A Year in the Making, day 227 & 228

More in progress shots today, but first let's talk about last night's dinner. I slow-roasted a nice chunk of beef in red wine all day yesterday. The husband made gravy from the juices, and made up a pot of egg noodles, which is the fall-back for beef meals when we don't feel like potatoes. Oh, so tasty, and today eating it with Saturday's homemade bread was the best lunch ever!



Today, I've got the new blue choker almost completely done, except for the clasp, but got it finished too late to take good pictures. So instead here's another couple of in progress shots. Today was assembly day, taking all the pre-wrapped beads and stringing them together with split rings. To do so, I added another tool besides the pliers and cutters I always wield, a set of split ring pliers.



These are designed to spread apart the split ring so you can get your wire or line through:



Unfortunately I had the camera on the wrong setting so all my in-progress shots came out horribly overexposed. Here's the very start:



Starting out with a string of linked beads, then laying out the loose wrapped bits to make sure the pattern's going to work and that I've pre-wrapped enough beads, because nothing's more aggravating when I'm in the groove than to have to stop and go back and break the rhythm.

Next, I start building down from the linked strand:



And I end up with something like this:



Better pictures to come tomorrow, I promise!