More historic beads

I have been making a whole lot of blue and white beads in preparation for the Heritage Days demo in Westernville, NY. In my last post, I showed the crow beads I have been making and a Hudson Bay bead I may offer. I also have crow beads in every color of the rainbow, since even though historically, blue and white beads had the monopoly, now people do have favorite colors and like variety.

Luckily, one of my obsessions when I first started lampworking was blue and white "Delft" beads. These correspond fairly well to the "Lewis and Clark" style bead prevalent shortly after the colonial period. Lewis and Clark's expedition carried beads as an important trade commodity and while there is no documentation as to the type of bead they actually carried, those above could be taken as a representative sample. For more information on the Lewis and Clark expedition, click this link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition

My stock right now is pretty pitiful and one of two things is going to happen. Either I am going to sell out in 2 hours and spend the rest of the weekend making excuses or I am going to sit around with a half-empty table and sell nothing. I am mortally afraid of either one happening. I need to make more beads, because even if I don't sell a single thing I would rather it not be because my selection was lousy.

Must torch. Will post again later.