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?

Mabel is back!

It seems as if Mabel is back from her vacation.
Today I felt like making something larger than usual. Not just a pendant or a pair of earrings, but something a little more fancy. Probably the upcoming holidays are already affecting my brain ...

This is still a WIP. Looking at the pictures I took I'm pretty sure I like the length the way it is now, but at the moment there is a chain without clasp in the back which for this picture I had to tie into a small knot, so the collier wouldn't be too long for a picture. Other opinions are more than welcome.

There's black and green onyx, faceted blue sapphire, lots of fine and sterling silver and the bottom piece has tiny silver beads all over.

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? ;-)

Muse sharing

You can share a pizza, cookies, a car, a house - but how about muse sharing?

Yesterday I talked about my own muse. I won't need a poll anymore. The name Mabel was dropped and a Mabel she is now. I don't care if she agrees. Often enough she doesn't care if I agree about her running off and leaving me in a dry spell.

But what kind of muse is she? Is she just good for jewelry making? And an idea for the blog? Or is she the spark of fantasy in my head that leads me to be creative in any field?
Is she to blame if one of my rare cakes doesn't live up to expectations although she made it sound so easy? Is she one providing me with grimaces and bad puns (hopefully good ones, too, from time to time)?
I know she can knit, she can crochet, but only likes to do it with wire, she has fun with beads, if she's in a good mood she can make people laugh, but she can also be very creative at being snarky.
She writes (mostly for herself) and she loves to doodle.

If I share her, could she be the muse just for people who resemble me in style and characteristics, or could she change for them?
I wish she could.

You two people whom I wrote this post for (and to one of them, I know I'm late with the delivery because of a phone call, sorry), could have a piece of my muse anytime ;-)