I have been beading for a couple of years now. How did this happen, this obsession, this addiction? How does any addiction begin? With a moment. In a split second. True, I had dabbled in jewelry making many years ago but I barely remember it. I suppose it just didn’t ‘click’ because it came and went with out leaving a mark on my life, just a few boxes of odds and ends.
My obsession at the time of the ‘moment’ was candle making. That particular hobby came from my joy of reusing, never throwing anything away. I began to make candles out of the stubs of old candles. Eventually I learned that you cannot control the quality of your candle if you don’t know what wax it is made of, what scents have been used. So I just used the old candles as chunks. I made some really cool chunk candles if I do say so myself. And lots of nonchunk candles as well. Eventually I had too many candles so I tried to sell them. But candles carry a lot of responsibility. What if someone buys your candle and they burn their house down? So you gotta have insurance. And to make a really fine product you must test each wax with each scent with each mold. Well, frankly once I made a particular candle I never wanted to make another one just like it again,so forget the testing. And if you go to a craft show in the sun and don’t have a cover, they melt and they fade. Argh.
It was at one of these crafts shows when we happened to be in a spot next to a jewelry maker. . We started chatting and I admired her stuff and when I left that day I had a craving to make jewelry. I started stringing, then I fell in love with lampwork beads. I searched high and low for a teacher of lampworking in the Las Vegas area. Before my quest was complete I happened to take a class at a bead store on making a peyote stitch ring. The ring reminded me of the mesh Tiffany ring I had always wanted but hadn’t treated myself to. I took the class and I have done NOTHING but peyote stitch since. Definitely an obsession. It replaced my desire to learn lampwork (for now) which is just as well as lampwork would mean buying a kiln and lots of pricey stuff. So that’s on the backburner for now.
I do still make candles from time to time to give as gifts and will continue to do so until I run out of supplies which should be around...never.
Funny you should ask because I was just in the mood to tell you all about it. I grew up in a suburb of Montreal, St. Laurent. We always had a country house in the Laurentian mountains where we’d go weekends in the winter and then spend the summer. Around the time I was 10, my mother decided to open a ladies clothing store in the town we’d had our country house for several years, Ste. Agathe Des Monts, which is about 60 miles north of Montreal. I don’t have very clear memories of this but I do recall that there was a process where you had to have the name approved. Not sure who had this authority, maybe the city, but that’s not important. I seem to recall she’d tried a name that was a combo of all her kids’ names but it was rejected. Someone, I think an aunt, came up with Chez Chani (house of Chani.) Apparently stores had to have a french name and Chez Chani was inspired by my mother’s Hebrew name, Shoshanna. So that was the name of the store and everyone started calling her Chani. By the way it’s pronounced Shay Sh-ann-ee. Eventually we moved there, living along the lake, Lac Des Sables. And though it’s been many MANY years since I’ve lived there, and I’ve lived in several places since, Ste. Agathe was home to me like no other place has been. I will always miss it, as well as the bedroom set I was forced to leave behind.
