Fall feelings

Last week, Erin from "Still Live, With Cracker Crumbs" announced that she and Lisa from "Boondock Ramblings" will not have a "Comfy Cozy Cinema" event on their blogs this year. Instead they'll be doing "Sweater Weather Cinema" with fall movies ... and I found myself thinking that I didn't really know any except for Halloween movies and therefore probably wouldn't be able to participate.

Of course I know movies with fall scenes, but I never thought of them specifically as fall movies. To be honest, I had never thought about that topic at all until now.
Here Erin explains what a fall movie is for her. Check it out and if you have your own favorites, let her know and maybe tag along for the "Sweater Weather Cinema" with her and Lisa?

Now I let people know a lot - whether they want to hear it or not - that fall is my favorite season. I love the colors, the rain, the air, and of course saying goodbye to summer (and the fan).
However, I was surprised myself to find that many fall inspired items I made over the years, this is not even everything!

And of course I can't forget my Autumn Dawn and my Fairy Queen Jessica!

I guess I express my feelings in beads and wire?

Suchet on a broad bean

There are two images in my head when I think of Hercule Poirot - David Suchet and this.

The explanation is that in episode 1 of series 4 of my favorite British game show "Taskmaster" the prize task at the start of the show was for the comedians "to bring in the most interesting autograph on the most interesting vegetable" and this is the one that won - "Suchet on a broad bean. Bang. That's what this competition is all about."
I have no idea why those words are so funny to me, but there you are. It's probably the fact such a distinguished actor would even do this.

Okay, let's get to David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.
Suchet was Poirot for almost 25 years, in 70 episodes from January 1989 to June 2013. And when I say "was" instead of "played", that's exactly what it felt like.
He studied him, made a list of "Poirot character notes", and worked on the role until he became the ultimate Poirot in the eyes of many devoted fans (me obviously included).

If you have missed it before, I'm not a fan of Christie's style and I'm not even a fan of all the adaptations with Suchet.
There are some I find painfully slow - my brother and I always argue about 45 or 90 minute episodes for crime shows in general and in Poirot's case I often prefer the shorter ones ... BUT I will also slog through the slowest ones for Suchet and the amazing sets.
As I love Art Deco, I didn't mind that they got stuck in the 30s for most of the episodes even if it wasn't true to the novel or story. I can absolutely entertain myself not paying any attention to the case - having seen all episodes multiple times, I don't really need to - and look at buildings, cars, furniture or decoration instead.

In the stories I have read I always found Poirot a tad annoying, but while Suchet's Poirot is definitely full of himself, I can forgive him much more easily because he has that gentleness and I love the little smile, how he walks and talks (in English, I hate the German dubbing).

It has been almost exactly two years since I made my last portrait and I've had this pattern lined up even longer than that, but finally I can welcome David Suchet/Hercule Poirot to my fan wall (you can find all of my bead loomed portraits here).

Heat

I don't function in the heat and I complained and whined more than once about it here on the blog. I always start early, too. If temperatures in my place go higher than 20 °C/ 68 °F, I'm beginning to fall apart, can't help it.
Luckily, I don't live in a really hot region!

A sunset sky from 2011.
That's how heat feels to me.

As my brain is in a puddle on the floor somewhere at the moment, I haven't been able to finish any of the blog posts I started.
So I'll be taking the easy way out instead today and share some "hot" items with you that I made over the years.

Now excuse me while I'm going to look if I can find and mop up my brain anywhere. Do you think it'll come together again if I put it in the freezer?

Cats, cats, cats, and more cats, part 3

Did you think we were done yet with the random cats around my house? Well, we aren't.
If you are interested, you can find part 1 and 2 here and here in which I said "I have quite a few around the place, some because I fell in love with them myself, others because for some weird reason people think I like cats and have given me a lot of items over the years. Really strange, I know. Why would they think something like that? 😂"

If you seen some of my posts about the beaded doll outfits, you may also have noticed the wooden cats in the background.
There was a time when these cats were really popular meaning they were everywhere, mostly the small ones. Most of mine (there are more, including a doorstopper) were gifts, but I bought the biggest one myself. I had to get picked up from the shop called "Katze und Kunst" ("Cat and Art") because it is so heavy that it was impossible for me to get it home on the train.
The shop was fun to browse, they had cat related items from figures, pictures, cards, and books to scratching posts and cat food. Unfortunately it doesn't exist anymore.
If you think they are in the way on those stairs, they really aren't because these are the "Stairs to Nowhere", another one of those things that are weird about me, but that's a longer story. The big ones have also done a great job at guarding the Christmas tree when I still put it in that spot. The big ones are so heavy that they held it in place perfectly when Ponder creeped into the "cave" under the tree. They were even enough for des Dekan's first Christmas.

