Yesterday was the monthly meeting of BeadsNBeyond at Gualala Arts Center. I took my new camera intending to be a good reporter who would come back with photos. However I got so involved in beading I forgot all about cameras, and telling a story.

Sue Hansen was on the docket to demonstrate her method of encrusting fishing lures with beads and I really should have shot a photo of the marvelous example she brought that she had made. As it was, Sue began, in her low-key way, to show us how to make one ourselves.

Though Marianne had searched the web, found and ordered fishing lures of a proper size, we all got hooked into the project because Sue had done her homework!

She had already prepared the lures for use (removing the hooks and sewing a tiny blanket of felt around the part to be covered) and very soon we were all involved in picking a lure, (being lured in by a lure), finding what colors we wanted to use based on the beads we had lugged in from cars (or which ones we could borrow from someone else).

Even members who usually do not do the brick stitch were soon into the project mainly because Sue has devised a method of doing the brick stitch that illuminates that tiresome first row of ladder stitched beads that is so hard to attach and measure against a slippery form. I will save this secret because Sue will be teaching the whole project in a class in the Bay Area in April (we were her guinea pigs) and you should really learn from the master.

Three o'clock came, Sue and Bobbie packed up and headed for home for a well-deserved nap before volunteering for another of their projects, but the rest of the group stayed with our noses glued to the fish lures. In the silence after their leaving we each and all admitted that when we came to the meeting we had no intention of beading a fishing lure, but here we were - following instructions and discovering a new technique with great joy. Well, all except one. There is always a rebel in every cause and Kathy covered a wooden needle case instead.

I came home and got this far on my fish before collapsing into bed. It is not fair to show you only this half-done version, so I am eager to get off the computer and get back to beading this just so I can show you what a neato thing this can be.

Before I shutup, I do want to relate that Vicki sold one of her new necklaces for men off the show and tell table, Judy had a tray of her newest wire wrapped stones that were delicious (and I got one in a trade for wooden needle cases) and Sue had brought a bunch of her amulets as demonstration of various options for beading a necklace. Her work is always so exquisite!

The show n' tell table is such an important part of our meetings! Not only is a way to share our current projects with each other, but people working on other events at the arts center take the opportunity to wander through our meeting to see what we are doing. And, joy of joy, Marianne taking up one of my bracelets blogged here, said, "Oh, so this is what that bracelet looks like! It is so much lovelier than the photo." Reason enough to leave my camera at the bottom of my purse!