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| Demonstrating for a new beadmaker |
So Mudthaw's Artisan Row happened!
Erica was lovely enough to stop by and ended up helping me quite a bit. She filled in when I was a bit late due to court, and when I needed to go get lunch. Demonstrating was a bit slow this time, due to overcrowding (i was in the very back), so i took some time to make tokens for Erica for her May-be event, and to teach/watch Erica make beads.
Erica wanted to learn how to make twisties, so I found myself teaching that skill for the first time. I took a few minutes before teaching her to make a few twisties myself so I could try to mentally break down the sequence of actions I use when making them, especially the timing of each action. She ended up doing a great job when she tried herself! Teaching this skill has made me realize how much of the "timing" of this skill that I have internalized. To make a twistie you need to know how long to heat the glass, how long to wait after you pull it out of the fire before doing anything (waiting a little bit at this point is hugely important...if you don't wait, your twistie will end up too thin or uneven) and when to twist v.s. pull v.s wait a second for the glass to cool. I found myself talking to Erica as she was trying to make her first first twisty, guiding her through the timing, saying things like "wait," "twist," "pull," "twist faster," etc. Erica will need to practice to internalize this timing on her own, but hopefully going through this a few times with me will help her do that!
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| Erica Making a Bead |
Mudthaw was also a very wonderful event because a good friend got her Laurel at the event. I was able to make tokens for her to give out to people who visited her during the day. It felt really wonderful to be able to participate in her ceremony in such a concrete way!
The design of the tokens was based on her heraldry. Because I was making 50 of them, I also tried to pick a design that would be easy to do! Seeing people wearing the tokens I made at the event was also cool!
