{idate}07oct06 {crop}GlassBeads/2006twist_dot3877crop.jpg {crop_alt}4 twist dot beads {iplc}To your left, a post about 4 twist dot hollows I made in the last month or so. This is another case of `looks great in the photo, has some problems in real life'. On the other hand I like the color combo, " and the flaws means I get to keep them." {ip}Continuing with the literary theme from yesterday, one of my very fave authors, Lois McMaster Bujold, says a 2 chapter excerpt from her new book, _The Sharing Knife: Beguilement_, "is now available online" and she's asking people to get the word out. Personally, it fascinates me when people actually have stated goals for their work (e.g. I wanted to see if I could reproduce this ancient style of bead authentically, or use this color I loathe) so I was intrigued at bits and pieces Bujold has dropped about this book. She's mentioned a couple of things: to evoke the Ohio environment in which she grew up (Chalion and the Weald, the settings for her last three books, are loosely---very loosely---based on European countries); to give the theological themes (nearly absent in the Vorkosigan books and a thus a dominating theme in the Chalionese universe) a rest; and to write a trilogy without that irritating `middle book'---so the second book of this duology will become available next summer. This is hard on us fans, but evidently better for marketing. {ip}Aside from _The Spirit Ring_ which was the only Bujold I didn't immediately love (even though the fantasy featured a female jeweler!) all of her previous books (written over a twenty year career---oof, how time flies) have been set in one of two universes, so this will be the first book with completely new characters and settings in quite awhile. Needless to say, I'm most extremely excited. I can't think of *any* other author I enjoy who managed, out of their entire oevre, to write only one book I didn't reread and reread. {ip}Many folk adore the Vorkosigan series, which are usually packaged as science fiction, subgenre military sf (the modern way of characterising space opera.) These are the books that made Bujold's career, and judging from the LMB mailing list, are still most people's favorites. They're also all out in paperback, many now in omnibus editions. (That is: I'm cheap, and a little uncomfortable recommending $26 hardbacks---but, see, we bought our first Bujold, _Shards of Honor_--- at a used bookstore, and, it should be obvious, have purchased everything since as soon as we could find it: fortunately for us, our fortunes rose with Bujold's fame, so we've been able to afford those hardcovers.) So it seems only right and proper to recommend the same trajectory, because I figure the writing will sell itself.) {ip}The Vorkosigan series spans an arc of something like 11--12 books (or more depending on how you count), though for those of you who think you detest military sf, I should note the series can basically be summed up as `Miles Vorkosigan's efforts to find love and get married', with interruptions here and there to have various adventures/solve mysteries/tell sideline stories of various other people in the same milieu, most of whom are relatives. Start at the very beginning, with _Shards of Honor_ (or the omnibus, _Cordelia's Honor_, which includes this book, and then the next, _Barrayar_ which takes place immediately after) or go right on to Miles' adventures, with _The Warrior's Apprentice_ or its newer incarnation, _Young Miles_. {ip}So when Bujold waded back into fantasy again some years later with _Chalion_ I was a little concerned. A story about `a battered old soldier' didn't sound all that interesting. And even though I myself am agnostic (if not outright atheist) I find the five gods---Lady of Spring, Mother of Summer, Son of Autumn, Father of Winter and the intercalary Bastard---and most particularly their constraints, fascinating. I love the Vorkosigan books, but it's been utterly cool to watch this evocation of new themes. (I've raved about this series before:) And now, she has another new series starting (she's currently writing a second pair for books in the Sharing Knife universe, titled Wide Green World) and so, of course, I wonder, whether it will be even better yet. {ip}I'll get to find out in approximately 4 more days, when the book is released, on October 10th. {tags}tessellation, {thumb}[tessellation]GlassBeads/2006twist_dot3877crop.jpg {summary}[tessellation]"4 tessellation beads"<2006twist_dot3877.html> Originally posted 06oct06 {cdate}6oct2006 {h1}More Bullseye Harlequins, {h2}none of which quite hit the mark... {public} {p}If you are an animal-beadmaking lampworker, or in to those very subtle color schemes, then opaque grey is for you. I am not either of those things, so the only time I ever found it of much use was in making grey and white funeral beads for a dearly beloved. (He mostly wore those colors, so the choice worked on two levels.) Otherwise, it's sat in the bin. {p}So, um, getting on to close to two years now Arrow Springs sent what was for me a huge order of Bullseye (buy it now and get it at the 40# price---except the prices were so good, I ended up buying---you guessed it---40 lbs! Sigh) of which some broke. This ended up being essentially free glass, because like any sane business, UPS found it much easier simply to replace the glass, than to attempt to negotiate how much value was left in the remaining pieces. And of course they built up all sort of goodwill by letting me keep a bunch of broken pieces that I suspect the average person sells for maybe 10 cents on the dollar on ebay. {p}But I was stuck with the desire to tidy up all those scraps. The ``prettier'' colors I made into the "mini-stripeys I've been featuring lately"<2006mini_stripeys.html> and when that palled, into more of those "honking dichro focals" ---the next series I plan to feature, if'n I just get off my butt and finish photographing it. {p}In between all that, I went back to a perennial favorite, twisted dot beads. My Lani Ching bead is made on opaque grey Bullseye glass, and I think it might have spring green (or whatever it is BE calls their opaque yellow-green) in it. At any rate, I concluded it might look nice with orange dots, so after a =lot=, =several,= too many failed color combos, I finally came up with one I liked. {icap}2006twist_dot3877.jpg {cap}4 twist dot hollow beads, largest 15x18.5 mm. Bullseye glass, september 2006. {p}I've suspected for a long time that Ms. Ching spot cases her dots with a transparent, and it's pretty obvious, comparing these beads to hers, that it's got to be (pardon the pun) the case, because I just don't see any other way to achieve that subtle color separation within the dots typical of her work. {p}The bead on end is what she calls the basketweave pattern, which is achieved alternating by row the rotation of twists (i.e. orange stringer). You can also, if you click on the image, see the handi-tac is peeling away from the plexi, which means the bead is canting in a gravity-defying way (not that my beads happily pose themselves on edge like that, but at least if they're not leaning 5 degrees off vertical it's a little more believable...) At least the cockeyed angle helps to disguise the slightly asymmetrical shape. {p}The reason the large bead in the center of the photo has such weird looking spots is that it hole-popped and though as you see I was able to otherwise save it, the evidence of its checkered past resides in a missing dot (on the backside) where it popped and the rather ucky patterning. Nevertheless, I consider it something of an achievement that I was able to rescue not only a cracked twisted dot bead (I do that rather too frequently to admit without embarressing myself) but a hole-pop. {p}The beautiful little bead on the left has an ugly orange splotch on the backside as well and even the seemingly perfect one in the back has a tiny bubble near the surface---so maybe I'll make some pretty jewelry out of them... {p}file created 06oct06