book for some time now, but never come up with a good design. Because I have both beading needles and hand embroidery needles it's also a matter of whether to make one book for all the needles or make two separate ones. Right now I'm thinking of doing one just for my beading needles as they make up 80 % of all my needles (and most of my embroidery needles are collected in one place anyway as I bought them in a silk ribbon embroidery collection -- the big yellow package).

Being a tool junkie extends to needles too: I have at least half a dozen of needle packages, not including a zip-lock bag of collapsible-eye needles, DIY wire needles and a big-eye needle. There's the regular long beading needles in size ranging from 10 to 15 (!), sharp bead embroidery needles, ballpoint bead emboidery needles and curved needles. Have I forgotten any now? Regardless, right now I just put all the needle packages in the organza bag, having tied them together with a string through the holes at the top (most packages have a hole, if not I punch one).

But what about the threads? The main reason I stick with this organza bag solution is that it all fits in it, all my needles and all my beading threads, and it's easy to carry from one spot to another. It's just that they're all jumbled, I'd like a bit more order. Just as with my seed bead storage dilemma, it's a question of finding a good, cheap -- and easy to carry -- solution that can accomodate different shapes and sizes as I use more than one type of beading thread. There's the K.O. spools, but also carded thicker K.O. thread and smaller bobbins (One-G etc). Plus a couple of big spools of YLI jean thread and medium-sized spools of a Gütermann thread I use for bead crochet.

It's still easyier to find the right thread so I'll make the needle book project a priority over this: removing the needles, the organza bag might be as good a solution as any with the amount of beading threads I have.

But my ideas doesn't end there...

Apparently, one thing that's become popular among embroiderers in Sweden recently is making a marsma or maschma; a small embellished roll or tote for emboidery paraphernalia (needles, scissors, threads), probably of sami origin, one might call it. And I think it might be very useful for me as a seedbeader too as I like to bead in couches, beds and everywhere else where I can't take my whole bead stash with me. So one of my newest ideas is to sketch a maschma with room for a couple of tubes or flip-top boxes of beads, one or two bead thread bobbins and a pair of scissors. (Did I forget something?) So far I haven't figured out the design or even what material I want to use. And partially I procrastinate because I love to embroider, but don't really enjoy sewing.

To illustrate what a maschma looks like, here's a screenshot of a picture googling I did in order to find some inspiration for my beader's maschma. Click on it for the full size.

Looking at the pics I'm thinking that with the right material it could double as a small bead mat too. I rarely use bead mats (hence why everything here has a few stray seed beads embedded in them), but they can be useful so why not? I like things with double -- or more -- purposes. A bit like the Helen Gibb kit for a needle case with bead pad [which not longer is available on her website so no pic to show].

These are some of the things I'm thinking about while working -- it might not be a fun or wellpaid job, but at least I'm free to think, sketch ideas in my head etc while I'm doing it. Not that I always think of beads and stitching, of cause, but it's a recurring theme most days. I might not be showing many finished items as I'm focusing on other things right now, but I have so many ideas buzzing in my head. If only I could cure my bad habit of procrastinating...

New seed bead storage (finally I have structure!)

Seeed beads -- I love them, but they do cause me headaches sometimes. Like with my bead mix issues last week and the one neverending story that is bead storage. I know I'm not the only one with more beads than storage!

When it comes to seeds, about a third of my stash has been crammed into a plastic cookie jar the last six months or so. The rest was sorted into a storage unit, but being comprised of little partions and being opaque black, it was hard to get a good grasp of what I really had. You can just see what ever happened to be placed on top. A couple of months ago, I sorted out all 2-hole beads and shapes (drops, bugles, triangles, cubes etc) and put in another container -- which overflowed immediately...

The problem with this is that a) the beads have been spread out and b) they're stored in a way that never give me a good overview of the colours and sizes. After realising this wasn't working, especially after thinking about bead mixes and not being able to find good colour combos despite the size of my stash, I decided that enough is enough! I can't just keep dallying, trying to find the perfect solution (fit different kinds of tubes/jars/zip-locks or buy flip-top boxes for all beads, be portable, showcase each colour). It'll be too expensive to buy a specially designed storage system and I'll never do it. But I needed to tackle the poblem and suddenly I had the answer: keep it simple -- and cheap. So I bought a plastic box and a package of plastic bags with zippers.

The pics aren't great as I took them indoors on a rainy day (missed the one hour of sunshine as I was trying to cure an unpleasant -- and unlike above not figurative -- headache), but I was just so pleased with having all beads sorted once and for all that I just had to do a show and tell today.

There was the usual issue of sorting by type (shape, size) or colour, but I just did what I've always done: sort seeds and cylinders by colour [one bag for mixes and one for multi-coloured beads without one dominating colour] and then sort other shapes by themselves. In this case, restricted by the number of plastic bags, I sorted all sorts of cuts (charlottes, hex etc) in one bag, 2-hole beads in one, bugles in one and all the rest (drops, triangles etc) in the last bag. The baroque seeds are in that last bag too.

