I spent today at the Alaska Bead Company, entertained and challenged in The Ultimate Beginner’s Workshop. I considered it a birthday present to myself (a bit early, so you’ve still got time!), and it really was a gift. I had a wonderful time!

Four friendly and interested students. Plenty of individual help as needed, but different ideas and tastes to add to the learning.

Excellent teacher. As a teacher myself, I’m as interested in teaching techniques as I am in the class subject matter. Linda Myers knows her stuff, but I especially appreciated her enthusiasm, open-mindedness, and her detailed breakdown of the steps to accomplish a goal. She was able to demonstrate and verbalize the most minute details, it was amazing.

At first I kind of thought, “What am I, a child?” because she slowly and deliberately pointed out where to put this finger, that finger, and how to rest the pliers on the table. But after struggling and failing to repeat what she made look so easy, I stopped and walked through the steps slowly and deliberately, putting this finger here, that finger there, and resting the pliers on the table just so, and by golly it worked! What do you know–the teacher was right. Well shut me up!

I also appreciated that we weren’t allowed to dawdle over the design of our pieces. It wasn’t a design class, it was a technique class, and if we spent time perfecting our bead layouts, we’d have less time to crimp beads and bend wire. This slow poke slapped together a design and was happy with it!

So it was a great day: I learned a bunch of new and fun things, and I created a necklace and earrings to go with my dress-up dress. I’m going to shorten the necklace a smidge, which will no doubt lead to design-mucking, but that’s okay; I need to practice what I learned to make sure I have it down.

The picture isn’t the best, but it’s my best for the time being.