Happy Valentine's Day!

Just popping by to say Happy Valentine's Day!  Yes, that's me.  I got a wild hair the other day and decided to curl my hair and put on some makeup.  Then I figured I'd better take a picture of it to prove that I really did it.  I'm doing well just to shower and get dressed by noon a lot of days and that's if you count sweats as "dressed".  I'm retired - it happens.

But back to the topic at hand:  I know it's a corny, made-up holiday, but when you're from Valentine, Nebraska, Valentine's Day is a big deal!  If you've missed my previous posts on the topic, you might want to check this post about Valentine because it really is a beautiful place.  

Sometimes I like to celebrate the season with a special Valentine's Day piece.  Here are a couple of the pieces I've done in the past:

This year I decided to make something with some tiny little heart shaped Czech glass beads I've had for ages and since I've been on a roll with mandala pendants...

Want a closer look?

I love the way the hearts are frosted and have one side puffier than the other.  I think it adds a lot of interest, don't you?

That's it; that's all I've got.  Happy knotting & Happy Valentine's Day!

Red, Red, Red

Red is my grandmother's favorite color and I just don't get it.  Aside from being the color of some wonderful fruits and vegetables, I can't see that it really has anything going for it.  Yes, I will always pick the red Kool Aid and eat the red fruit snacks first, but when it comes to jewelry, the red one is going to be one of my last choices.  

I did say back in this post, however, that I was going to try one more time to acquire a taste for the warmer colors and I did buy all these nice red beads.  And red cord.  I bought everything from Shanghai Red to Red Hot, from Ruby to Siam.  Surely, I could find some inspiration in all this:  

The micro macrame cuff at the top of this post is the first I made from my new stash.  I used the Poinsettia cord and matte frosted beads.  The beads got a little lost in the sea of red, but if you look closely, they have some nice color variation to them, including bits of orange.

A decent enough start for an anti-red person like myself, but with Valentine's Day looming, I really thought I could do better.  I've started on a new cuff and I really like how it's coming along.  Not only is it knotted in red cord, but the beads have pink and orange in them.  I'm embracing the warm colors.  Giving them a big ol' smooch right on the lips.  I am also playing with a new design with some fun curves.

Stay tuned!

Valentine's Day in Macrame

Whether or not you are a lover of Cupid and pink frilly hearts and red and lace and all things romantic (and I am not), if you were born and raised in a town named Valentine, you have to celebrate Valentine's Day.  I'm pretty sure that one's in the rule book - "Rules of Social Behavior and Societal Norms for Valentinians".  You just have to let yourself go with the flow.  Embrace it and feel the love.  If you missed that chapter about my life, check the posts here and here to see some pretty photos of my hometown and one really tragic photo of teenage humiliation (mine).  Moving right along...

In an effort to comply with Ye Old Rules, I'm trying to make nice with some old enemies.  Red and Pink don't like me and the feeling is reciprocated twofold.  I've tried to like them, but they just don't give me the warm fuzzy feeling I get from cool colors (and yes, I see the irony there).  But since it's in the rule book and all, I figured I'd give it another shot.  I spent days looking at red beads and red cord and ordered up a whole bunch to beef up my stash.  

Then I didn't use any of them.

I'm still sort of obsessed with cuffs, so I thought I would expand on that for this project.  I did the top the same as the cuffs I designed for the cuff class, but I switched up the main panel.  I knotted a heart outline in the center, then brought a leaf and vine pattern off the heart in each direction.  It sort of reminds me of a Pennsylvania Dutch design.  I also added a scalloped edging with beads along the bottom for a sort of lacy finish.  I wanted the knotting to be the star of the show here, so I kept the it all monochromatic.  And yes, it's pink.  Or pink-ish.  Take that Red.

I think it's quite festive and I'd love to hang around and tell you more about it, but I really have to go order my Valentine's Day candy.  This year I'm getting myself some really pretty handmade truffles.  What!?  It's not that I think I might be "that" person (the one who doesn't get a Valentine's Day gift), but I'm not taking any chances.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!  I was born and raised in Valentine, Nebraska, so it's a given that Valentine's Day holds a special place in my heart (insert groan here).  Valentine is a little speck of a town in the Nebraska Sandhills and other than a lot of open spaces, hunting, and fishing, Valentine's Day is what people "do" there.  It's their claim to fame.  There are little hearts on the street signs and bigger hearts stenciled down the sidewalks on Main Street.  If you want to be clever, you can mail your Valentine's Valentine to Valentine for a special postmark.  They'll slap a cachet on it and send it off to your special person.  I gotta tell ya, I worked at the post office there for a couple of years and I dreaded the extra workload.  But now it all seems kind of sweet.

  I do have fond memories of Valentine's Day from my childhood.  In Valentine, everybody celebrates.  Mothers buy Valentines for their children, children make Valentines for their grandparents - nobody is left out for lack of a partner.  Everybody loves somebody.  The biggest pageant of the year happens there on Valentine's Day - Coronation.  Children from each grade are selected to be a part of the carefully choreographed and scripted event and, at least when I was in school, it was a big deal to be chosen.  There are different themes each year.  Some years they do the traditional red and white and hearts bit and some years they get a lot more creative.  The year my little brother was the "messenger", he got to run up and down the aisle taking messages to the emcees wearing a little Paul Revere suit.  How cool is that!

Me, on the other hand?  I was in middle school when I got chosen - maybe 6th grade.  And I got to be a tree.  Yep, you read that right - a flippin' tree.  I challenge you to name just ONE teenage girl who wants to dress up in a tree costume and parade around in front of the whole town.  Can't, can you?

Anyway, my costume consisted of a lovely bark colored shapeless tree trunk dress (floor length, no shaping at all) and a headband with leaves sticking out of it.  My fellow trees and I held up leafy branches to form an arch under which the beautifully dressed king and queen candidates passed.  I have a photo somewhere of me in that costume.  It was taken against my will, believe me.  Good times.  UPDATED to add proof:

See - I told you - I couldn't make this stuff up.  By the way, did you notice the groovy macrame plant hangers?

I did get to be a candidate for queen in my senior year, thank goodness.  It was my chance to be in the Coronation dressed in a pretty dress and redeem myself.  Somewhat.  I mean, I'll probably never fully recover from the tree costume trauma, but that helped.

So anyway, whether you're the queen or a tree, I hope you enjoy your day.  And if you'd like to read more about my hometown, check out this post.  Love ya!