Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Thursday lunchtime

I keep thinking it’s Friday! Probably because normally that’s the day I tidy up (yes, I know, you thought I didn’t do that), fill the car with stuff for recycling at the dump and generally try to get some sort of order (I say ‘some’ because things are never completely ordered here…..talking to other artists and creative people, they seem to have the same problem). I shouldn’t really tell you this….but there’s stuff EVERYWHERE…..on the floor, the setees, dining table, desk, hall…………………………packages arrived for me to make my jewellery and beads, got unwrapped and have stayed where they were dumped, until today. ‘BLITZ the place’ is my battle cry! Well I’d love to do that, but can you really honestly see me managing it? lol. On telly the other day we saw a really appropriate quote – ‘I tidied up last week, but you missed it’, ha ha. Still, I can see the carpet again in a few places, and the numerous cardboard boxes complete with flo-pac and bubble wrap are gradually being flattened and stuffed in the car.

Of course all this tidying activity is only possible now because my desperate deadlines have passed at last. Phew, that was a really hard slog this time. You can see my efforts at Winchester Cathedral at the Contemporary Art, Craft & Design Fair that starts Saturday 21st July and finishes on Sunday 29th July.

Monday morning

At last, a day off. I’m enjoying a leisurely morning on the settee with my feet up and drinking loads of tea. I’ve been working flat out for the last 3 or 4 weeks now and I’m very much in need of some R & R, unfortunately our housework has been AWOl also for the last 3 weeks and is in need of some effort (actually it’s in need of masses of effort). The house truly looks like a bomb exploded, and the kitchen’s even worse, the main problem being that the dishwasher broke down and it all has to be done by hand at the moment. If I hate housework, I hate washing up even more, it’s such a waste of time, and there’s always something more important or fun to do. So unfortunately my day isn’t going to be a complete rest (even though I’m also struggling with a cold) but will be interspersed with washing clothes and the occasional bouts of tidying up unless I keep getting woozy cold induced wobbles. Now, if the new Harry Potter book was out already I could be sat here reading that instead……

Thank you to everyone who came and said hello yesterday at the Lingfield bead fair, it’s so good to see old friends and students and to meet new ones. This is what really makes these days so enjoyable for me, even if the drinks machine in the restaurant did break down for the second year running…do you suppose they say this because they want to go home early, or do bead ladies and gents drink more tea?

The Open Houses and Studios has also got off to a good start. Saturday saw Claire stone carving most of the day, while I sat and made up some of my earrings and phone dangles for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I hope to be making glass beads in the garden next Saturday and maybe Sunday morning, so please pop along to see how it’s done and say hello. There will also be some watercolour painting and textile work being done next weekend (but not all at the same time!). This is such a good opportunity to see collections of work in a very informal environment and there are several venues around Horsham and Worthing that are also taking part, so make time next weekend for a tour of the West Sussex studios. Festival Brochures are available around the county in Tourist information centres and libraries, or you can download one from this site Artists and Makers. The information postcards around also feature a necklace by yours truly.

Saturday night

One event down, one bead fair sorted for tomorrow…that’s Barton Bead Day (see my events). Now I have to get my head down for the Artists and Makers festival (Open Houses) that starts in 2 weeks time. At least I actually feel like making jewellery now, my brains been on a bit of a go slow and acting like a temperamental artist, saying that I didn’t feel like being creative. I do now, and I’m raring to go. Chomping at the bit, me. And it’s lovely to sit here blogging while class acts play at Glastonbury.

Oh yes, it’s festival time again, and I just love how the digital channels on TV cover so many of the music festivals now. I’m in my element, and it’s so much more comfortable watching from the sofa (or desk as I am now). I’d love to go to Glastonbury but have heard so many tales of friends tents being removed lock stock and barrel, then there’s the mud bath when it rains, not to mention rushing miles from one stage to the other (and by that I don’t mean ‘the other stage’), and how do you decide what to watch? There’s 2000 acts this year on loads of different stages. I’d feel like I was missing out if I didn’t see everything, which is obviously impossible anyway due to the logistics of the size of the place. I’m off to get a glass of wine and a coffee and to put my weary feet up.