You always wondered how der Dekan got here? He's a veritable Pinocchio turning from a wooden cat into a real one!
Yeah, not really, but I still think this picture is funny (usually you see the cat under the vintage hat).

Let's go from wooden figures to stone.
A long time ago, the ex had got a small malachite Bastet cat for me. When our personnel admin retired, I asked him if it was okay for me to pass it on to her. I had trained under her when she had still been leader of one of the acquisition teams and I really liked her and also knew how much she loved cats. 
The ex then got me this one as a replacement, much bigger and definitely no natural stone, but still pretty. It has found its perfect spot in the cat book cabinet between two books. Actually, most of the little figures I got over the years are in there.

Talking about Bastet reminded me of this bead loomed pendant I designed. I made one for my sister and a slightly different one for myself.
The body was inspired by a typical Bastet silhouette and I added the golden collar with the jewel and the golden earring after seeing something similar on an ancient Egyptian figure. Lapislazuli being such a popular stone in ancient Egypt, I added two beads to the chain ends.

The cat mat was a Christmas gift from my friend.

The cat sat on the mat, a stereotype or a classic? Whatever the answer, Ponder didn't take long to claim this one.
It has never managed to work its charm on Gundel or dem Dekan, though.

Ruscha was a ceramic factory founded in 1905. In 1996, they were taken over by the Scheurich company which used the name Ruscha until 2006.
Beside vases, flower pots and so on, Ruscha was known for their decorative wall plates, especially in the 50s, which came in many different designs, sometimes scratched into the clay, sometimes partially glazed. A lot of them showed animals, among them cats.
Cats were for example part of the "Paris" design which never looked exactly the same, also because the plates were handcrafted. Often there was a young lady at the lamp pole, sometimes with a young man wearing a beret, there was a trash can around the corner or houses in the background.
With its four inch, my little plate was probably too small for more than the cat.

I don't remember who gave those bookends to me, but they do a fine job of holding - cat books, what else?
Bonus cats in the picture are a wooden ring holder cat (with a long tail) and a little amber cat.

As I wrote in this post a few months ago, "I was one of "those" kids ... the kids who never found her name on a mug, on a keychain or on a sticker." So it always had to be custom pieces, like this "Frühstücksbrettchen" (literally "little breakfast board" ("Frühstück" literally means "early piece", by the way)) which people often use for bread instead of a plate, not just for breakfast, but also "Abendbrot" (literally "evening bread"). This one was a gift.
I think those are enough parentheses and quotation marks for one paragraph.

That's it for today.
See you next time - yes, I think there will be more ...

Muffin Boy

When der Dekan moved in here end of June 2021, I decided to give bead looming a break.
This was one crazy kitten growing into a crazy cat. He doesn't do things by halves. When he sleeps, he turns into a big heavy sand bag that is really hard to move. His sleep is so deep sometimes that I can softly roll him off my legs, for example, and he will only wake up after the roll when touching the bed, sometimes not even right away.

When he has what I call "his five minutes", even if it can take much longer, he's insufferable. He throws tantrums and he throws things off shelves, the wardrobe, the nightstand or tries to knock certain pictures off the wall. It can mean he's hungry because the portion was too small or the food was obviously unacceptable (even if two days ago it was the best food he ever had - that's cats for you).
It can also just be too much energy, though, the kind of energy that ordinary playtime is not enough for.
Those five minutes can end as abruptly as they started or they can take forever, at all times of day or night. They don't happen every day, but when they do, it can be exhausting with that little whirlwind because he knows exactly which buttons to push! I'm quite easy to train and he's has always been fast at learning what works on me.
He looks harmless enough here, but actually this was shortly before he jumped on the wardrobe to knock down one of my Steiff fish.

What I'm trying to explain is that not all crafts are safe around him when he's awake and it's not necessarily predictable when he's going to jump all over the place, try to steal things - he can be amazingly stealthy and fast - and open bead cups to step in are not that good an idea, either.
Even Ponder and Esme, who loved walking across my bead tray with the bead cups, had one or the other mishap, but that usually just meant a few beads. They were both big jumpers, but amazingly well-behaved around my beads and I never worried around them much. Ponder's weakness was my wire, but that's a lot easier to deal with than tiny flying beads.

