2012 Bead and Button Show

Very late in my update of the show - and it was a really nice show this year. I don't know why I felt that it was so relaxing (more than other years), when actually I didn't have lots of time to visit with friends that I had just met in March (which was a bummer). But I came home relaxed, energized and ready!   The above picture is my traditional "stash" picture showing my purchases for the trip.  I did really well this year, stayed within budget!

Amy Blevins and I cut up in the Miller Time Pub! 

And here, Martina and I share a quiet moment with a sneaky Marcia peeking in behind us!

 Marcia kicked me out of class one day as all the beaders were doing an amazing job and she didn't need me (sob!).  So to bury my sorrows, Sue and I went to "Rudy's Mexican" by the river in Milwaukee.  Yum!  And a $5.00 Margarita!  Love.  It.

 I don't think that Amy Blevins and I will be allowed to be together without a chaperone again.  We managed to act like fools to get a photo of our celebrity sighting of Amy Winehouse (RIP).  But it was great fun, lots of giggling and behaving as if we hadn't grown up.  Wait.  Maybe I haven't.

 Marcia and I at the very popular Toho party - what a really nice gathering of some of the finest seed bead artists in the country.  Yes, that was a little pink in my hair as I "channel my inner Marcia"!

   Sabine Lippert tells me a little secret about something that was pretty funny at the time!  (Perhaps she was correcting my pretty bad German with my funny accent)

Marcia does a demo for Toho Beads at their booth on the last day of the show.  She looks awesome in her red tunic, I think!

And Tracy and I hug goodbye!  Such a sad thing to say when I know I won't see her for a year (unless I up and move to Seattle).

Key Worthy!

I started making beaded keys earlier in the year after seeing the pattern in a Fall issue of Beadwork magazine by Cynthia Rutledge.  What a cool pattern and I would often wear them in multiples on a chain - just a necklace of fun beadwork!

When I was on my cruise in May, I had the opportunity to learn porcupine quillwork on the cruise with Ray McKeown. What a gentle and giving man he is.  Ray told us about the Lakota-Metis people and his heritage. Works of Ray's have appeared in the "Dances with Wolves" and "White Fang" movies!

Ray also taught us the art of giving items that we cherish, items we really like.  I was talking with the wild and crazy Wired Arts girls - Janice Berkebile and Tracy Stanley - during dinner in Seattle and telling them about Ray and what I learned.  I told them the story about how Ray gifted a young couple from Scotland with a bag that he made years ago and always traveled with.

During our evening together, Janice mentioned my key necklace and if she could see one - certainly, you can see one.  Right then and there, I decided that I had to gift them a key.  Key worthy friends that I only see once or twice a year.  Janice insisted that she didn't mean that when she asked to see the keys, and I know that she didn't - which is why I knew they both needed a key.

Since then, I have gifted two other keys - one to Marcia DeCoster and one to April, the fiance of our favorite Milwaukee bartender, David (and let's plug his wonderful new place, The Noble).

Fortunately, I enjoy making the keys, adapting the pattern a little to fit me, and I am feeling the need to make more.  Who knows who I will gift one to next!