February 2006

In February this year, I taught at the Essex Bead Fair, organised by Kitti Robinson of Totally Beads. At the time Kitti had just started making dichroic glass pieces and she sent me a beautiful green one as a thank you present. I couldn’t help gazing into it and thinking that it was just how I would imagine a toxic or radioactive lake would look (here goes the science again).

This set me off imagining the lake in a world where plants and animals could survive around a poisonous lake. I pictured a huge variety of strange mutant plant-like creatures thriving around the waters. Thus was born the beaded cuff I am going to be teaching in the GBBS, 2007 (a detail of which is on the home page), however the piece is to be called ‘The Fantasy Garden Cuff’ and not ‘The Toxic Lake’ or ‘So that’s what they did with all the nuclear waste’, as the Beadworkers Guild didn’t want to frighten people off!

How could I have forgotten to mention the Dangerous Beaders, (affectionately known as the DBs)? This is the local beading group which I joined a few years ago. As we grew and developed, we decided upon the ‘Dangerous’ name for the group as we have a mischievous element to us, also it sounded far better than the “Bushey Beaders”! I am proud to be surrounded by so many clever and talented women – I love them all and always look forward to our monthly meetings. We often end up doing more talking than beading, but that’s OK. We swap ideas, tips and inspiration.