Since der Dekan has been living and jumping here, I managed to make two bead loomed pieces and I worked from very tiny stacks of beads which I refilled from the tubes constantly which didn't exactly made looming any quicker or real fun.
The other day I talked about bead cups and bead trays with a friend and she said it was a pity there weren't bead trays with holes for the cups to put in.
Unlike other beaders I don't work from a bead mat which has to do with my not working at a table.
I keep my bead cups to the side and pick the beads up with my fingers from where I put them on my needle. That may sound very awkward to others, but it works perfectly for me and I'm actually faster that way than with a bead mat.

Of course I know there are also all kinds of bead organizers, but they are quite flat and I don't trust somecat around that.
That's when I thought of my muffin trays (I got two of them at a super sale at the outlet, but only ever used one, anyway).
What if I tried putting the beads in there to keep them all together instead of using individual cups? And what if I found a box to fit the tray in to minimize the danger of a not so little cat stepping on one side of the tray and send it up flying?

It was practically a miracle that there was a parcel I hadn't opened up yet, otherwise I would have thrown the box out already. It looked the perfect size - and it was.
I cut off the flaps, but not completely, so the edges of the muffin tray would rest on them. It would have been nice if the tray had a hole on either side to attach it to the box, but it doesn't, so I used double sided tape.
To make the whole construction heavier and thus more stable, I had put a thermos I don't use anymore into the box. I wrapped it up in thick paper and added bubble wrap on the sides, so it won't move around.

Here you see Muffin Boy check it out because nothing here can go unsupervised by him. He's probably making plans now how to deal with this new challenge.

I think I can safely say that this is the weirdest piece of beading "equipment" I have ever put together and it's definitely not beautiful. If it works, though, I finally might be able to go back to work with more bead colors again without being stressed out too much and that's all that counts.

A lid for the tray would be perfect, but I couldn't find anything that worked and I don't want to buy a new tray just for the lid.
Maybe another box? Wait, I could just put my second muffin tray over it 😂
Anyhow, I'll let you know how it goes.

4 x Jack

To some people, San Francisco means the Golden Gate Bridge, the Painted Ladies, Fisherman's Wharf, cable cars, and the Fairmont - just the first few things that popped into my head - but when we first made it to the USA, to the ex and me it also meant FAO Schwarz whose connection to Steiff was famous among collectors thanks to some special editions.
On our first visit there, we didn't have that much time which was probably better for our bank account. Through FAO Schwarz we got in contact with a lady who had done some Steiff repair jobs for them, and when we came to San Francisco some years later, we went there again, with the lady who had by now become a good friend.
Oh boy, we were like kids in a toy store. Wait, we actually were in a toy store ... Okay, we were big kids for sure. We really tried to be good, but you know how it goes sometimes.

Of course we had expected to buy some Steiff, but then we also came across Jack, four to be precise, and couldn't resist.
It was a set of four Jack Skellingtons from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" - one in his striped suit, one as the scarecrow with the pumpkin head, one in his pyjamas (his book is in a different cabinet right now, one of my Kens is reading it to my Skippers and other family members ;-)), and one as "Sandy Claws" in a Santa suit.
For those who have never seen the film ... Jack, the Pumpkin King, is the king of Halloween Town and he's bored and struggling from having to prepare Halloween over and over. By chance, he discovers the door to Christmas Town in the woods and he's overwhelmed with joy about this wonderful holiday. Despite the warnings of Sally, the rag doll who is in love with him, Jack decides to have Santa kidnapped, so he can take his role. He includes all the inhabitants of Halloween Town to prepare Christmas in their own style.
Things don't quite work out the way he had hoped, though. Children and parents are shocked by gifts of shrunken heads and monstrosities and the military is called in to shoot Jack down.
Meanwhile the little monsters tasked with the kidnapping by Jack have taken Santa to their superior Oogie Boogie, a bogeyman playing with Santa's life - and Sally's because she has tried to resuce Santa.
Jack gets shot down and is depressed about his failure for a bit, but then he finds this is giving him great new ideas for next Halloween. He returns home and rescues Santa and Sally by defeating Oogie who loses his sacklike shell and falls apart into a load of bugs.
Santa hurries to save Christmas, but also lets it snow in Halloween Town to show Jack he has forgiven him.
The film ends by Jack and Sally finally declaring their love for one another.