It took longer to work out where some shades should go than deciding to sort by colour. Some bead colours are just inbetween the major colour groups I sorted by: pink-orange, yellow-beige-brown, purple-pink, brown-pink, green-blue. With some beads, I simply ended up choosing the bag with the least beads in.

As you can see below, purple could need a second bag... The system works best when the bags aren't full. And it could also be useful to sort red-purples separately from blue-purples now that there are so many different shades of purple  in the stash.

But all in all, it's a good feeling today, looking at the sorted beads. Not the perfect solution, but way better than before. It might not be the most elegant storage system, but now I feel like I have -- for the first time in ages -- got better control over my stash. I can see what I have and don't have -- and finally sorting all beads by colour, I can see what colours I should ease up on buying and what colours I need to have more of. If I need a bead of a certain colour, all I have to do now is find the right bag, pull it up and have a look. If you haven't been in this situation yourself, you probably won't understand how it can feel so good to finally have structure, have a system. If you have been in my situation on the other hand, I'm sure you know exactly what I feel right now.

The only thing I don't like is the slight embarrassment of seeing -- and feeling, it's heavy to lift! -- how much seeds I own. Don't tell anyone how much you think I've spent to amass so much seeds! It's not all expensive shades of Delicas and exclusive metal-plated 15/0 charlottes. There's many basic japanese and czech seeds and even some cheap indian and chinese ones for embroidery. Still... I don't even want to guess how much money that box represents!

One last pic: this is the loose beads I found on the bottom of my old storage. Considering how many zip-lock bags have burst over the years, it wasn't too bad at all. And it's just cheaper beads, not any of the ones I barely dare touch as they're so exclusive or just plain expensive.

Look, a free workspace!

Nowadays I mostly work with needle and thread, which can be done in the comfort of a bed or sofa or pretty much anywhere it's cozy and relatively cat free. That means I don't need a designated workplace like when working with e.g. metal, but I still do like to work with metal sometimes. It's a nice contrast, moving from embroidery floss and tiny beads to metal and other techniques that demand the use of tools in a way working with needle and thread doesn't.

So a workspace is important and I have to luxury to have one, or even two, in a room just for creating. For a long time, my sis had filled it with stuff she didn't have time to organize so it was hard even to try to get through the door. Nagging didn't work and I sure as hell wasn't going to clean up her mess. Well, now she has tidied up which means I can access my workspace without being frustrated by all the crap she filled the floor with. Which also meant I could see my workspace and the state it was in and had been in for more than half a year.

There's a fine line between creative chaos and clutter. Creative chaos is great: it means surrounding yourself with and emerging yourself in all your lovely supplies. Inspiring colours, shapes, textures and perhaps even scents. It's not supertidy, but it's more or less organized though it might not look like it for an outsider. It can also make you feel productive as it shows that things are happening here. But it can grow into the complete opposite. It can become clutter and clutter removes energy where the creative chaos can infuse you with it. Clutter hide things instead of letting you see them, even if they still are right in front of you. And the longer you let clutter grow, the worse it get as it is easy to abandon the workspace or find it hopeless to even start to untangle the mess.

So while I don't think clutter is the reason I've felt uncreative for a long time, it does add to the situation and this weekend I felt ready to do something about it. A long work day on Saturday gave me a boost of energy (yes, I do believe in the positive effects of exercise an manual labour, letting the body work invigorates both body and brain so not being very physically active, a day of farm labour can recharge my batteries even if it makes me physically tired). And on Sunday I managed to tidy up quite a bit, which also included sorting beads -- a great way to be inspired by colours and rediscovering beads you've forgot you had or put aside for projects that never were realised.

No before photos, but I can tell it looked worse than in these photos (the second set -- the first one's from when the room was new). That's more before crossing the clutter line. Just before, but still not too bad. No, nothing like it's been lately with more or less no free space at all, which is particularly bad if you want to solder or do any kind of metalwork. Either you end up setting something on fire or all the lightweight stuff you put away on the table bounces off it as you try to texture some pendants. So this is a huge improvement. Still need to put away the paint tubes and jars and sort a few things -- and thing of a better way to organize my tools or at least get a bigger box for them there on the table -- but there's open table space now. Places to work. I don't remember the table being that big! So much space!

Also tidied up the beading table (which once had nothing more than a tablecloth and fruit bowl on it so it could be used for boardgames, eating at and just generally invite friends to join). For some reason my half of the table has gotten smaller while my sis' side has enlarged... Not going to fight over it, though. At least not until I need that extra decimetre. That's her organized mess you can see beyond my paper plate, black box filled with pearls and the beading wire tower.