Friday evening

Do you ever get those days or weeks where you’ve been busy non-stop, and yet when you look back to see what you’ve achieved you can’t work out you’ve been doing with your time? I have to say this week has been one of those. I’ve hardly made any beads, although I suppose odd little jobs have been done. One of the fun things I had to do yesterday was go to my friend Ediths house to see where we are locating our work for the RAG Open Houses. It was great to all sit around with a mug of tea, wander around the garden and discuss our plans.

Our work is going to be inside and outside of the massive summer house, with a relaxing area outside to sit and enjoy the garden, and we also plan to do demonstrations of our discipline, so if you fancy seeing how my beads are made, do pop along and have a look. I’m not sure what days I will be demoing but I will put details up here, so stay tuned. I will of course be at the Lingfield Beadfair on the first Sunday, and may well be doing the headless chicken dance the day before if previous events are anything to go by. Have a great weekend.

Thursday Morning

So far so good this week, I’ve been able to have 3 long sessions at my torch to make lots of beads, and I’ve cleaned most of them. (I know!) It’s a struggle to balance making beads to sell at fairs and in my shop, and to make beads for my range of jewellery, but I’m happy no matter what! Now I need to find time to make the jewellery….hopefully all the dinners I’ve been cooking in the evening this week will buy me some production time from Rick while he cooks.

Now for the hot gossip…what about Katie on the Apprentice last night? Now that was a turn up for the books, she actually looked genuine after Sir Alan said she was through and with her discussions with him after the offer. I’m pleased Christine is through, I’ve been routing for her for a long time. As for those interviews….they were enough to make anyone squirm. It was amusing to observe the looks of confidence on the candidates faces as they arrived for the day, and to compare the look of devastation and worry after their gruelling.

It amazes me that in the 3rd (or is it the 4th?) series of the Apprentice that some of the candidates appear not to have watched any of the previous series, or if they did, that they failed to learn some of the key points about Sir Alan and how he likes things done. Who in their right mind applies for a 12 week long interview away from home without doing any research about him or the companies? And who applies for a job without considering that a relocation would be a probability? It just goes to prove that however smart people think they are, there will almost always be things that let them down, we are all only human after all.

Wednesday morning (1 week later)

Whoa, a whole week later, what happened? Oh yes, Whitsun weekend, and we’ve been away in our newly fixed caravan for a few days. I think I need a holiday now just to get over the packing and I would say unpacking too, but the floor’s still covered in ‘stuff’ that needs unpacking and putting away. I love going away but I really hate all the preparations beforehand and the tidying away when you get home. There must be some solution to this dilema? Obviously staying in hotels is one of them, going abroad on package holidays is another – only 1 suitcase per person and a bit of hand luggage – sounds good to me. It’s the camping thing that makes life complicated, this must be why it’s a relatively cheap holiday, because of all the effort involved.

I remember preparing for holidays abroad, this was fun because it consisted of shopping…. for sun lotion, toiletries and bikinis, also film for my camera (we’re going back a bit here….scarey isn’t it?) and a good pocket guide book. Maybe I also needed some new t-shirts, sun tops and flip flops, oh and a new suitcase. Whereas now it’s ‘have we got enough chemicals for the toilet?’ and ‘that saucepan’s going a bit rusty’ and ‘have you packed enough tea towels?’. Blrghhhhh.

I must have gone wrong somewhere along the line, I’ve gone from 2 weeks at the end of May and 1 week in September, both abroad, to 2 weeks in the UK in a caravan of all things. I suppose at least I put my foot down about using a frame tent, now that was humungous and took all day to pack up the last time we used it. Some people may say we got too complicated in our use of the tent and should have stuck to sleeping on carry mats, eating cold baked beans out of the can and sitting on the floor, but arthritis soon put an end to that type of camping for me (which is also why we’re now in a caravan).

