Novice Tournament: I entered my project I had been working on: Recreating Early Medieval Irish Beads: A Project in Process. With the blue annular beads as well as segmented, melon and spiral beads. I was delighted to receive recognition for best new skill with the spiral beads I had learned the weekend before. Pictures to come.
Pennsic: I was able to be part of Glass Day at Artisans' Row which was a fabulous experience getting to demonstrate bead making and getting visit and collaborate with bead makers including people I hadn't met before. I was also able to display my beads at the A&S day along side Elysabeth (Lissa) Underhill. That was another wonderful opportunity to meet other bead makers. I went to one of Lissa's class to offer her help and assistance and ended up helping people making their first bead. I took 2 great bead classes: veil pins and making cane. I was very excited to produce a lovely cane on my first try! At the veil pin class an unexpected opportunity arose and I ended up teaching someone how to make twisted stringers. I also spent one afternoon/night with Lissa and Bruni working with the period kiln. Picture to come.
August, 2015
Bhakail Commons: Lissa and I began by demonstrating bead making. I then had the opportunity to teach a couple of people how to make a bead under Lissa's tutelage. I began to feel much more comfortable teaching others by the end of the day.
September, 2015
Salon Event in the Barony of Concordia: A wonderful day of Lissa and I demonstrating bead making.
Wrightstown Demo in the Shire of Buckland Cross: Another wonderful day of demostrating bead making with Lissa. I was able to make basic evil eye beads in different colors. The next day at home with spent researching evil eye beads and writing documenation. As I'm getting more skilled in research and documentation, I'm really learning to enjoy it, especially research!
River Wars:
I was able to serve as the A&S Row coordinator. I was able to do demonstrations and teach a young woman how to make her first bead. It was a wonderful day spent with fellow bead makers. I was able to purchase some lovely glass rods from Erlan. Carowyn taught be a new technique in order to make a bead with two side by side colors such as seen in the chancellor minor symbol.
I entered the Barony of Iron Bog's A&S Tournament whose theme was to create something involving mischief. I entered the project I worked on the weekend prior entitled Mischief in Glass: Evil Eye Beads. I recreated two different evil eye beads. I recreated two Phoenician beads each one based on a string of glass eye beads from collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a Phoenician string of opaque yellow beads with blue and white layered eyes from 330-70 B.C. and a Greek/Eastern Mediterranean string of blue beads with white and blue layered eyes from 6th-4th century B.C. Pictures to come.
I was very delighted and surprised to have won the competition and I am now the current Baronial A&S Champion. The surprises for the day continued when I received the Barony's entry level A&S award, the Sable Compress, from the Baroness Creature. What an amazing day!
In addition to expanding on my Early Medieval Irish Bead project, I would also like to do more with the Evil Eye Bead project learning to make more advanced evil eye beads.
