Hot Rocks, by Caprilicious

The Greatest Night of the Jazz Age

Hello everyone, how are you? I hope all goes well with you. I've been busy at work and down to London (more about that later) at the weekend, so I haven't had the time to turn my thoughts to ​any creative pursuits. It's been all go to work, come back home, go to bed, rinse and repeat. I've really missed my beads and having an unaccustomed day off seemed to be the time to pick them up again.

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My garden's suffered somewhat from neglect as well - I found a pot which hubby has been diligently waterning and feeding with tomato feed, only to be proudly growing a splendiferous display of large weeds. The poor man has no clue and waters everything constantly without discrimination! Fortunately I caught it before the flowers set seed, or they would have spread everywhere and been impossible to control. He's also moved the pots around and put the ones that require shade in the sunlight and some of the leaves were scorched, so I've been moving things around again with the help of the handyman.

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Hot Rocks

I picked up some lava beads - they were remnants from a necklace I made earlier, that never made it onto these pages. It was picked up almost straight away by a friend who was visiting from India, who in turn gave it to a close friend of hers. I'd been meaning to put another one together for ages, and this seemed to be the perfect time. 
Anyone who is constantly making stuff knows that Stage 1 is to decide what you're going to make and Stage 2 is collecting the beads and implements together. In my opinion, these are the two most difficult and time consuming stages - once past them, it's a much easier task to put the piece of jewellery together with a few variations along the way. The first Stage is the hardest to navigate, especially if you don't write an idea down as soon as it comes to you. The necklace takes it's name from the lava beads that go into it. 

Apart from the lava beads, the necklace has Tibetan teardrop elements, bone, turquoise, coral, faux amber resin beads, conch shell beads and is a riotous melee of colour, texture and fun. It is held together by the large toggle clasp that is sturdy and safe.

As I mentioned earlier, we went to London at the weekend. As usual, with all our little trips these days, everything that could go wrong, did - there were no spaces in the cattery and my neighbour kindly stepped into the breach, our hotel booking was cancelled due to maintainance issues, and we had to make another reservation. There were absolutely no seats on the train when we finally got on it and the air conditioning was faulty and leaking causing the driver to apologise for the 'water features' - the whole journey was a nightmare. However, we went to a show - The Greatest Night of the Jazz Age - and it was simply fantastic. Of course, it was par for the course that the return journey was awful too - the train terminated in Northampton and we had to get out and transfer to another one. 
However, the show was a fabulous spectacle and we really had a good time.
See for yourself - I have a couple of videos for you.

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That's me for this week, folks. Have a wonderful weekend, and I'll catch up with you shortly.
Until then
​xx