Intro

Hi,

This is my first time posting to a blog, so please for give me if my I do something wrong!

I've been beadworking for about 16 years, lampworking for 10 years. I've done mostly off-loom beadwork, herringbone, peyote, square stitch, RAW, and brick. I taught myself lampworking (beadsuncommon.com) and my first beadweaving was learned from a book; those wonderful little triangular brick-stitched earrings gave me the beading bug. I'm mostly self-taught with beadweaving, except for peyote stitch and beaded knitting. I took a peyote class & bead knitting class at Skyloom Fibres, a wonderful bead/fibre/looming store that used to be here in Denver. The teacher was Charlotte Elitch, an expert in all kinds of beading and fibre arts.

I'm 52, (53 in July), a Colorado native, am involved in Border Collie Rescue, if you need to reach me, my email is: beadesigner@comcast.net
Beadwork has gotten me through a lot of health issues; I have lupus, fibromyalgia, Asperger's syndrome, asthma(severe at times) and am bi-polar. I've had to have both hips & both knees replaced in the past 3 years, (due to lupus) had to deal with infection from one of the hip surgeries.
Spirituality, music and beads have helped to get me through everything. Plus I've found that you have the choice daily whether to be happy or not; it's all in how you take things! I choose to be happy, it's not only more pleasant for me, but it's much easier for my husband and others to be around me.
I play guitar, (classical and folk) and kantele, (a sort of Finnish harp). The kantele has such a gentle, healing sound; I do believe that if everyone on earth had a kantele and played it daily, there would be no more wars! It's a truly magical instrument. If you want to hear some sound samples, go to:
www.kantele.com
I love old time radio shows such as Fibber McGee & Molly, Our Miss Brooks, The Shadow, X Minus One, Suspense, and all of the others, too numerous to mention.
I'm a huge fan of Prairie Home Companion!
I love all music, especially old time Big Bands, rock, blues, classical, Mariachi music, old traditional African music, reaggae, old scool hip-hop, (Grand Master Flash, Run DMC, Digable Planets etc.) everything except "soft rock", (Celine Dione and her cohorts all sound alike to me). I don't care for modern Country, except for the Dixie Chicks and Mary Chapin Carpenter. My absolute top favourite mucicans include: Glenn Gould, Ry Cooder, Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Garmarna, Hedingarna, Merle Travis, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, Loituma, Frigg, Wimme (traditional Saami joiks), Varttina, Big Mama Thornton, B.B King, Balkan Beat Box, Joss Stone, James Gang, Stan Rogers, Mike Seeger, Pete Seeger, Pat Donahue,..I could fill pages!
Needless to say, I'm always listening to music while beading!

This beaded journal project will be interesting & fun!

Evalynne (Lynne)