...I'm In Love With the Wonderdul Beads!!!  Sung to the tune of "I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy" from Sout Pacific.  Guess you'd have to be a musical fanatic like me...!
Anyway, I've been pooh-poohing seed beads and beading for about three years now...not because I don't think the work is beautiful and fascinating, and not because I think it's beneath me.  It's because: a) they're verrrry small beads, b) my eyes are verrrrry bad, c) I was too wrapped up in the polymer clay, and , d) I can NEVER makes heads or tails of those damn diagrams.  Well, I subscribe to Bead and Button magazine simply because I find excellent resources I never know of, and some of the jewelry artwork is magnificent and gets me thinking about how to adapt it to polymer clay.  They always have a little section in the back about basic bead stitching, and last month I decided that, dammit, I'm going to try peyote stitch...simply because the uniformity of the stitching appeals to me.  Well, I tried...and it sucked.  So, I tried again...and it sucked a little less.  I talked to a friend of mine who told me that while peyote stitch is really easy, I needed uniform beads, like Delicas, to get the really neat stitching I desired.  I bought some Delicas, and voila!!...I liked it---I really liked it!!!  So, what do I do?  In my inimitable Julie Style, I buy four books from Amazon on beading and bead stitches, and now I'm going to try and get better.  I can see soooooo many applications of beading and polymer clay (yeah, I know...I'm not the first, but c'mon, it's a first for me to be able to do both!!).  This bracelet is the first I've done deliberately making beads from polymer to use with beading.  I really love the way it turned out (pat, pat, pat on the back!)  Wow, wow, wow...I want to try everything, and I've GOT TO WAIT for the books, and a lot more practice.  I'll get there, though...mmm-mmm-mmm.