Does this book spark joy?

Spring and summer travels have kept me away from my studio and this blog space for way too long! On one of my many trips, I picked up Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, to read on a five-hour flight. I was itching to try her approach to organizing, but had to wait a full month until I was home more than 48 hours to put her ideas to work.

Kondo’s theory, in a nutshell, is that if we keep only those things that "spark joy," we’ll declutter our lives and maybe even find our true passions. Her book is a quick and engaging read, and, after kondo-ing (this book is so popular that might actually be a word now!) all our closets, the pantry, the kitchen and laundry, I took a day to marvel at the difference I’d made on the first floor. Now it was time to head upstairs to my studio.

If you’re a beader, you know we can take simple disorganization to a whole new level of chaos!  Keeping a tidy beadroom is way lower on our priority scale than learning a new stitch or incorporating a new bead shape into an old pattern. And who wants to move things about the studio when there are new color combinations to try and a bead challenge looms on the calendar?

I turned the calendar to the wall and started with my books. Kondo advises grabbing them all off their shelves and putting them on the floor.

Five years worth of accumulated beading and metalworking books

Plus all my magazines, notebooks and binders of inspiration

Once the books are piled, you take each one in your hand and decide whether it will be kept or discarded. The criterion for keeping is whether it gives you a thrill of pleasure when you touch it. Flipping through the book, in Kondo's judgment, leads to unnecessary questions and second guessing. Kondo keeps her own library to about 30 volumes, so the challenge I gave myself was to pare my collection down to 30 (or fewer) beading books that not only sparked joy, but also fit my current design aesthetic. And here is my now-tidy bookshelf:

For the study of Design:

 

The Beader’s Guide to Jewelry Design, Margie Deeb

Jewelry Designs from Nature, Heather Powers

The Jewelry Maker’s Design Book: an Alchemy of Objects, Deryn Mentock

Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry, Lorelei Eurto and Erin Siegel                                                             

For technique:

Creative Designs Using Shaped Beads, Anna Elizabeth Draeger

Shaped Beadwork, by Diane Fitzgerald

Contemporary Geometric Beadwork by Kate McKinnon

Mastering Beadwork by Carol Huber Cypher (if I could only have one beading book, this would be it.)

Micro-Macrame Jewelry by Joan Babcock

Woven Bead and Wire Jewelry by Dallas Lovett

Dimensional Bead Embroidery by Jamie Cloud Eakin

The Beaded Sphere by Judy Walker

For inspiration and because I never tire of reading and rereading them:

Maggie Meister’s Classical Elegance; Sherry Serafini’s Sensational Bead Embroidery; 

Marcia DeCoster’s Beaded Opulence; Rachel Nelson-Smith’s Bead Riffs and Seed Bead Fusion; 

Maggie Roschyk’s Artistic Seed Bead Jewelry; The Art of Bead Embroidery by Heidi Kummli 

and Sherry Serafini;  Diane Fitzgerald’s Shaped Beadwork & Beyond; 

and Embroidered Jewellery by Shirley Anne Sherris (this book never fails to inspire).

Now, to work this same magic on my bead stash!

Favorite Read(s) of the Year

A glance at my sidebar will show that when I am not beading, I can usually be found with a book. It’s time to pick a favorite from 2010.

Having lived in Jackson, Mississippi in the early seventies, I felt like the characters in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help were old friends. They were my privileged, intolerant upstairs neighbors. They were the women I stopped to chat with at the bus stop when my year-old daughter and I went for our morning walks. It’s a wonderfully written book told from the voices of three very different but incredibly strong southern women. If you haven’t read it, I recommend the audio book, where the narrators’ voices make the characters even more vivid (and harder to leave behind!)

But my favorite book of 2010 has to be Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough’s biography of the pre-presidential life of Teddy Roosevelt. The subtitle says it all: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. This is an amazingly detailed look at a close-knit family – an admired father, a cherished mother and the life they created for Teddy and his siblings in post-Civil War New York City.

The running list on the right doesn’t include all the beading books I’ve savored (devoured!) during the past twelve months. It’s even harder to pick a favorite in this category. But I love peyote stitch, and I was able to take my skills from flat to dimensional this year with Diane Fitzgerald’s Shaped Beadwork. The clear and detailed instructions and gorgeous projects make this a book I’ll return to again and again.

have a little faith...a true story

If you like Mitch Albom’s commentary on ESPN (Mitch is the only reason I look up from my beading when Sports Reporters is on), then you’ll enjoy this book because he writes in that exact voice. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

It’s the story of a pastor of a rundown church and the rabbi of a large, established synagogue, one black, one white, one poor with a questionable past, one comfortable with an adoring congregation, one Christian, one Jew. As the rabbi nears the end of his life, he asks Mitch to deliver his eulogy. And the adventure begins.

It’s actually several true stories – Albom’s, the rabbi’s and the preacher’s. And, like me, you might see a little of your own story here, too.

It’s a small book – 250 pages. I read it yesterday to prepare for a book club I lead at a senior center. I could read it again tomorrow.

A Fresh Twist from Liz

I had a nice surprise in the mailbox yesterday. No, this time it was not a small package of beads, but Liz Curtis Higgs’ newest book, Here Burns My Candle. Liz is one of my favorite novelists. I have read everything she’s written, and would be hard pressed to name my favorite. This novel is based on the Old Testament story of Naomi and Ruth, but set in 18th century Scotland. Intriguing? Liz’s novels always are! I would love to tear into her newest saga right now. I know it will be chockfull of all the rich historical details I love (and Liz is famous for), but since my own candle is burning at both ends…..it will have to wait until my show inventory is complete.

But if you’re a better time manager than I am, I recommend you run out and grab this one off the nearest shelf.