Apologies for my silence. I've been a bit under the weather the past months and in a blink, winter turned into Spring and now it is very warm in Switzerland. Extremely warm. With the heatwave being a monumental catastrophe for wildlife, we have installed two water points and one nourishing point for hedgehogs.
I've been "absent" because of shoulder issues. No beading, very little typing, no cooking, nothing. I'm so grateful that my loved one can cook.
To fight boredom, I watched Robert E. Fuller's wildlife cams, kind of a magical window to watch owls and other birds live and face daily challenges). I loved to see the little birds grow, but very quickly these fluff balls left the nest and it was over. I watched many of his wildlife videos - he's a great naturalist.
Now that we finally have a car, hubby and I visited several beautiful places in our region, like Gruyères where the medieval castle and the Museum of Tibetan Art (which walls are those of a chapel) were a true delight. We saw the castle in January, it was cold (as it should) and beautiful.
In March, we went back to see the Tibetan Art Museum after the Giger Museum, which was a blessing. The latter has approx 35000 visitors per year and the former only 6000. Me seems that only if it was the contrary, this world would be a better place.
In April we went to the tulip festival in Morges, organized each year in the Park of Independence, located on the shore of the lake. This year, there were many stunning double tulips.
We also visited the iris gardens in Vulllieriens in April & May. We will go back to this 30-acre garden. It is marvelous to be there. I cannot share all my photos here, but it was stunning.
The Castle of Vullierens proposes their irises for sale, but they also have other beautiful flowers to marvel at. Unfortunately, we missed the roses because of the abnormal heatwaves. Perhaps we will be able to see their beautiful lillies, but I doubt it. We only do these things when it's rather cold, and avoid sunny days. The second visit at the castle was already too warm for me.
The result? My mojo ran away. Beading is my occupational and color therapy, and apparently, the power of the flowers is as strong as the power of the beads... it's the power of color. Color therapy. It was largely compensated by all these wonderful flowers. It was essential for my arms and good for my spirits, but the mojo didn't come back.
For inspiration, I ordered a Kolorlan coloring journal from Katie Dean, a great tool to practice color therapy. It is absolutely lovely, and I would certainly recommend it for personal development and the energetic wellness coming from this other art for color therapy, in particular if you can't bead and need your color fix like me.
Thing is... It didn't bring the beadweaving mojo back. But.... In between visits, I made a pretty little bird house with bead mosaic! It was on my to-do list since forever but needed way more ginko beads than foreseen, and to find the same finish (hematite), I had to search quite a bit. I'm pleased with it. I like bead mosaic. It doesn't harm the tendons like beadweaving. I might need to find more items to cover with beads. 😊
My arms are better now, but they remain fragile. I might never bead big projects again... but you never know. To see how weaving would go, I made a pair of brickstitch earrings that I found very pretty. A bit of unbeading was involved, but the result is nice, and so lightweigth!
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| You will find the video tutorial by Bead Spider for these pretties here. |
The Guild's beading festival's theme this year was Japan. I hoped that the mojo would show up. It helped a bit... I made a small Kokeshi doll charm, which had me take up an old project that was left aside, that is Japanese bead embroidery, a class I took with Sylvia Fairhurst. Thing is... it takes forever to cover fabric with 15° beads and smaller. Unsurprisingly, my body is unhappy with me. Who would have thought that poking fabric could be so painful...
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| This project is going to take a looot of patience. But I love it and I will finish it (more beads have been ordered!) |
And, as silly as it might seem after having hit the wall because of my beautiful bead-embroidered bag - (Did you read about it? I think that I have never made something so beautiful) - I bought a kit for a Floral box from Sarah Cryer! With everything included to make what I'd describe as the most lovely bead embroidered box ever. More bead embroidery!!! Bad for my tendons, but I had to have it!
But before doing the box, I had to finish the instructions for this year's IBW project. I finished the draft today and still have to edit (lots of) videos, which is going to take a bit of time because I have to get familiar with a new video editing software, but voilà... I realized that when the the mojo runs away, so does patience. Not all patience, but when I make a mistake, I get upset (with the computer, with the beads, with myself). The reason is fear of arm pain. The muse still throws ideas at me, but the body shivers (it has good reasons, admittedly). Anyhow... this is my 2026 IBW project, a woven basket of woven beads, which made me think of the happy colors of everything Boho...
While making a second basket to film how to assemble this basket, the muse threw an idea at me: add Paisley petals to the top. I call it my Boteh Basket, because that is what the paisley is called in Persian, where this beautiful motif originates from.
I will do a little demo during International beading week - the most exciting week of the year for us beaders! I hope to see you then.
As you may understand from the last paragraph, the mojo is back. Of course the heatwave obliging us to remain inside most of the day has my need for color flare, and the creative juices flow. Hopefully it will remain so even when we will go back to 'our' favorite garden.
Cath