Here's a confession, the movie is not on my regular Christmas watch list. Although I'm fine with musicals in general and really love the songs "Jack's Lament" and "What's This?", it's a bit much singing for me here for a movie running only 76 minutes (I can't watch "Frozen" for the same reason, but that's a different story).
So I only watch it every few years and this year it was time for that again.
I'm totally in love with Jack, however.
I even designed a bracelet with him, but it was more fun to hang him on my wall than leave him in a jewelry box or drawer.

It has been a long time running joke with a US friend of mine that I should send it to her. I just can't part with him, but made a little something for her instead, a tiny beaded bottle.

My four Jacks are sitting behind glass at the moment, but I'm thinking I should put them on one of the cabinets der Dekan can't get to. They would look pretty cool up there.
I took them out for a photo shoot and found that Santa Jack had a dislocated arm, probably from tree hugging. Luckily, it was easy enough to snap back in.

Tree hugging? Well, when I decided to buy a little tree because Ponder was old enough to be a good boy around it, my sister suggested making Santa Jack the topper. I loved the idea and Jack protected the tree for years. See how excited he was to say hello to Ponder, and Ponder, despite being the occasional ornamentnapper, never did anything to Jack. I miss my big boy so much.

I'm sure that in about 30 or 40 years Gundel and der Dekan will have become calm enough to be as nice to the tree as Ponder was.
What do you think my chances are for that to be happening?
At the moment my bet is on 0% because der Dekan has been jumping around and into the tree for almost an hour now!

Nosy neighbors family portrait

Can you believe it?
I was getting ready to have a nice cup of chai latte on a lazy Saturday afternoon and who turns up? The nosy neighbors!

The nosy neighbors made their first appearance here.
Always make sure to build your walls high enough if you have neighbors like these, or you will never be able to do anything in peace.

These are Hildy and Bruno, I guess they like chai latte, too?

Nevermore - again

That may make no sense at first, but with the backstory it will, believe me.
It's actually rather simple.
Eight years ago I bead loomed an Edgar Allan Poe portrait pendant after my own design and made a small polymer clay raven for it. I called the pendant "Nevermore" and was immensely proud of how my raven had turned out.

I always wanted to make another pendant, but my polymer clay days were over. So I looked for raven charms online every, now, and then, but never found what I wanted or needed.
This year, however, I stumbled upon the cutest lampwork beads by Christiane Imkamp, tiny crows sitting on a pumpkin or a cactus. I asked Christiane if I could have just crows and much to my delight she said those had already been on her list. A few days later she had listed them in her shop.
Of course to me they were not crows, but ravens, and they looked just perfect.

After der Dekan moved in, I decided to give my bead loom a break because I didn't trust the little beast around open bead cups. I still don't and if you had just seen him tear down my clamp rod and curtain from one window and knock over a storage box to get to my lacrosse ball, not for a massage, but to roll it around the wooden floor - great noise in the middle of the night - you would well understand why.
The little master "has spring" as I call it which makes him even crazier than he usually is. And it being night, he can't even watch birds now.

I had underestimated him completely, I have to admit, and now it has been two years that none of my looms has been touched, except for putting them back in their spots on the Stairs to Nowhere after der Dekan has knocked one down once again (no worries, my beloved JaLa is locked away safely).
But once my ravens had arrived, I couldn't ignore the itch in my fingers any longer. So I gave dem Dekan - and of course Gundel - something to eat because that is the best way to get him out of the room and then locked myself in with my loom.

Can you believe that I was nervous at first? It showed in my mistakes on the first few increases and decreases when I went through the wrong warp gap, but I quickly got back into the flow of counting and looming.
Then the pendant was finished and I could get to re-weaving each thread back into the loomwork. It was just as meditative as ever.
At first you have a whole bunch of threads (72 in this case, to be exact) getting in one another's way, and then there are fewer and fewer, the piece looks cleaner and cleaner, so satisfying ... it's hard to explain, but you probably have your own things that make you feel this way.

Finally he was in my hand, Mister Edgar Allan Poe, and it felt so good.
All he needed now was his little Nevermore - again.

