Random thoughts - creative moods

You remember Mabel, my muse? The voice in my head, the feeling in my fingers, the lady poking into my brain with a stick to cause sudden deviations?
Mabel who sometimes is a simple girl with a simple taste, then changes to an elegant lady who demands gemstones and silver, and makes a seamless transition to a dark soul or a geek afterwards.

What I'm talking about? Well, I often say that I like to explore and it's true. I like to experiment, go down new paths, change patterns in the middle of a project. When I look at the work I have done, I wonder if someone who hasn't known me for a while yet would be able to tell it's all mine.
What does it say about me? Is Mabel a bit crazy, and does that make me a bit crazy? ;-)
If I make, say a bowl, and suddenly it wants to be an octopus, should I really give in? Or should I finish the bowl, and then start an octopus? Would I even still want to make the octopus after I have finished the bowl, though?
Is it wrong that I rather follow the giggle sometimes? Yes, I actually do giggle while making some things, and honestly, it's a good feeling.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Are you always serious about your projects? Do you start something and end up with something else? Do your creative moods jump wildly about the place or are you trying to contain them and keep them in order to always take the one you need out of its "mind drawer"?

Let me show you some randomly picked pieces I have made lately to explain what I mean.
These all come from the same muse and the same hands over the course of a few months.

Don't worry, Cara IS wearing a wire crochet body underneath, even if you may not see it at first sight.

Know now what I mean?

Hope, cats and cuffs

I'm sitting here and there's a cool breeze coming through the windows. It feels so good! I have a little hope now that I'll survive after all. I'm not so sure about my brain, though. Those brain cells just melted away over the last days. Even the cats were knocked out by the hot weather. I have two pictures to prove it and believe me, the others weren't better off.

There is NO picture of me being sprawled all over the bed like a dead octopus. I don't want to scare you away.

My poor girl Esme - mowed down by a heat wave in the prime of her life

Smart move, Ponder, to rest your head on a warm laptop during that heat

It's a good thing Mabel's brain cells are as good as ever (what a show-off). I'll just show you two cuffs that she made me create recently. She was no help however in cataloging my books, blogging (!) or editing pictures of my vacation (and blogging about that as well). Yup, Mabel has a very one-sided mind. And she refuses to cook - which is actually a good thing now, but not so good at lower temperatures.

With a beautiful lampwork bead by Pink Beach Studios - it's for my Mom

Against the light, so you can see the pattern better - the edging is made from tiny red carnelian beads

Cuff of Modern Art - for myself. Somehow it makes me think of lots of framed pictures

P.S. Don't think all I do is bead looming now. I just can't take too many pictures at once. Our command center (aka computer room) and my photo setup are under the roof ... hot, hot ... and I can't stand that for long, remember

Mabel's gift

I can hear you sigh now - ANOTHER muse post? "Lady, you are getting boring!"

Drop the overripe tomatoes, people, and calm down! Don't worry, it's about my latest piece and I'll make it short because I feel the need to search the kitchen for some cookies and chai.

The start - a leftover piece of 12 gauge silver plated copper wire.
Next step - hands that can't keep still while a movie is on. Bending back and forth.
Step 3 - Hey, look! That's like a drop! Maybe if I make bead soup from different blues and clear and just a few brownish ones to pep it up (the only soup I'm better at making is pumpkin and potato soup) and put them on that dark blue wire and then ...

Silence with the odd mumbling thrown in.

Less silence, slight cussing. On many stitches I need to go through with my smallest hook to make them wide enough for the larger hooks.

Yawning. Ok, this is taking longer than I thought, I'll continue tomorrow.

Tomorrow:
Silence. Getting into the routine. Small hook, big hook, small hook, big hook.

Done! Here you go. Mabel's gift, in my Zibbet shop now :-)


And was that soooo bad now? ;-)