2025 Wrap Up

This has been another strange year. My day job is going well, I still love selling doors and windows (and have a minor obsession with them). We're physically healthy and daily working on the mental health aspect... my general feeling waking up every day to news articles of, what the f*** now has been taking a toll. I've never been very openly political, but the only way I can seem to process what's going on is through my artwork, hence my statement bangles of this year: Resilience, Resist and Feminist. 

I haven't gotten a ton of artwork done this year. The big project was going back and forth with homeowners insurance to get our property put back together. We had a huge storm in May (a tornado in a neighboring town but ours was just high winds) which resulted in needing a tree going through our dining room window, one coming down on our cars, a unch demolishing our shed, most of the privacy fence (yes, my door fence) gone, and a bunch of repair for our balcony and siding. Shockingly, and with some luck with timing and knowing the right people we got most of this done by October. We still have some yard cleanup that I was picking at all summer and need to tear down the shed...but a lot less project for next summer. We had another night of high winds last week and I had a hard time sleeping, after this experience I just think about what kind of damage I'm going to find in the morning (there wasn't any). As much as going back and forth with insurance sucked, I'm glad we have it and I feel taken care of.

My big project for next summer is already upon me, I am teaching one seminar at the Complex Weaver's Conference in Denver and I have a seminar plus a 1 day beadweaving sampler class at Handweavers Guild of America's Convergence Conference. I'm trying to get better at promoting these, but being on social media and staying updated has become such a slog for me. I try not to even go on it too much. So yeah, go sign up for my classes!

Looking back on this past year, we've definitely had our trials. My husband was laid off, lots of people are getting laid off, I feel fortunate that my job is pretty stable and we're good at reigning in our spending. We were still able to go to Riot Fest in September, which was amazing. I never thought I'd even be able to afford to see Blink-182, Weezer and Green Day live and they were the headliners. I was so inspired in fact, that I decided I might want to learn Electric Bass Guitar. Which I have started in on and am really enjoying. My fiber work is just feeling so...worky. This outlet is just for me. My husband has started getting back to playing guitar and he's so geeked that I'm liking it that be bought me a sweet Bass Amp for Xmas. I didn't realize the low sound I love could be even deeper. I love it (and him)!

Then his car was not repairable...so since we had to get him a new car anyway and there are limited options for what he'll comfortably fit in, the utilitarian car he was looking at was about the same price as the car he's always wanted. So I encouraged him to get the fun car since he's doing a lot of driving to make money right now, he might as well. All of the bad stuff that's happened this year has turned around to be a life improvement. Even the job loss, he was miserable and now we have a lot more flexibility to go to more concerts rather than figuring out how to utilize his vacation time since he had a set schedule. Something I felt early on in our relationship is that whatever life throws at us, we'll be ok. I can only explain it as a feeling that I had never fully felt before. We've got each other and we'll figure out what's getting thrown at us next and we're only stronger for it.

I'm letting go of some things too. I don't have the energy to deal with shopping for a server for my website, so I just moved JennySchu.com to my blog. I will probably creating a landing page for it that's simple, but my website does not make me money, so why am I putting so much effort into it when I don't enjoy doing it at all? So much of trying to be an artist on the back end of promoting and trying to sell and hours of work on proposals that may or may not happen is just not doing it for me. So I'm going to get back to what I love and not pressure myself as much to appease the internet. 

So who knows what 2026 will hold. I had breakfast with a friend this morning and talking with her helped remind me that the new year can be a nice day of calm, relaxing reflection. Her excitement for her upcoming year reminded me that I have cool stuff coming up too, I've just been looking at it wrong..feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all. Which reminds me that I need to purge that with basic cardio and I'm going to get back to my elliptical-and-Dr-Mario in the mornings, even if it's for 15 minutes. Last year I decided to try to get an average of 10,000 steps in per day. Some days off I only hit around 2,000 and last year my average was only 8,707 left to my own devices without having any goals. My average on the year is 11,136 as of this writing and only one month I didn't hit the 10,000 average. there's hasn't been a lot of high endurance stuff though which I think is why my anxiety and overwhelm is running rampant. Lots of numbers, but as I've gotten older I seem to like tracking numbers and spreadsheets more. It often helps me look at things as a whole.

Photo by Jena

Flat Herringbone Stitch Bracelet Sample for Convergence in Black and Silver

Detail of wide flat herringbone stitch

First off, thank you to those who have already signed up for the Beadweaving Sampler Class that I'm teaching at HGA's Convergence Conference! We will be learning 3 beading stitches in this class and I'm preparing pieces that will be examples of what you can do with these configurations.  

The class itself will only allow for enough time to get the hang of, and a little bit of flow for each stitch. I feel that completed projects help students consider that there are so many options for these bead structures. This bracelet took me about 5 hours to complete.

I bead very tight, so this bracelet is sleek but also stiff. The next one I create I'm going to try to loosen my stitches to show that it does not have to be this tight. We'll see how that goes (I've been beading very tight for a very long time). 

Sign In or Sign Up and Register for this class at Convergence here: 

https://weavespindye.org/schedule-and-registration/

I love the look of this stitch, when done in stripes that move up the length of the pattern it creates a lovely banded look. I'm working on bracelets that I'll wear with my "going out" wear which is usually a bit more in the realm of punk/metal looks for concerts rather than the fancy cocktail dresses of my past life. I promise I'll get some color in here too. I'm mostly just inspired by blacks and gunmetal colors at the moment.

Fall Leaf Jewelry Set

 

The above set all began with a collection of beads to make a pin. The pin request was for "fall" colors. I created it as a thank you to the artist who handed much of her deceased sister's bead stash down to me. I made sure to use beads from her sister's collection for this pin. 

I liked the pin colors so much that I kept making leaves and created a set with a necklace, earrings and leaf bracelet. These will be available this coming Thursday, December 4th at I'll be at the Loewen Gallery in Williamston for Ladies Night Out from 4pm-9pm. 

I'm not sure what else to say other than I've been working on a lot of other things that aren't jewelry lately. So this set was a bit of a surprise when it happened. I'm starting to figure out how sequins should be sewn on to the weaving that came off of my loom in the spring. The house and property is buttoned up for the winter, many improvements were made along with our repairs with homeowners insurance. Artwork has been getting a bit too "worky" so I decided to be a beginner at something and have started learning elecric bass guitar. We're hitting a lot of punk, metal, hardcore concerts this month (3 in one week, lol) and I come back inspired, tired and at the same time refreshed from shows. Last night Andrew, the lead singer of Johnny Booth said to the crowd "Take yourself back to your first concert, the first time you felt like you belonged somewhere" and man, that is such a great summary of how I still feel going to shows, especially the smaller ones. Life is really good.