The "Energy" bracelet

From time to time I have a look at the pieces in my storage boxes to decide what I want to do with them. There is a mix of new pieces, slightly older pieces, but there are also some really old pieces.
On my computer, some of those old pieces are in my "inactive" folder meaning they are waiting to be ripped up, changed, or donated if deemed worthy. Sometimes it's just a matter of not being able to decide.

The "Energy" cuff is from 2012, the early days of my bead looming.
I made it with a small fringe and from the moment I finished that, I wasn't really happy with it. Instead of doing something about it, though, I kept looking at the bracelet time and time again and putting it back into the drawer.
It was probably one of the first pieces that got put into the "inactive" folder. All I knew was that I didn't want to rip it up completely. I spent some time with creating the pattern and I am still strangely fascinated by it.
I don't remember what, if anything, had been the plan behind this pattern, maybe I just went overboard in BeadTool and couldn't stop myself.
A friend, however, said she saw bursts of energy in it, and that evoked an image of early horror movies in my mind - a strange technical device, built by a crazy scientist, sending forth rays of energy. To whom, to what, for what purpose, that will have to stay a secret.

Looking at it today, I thought that was probably the reason why the fringe didn't work for me. It didn't go together with that image.
So I finally cut it off, and the clean edges work much better, I think.

Why did it take me ten years to see that, you'd like to know?
I have no idea. Maybe the bracelet had enough energy by now to transfer some onto me? ;-)

Ms Dawn is going out

Ms Dawn is going out and she's not wearing a mask. Dawn is in the 20s - the previous century's decade, that is, not her 20s and not the 20s of our century.
Dawn may be born in the 70s, but she doesn't care. She's a Flapper at heart and she demanded that I took her golden and hot pink dress off and gave her something a little more elegant. She became my "Mini Flapper" (compared to Flapper Barbie and Flapper Christie) and this is the story how.
If you please, you may imagine the following read to you in the manner of an announcer at a fashion show.

Ms Dawn's sleeveless dress is worked in the peyote technique in a subtle combination of dusty pink and grey with a hint of silver shimmer in both. It goes up all the way in the back and features a rectangular neckline in the front.
At the bottom seam it is finished with a small fringe.
Pink blossoms accented with a small center bead are generously scattered all over the dress except in the upper part of the back.

For jewelry she has chosen a classic and unobtrusive long necklace from clear beads that she is wearing sideways. She has refrained from adding any more jewelry on this occasion so as to not take attention off her outfit at all.

The headband that picks up the flower embellishment of the dress is perfect with the slightly windswept look of Ms Dawn's bob. Unfortunately she wouldn't share the secret with us how she manages to tame her full hair, but we suspect that the lovely grey headband makes up a big part of it.

A night out is impossible without wearing an elegant evening cloak. Ms Dawn's choice is this custom made model matching the color of her dress perfectly. It is bead loomed and has a high peyote collar. The hems are embellished with small clear accent beads for a sophisticated look.

These fashionable sandals too are designed to match the colors of the outfit. For a better fit on the foot they have small pink straps. With sandals as comfortable as these Ms Dawn will have no problems to dance the night through if she so desires.

An accessory that can't be missed is a purse, big enough to hold the most important things for a night in the city. At the last minute Ms Dawn has chosen this cute little drawstring pouch that matches her outfit instead of a silver clutch that her friend suggested because she can just hang it from her wrist.

And here's our Flapper now, waiting for her friends at the big cat sculpture.
Thank you for joining us and we hope to welcome you again to our next fashion show at La Maison Cat!
Enjoy your night as our Ms Dawn no doubt will, too.

Dawn was a registered trademark of the Topper Company. I am not affiliated with Topper in any way.

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Bees

I have to admit that I went into this Art Elements challenge without a clue or inspiration once again simply because I loved the topic Niky chose - bees.
Here's an old picture from our little garden in the back and one from the wonderful Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

