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madrobinsEditorial production time is, by its nature, an up-and-down business at my workplace. Since we don't release books by month, but by season, and since our list is not large, there are periods of intense crazy, punctuated by periods of **yawn**. The last month or so has been more the downish end of things. And so, as a project, I took on the beads.
We do a number of craft books involving beads, and when a new bead book is considered, we have to make lots and lots of different projects for the editor to choose from; try out the techniques to see if they can be described/simplified for use with kids; and supply looks-like versions for photos for the cover and interior directions. We have tons of beads left over from the process, and tons of sample beads ordered to check out their color in combination with other beads... My first thought was to organize what we had by color, but I was told that first criteria were source (from one of our overseas manufacturers? bought at Michaels'?}, then composition (glass or plastic); then kind of bead (faceted? seed bead? "novelty" bead), then size, and then color.
I've learned a lot about beads. Like: seed bead sizes are given as number/0 (from small to larger, they're 15/0, 12/0, 8/0, 6/0 and 4/0). Other beads are measured in milimeters. A seed bead is the classic slightly elongated round, beloved of most craft beading; in addition there are faceted beads, bicorns, tear-drops, and plastic beads in the shape of just about anything the mind can come up with. And the novelty beads, some of which are so ugly it's hard to think why anyone would have come up with them in the first place (glow-in-the-dark plastic beads with spikes all over? Why?) Then there are treatments (I don't know what else to call it). Is the bead irridescent? Silver lined? Matte? Has an inside color? Matte with silver lining? Pastoral historical tragical?
One of the reasons we have so many beads lying about is because of safety laws, here and abroad, governing what you can sell for children's use. A whole lot of beautiful glass beads in beautiful colors can't be used because they show traces of cadmium (a child would need to consume pounds of beads in order for this to become a problem, by which time I should think he'd have other, more pressing, issues). When the editor of a beading book has decided on the projects and the colors, the beads chosen have to be sent to a lab for compliance testing, and sometimes that gorgeous purple silver-lined bead fails, and the process of finding a replacement bead--or choosing a bead of another color and swapping it in to the photos, etc.--must begin. And we have bunches of sample beads that cannot be used again (they never go back and say "Hey, those beads we told you were unusable? They're fine. False alarm.") So I have taken on the job of Bead Librarian, organizing all the office beads for reference and developmental use.
Being up to my ears in beads for several weeks, I am now smitten with the need to bead. I have brought home discarded beads and am ruining my eyesight attempting Russian leaves and St. Petersburg chains. And even count peyote, which (if you do it properly) yields something rather like cloth made out of beads. I don't know what I'll do with this stuff; for me, the pleasure is in the attempt.
We do a number of craft books involving beads, and when a new bead book is considered, we have to make lots and lots of different projects for the editor to choose from; try out the techniques to see if they can be described/simplified for use with kids; and supply looks-like versions for photos for the cover and interior directions. We have tons of beads left over from the process, and tons of sample beads ordered to check out their color in combination with other beads... My first thought was to organize what we had by color, but I was told that first criteria were source (from one of our overseas manufacturers? bought at Michaels'?}, then composition (glass or plastic); then kind of bead (faceted? seed bead? "novelty" bead), then size, and then color.
I've learned a lot about beads. Like: seed bead sizes are given as number/0 (from small to larger, they're 15/0, 12/0, 8/0, 6/0 and 4/0). Other beads are measured in milimeters. A seed bead is the classic slightly elongated round, beloved of most craft beading; in addition there are faceted beads, bicorns, tear-drops, and plastic beads in the shape of just about anything the mind can come up with. And the novelty beads, some of which are so ugly it's hard to think why anyone would have come up with them in the first place (glow-in-the-dark plastic beads with spikes all over? Why?) Then there are treatments (I don't know what else to call it). Is the bead irridescent? Silver lined? Matte? Has an inside color? Matte with silver lining? Pastoral historical tragical?
One of the reasons we have so many beads lying about is because of safety laws, here and abroad, governing what you can sell for children's use. A whole lot of beautiful glass beads in beautiful colors can't be used because they show traces of cadmium (a child would need to consume pounds of beads in order for this to become a problem, by which time I should think he'd have other, more pressing, issues). When the editor of a beading book has decided on the projects and the colors, the beads chosen have to be sent to a lab for compliance testing, and sometimes that gorgeous purple silver-lined bead fails, and the process of finding a replacement bead--or choosing a bead of another color and swapping it in to the photos, etc.--must begin. And we have bunches of sample beads that cannot be used again (they never go back and say "Hey, those beads we told you were unusable? They're fine. False alarm.") So I have taken on the job of Bead Librarian, organizing all the office beads for reference and developmental use.
Being up to my ears in beads for several weeks, I am now smitten with the need to bead. I have brought home discarded beads and am ruining my eyesight attempting Russian leaves and St. Petersburg chains. And even count peyote, which (if you do it properly) yields something rather like cloth made out of beads. I don't know what I'll do with this stuff; for me, the pleasure is in the attempt.