So, the piles of ‘stuff’ are still lined up along the lounge floor, the kitchen still looks like the remains of a bomb has hit, and I have visitors arriving for lunch in 5 minutes………I’d better get on! see ya.

Sunday lunchtime

I remembered today, sat here on my bench, how I used to sit and blog here, outside in the morning. and thought I should revive the practice. Only now it’s just started spitting with rain so I may trot back inside in a minuet. But I’m going to take a few moments, while I wonder how long I should stay here, to soak up the sounds of the birds, sparrows and woodpigeons, and the phantom nose hooter, and smell of the Spring (and all my neighbours sunday lunch smells wafting in the breeze). I can also smell my most favourite wiff starting, that of the dusty ground getting wet as it starts to rain after a dry spell. I think that’s one of the most magical aromas, and I could sit for hours deep breathing in the refreshing scent.

Rain after hot spells is so invigorating, and fills one’s body with renewed vigour (no, not vinegar), maybe they should try and bottle this fragrance, it would be a best seller with the smell of new born babys heads.

It’s stopped spitting now, but I’m covered in ducky bumps – otherwise known as goose pimples – it’s a term some friends and myself came up with as an alternative to the norm back when I was a nutty teenager. Anyway I’m done here for today, but I’d just like to say ‘hi’ to any of my friends who may have popped over for a visit today from Frit Happens, the UKs liveliest forum for glass beadmakers, fusers and the jewellery obsessed.

Thursday night

I do love The Apprentice. What a bunch of numpties! They’re supposed to be the creme of the crop and yet they make such basic obvious mistakes, like trying to design a product for a specific group of consumers without doing any market research first. Don’t you just love it? I feel that I’ve learnt so much more about business since I’ve been running my own very small business, and I do get a bit frustrated when I have loads of ideas and know what I need to be doing to achieve my targets but do not have enough time to do everything. So it’s very reassurring when Sir Alan Sugar makes mincemeat of these guys and teaches them stuff that I had worked out for myself. I wouldn’t really want to go back into the workplace now, especially one like the potential apprentices are in, it’s a shark pit!

I love the way they all back the project leader when they win the project, and attack when they loose. They always try not to say what they think until they know whether they won or lost, just so they don’t loose face….and the lies they tell..what whoppas….we do have video evidence you know!

Friday evening

The school Easter holiday is upon us, 16 days of child at home (mind you she’s been at home most of the past half-term). I’ve just been out to my studio to collect the afternooons work and the bunch of beads that I batch annealed with them. The batch that I annealed today had already been through the cycle about 3 times but every time something went wrong, and now they’re done, woo hoo. Now I have to clean them…..yuk. I still have another 4 skewers of beads to anneal, but I need to remember not to swtich the strip light on or off in the studio or the programme will go nuts (the kiln runs now but goes wrong when the leckle tricity spikes).

I’ve got so many jobs on my list that need doing that sometimes I feel like Earl Hicky on ‘My name is Earl’. It’s just so nice to be able to cross items off sometimes. I managed to knock 4 things off this evening while Rick cooked. Maybe he should cook every night and I should use that time to catch up?

Tuesday Evening

Hasn’t it been a lovely day? The weather has been gorgeous. I sat in my studio this morning with my fleece and all my thermals on and made a few beads (still vermiculite), gradually getting hotter and hotter, having to strip off layers as I went. I also managed to get my first glass hole in my new pink beadmaking fleece bargain from Millets. I look like Obi-Wan Kenobi in it with it’s voluminous hood, or like I’m in a short dressing gown ready for bed.

Rick is busy working on my kiln again at the moment, we had to buy a new part and we’ve found out what’s going wrong. It may be a couple more days before it’s completely sorted, so my bead making is still rather restricted regarding what I can do and putting any sets together for sale. Of course we’ve also got the school Easter holiday looming up this weekend which will also put the Kaibosh on my bead making activities.

Friday evening

I managed 3 (or was it 2?) torching sessions this week, only an hour and a bit each but it helped. Both times though the kiln crashed, hopefully Rick is getting to the bottom of it. I have to say all this is very upsetting, it seems like the odds of beadmaking are stacked against me at the moment, as whenever I get torchtime something goes wrong (kiln each time) or something else urgent comes up. To say it’s driving me nuts would be an understatement.

