It was an absolute BLAST!!!
Jeanette and I drove up together to King of Prussia/Valley Forge, PA on Friday….chatting the whole way about every little bead-related thing you could think of. It is so GREAT to talk with a like-minded friend who is just as crazy about it all as I am! And that was just the beginning…imagine a convention center and two hotels full of people all there for the same reason!!
Leslie Zabel, Kerry Bogert, Me, Shelby Foxwell, Lori Anderson and Jeanette Ryan
With Interweave's latest and greatest Instructor!
I was lucky to meet other wonderful instructors and artists, such as Anne Mitchell (couldn’t resist buying one of her metal/viking knit bracelets for a special keepsake), Cassie Donlen, Kim St. Jean and Andrew Thornton. And speaking of meeting and greeting (see, it wasn’t all bead shopping!), I met Sara Richardson from Interweave and Denise Peck, editor-in-chief of Step by Step Wire and senior editor of Lapidary Journal/ Jewelry Artist.
Me with Denise and Kerry. Kerry and I are contributors to Denise's upcoming book, Wire Style 2!
Anne Mitchell
Now it wasn’t all bead shopping and bead talk, I did take a class on Saturday afternoon. Lisa Claxton came all the way out from the SF area and taught us some wonderful fusing techniques in the Eclipse Chain workshop. I enjoyed trying fusing for the first time along with some cool texturizing techniques (but unfortunately I didn’t finish my piece by the end of class).
Lisa Claxton - she compared fusing to dating in her demo, now I'll be sure to remember the steps in the process! 🙂
Fused and textured silver rings
The excitementt didn’t end once we left Bead Fest…. Jeanette and I somehow managed to travel through 5 states in one day! When you end up a 1/2 hour outside of NY en route to VA, you know something is very wrong. We’ll blame it on talking, it was dark out, no GPS and bad directions…. at least we made it home by 2 a.m.! 🙂
Bead Fest Wire was wonderful. Now I’m seriously thinking about attending the Big Bead Fest this August. If so, I hope to meet more of you there!
