My flight to Germany Monday/Tueday went off without a hitch. Wish I could same the same about my delivery of goods shipped via UPS. Still not here. Long and unrewarding story. I met Anna Draeger, Diane Fitzgerald and Laura Andrews at the airport in Dusseldorf and we shared the (whoosh) cab ride to Dortmund together. They are, l.to r., standing at Diane's display at Perlen Akademie in Hall 5 of the Creativa Expo. We each have a case of our artwork on display. Laura is doing demos in this area for the duration. Anna is demonstrating tomorrow and I will follow suit all day Saturday and teach a class in the evening.

We walked around watching folks set up their displays, after we finished ours. took a quick pic of this new bead to share with you. Miyuki displayed these little tile beads with two holes. New to me and interesting.

On our walk "home" to our hotel from the restaurant, we passed trees (yes, sycamore of some type) that looked like they had beads growing on them. Tee hee.

Wednesday's all-day class today was this necklace of hollow beaded "pillow beads", the tubular chain and closure. This design had been on the cover of the Perlen Posie magazine's first issue. In my class were 3 beadshop-owners. One from Switzerland, two from Germany. Marina, our interpreter shared among the 4 of us, is quite adept at slippng from classroom to classroom and staying on top of each of the individual designs being taught. Plus she is charming and adorable and a brilliant beader.

Do you recall my talking about the phone interview for the first issue of Perlen Poesie magazine? I was interviewed by Saori (owner of Twinkle beads, a founding editor of the magazine and organizer of Perlen Akademie) and Angela. We were immediately comfortable and at ease with each other, kindred spirits. Just days after the interview, Saori wrote to tell me that she alone would be completing the article, since, Angela had been in a horrible automobile accident and was in a coma. I was able to meet Saori in person at the Bead and Button Show in June last year, and Angela was still doing very poorly. THE GOOD NEWS: Angela came by not just to finally meet in person, she also interpreted for my class. We were able to share lunchtime together and I will see her again in class Saturday. She is getting around with a wheel chair at this time but, with several more months of physical therapy, expects to walk again. What a fabulous recovery she is making.

In the evening I taught beaded bezels (Like the kits that I expect will be availiable on the website any minute.) for two rivolis, 18 and 27mm. Here are the finished 27mm ones. Lovely. Four students were with me even thought they were with me all day. Bless their hearts. And on the evaluations they said they would bead with me again. How lucky am I? If they ask me I will come!

Well, it is late here and tomorrow is another packed full day of joy and beading excitement. I will buy a little wifi time tomorrow or Frday and share some more of this great adventure n Dortmund, Germany.

PS I find this post did not go through before my paid time on wifi expired. So I re-read it and am posting it now.

Every square inch of the tablespace at Bead Gallery Inc held bead mats, beads and beaded bezels in our mad hot beaded bezel workshop. In preparation for the workshop I arrived with 16 recipes for many different rivolis and other Swarovski cabochons. Bead Gallery has a treasure trove of new and vintage items to choose from. Last night I whipped up another for a shape I had previously not encountered.

If you click on the photos, you might be able to get it to magnify. We shot them on a piece of reflective glass so you can see their beautiful bottoms!

Each of these was made with a selection of 11, 15 and 8 size seed beads ('cept for the one that also has daggers). Through thoughtful selection of bead color and finish, each one is reflective of the beader's taste and esthetic.

Genevieve was able to be present, a rare treat. She chose to work on her chili peppers version of Ostara's Emerging Blossoms. She emphasized the pepper shape by tapering the ends with smaller beads.