When it rains, it pours

I am sooo tired.

My friend-the-bride decided today that she wanted the zipper replaced in her wedding dress. So after leaving work I got my daughter and took her home. While waiting for my friend to call I showed my daughter how I drilled holes in the mah jongg tiles.

This time I used the green & white speckle-backed tiles with copper beads. Living in Arizona one gets to see a lot of copper. I love mixing old and new and the green of the tiles reminded me of the patina of old copper, so I wanted the shiny new copper beads to go with it. I'm very pleased with the result. I might try it again with some Bali copper beads I saw at the same bead store.

After going to the bride's house and measuring the old zipper I slowly made my way to the fabric store to get a new zipper. Sadly, all the local fabric stores have closed so I have to travel much farther than I used to.

Why was I slow? Of course, that's when Scottsdale got hit with a microburst. The palo verde in our front yard snapped at the base as I was leaving home and I saw downed branches and light poles all over the place. So I took my time getting to and from the store. I removed the old zipper after I got back and told her I'd be back tomorrow to put the new one in.

I was tired when I got home but the rhythm of the steady rain was soothing so I went outside to drill one more bracelet. Similar to what I did Monday night, it has six 1-9 Character tiles and the large twisty modern red cinnabar beads.

Jennifer commented today that she liked the meaning I had in one of the bracelets. I actually try to do that in most of my bracelets. For myself, I prefer the Wind tiles in the N-E-W-S order since I'm a journalist and I try to match them with the dragon tiles since I was born in the year of the dragon. I also like to spell out important dates if possible with the numbered tiles.

Of course, some are just a pretty blend of different tiles.

Well, I head back tomorrow to hopefully finish the wedding dress zipper. Please wish me luck!

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Drillin', drillin', drillin', Rextiles!

Phew, what a weekend!

I got my new drill press, got it set up and, after a lot of adjustment, drilled my first holes in more than two years. Yee haw!

I drilled purple glitter and purple mardi gras tiles for me (both sides are shown), green stripes and green checks for Mom. (Can you guess what our favorite colors are?)

I also strung these tiles with a purple glass pearl. I really like how the pearly surface set off the sparkly tile. I'm looking for matte beads too since I have more glitter and mardi gras tiles. I might restring the pictured braclet too if I can find some purple matte beads for it.

Saturday I drilled three green striped and three red striped tiles for a Christmas bracelet I'm working on for me with gingerbread boy polymer beads from Kennick Kreations. The red and green striped tiles made me think of Christmas candy. I'm having to adjust the beads a bit since my gingerbread boys are about 12mm in diameter so I needed 4mm fiber optics rounds to make the size I need for my wrist. (I've found the perfect mah jongg bracelet for me is six tiles and 20mm of spacers between each tile, such as two 10mm beads, or a 12 mm bead with two 4mm beads on each side.) After getting the right beads I realized my Stretch Magic™ Elastic 1mm cord was too big so I'll need to find something smaller on the way home. I don't like .5mm so I hope to find some .7mm or .8mm. We shall see. I'll post photos soon.

I spent most of Sunday finishing a friend's wedding dress alterations. She leaves for Hawaii on Friday and is getting married next Sunday on the beach. She got a gorgeous dress (right) but sadly the shop where she got the dress had no records of her pre-paying for alterations and wouldn't do it. Of course I said I'd help her and shortened the skirt so it's ankle length in back, raised the hemline in the front to mid-shin, and shortened the straps, too.

We had a scary moment when she was trying it on for the last time. When we went to take it off her the zipper stuck! After much effort (and tears) we got it off her. I offered to put a new zipper in but she refused. I told her to think about it overnight....

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