Random Saturday - Soup memories

To me, spring cleaning doesn't necessarily mean pulling everything out of cupboards to put new lining in. Instead I am pulling tiny wire and thread bits out of beads, to be clearer, I am still in the process of ripping up old pieces.

Two of those were from my earliest days of bead looming, a choker and bracelet in the same design, vampire lips.

You could tell that I was still very much a newbie then. I still struggled with the right tension which made the pieces rather stiff, and in one of them I had used satin beads without knowing how easily they would cut through the thread I used.
The reasons to keep them both around for more than ten years were probably mostly sentimental, but it was also a reminder to pick the design up again eventually as an improved version.

Now the time seemed to be right to cut them up along with other old items on my list. Each time I had looked at them lying in my drawer, I had felt a pang of guilt that I hadn't made anything new yet.
Taking that into consideration, it was amazingly hard to cut them up. This large tube of bead soup - this bit is just part of it - is so much more than beads.

It's a beginner's journey to an own and original design, to trial and error and frustration (cue the satin beads again).
It's the joy of seeing a piece coming alive from a printed piece of paper after several hours.
It's the wish to share it with others to see if they also like it.
It's the memory of a personal disappointment.
It's the story of seeing your jewelry again and again, noticing every flaw and finally admitting to yourself that it needs a remake - and seeing it again and again and not getting yourself to actually do it.
And as the last step for now, it's the story of cutting it up and picking it apart - and thinking about what to do with this soup to honor the journey. So-to-speak.

I know it sounds terribly emotional, but I can assure you I didn't shed any tears.
It's just that I hadn't expected it to feel so different from the many other items I had ripped up over the years. Usually it's a relief, maybe with a bit of regret, this time it felt like setting myself a new task.
The old is gone, there will be something new, even if I can't say yet what it's going to be.

Would you have thought that someone could get so philosophical about bead soup on a Saturday night? ;-)