All this is very unsettling, and I have to say it doesn’t help me much, especially as I’m feeling so distracted with my daughter at home most of the time. It’s been a very frustrating couple of months, I can only hope that I can work like a superwoman after Easter. Maybe I should write a plan (cunning) so I can do everything I need to in the best time. I’m off now to nip out and collect my slowly cooled but not annealed beads. lol.

Tuesday Teatime

Yo ho, another week almost gone since I blogged. I still don’t have much time to make beads and even when I do I have something of a kiln crisis at the moment, and I’m having to cool my beads in Vermiculite and haven’t been able to anneal any for a few weeks. The second kiln (my Chilli Pepper) was supposed to be a backup but won’t work in my studio as it is at the moment. Hmmmm. So it’s a bit of a stale mate at the moment.

Last week was a very busy week for me, with 2 days lampwork tuition (always very enjoyable), preparaton for my daughters party and then the party itself, with some visitors who stayed until midnight (it’s OK, they were invited to stay longer!). I’m still trying to recover from all the physical effort. I hope to get some beadmaking time tommorrow if all goes well, and I must remember to nudge Rick to take another look at my original kiln. I hope normal service will be resumed soon, but it will probably be after the Easter hols. Bye for now.

Wednesday night

Hellooo, a quick hi cos I’m heading off to bed in a mo. I’m gradually getting back in the swing of things, but it’s a bit difficult with my daughter still not at school full time. She’s done 3 mornings so far this week, and hopefully will try all day Friday if she doesn’t get too tired before then. I’m finding it very hard to settle to anything with her health still a major issue, and also having her around so much. Still she’s improving all the time, but I still am amazed how long it’s all taking.

Talking of our daughter, she was 8 today. It seems such a short time ago since she was born but also a long one in a nice way. I had the day off, and popped into town to do some party shopping and get some bits to make and decorate a cake for her today. And here it is, very rushed in the icing department because we were going out, I did the most of the cake, and the white icing, and my daughter cut out and stuck on the flowers.

Thursday afternoon

Life is sweet. Do you know I had just 1 hour and 10 minutes making beadies and I feel so much better for it. I’m using my vermiculite today, I just don’t trust my kilns at the moment. Rick needs to plug his computer into the controller and watch what happens before I put anymore beads in to anneal.

And what a lovely day it is today, I’ve done two loads of washing and one is on the airer outside in the sunshine. Even my daughter exclaimed how nice it was outside when I walked her to school this afternoon for her first proper afternoon back. Hopefully I’ll get to play for a short while tommorrow as well. I can but hope.

Tuesday lunchtime

I’m still on enforced holiday, or ‘looking after convalescing child’, so still no new beadies. Well, that’s not strictly true, I did have a session Friday evening, quite a good one where I made the beads I needed for that Christmas present, and where I annealed my experiments from last Sunday. Unfortunately the kiln fairy was not smiling on me and I’ve ended up with slumped and deformed beads with decorative bits of kiln fluff attractively embedded into the flat sides (no I didn’t make them that way). I wonder if it had anything to do with the impending lunar eclipse?

Hopefully my daughter will be back at school next week, but probably not full time, so I’ll still have problems fitting in bead making. I had no idea it would be like this and it’s been quite a shock to me, but we are getting towards the end of it now (famous last words) and I’m just about resigned to how the next few weeks are going to go. It’ll probably be the Easter hols by the time we get back to normal!

Talking of the Lunar eclipse, did you see it? I watched from when the partial eclipse began through totality (although we were in the car during the whole of totality) then until the second partial eclipse ended, about 1:11am. Wasn’t it gorgeous, the blood red moon was just awesome and a real delight to look at. Gazing at the sky I really felt like I was in outer space.