Now to the challenge.
I don't have many yellow beads. I have some Delicas, some Czech seed beads, and I had a bracelet that had been waiting to get ripped up, with wire crochet flowers of riverstone and yellow cat eye beads. I thought the cat eye beads would make nice little bee bodies, but I could hardly paint black stripes on. So instead I decided not to make bees, but to loom something inspired by bee colors.
The plan was a bead loomed base in black and yellow with cat eye embellishments. For contrast I used black seed beads and yellow thread, and because I didn't want the cat eyes to sit too high, I thought I'd leave neat little cutouts in the base for them.
So I loomed and then started reweaving threads. Nine beads meant nine cutouts meant 54 more threads to weave in. The number was not the problem, I don't mind reweaving, but although I left the warp threads quite long on both sides, most of these threads were very short. After all they were no extra threads. The one row in which three cutouts "met" - not the smartest idea I ever had - resulted in having to get eight threads out of one long one. So mostly I went back along the warp thread with the needle, threaded it then, pulled through, went through one of the horizontal rows with the needle, threaded it, pulled through .... for just one of 54 threads. Repeat, repeat, repeat ... I do have shorter needles, but they are a little too thick for my taste.
Finally I could sew the cat eyes in. When I was done, however, I looked at my bracelet and thought, wow, that is really, really ... BORING! Ugh.

What now? I had to come up with something to spruce this up a little. I tried this and that, and finally I gave all of the little yellow bees wings from clear AB size 15 seed beads. They are rather delicate, so I didn't want them flapping on the bracelet, and I fastened each wing tip to the loomed base.
Unfortunately I still wasn't happy. It couldn't be helped, those bees needed their stripes. What if I gave each one a stripe from size 15 seed beads? Of course they wouldn't sit tightly on the bodies, but you'd get the idea of bees. Only when I had "painted" all nine cat eyes, I thought a second stripe might be even better o.O

Ok then. Hm. Now I wished I had thought of that from the beginning and given the bees a green base to sit on. Not that I would have had the beads to do that. Not that I wanted to start all over again. Not that it even made sense to think about now. Night flying bees. Are there bees that fly in the night? Obviously there isn't that much known about bees and their sleep, except that they do sleep or at least take naps. Worker bees in the hive also work during the night, but bees don't fly at night.
Well, mine did now and it looked rather dark. I could at least give them some flowers? So that's what I did.
Believe me, there is a LOT of thread in those base beads and a lot of time in the bracelet!
Now I just had to add the findings, though, in a gold tone this time which works better here than my usual silver or copper tones.

Wow. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd make it in time. I'm almost impressed by my own patience :-P

This is a blog hop, so please check out the other participants' posts as well!

Guests
 
Alysen - Cat (that's me ;-)) - Evie and Beth - Hope - Kathy - Kelly - Sarajo - Tammy  

AE team members

Cathy - Jennifer - Jenny - Marsha - Niky - Sue


I'll end this post with a picture collage of bees (flying by day ;-)) sent to me by a friend. Aren't they beautiful?

A favorite product - The JaLa bead loom

This is difficult. I never review a product or almost never.
The Jewelry Artisans Community blog carnival got the topic "Review a favorite product", though (what idiot chose that one and called it simple on top of that, oh yeah, it was me), so now I have to choose a favorite product first and then I have to talk about it.
My problem? I never thought about even having such a favorite. Sure, I always get my copper wire from the same manufacturer which obviously means it's my favorite copper wire, I mostly have one brand of crochet hooks in two sets, I usually stick to the same kind of thread or seed and cylinder beads. Even some of my tools - not expensive then - are still the same as ten years ago.
I have been wearing the same style of jeans and sneakers, even socks for decades. I'm a very loyal customer, if I like something and if I'm not getting disappointed with the quality, I'll stick with what I know. Boring, possibly, but hassle-free. This goes for things that are not high on my priority list. I never aspired to be a trendsetter. If I could get my favorite shirt in different colors for decades to come, that would be perfect.
That doesn't mean, however, I don't try out anything new at all in my life. As you know I love experimenting with new ideas, techniques and designs. I'm even game to try a new recipe (if I don't have to cook myself ;-)).

Then it suddenly came to me. I have a bunch of bead looms. I'm quite happy with my smaller ones most of the time (Peak Dale Bead Loom, I have the Giant, Long and Ultimate, and I have one that I put together from the side parts of an Ultimate with the dowels and springs of a Basic) although the Giant and Ultimate could have more space between the two thread separators for my personal taste and kind of work, but for larger panels, for my portraits or other special pieces I always turn to my JaLa loom.
I own this one thanks to a dear friend, so it's special to me in more than one way.
Unfortunately JaLa Looms are not made anymore, so I can only make your mouth water now, but not tell you where to get one. Believe me, had I known that before I would have sold my cats to get another one (not just because of the price, but postage and possible tax/custom fees from overseas for a piece of that weight). Okay, I wouldn't have done that of course, but I would definitely have saved up for another one. 
Mine is the model 0818 which means a workspace of 8" and a track length of 18", it holds about 128 warps. There was also the longer 0836, both lengths came in the wider 1218 and 1236 as well which hold about 190 warps, and the fix length loom 0612f for 90 warps. Sleds and tracks were also available individually.

