Class Disaster

Wel-l-l-l-l.....I tried...Tried taking a class in making these leather wrapped bracelets that are so popular all over the place. And I failed....It wasn't the teacher, it was me. Me and Fireline, we just didn't get along! Fireline supposedly is one of the strongest threads you can use when using all kinds of faceted beads and stitching with beads. I will say that Fireline is NOT an easy thread to work with. It kinks up on itself very easily, twists, looks like it's in a knot when maybe it isn't, and is worse than a pile of messed up yarn when trying to work with long lengths of it.

I was upset with the shop. Not only was the class a little on the expensive side, 25.00, but their beads were VERY expensive and you had to buy your supplies from them. It cost me 53.00 to buy the beads and cord for the bracelet, on top of the 25.00 for the class fee. The store shall remain nameless, because I was so upset at my experience today, I probably won't go back, even though they offered me a free second chance to master working with Fireline.

I will say one problem I ran into was the teacher had me measure out enough thread to make a triple wrap when I only wanted to make a double wrap so I was working with far more thread than I needed to be for the bracelet. I remembered only later that a beading/jewelry teacher told me last year that Fireline was NOT for beginners, it was difficult to work with--and how!

the store's sample bracelet

I was working with 30 feet of this nasty stuff, trying to pass through beads back and forth, doing my darndest to keep the lines straight so they wouldn't tangle. It happened over and over and over again. She would patiently help me untangle and unknot the lines...she seemed to know where to pull and tug, I had no clue. The harder I tried to untangle the threads, the messier it got and the worse the knots became! 

Finally, after two hours of struggling with this Fireline stuff, I called it quits. When I hardly have enough patience to untangle a messy ball of yarn, to try working with tiny thread filaments of knots and messes and twists and kinks, and what seemed to be endless yards of the stuff, was just beyond my ability. There ARE other threads and cords you can use, but she insisted I would get the hang of it if I would just hang in there with the Fireline. She was going like gangbusters on her bracelet as she worked along side me. Nope! Not gonna happen! I will try again on another day, but I'm going to try waxed linen instead. It's just GOT to be better than this Fireline stuff! Seventy-eight dollars later, and I have a bunch of very expensive beads and nothing to show for it. At least the beads are reusable. No wonder they charge quite a bit for the bracelets online. They are a LOT of work! And patience, something I'm in short supply of..... Sigh......