I think I have always enjoyed playing with color ~ and putting small bits of things together to make something new. I remember making mosaic ashtrays at Girl Scout camp, paper covered oatmeal boxes in Brownies, and then patch work quilts, then stained glass, Kaffe Fasset knitting, and so on.....

In the summer of 2003 I had the chance to take a beading workshop with Wendy Ellsworth at Common Ground on the Hill in Westminster, MD. The workshop was actually on making a lidded vessel, but I convinced Wendy to show me the techniques of making a gourd stitch bracelet.

When I came home I wanted to make more bracelets, but I had trouble finding suitable buttons for the closures, so I made a barrette and decided I needed to learn to make glass buttons myself! I took a workshop on flameworked beadmaking in early February at the Sharon Arts Center near Peterborough, NH. Sally Prasch was a wonderful teacher and I left knowing a little and anxious to do more work in the flame!

At the end of February I spent two days with Ann Scherm in her studio in Virginia Beach and came away with new techniques and a "burning" desire to get set up for melting glass in my basement.