I finally gave in and saw my Dr today about my sore finger and the verdict was that it wasn't broken but was probably fractured. As there is pretty much nothing that can be done for it, apart from strapping or splinting, which I can do myself, and sitting in a hospital for hours for a such a minor (if incredibly painful) thing would eat into my precious beading time, I took the decision to buy a splint and go home and bead. Hence the attractive, but very, very welcome contraption that now covers my finger.

It has brought such relief I wish I had done it a week ago. When will I learn that I am not invincible and that ploughing on isn't always the best option? Maybe never which, seeing as that blinkered mentality has got me this far, might not be a bad thing. Ask me that again if I have to have my finger amputated and I may feel differently.

Also skating and bouting after first inuring it, which meant crashing into walls, banging my hand on the floor numerous times and having it being grabbed by other skaters at speed, probably wasn't the best decision of my life but it's still attached so alls well that ends well. Hopefully.

I have cleverly chosen a splint that I can remove when it gets annoying, hence still being able to bead, so I am pleased to be able to show you my finished beaded padlock.

Well, the almost finished final version of the latest prototype might be a better description.

I have spent so many hours beading, unbeading and re-beading this lock and getting more and more confused as to whether it should be bigger, smaller, longer, shorter, fatter, thinner etc that it all got a bit confusing.

I was originally trying to replicate the look of an actual padlock and kept taking its mechanics etc into account which resulted in what I was making getting larger and larger.This was not good as I wanted something that would represent a padlock and be in the right scale to go with the keys and be worn. Big may be physically accurate, but not wearable because of its weight or look.

In the end I took a deep breathe and reminded myself of what I had been told about artists who paint horses. Apparently they often paint the animals' heads smaller than they actually are as representing them accurately would look unrealistic. The wisdom behind this goes that although we know how big horses heads are in real life, if you see this faithfully depiicted in a flat drawing, or painting, it can look too large and unbalanced. Or conversely too small and ridiculous. What I took from this, and told myself, was to step back and remember I was primarily beading a piece of jewellery and all that mattered was how it looked.

Soon after this realisation I had torn my beadwork back to my favourite bit, and what I considered the essential part which visually told anyone who looked at it that it was a lock: the keyhole.

A bit of beading later and I had a padlock that contained all the elements I wanted and was exactly the right scale to be worn and match with the keys. I am really pleased with it.

The 'key looking key' fits into the lock and so now I just need to bead a new version into which the crystal key will fit...

Oh and despite a lot of internet searching, I can find no evidence to back up what I just told you about horse artists so it may or may not be true. But it sounds good and the principle worked for me so in the end I'm glad I dredged it up from my memory banks. And I now know a lot more about painting horses, drawing cartoons of horses, teaching horses to paint, painting onto real horses and painting miniature models of horses than I ever expected to, so that is a bonus.