s*w*i*t*z*e*r*l*a*n*d

Today it's the last day of June - time to start at least this months BJP-piece. ;-)

It has been unforeseen a very troublesome time of my life with hardly any energy to think about projects in my life.
I indugled in summer delight which gave me so much joy - and that was enough and exactly what I needed.

For s*w*i*t*z*e*r*l*a*n*d I had the beads and misc. together very early in June and they have been sitting next to me when I was beading. I planned to work into the June bracelet abstracts of my beloved mountains, maybe even kind of a climbing route. But I never found the exact picture in my mind.
This morning I took the advice I read on so many blogs: Take one bead and start - it will all come out.
And so it did, at least I hope so:

I started with the cute sun twinkling with her eyes at me and went on stitching a snowy slope as the beginning of a mountain. But it did not feel right and I felt like I can't do it.
A moment later looking into the beads all of the sudden I knew what to do: I go on with more or less stitching rows and letting the colors speak for themselves and letting them merge.
It is not important that the piece carrys mountains, skiing, climbing, beautiful tiny high altitude flowers, crisp air on it. Important are my feeling and thoughts while working on it.
Now I'm in a much more happier mood, because I know what I will be doing. Yeah, and I know that this I can do!

The weekend is young; I need to recover from an awful week and part of it will be working on s*w*i*t*z*e*r*l*a*n*d.

Summer delight brings joy

Some days ago I stitched the last beads on and figured out how to work the closure, but didn't have the time to sew back and front together.
Yesterday I was getting ready for a summer birthday party. After being dressed I saw summer delight and wished to put it on, because I wanted to feel pretty and joyful on this very special night. And so I did. I knew that it wouldn't fall apart and nobody would notice the missing stitches.

Oh, what a joy!
As we all know life is not always easy and wearing this bracelet definitly helped getting myself more on the happy side. :-)

I will show it in full when it's finished and give you the details of the material. For now guess, from where the flowers used for the closure travelled from?

Long distance mail

I love it when I open my mail box and find something waiting for me. :-)

Inside were the two books I've ordered from Robin Atkins and those yummy beads. Everythings was well packed so to make its long travel secure. Thanks, Robin, everything went fine. The beauties were wrapped with the nice dragonfly paper I photographed them on. Dragonflys I like a lot, both in nature and in beads. I wonder about the story of the beads.

International visitors

It's great to see on google analytics from where all the visitors are coming from. To see them reading in all over Europe and North America is exciting and on top there is one from Sidney, one from Perth (say hello to an old girlfriend) and one even from Malawi (I would be glad if you would give me an "hello"). About the latter I read an article advising this country good for a bicycle trip. Since this summer I'm not travelling far away I did not go deep into it, but it's not out of my mind.
It's fascinating to see people from all over seing my things (and my garden on BJP).


Cheers from Hamburg
:-Tally-:

Not everything is as happy as it might look

We all know, that live has many sides to it. June came up with the not-so-happy side at a moment where I was 10 minutes earlier joking around with a friend about our problems. "If our deepest concern is wether it is dangerous to take the wrong side of an abandonend country road than we are really happy people."
Short time after we were the one trying to give first aid to a 42 yrs lady drowning at a very small lake. She left 2 young teenage boys and her parents. They have been there just for a swim, enjoying together the summer Sunday afternoon.
I'm writing this here to tell everybody to take it serious what was told you when you were a child: Don't eat anything at least 45 min before swimming!!
As my doctor explained to me this is the main cause for death when swimming.
Digesting the stomach needs a lot of your blood. When you go into water the coolness of the water makes the blood move to the surface of your skin, so it's not available for the stomach. Stomach notices this and tries to get rid of what is in it. And this might possible find its way into the lung instead of outside the body. Normally one would cough, but in the water one gasps for breath and takes water in instead. Even a med being there would have problems helping.

The picture I took 2 days after the accident. I was for one day on sick leave, trying to regain my psychological strength and was sitting in my garden all day doing nothing but beading and working on the blogs. I needed beauty and happy thoughts around me.
The picture was on the BJP-blog, but now I want it also here. I got much nice and cheerful mail on it. When I made someone happy it makes me happy.
And it shows that there are not only sad things in live.

Summer delight

This is my very first piece of beading embroidery.
After frogging the first lines many times I discovered it was due to loose tension using my old round wooden hoop. What to do? I looked around and found the solution as seen on the picture. The "hoop" is the shelf of a little storage thing. It's too wide, so either I will saw it shorter sometime or I will get myself a Q-Snap. Thanks to the comment in one of the beading blogs I found out about it.

I'm using the bead soup I got very cheap during my last summer trip. Because of this and the colors I name it summer delight Nevermind it was winter, where I purchased it - it was hot and desert/ocean climate. :-)

I have been surfing on craft blogs for quite a while (mostly sewing and knitting, with some sidetrecking). On the very end of May I was led to Robin Atkins homepage. I got stuck with her work and the colors she is using.
From there it was only a short way to the Bead Journal Project. For two days I was pondering, because I have other things on my plate and the feeling of being overwhelmed is familiar. I decided against it. The morning after the deadline I woke up - and joint, possible due to the time difference. :-)
What led me to the decision was that I knew already the day before what I will be doing. This is quite new for me. During driving to work I envisioned my topic and the style/size. Well, if something is calling I should take the chance.

So here I am.
I thought I should practise before my first project. After the first hour I wasn't even sure if I like like embroidery, kind of scary feeling with this year-long-commitment. But after having the right tension (also using some fuse I found in my drawer) I finally started loving it.

My project size will be approx. 17 x 3,5 cm. I will sport them on a fabric covered pinboard in such a way, that I'm able to pick them up and wear them as a bracelet/cuff.
My theme will be my travelling. The feelings, the countries I've been to, the plans, the hopes. Travelling is the almost most important thing I'm doing. Will write later about that. I was so happy when the connection hit my mind.

Summer delight was meant to be my exercise piece. But because of so much heart in it due to the incidents taken place the last days and being already in the middle of June I would like to dedicate it as my first monthly project. But it is 1 cm (0,4 inch) more narrow than the planned pieces. For me it would be okay, I might not stick to the mm anyway. (1 mm = 0,04 inch) But I know it is against the regulation. What do you think?
On the other hand: My original theme for June has a reason and my July theme is already fixed. So, maybe I get started and finished the June project, so summer delight will be the intro "page".

Hello from Hamburg
:-Tally-: