On Thursday 22nd January I made my way up to Redditch for my first Jewellery Maker show of the year. The last one was early in December, so it seemed quite a while since I had been there. I travel there by three different trains and a taxi, so there is a high danger of being delayed. So far I have been lucky, but yesterday a broken down train suspended travel on the first line I needed to use. A very brisk trot got me to another line and I just got to Marylebone in time for my booked train. Why does travel have to be so difficult?
I was really looking forward to the show because I had particularly enjoyed the kits I had been sent and I knew I had a couple of great techniques to demonstrate. As both kits contained metal seed beads, which have very generous holes, I was able to use off loom bead weaving techniques, such as Peyote Stitch and Netting. Both of these stitches are great to demonstrate because they pull together at the end in a really visual way. I got a great reaction to the designs from the lovely presenter, Jenny and the production team, so I went into the show feeling confident. It seems that the viewers liked what they saw too, which is a great feeling for me. A huge amount of work goes into designing the pieces and preparing the demonstration and kumihimo is particularly time consuming, so to feel it has all been worthwhile is a wonderful feeling.
The instructions for the first kit have now been loaded onto the site, so if you are interested in seeing what I got up to just follow this link.