Even when you can't imagine it being any better...it is! So, there I was at the Bead & Button Show: reunited with other beaders from around the globe that I have scant few opportunities to be with; offering 8 classes that were mostly filled, many with beaders I have beaded with before (such an honor and joy); with access to all the newest and best bead stuff. AND...there were gifts.
In the upper left of the photo is a small, hand bound, artist sketch book from http://www.twinklebeads.de/. See the small photo of Twinkle Beads Stores owner Saori Abe-Schroder. She was also the first chief editor of Germany's first beading magazine, Perlen Poesie. She founded both the Perlen Akademie (where I taught in Dortmund Germany during the Creativa Expo in March and will again next March), and the first PerlenExpo! Plus she is an active designer and instructor.

Naomi Sato and Yuko Watanabe are beaders from Japan who have taken my classes at B&B shows and in Tokyo. Yuko gave me the exquisite card deck, each card a completely different illustration protraying 54 scenes based on the Tale of Genji (appreciated as the supreme masterpiece of Japanese prose literature written in the 11th century), in the Yamato-e style of Japanese painting. In the next photo see the Tenugui that Naomi gifted me. It is cleverly presented as a fabric book about Japanese garments. It can be easily "unbound" to reveal it as a cotton Tenugui, a hand printed cotton fabric that originated in the Edo period. Their multi-use includes as handkerchief, tapestry, towel, lunchmat, pillowcover, neckband of kimoni, bandanna, store sign, apron and dishcloth!

To the extreme right is a tiny hand crafted kaleidoscope made by and gifted from Keiko.Upper left in photo is the lovely leather purse made to contain one's personal stamp. There is an attached small red ink pad. Motoko Natsubori had my stamp made and presented it to me in this case. I am delighted that I can now stamp my documents in the traditional Japanese way. Bottom left are the new double drilled tile beads from Muyuki I first told you about in March while I was at Creativa Expo in Germany. To the right are the new Bead Crochet hooks designed by Kazue at Tulip Co. She sent me a set of 5 sizes and I am eager to put them to use on the new bead crochet yarns by Toho and Miyuko. More on those when I know more.

Freddie and Andrea Ott, photographer and publisher of Perlen Poesie gave me the newest issue, featuring Judy Walker, kumihimo braiding and right angle weave.

On page 96-97 is the call for entries to the IBA (International Bead Award). Within the next few weeks the contest will be described in English and French on their website: http://www.perlen-poesie.de/ I am one of the jurors along with Herman Hermsen, Toshi Myoda, Evelyn Ulzen and Silvia Winterstein.

Tomorrow I leave for Germany to teach at Creativa Expo in Dortmund. Not only will I be in the company of 75,000 fellow "hand-craft" enthusiasts, but I hope to get in some quality time with European facebook friends, and fellow teachers Laura Mc Cabe, Diane Fitzgerald, and Anna Draeger.
We're teaching for the Perlen Akademie (Perlen is pearl in German and is used generically for all beads.) If you check the site, the homepage features one of the projects I will be teaching. It was also featured on the cover of the premier issue of Germany's only beading magazine, Perlen Poesie. It will be a treat to reunite with PP publishers, editors and photographers that I met at Bead and Button Show last June.

I'm packing light and bringing along my computer, in hopes of sharing this experience with you here. I'll be in flight and over the date-line so... give me a couple days before I can check back in with you. Until then, felt and/or bead your heart's desires, and smile.

Perfect IS the new beading magazine Perlen Poesie. And, the good news is that now, there is a source in the U.S. for this perfectly exquisite beading magazine. Beads By Blanche has just received limited copies of the first three issues. Don't delay if you want them.

Amy Raff and I got to see this premier issue even before it was published, while visiting with the publishers and editors (Friedhelm Ott, Andrea Ott, Micha Schroder and Saori Schroder) at the Bead and Button Show last June. That cover is not just a lovely photo, but it is done in relief so you can FEEL the beads. The piece is my design and if you look closely, you'll see that one of the articles is "Cypher Space". What an honor to be featured on the cover and within this stunning magazine. The article includes several gorgeous photographs of my beadwork, and an interview (by phone and translated into German). But, forget about the text, you don't need to read German to thoroughly enjoy the projects, photographs and step by step illustrations. These are some of the clearest, most precise and self-explanatory, you've ever seen!

I'll have to give Blanche a call (1-201-385-6225) myself to get those subsequent two issues.

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.

Just received the good news that in a few weeks this Perlen Poesie magazine will become available through Amazon! Now we can all enjoy it easily.

I received my copy of the premier issue of a German beading magazine called Perlen Poesie . The photographs make you reach out and touch them, certain they are dimensional. The projects are beautiful and desirable. And the illustrations are so precise and readily understood that language isn't even an issue. Unless you read German though, you won't be able to read my interview or the article they called "Cypher Space". It is an honor to be featured in such a gorgeous spread in this most exquisite publication. If you want to make the pillow beads that appear on the cover, I shared the recipe in the Master Class I wrote for Beadwork Magazine.

The inside cover has information about the magazine.

This blue and green reversible bracelet is the one Beatrice made using the new flat polygon recipe. This will be one of the classes I'll propose to the Bead & Button Show for next year. There are several brand new projects I'll propose, including one featuring a Nancy Tobey lampworked bead. Tomorrow I have dedicated the entire day to beading my heart out. It has been a few days since I have done some serious beading.

Since the Bead & Button Show proposals have to be in by July 30th, I better get crackin'.