Just this week a beader e-mailed me sweet praises of MASTERING BEADWORK and said she just finished beading several inches of undulating tubular peyote she learned from the book, to wear on a crochet rope. She sounded delighted with her piece. It is a very satisfying project. It is repetitious and meditative as we expect of peyote with the added bonus of a mindfulness necessary to always pick up a bead just like the one being exited rather than the one being entered. The necklace here is Mary's undulating peyote that she worked on during her early studio classes. She skillfully decreased the bead sizes as she approached the ends, which hide a magnetic closure.

In this week's studio class, Elaine finished her crystal bracelet and resumed working on this lovely bead crochet bracelet. The ceylon seed beads look just like pearls when worked up this way. Stunning. I have made similar bracelets as gifts for bridal parties.

If you've been following the blog you know how immersed I have been in these textured, gorgeous-both-front-and-back, quick and exciting bezels I have been designing for rivolis, felt beads, glass, stones and, well, they even look great empty! These are two that Amy made tonight. Beauties.

Earlier today, Caroline Turner, from Moral Fibre Studio and I negotiated the 2010 dates and details of workshops for my first teaching in the UK! February 25, 26, 27 and 28 will be a 4-day intensive in hand felted and beaded jewelry and adornments. March 2 and 3 a 2-day intensive in hand felted bead jewelry.
When we'd communicated about this last week we had figured I would tag this event onto my week of teaching in Germany in March 2010 at Creativa, Europe's largest handwork convention. Last year the attendance was 75,000. This year will feature a new and prominent beading vendors and education sponsored by Perlen Poesie magazine, Germany's first and only periodical devoted to beadwork. Unable to make the arrangements on-line, I called a travel agaent to find that it would be more than twice the price to fly 4 one-ways (US to Ger to UK to US) than to fly two round trips from US to Europe. So, A week in UK and then a couple weeks later...back to Germany. Fine with me.

Tulip Co (yes you know them from previous posts here about my attending the TNNA Show with them in June, during their first exhibit in the US) is sponsoring the feltmaking workshops I will teach at Creativa.