Let me show you this little beauty. Makes me feel like a proud mom (don't mind the table and its scratches, it's where cat meds were and are given)! ;-)
The sleds move on the tracks, so you can adjust the exact length you need for your project. This is the setting for my fan wall portraits.

With these wooden bars you can adjust the tension after warping the loom. You just need to loosen the bar using an Allen key on the screws.

This is the loom from the back. There is some cork on there to avoid scratching surfaces (that is pretty hilarious looking at my table) and to give the loom some grip. At least that is what I think. I don't work at a table myself, you know. I sit on my bed or in my TV chair, have the knees up and the loom against my legs. For me that is the perfect position.

Here you see one of the differences between the JaLa and the Peak Dale. I don't think I have to add anything to that.

Just have a look at the perfectly beautiful construction and finish of this sled. It's so smooth that it doesn't snag any threads if I have a blanket over my legs for example when looming.

This is the JaLa in comparison with the Peak Dale Giant.
Again, I'm happy with my Peak Dale looms for what they cost. They may look very flimsy compared to the JaLa, but it's a bit like with cars. You can get from A to B with a Mini or a Rolls Royce and both can satisfy you in very different ways, comfort or price for example. The Peak Dales do their job, no doubt, and I do use them a lot. They are not adjustable, though, sometimes I catch my working thread on the nuts and screws, they have springs instead of the rod, the components don't stand a chance compared to those of the JaLa.
The JaLa is the Rolls Royce. It's sturdy and well-thought-out in its details. On top of that it's beautiful.

Back in 2014 when I got this loom I had already posted a picture here and from my few sentences you could tell the same excitement and happiness that I still feel now after having worked with it so much.
It may sound strange to you, but I still get that same feeling when I rest the weight of this loom against my legs, ready to start something new.

Maybe you know now why I don't write reviews. I'm not good talking about technical stuff and I sound silly if I bring emotions into this.
As mentioned before, this is a blog carnival, though. Maybe someone else will be better at this than I am. I'll add the links as I get them. Have a look!

Jewelry Art by Dawn

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - White

White. Claire's topic for December's design challenge at Art Elements was white. I'm not very good with white. I don't wear white, I don't have white walls (only ceilings), I don't own white furniture. If there's a choice, I'll never pick white.
Thinking back I also haven't made much jewelry in white. There was a choker, a silver tree on a white rock, and there's the white Petcat, but that's different because I love white cats.

Our first cat, Dude (actually White Dude, there's a story behind that name, but that would lead too far now) was white with a blue and a yellow eye.

White. My first thought was winter and snow. That reminded me of a link a friend of mine had shared just recently, a snowglobe ornament design by Cheri Carlson on Artbeads, done in brick stitch. My friend knows I love looming shaped pieces from beads and indeed it was the perfect inspiration.
Of course I wouldn't copy the snowman, but choose something more typical for me. What's typical for me? Well, cats of course. Cat. Snow. SnowCat!
This was one of the very first HeatherCats, the picture shows my friend Heather's original painting and my take on it.

So how about combining the idea of SnowCat and a snowglobe and making it a small tribute to the cat that was practically responsible for my life never again being without cat hair since 1991?
And how about trying to use just white and grey tones for it? Yeah, that was being too ambitious, it didn't work out, not with the beads that I had in my stash. There may have been some light cursing when I ripped it out again.
What a shame. That meant it had to be a night sky after all. I can't help it, I love night scenes, and "you don’t need to work monochromatic, just take white as inspiration either literally or figuratively." There.

After a very short digression to a different project that will need more planning, though, I wove in the last threads, and here we go. Snow Dude in his snowglobe.
He could be worn as a pendant or used as an ornament.

Please also visit all the other blog hoppers!
 
Guests

Alysen - Anita - Beth - Cat (that's me!) - Divya - Elaine - Hope - Jill - Karin - Kathy - Rozantia - Sarajo - Susan - Tammy

AE Team

Caroline - Cathy - Claire - Laney - Lesley - Marsha - Susan