I didn't choose those vinyl tablecloths -- but free is not to frown upon.

Now the only thing remaining is getting more bead storage so I can't empty that cardboard box I call a bead box (sadly my chosen bead storing system is really expensive, but now that I began using it I want to keep it uniform) and finally decide to destash the culled beads. Some are nice enough to swap or give to someone, others are either very basic or a tad boring to gift someone with. Unsure about whether to sell the former or keep it for swaps and bead soup parties. It's useful to have a "swap stash" when you can't always buy new things, but it could also equal money to buy beads I want more.

But that's for another day. Now there's space to breathe and work and that should be enjoyed now instead of filling the head with new things to feel guilty about not having done. You must have time to enjoy the things you do, not just see the things still not done because there'll always be things to do, things you keep feeling you ought to do and feel bad about not having done yet.


And, no, I haven't forgot it's a meowy monday today. Coming soon!

~*~

Update: I reorganized the tools too. That part did look kind of messy in the first pic. I found a tray to put some of them in and just kept the hammers in the original "tool box". Also took out the knives and scissors from a box and added them to the tray. And tidied up the plier holder (which I also use for scissors etc).

Plus I removed jewellery from half of the shelves on the left side wall and filled them with paints, media, inks and glues instead so I now have them closer to me -- and I can see them all: I'd forgotten a few of those paint bottles...

Uhm, the paint is from when I painted the seaside pendant. As it's just acrylics, which are easy to remove, I haven't bothered to clean it up yet. Will do it next time I need the workspace instead. The pieces of blue tape are left from one time when I needed to measure something I think. Also something I haven't bothered to remove as they're A) easy to get off at any time and B) they don't bother me -- not until I show a pic of the worktable for everyone to see...

Damn you, ziplock bag...

In two days I've had two bead incidents due to a ziplock bag having ruptured in the bottom. Tiny fire-polished beads -- thankfully it wasn't seed beads, but that has happened in the past too -- pouring into the bed or the jam-packed bead box. Luckily, in both cases I spotted it before all the beads had fallen out.

And here's the thing: it has happened to me before and I know that other beaders warn about the dangers of keeping beads in ziplock bags, but I still do it. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's thrift seeing the cost of buying hard plastic containers for all beads, maybe it's green thinking (not buying unnecessary packaging). But most of all it's because they're handy and easy to store (without taking up unnecessary space with half-filled tubes or small boxes that doesn't fit the larger bead box perfectly). In many cases they have the name/colour/number of the bead -- perhaps even the bead shop's name -- printed on them (unless they're reused), which is very practical. In many ways ziplock bags are perfect. They're an ideal way to store small things effectively. Especially for smaller beads, it's just such a practical solution. But it's also a precarious one. You never know when a ziplock bag with rupture -- and when it does it is of cause the one containing a gross of 4 mm fp or 20 g of 15/0 seeds, not the one with just half a dozen 12 mm lampies.

 If you're lucky, you spot it directly and can keep most of the beads in the bag. If you're unlucky, you end up with an unintentional bead soup in the box. Worst case scenario being if two or more bags with different (tiny) beads rupture at the same time, causing a mess that not only have to be bagged, but also sorted. Which takes forever. I know that from experience...

Some big ziplock bags are really, really thick and I trust them 100 %, but it's hard to tell about the rest as it's not necessarily down to e.g. the thickness of the bags whether they burst or not.

So what to do? As I see it, buying tiny hard-plastic boxes for all my beads would be too expensive and I don't want to store them loose in bead boxes (especially not considering the bad combination of bead boxes and cats!). Wish I could transfer all my beads, but at the moment it's not a financially sound solution for me. I always re-use tubes and flip-top boxes for my seeds, but still there are many places I buy from that uses ziplocks so the majority of my seeds are still in ziplock bags and pretty much all of my glass beads are bagged the same way. I understand that it might be the cheapest solution for the shops and not all costumers want to pay extra for tubes or boxes, especially not if they already have a lot of unused ones at home. If I already had empty tubes/boxes at home, I'd rather pay less and get a cheaper bag as I'd transfer them to a tube or box once I got the beads.

Maybe the only thing to do is to tape the edges of every ziplock bag as a precaution? Have thought of that before, but it always ends up the same way: it's too time consuming to fix all bags so I settle on just doing it on bead bags bought from here on (and already ruptured ones), but next time I get beads I've forgotten about that smart and simple idea... until it happens again -- to yourself, hearing horror stories from others doesn't help. Then I remember it. A tad too late.

I know this isn't a new issue. I know many have discussed it before and that there are different views on whether to store beads in ziplocks or not. I also know that many beaders are like me and don't really care until they find a(nother) bead soup in the bead box or have seeds pouring into the crevices of the sofa or under the cupboard... An old problem, but one that keeps occurring again and again. This time it happened to me. I hope it won't happen to you, but if you haven't thought about it before, you might want to reconsider using ziplock bags for all your beads because it could happen to you too.

