SEPTEMBER IN THE STUDIO: COMING BACK

September always feels like a beginning to me.

Not January.
September.

Maybe it is all those years of school calendars
living in my body long after school ended.
Maybe it is the way the Florida light shifts
just slightly in September —
not cool yet, nothing so dramatic as that,
but different.
A degree or two of change.
Enough to feel like permission to start again.

I am back in the studio.
Here is what that looks like.

BACK TO B RABBIT

He was patient.
He is always patient.

B Rabbit has been sitting on the worktable since July,
the crimson and gold fleur-de-lis jacket half finished,
the rhinestone ears catching the light every time I walk past.

He did not complain about August.

I came back to him this week
and picked up exactly where I left off —
which is one of the things I love most about beadwork.

It waits for you.

The needle, the thread, the bead tray,
the pattern you have memorized so deeply
it lives in your hands more than your head.
You sit down, you begin,
and within ten minutes
you are back inside the work
as if you never left.

September's goal: finish the jacket.
After that, the front — the vest, the shirt.
B Rabbit's front face is the most visible surface on the whole piece,
and I have not fully designed it yet.
I am waiting until the jacket is complete
before I can hear what that section wants to be.

That is how this work goes.
You listen as you go.

LILIANNA'S COVER

Alongside B Rabbit,
I am continuing a piece that belongs to no one yet
except my granddaughter.

Lilianna turned two in August.

I am making her a beaded letter holder —
a book-shaped object, fully beaded,
that will hold a letter she opens when she is eighteen.
And a necklace.
And whatever else I want her to have from me

The cover is a girl in jeans carrying flowers.
The back is a dramatic face — black, white, red lips.

I bead a little on this one each week.
Slowly, deliberately.
Not rushing.

Some pieces are made for the world.
Some pieces are made for one person.

This one is for Lilianna.

HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS — STARTING EARLY

I know.
It is September.
But if you have ever tried to bead a set of ornaments
in the three weeks before the holidays,
you know why I start now.

Beaded ornaments are among the most satisfying small projects
in all of this work.
A complete composition —
beginning, middle, end —
in a few hours of focused making.

I will be sharing these as I go.
Some will be available in the shop.
Watch this space.

A WORD ABOUT BEAD STORAGE

Let me say something practical
while we are talking about coming back to the studio
after time away.

The thing that makes returning easy
is knowing where everything is.

Bead storage is not glamorous.
But it will save your sanity.

After forty years I have landed on this system:

Small, airtight containers — one color family per container.
Labeled clearly. Stacked by color, not by project.
A separate shallow tray for the colors I am actively using,
so I am not digging through storage mid-session.
And a dedicated spot for the beads I am low on,
so I know what to reorder before I run out mid-piece.

The worst thing that happens in beadwork
is running out of a specific bead mid-pattern.
Good storage is how you prevent that.

Find a system. Any system. Stick to it.
Your future self will thank you.

WHAT FALL LOOKS LIKE

September is the reset.
October and November are the push —
toward finished ornaments,
toward B Rabbit's front face,
toward whatever Lilianna's cover asks of me next.

By the time December arrives,
I want to be looking at a body of work
that tells a complete story of this year.

B Rabbit.
The bottle.
The ornaments.
The piece that is not for the world, but for her.

That is what I am building toward.

One bead at a time.

As always.

Dequa