Wednesday afternoon

A week has almost gone (come to think, also a whole page on my calender) and we feel like we live here again. But I’ve not had the time or energy to do much work wise, I’m feeling so drained from the whole hospital and health experience, and my daughter is still home recouperating. We had hoped she’d go back to school this week but is obviously still under par, poor thing, so it looks like the beadmaking will have to wait until next Tuesday. I can’t even begin to explain how hard it is to stay away from the torch. There’s just something about it that lifts my spirit, and when I can’t get to play (that’s work for you Rick…lol) I actually start to get sad.

I’m starting to get a bit worried about my stock levels, I really need to get out there and make some more of my usual beads for my range of glass jewellery, which is still selling well in the Surrey Guild Gallery, even though Christmas has passed. I also have a belated Christmas present to make and just don’t seem to have the right beads available to make the pair of earrings I envisage. I don’t know, first my accounts and tax, then family health. I expect that sounds like normal family life to most people, and I have to admit, as much as I don’t like it, that is one of the benefits of being self employed with a business like mine, that you can take the time off when you need to.

I got one hour on the torch Sunday lunchtime and made a few sample bobbly beads in my new colours to see what they’d look like. I’m pleased and can’t wait to have another crack at them so to speak. I think I’ll clean them later on today…you know me and my ‘pot of beads’ to clean.

Thursday evening

I blogged earlier today but lost it, so here’s my second attempt. I got home yesterday from 10 nights in hospital staying with my little one who has been rather ill (Rick did the first night). We started in our local main hospital and were transferred to the Royal Brompton in Chelsea after a couple of days. We have had the best treatment possible and would like to thank all the consultant doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, play specialists and all the other people who have helped look after us, this includes the cleaners and the lovely kitchen staff.

It’s really weird how life goes into stasis and all ones everyday concerns and jobs just fade away while we concentrate on the important things of health. Well, I’m back now, utterly exhausted and surprised that February is almost over (bit of a shock that one). I need a few days to re familiarise myself with my To Do List, and hope normal service will soon be resumed. Although it may be another week and a half before I can really get stuck in as it’s half term and my daughter is not completely well yet.

As Rick said I’ve been mulling over a few new colour ways and designs and hope to be able to make some of these soon. Of course I didn’t get to do that much reading in Hospital, there’s always something to do when they’re on so much medication and needing mother’s care and attention. Although I did get some time off for good behaviour at the weekend and actually managed to have a good nosey around the Heals that was a couple of minutes walk from the hospital. It would have been good to sneak off to the V&A which was also close, but we’ll maybe do that when we go for her check-up clinic in a few weeks time (actually it will be the Science and Natural History museum – rats, I’m going to have to go on my own for the V&A).

Still, I’m home, she’s much better, and spring is on the way. woo hoo, life is good.

Hi there…Richard here again…

Just a quite note to let you know the Sarah will now not be sharing a stall at the Essex bead fair this Sunday due to still being in Hospital with our daughter… But… Judith Johnston will still be going, and will have a whole stall full of her luscious beads !!!

Sarah is not wasting the time in hospital, but is coming up with several new designs and colours for beads… so the time has not been completely wasted !!!

Watch this space for some new beads in the shop in the next few weeks… (daughters health permitting of course).

Hi this is Richard here (Sarah’s husband)

Sarah has asked me to say that she is still in hospital with our daughter, and hopefully normal service will be resumed next week. So if you have any outstanding emails please bear with us, but as I’m sure you understand it’s not exactly practical responding to emails at this time !!

Sunday lunchtime

I’m sorry there won’t be any more new beads yet as promised because my daughter is ill in hospital and you all know what that means!….several nights sleeping on a zed bed (I typed bead first!) and lots of bland hospital food, but hopefully some time to do some reading about bead making techniques, I haven’t really looked much at the copy of Contemporary Lampworking by Bandhu Dunham that I got for my birthday over a year ago, and now’s the time I think. Of course she’ll be better by the time half term starts which means she’ll have had 3 weeks off (and I’ll not have had much beady time, looks like it will be cold evenings in the studio for me next week, what fun)
Gotta shoot, byeeee.