My leaning tower of beading wire

I'm having a crummy day today, but I thought I'd show you something other than flowers today as I found a couple of pics of my DIY solution for storing spools of beading wire and other stringing materials such as Fireline (even if I normally don't like it, I can still have it).

I used to keep them in one of these, but I needed the space for other things and it would be too expensive to buy another unit of boxes like the two I already have. So I took some hard and heavy black steel wire from the hardware store, and bent it into some sort of holder that can stand on the table just as well as being hung on the wall (by the loop at the top). I can slide of the spools from the top as well as from the bottom.




At first I made just to be able to hang it on the wall, it was first at a latter point I realised this uneven make-shift holder could also stand on its own -- and be reasonably stable when it did -- if I just made a few small alterations. But that also made me spot a possible problem: when hanging on the wall, the hook acted as a stop, preventing the spools from falling off the top. Well, that and gravity. When standing on a table, it was all too easy for a cat (or human) to knock the whole thing over and the spools would scatter across the floor. So I added a "lock". At first it was a big bead attached to the loop using a safety pin, but then I found a more aesthetically pleasing solution by using a chunky work-hardened anodized aluminium jump ring. The open slot is the right size to be able to push it over the steel wire without it falling of by itself.

So there you have it, a far from perfectly shaped but pretty simple and useful beading wire spool holder that takes up almost no place at all and can be put on the table just as well as it can be hung on a wall, which ever suits the best when workning.


Tip: I've got many ways to sort my supplies. Above, I've put the mini spools on top and then sorted by colour, but even more importantly, I've put the wires I use the most either close to the top or bottom so I can easily get to them without having to slide off a lot of other spools to get to the spool I want. That's why you find the Fireline and .010 wire in the middle.

Bead storage -- a snapshot

I haven't blogged here in ages it feels like. And I haven't even uploaded my winter pics, which I've said all week that I'd do. Well, you will get those tomorrow. Today I just wanted to show a pic I took to illustrate a blog post I wrote on organizing beads, or rather: how to plan for a new storage solution. This photo shows the interior of one of my Raaco Handybox drawers that I like so much. They come in a "module" where you can store four seperate "drawers"/boxes with secure lids and a handle so they're easy to carry. A tad expensive, but I like them.

I don't store all my beads in these, but most of them except my seeds. The system is a sometimes complex mix of sorting by material, shape and colour. My basic glass beads, e.g., are sorted purely by colour while flower beads in glass as well as all dragon beads and cat beads (regardless of material) are kept in one container. As you can see I also have seperate containers for metal flowers and acrylic/lucite flowers. Wooden beads are separated between patterned/embellished and plain beads.

To fit the system, I've had to place the Japanese millefiori beads (vintage glass) in the same space as my likewise Japanese tensha beads, eventhough that means mixing materials. In the bottom left container, you see the same mix of materials. There, I haven't mixed beads with the same origin and motifs, but added an eclectic mix of "natural" materials: clay (ceramics, porcelain), bone, horn, nuts and seeds. And some Japanese wallpaper beads and hand blown silvered glass beads -- those really should be in the tensha/millefiori mix instead. That'd make more sense.

And please don't ask me about the system regarding the plastic bags in the (Czech) glass flower container. Ususally, I collect beads in the same colour in one bag, but sometimes I mix colours that look good together or flowers in the same style. And sometimes I just place them in whatever bag seems best if I don't have any empty zip-lock bags nearby. As long as I can find my beads, I figure that structured but slightly random system works. As long as I can see the logic behind what beads are coupled with which, it doesn't matter if it looks totally random to everyone else.

My workspace -- a humble creative chaos

Inspired by Jewelry and Beading and the question of what's on my worktable, I took a few snapshots of my worktables. Yes, I have two: one is half a diningroom table and one is half of a more proper worktable. I share the "bead room" with my younger sis, hence the half tables.

I also took a few photos after we just put all the furniture in. This was originally dad's workshop, very dark and cluttered, which he re-made as he made a new room for him in the stables. We no longer have much hens so he found a new way to utilise the space, getting himself a bigger and better place to work. The bead room, as I call it, was originally planned as a storage for hobby mags, dads work clothes etc, but me and my sis occupied it with our things instead. Pity I never took any pics of what it looked like before dad made our new room so you could see the change...

Anyway, this is what it looked like when we first moved our things there:


And this is what i looks like now, in my workspaces (the necklaces in front of chair in the second pic aren't mine, they're my sister's, my stuff is in the shelves to the left):

I should perhaps also add that I do a lot of beading in my bedroom so even there you'll find shelves packed with beads and findings.