Take your time and have a look around Sig's site, check her patterns, books, and other fun things. Purchase a kit, a pattern, or a book, as Sig is one of the finest bead pattern deisngers in the beading world. She offers wonderful kits, and her patterns are not to be missed.

Before you head out, loaded down with your purchases, do take a few minutes to spend enjoying the latest installment of Sig's occasional series of beading, bead world, bead pattern design, beading book authorship, and the life of the professional and hobbyist beader in general, in her terrific parody series titled The Cracked Bead. Click on the little red box with the word "new" in the left-hand navigation bar, the second link from the top, to reach the page on Sig's site. The link is titled "Chapter 6, the Cracked Bead" and will take you right to the main Introduction Page to the series of The Cracked Bead so that you can read the story behind the articles and the introduction to each individual entry.

The individual columns are in PDF form, so you'll need to have the Adobe reader installed on your computer to access the entries, but Sig has thoughtfully provided a link for you so that you may install it right at her Web site.

Chapters to date include the following:

• Chapter One: I Want to Become a Millionaire by Beading and designing!!
• Chapter Two: You Wish You Could Have My Talent!
• Chapter Three: If It's Not Free, I'm Not Gonna Buy It
• Chapter Four: I Didn't Get What I Paid For
• Chapter Five: A Field Guide to the Genus and Species of Bead Class Students
• Chapter Six: Chapter 6, How to Design Creatively Rich, Artistically Perfect, and Phenomenally Yummy (C.R.A.P.P.Y.) Patterns

If these don't leave you with tears of laughter streaming down your face, then there may be no hope for your beady sense of humor.
of course, it could be that you are new enough to the world of beading that none of this makes sense to you yet. Don't worry - handle enough beads, do enough beadwork, hand around enough beaders, and it will all come together very soon. And, it'll leave you laughing in retrospect, as certain things mentioned the columns begin to make sense all of a sudden.

New beader or long-timer, you'll find that you identify with more than you might think as you read these insightful, articulate and incredibly amusing columns, or, to quote Sig herself, "a commentary from the warped mind of Sig."

Enjoy, and be sure to come back here and post your comments. I'd love to read what others think of this wonderfully funny, fresh, and politically-incorrect journal from Sigrid Wynne-Evans, one who should know. Or perhaps I should say, one who should know better!