Name Tags

When I go to meetings I like to wear one of my beaded nametags. I have a really big chunky one, a delicate peyote stitch one and now I have made another in square stitch. This one was the sample for a class which I was tutoring at the Bead Society in Melbourne. We had quite a few members who wanted to make their own nametag and this one is very simple. Made another one for my DD. Love the sliding Toob brooch fittings. They make adding the finding to a square stitch brooch extra easy.

Do you buy jewellery to match an outfit or an outfit to match jewellery?

Just lately I have been thinking about the way that I coordinate jewellery and clothing. As a beader, I find there are many occasions on which I produce a necklace or bracelet which I then need to find an appropriate outfit to wear it with.

Kinda backwards, really. This time, I have made a bracelet to match a green swirly top that I bought and this set me to thinking. It is one of the few pieces of jewellery I have made recently AFTER I have bought the outfit.

The bracelet is based on the technique I learnt from Marcia Decoster in the Romantica class. It has a lovely lacy texture.

Busy Time of the Year

My last post was back in December! It's hard to believe we are already in February 2011. So many things have been happening that blogging has been put on the back burner.
Do you have a particular month of the year when everyone in the family seems to be having a birthday? December/January is a bit like that for us. Both of my parents were born in December, one either side of Christmas. My grandson, father-in-law and two nephews also have their birthdays in December and January.
The last week in December always seems to be one long party and then we went away for a few days' holiday at a beautiful camping spot on a river in Gippsland.
Fortunately that river was not in flood so we had a lovely time swimming and relaxing. Elsewhere things were not so great for many people, with flooding in the north west of the state.
Last weekend though, we really copped it. On Friday night around 7.00 pm the rain started and didn't stop until half way through Saturday. The tail end of Cyclone Lasi lashed Victoria and caused massive flooding all over the place. Many suburbs of Melbourne experienced rivers running through the streets and houses. I doubt that we could have got through to the main roads during the night as there was evidence of flash flooding on many of the lower lying sections of road. We are at the top of the hill, so apart from a few drips through the ceiling we were lucky.
Only about a km away, water was up over the carpets in several houses where there is a dip in the road. One house had a watermark about a third of the way up the front window. There are photos of the floods on many of the news sites, but this one contains pictures of places all around Melbourne and shows how bad the flood water was. Click here. The first picture is of a freeway we use regularly.