March Madness

Where I come from in the US, the month of March is overtaken by a sort of dementia centering around basketball tournaments.  Ever since I can remember, the term "March madness" has crept into the vernacular with annual regularity and pervasiveness.  Now I see it even has its own list of references in Wikipedia, where it says the expression could be related to any one of several basketball competitive events.  It can also be connected with an annual spending frenzy in Canadian government whose fiscal year ends 31 March.

March madness has taken on new meaning for me since beginning my present teaching post at Ecolint.  Since my last blog entry, school demands have been great and I have had no time for blogging, beading or jewelry making--with the exception of one day.

On 6 March, Tanya, Lucy and I returned to the workshop of Michel Dubouchet for another day of lampworking.  Though I came away feeling like I made a lot of really ugly beads this time, I can say that I learned a lot:

• I mixed a couple of different colors of class, made my own rod with them and then made three beads.  
• I made a couple of flowers, one of which is actually rather nice, the other, very ugly.
• I learned that when using vermiculite, one must wait long enough before submerging the bead or one will end up with a distorted, pocked bead.
• I got better with dots and manipulating them.
• I got better with dimpled and symmetrical shapes.
• I tried to use metal flakes in several of the beads and not knowing what I was doing, burned the metal and created some very dark, murky looking beads.
• I made some bigger beads.
• I worked with different sized mandrels.
• I got better at encasing.
• For the time being, simple is better.