Having A Ball

There is a little sarcastic grin on my face at the moment... can you see it? LOL... I started to smerk yesterday while names were popping in and out of my head for this piece.

I'll explain...

The idea for this necklace started a few weeks ago after I finished "The Blimey Limey". You might remember that I said that piece had cons about it and that one of them was that it didn't like to bend up because of the roundness of the hollows next to each other. (It drapes great on your neck, but just doesn't like to be put in a jewelry box.) Anyway, Cindy said something like "could you just use less hollows and put some wire in between?" Of course that had me mulling things over for a while. I started playing with some spare hollows on my desk and out popped this long and lean bubble link.

I worked on the hollows I needed to make the finished piece over the weekend. I made about 15 hollows, some with dots (these) and some with stripes/lines (the ones still on my desk). I knew I would want to make this really long... and I knew some hand-made chain would be the way to go... I knew I wanted to do the blue colors... and I also knew I wanted to work in some of that colored wire. Things I didn't realize... that I didn't need 15 hollows for it to be really long... I was totally out of 18gauge wire (but it arrived in the mail Monday afternoon, thank heavens)... and that the stripes wouldn't work with the dots... and I didn't know Lauren was going to come down with the flu.

I am feeling all over the place with this story... chalk it up to lack of sleep... hopefully I am coming round to the point that started the story. Stick with me here.

I don't know about where you all are, but this week is February Break in NY. The kids are off school. My actual 'work time' is extremely limited. I am having no torch time... and just tiny bits of desk time where I can get it. These links aren't all that difficult to make, and as you can see there are only 7 of them... I made a few of them Monday after working on the collage. And I made a few before that birthday dinner outting while the boys were snowboarding in the backyard and Lauren was napping (yeah napping, first sign that sinkness was on the way.) Yesterday morning, while Lauren was sleeping (and I should have been) I got started on the figure '8' chain. It was all in the tumbler by 10am!!

Wanna know when I remembered to take it out of the tumbler, lol... around 1pm. THREE HOURS!! Ooops. But it is extra shiny.

Okay... now that you know that... the reason for the grin... the name that came to me, "Having A Ball". The past 48 hours have been anything but a ball. And making the piece wasn't a ball either... it took weeks to get the time to work on it, I made too many beads (but at least the extra can be used in other projects), and then hours of over tumbling. Plus toss in the torture that a four year old with the flu is (really, it is 'true flu', the doctor said so) and having two very very very active boys home from school for the week while Lauren is sick... yeah NOT having a ball, is what I am doing.

At least I can laugh at about it right. So all hope isn't lost.