Smell the roses

Before (when I still could work like 'normal' people), I happened to tell myself that I would be able to smell the roses when this or that job would be finished. But that never happened because each mission, project, or work morphed into more missions, more projects and more work. There never came an end to it, but there always came an end to me (my spirits, my strength, my enthusiasm, etc.). Before, even if I had been confronted with employers who screamed (yes, they exist - I am a magnet for unpleasant employers), I never feared to leave and take on another job. I was strong, I could do it.

Now it's different. I haven't healed completely from the burn-out because of the mobbing. Mobbing leaves very deep, invisible scars. It is known for pushing people to suicide. I am not at all a suicidal person but my photosensitivity somehow excludes me from the outer world... I don't know if it is related. My doctor sticks to "fibro can provoke all sorts of strange affections".

please love me...

I always felt obliged to do better than good. It is my philosophy to do my best, but I needed the encouragement. The thanks you's, the compliments. I think that I still do. Who doesn't? But... being an expat, high potential and highly sensitive are all part of the explosive equation. For example: I always wanted to be accepted in a group (I never was) even if I didn't fit in at all (I never did - HP and HS nearly fit in nowhere). I wish that my parents had known how horrible it was but they were not HP and didn't (maybe couldn't) have the slightest notion about it. I continued as I could. Searched for "aproval" and worked for 2. This got me into trouble, because there is no better victim for a mobber. I have noticed that most women who have fibromyalgia have this in common: we want to be 'good girls' so much and one day, we break. Hypersensitivity is not something which can be changed, it is something we learn the hard way that we are like this, and then need to learn to cope with. I am wondering if fibro is a result of years of crazy multitasking without breathing correctly.

To compensate the big reduction of my income and to keep myself from going insane, I needed to find a solution and the only solution is to work for myself, in a secure and light-free or light-under-control place: my home.

Writing a book about Diamond Weave with no other boss than my own self, at a self-imposed pace brought new insight: smelling the roses is not a question of having time - I had all the time before, but didn't smell them. It's a state of mind, a lifestyle, something I have to learn. I nearly overworked myself again, of course, but this time I am the boss who is shouting at my computer (Windows "Hate" is frankly horrible) and I got to the point where 'I had to talk with my boss'. Yes, the problem is me. Meditation imposed itself. It slowly sets me free. I can't blame anybody else for the amount of work, the timing, planning, mistakes, stress, etc... Nobody else but me.

I conclude that to enjoy life, we need to work hard at something that is ours, something we love and enjoy, push our own limits and then have those moments of peaceful breaks - moments where you are satisfied with yourself... every day! Even if compliments are really great, not a million of them will replace that special feeling.

Working so hard at something that I love so much brought me a back on the path to the roses.

I have discovered that peaceful, timeless place somewhere inside of me. It is like having found the way back home after having been lost during forever. I didn't expect this and am grateful. Now the challenge is to find the right balance between work and roses. It is not easy to access that place inside. I need to improve the quality of my meditation. Not just scratch the surface and get a glimpse. I also need to do more exercice. Luckily I have a wonderful physio who helps me well, and I exercise in the warm pool once a week. But that is not enough.

I have discovered a series of seasonal Qi Gong exercices on this website and  made the promise to myself to do them very regularly during the coming 4 seasons, like a ceremonial. One year. To do myself the favour of being better for myself.
To stop and look at the sacredness of everything and softly celebrate it. A state of bliss I want to experience more often. It will need a bit of discipline.

Did I say that I love my 'job'? I do!

Flowers for Friendship Wreath

I wrote my last post more than a month ago, and so many things have happened in the meantime... Contemporary Geometric Beadwork Vol. II is in the process of being printed and bundled right now, and it is very beautiful. I am so proud of my participation as a beader as well as a member of the Edit Team - I'm not of English mother tongue and haven't attended University, so this says a lot.

It is not that I could not go to university, it is just that I didn't know what I wanted, didn't know what to do... My mother died at that very crucial moment in my life where I had to make decisions and I decided to not make any decision. I simply started working as a telephonist - my English was good enough to get hired by an import-export office in Geneva and I wanted to leave my family's (father and brother's) appartment asap to have my own life. I regret not having decided to to go to France and learn to make perfume, which was something I had in mind before the world became upside down... Loosing your mother at 18 is ... indescribable.

But life goes how it has to go: on. I went on too, became a secretary - learned eveything on the job, and later, much later, I became an administrative assistant for the IUCN. My dream! to work to protect nature! I'm an animal lover and of course Terra lover.

In the meantime, the Internet had grown, and I became ill...But I had started beading. Beading helped me to not let illness bring me down and ... now I am part of the Edit Team of this amazing book! Wow!

I am now dedicating my time to get the book Diamond Weave out to the world. Writing, illustrating, beading and photography are what I'm most busy with. It's a huge job and I know nothing about editorial work except what I learned at the IUCN and from Kate and what I learned from her might not even be the 'correct' way to write a book, because she is not following specific rules either, but that's fine. In fact, it helps me because I somehow am the same. I follow my nose like I've always done and somehow things will work out right. I love what I'm doing.

Beading and the Internet are two things which impacted my life tremendously. In particular as a human being, psychologically and creatively. I am grateful for what I've learned and received. Planet Bead is my world, and I meet beaders from everywhere thanks to Facebook. Maybe one day my photophobia will heal and I will travel the world to meet them in reel.

Yesterday I learned that beaders in Kiev, Ukrain, are planning to make a Friendship's Wreath. This is to commemorate the victims of the Ukrainian conflict and of the Boeing777 desaster. The wreath will be exhibited in Kiev on exhibition "Golden hands of masters" 15-17 October 2014. Anna Bystrik is coordinating the project. I love this!

You too can participate and send (a) flower(s); here are the "rules", also posted on the Facebook Page of this Event:

1. Flower from beads can be any shape, any color and made in any technique. The only limitation - the diameter of not more than 7 cm
2. Finished flowers should be mailed to Anna (you can contact her via Facebook for her address, simply send her a personal message)
3. Finished pieces should be sent in such a way that before September 20, they are at her place for the assembling of the wreath.
4. The final destination of the wrath is to either be sold by auction. In this case, the money will be used for charitable purposes, or to be exposed in a museum.

What Ukrain needs most is peace, so I made Peace Lillies. They need the positive vibes.
The entire world needs more love. Love from the heart. Kindness.

BTW I created a Facebook page for Diamond Weave. I hope that you'll like it! There is not much to see there, but if you ask for updates from the page, you will receive the important info when it's posted.


I also finished a tutorial for a very lovely little pendant with exchangeable crystal stone, Trapezino, and it is in the hands of my wonderful proofreader.

I'd like to Cathify Jewelry à la Diane Hyde

The lovely Diane Hyde

I felt pretty miserable over the past weeks for not being able to print laser images... And yesterday my printer, an ink-jet with remarkable fine pixels, died. So I had a quick look at laser printers, but the good ones are far too expensive and not worth buying for the rare occasions I need images for my jewelry. It was a tough decision though, because this really looked like a reach-out of the universe to me, as if to say: 'you wanted one, now is the occasion to get one and make your own buttons for Diamond Weave, and your own cabochon backings and printed material for beautiful necklaces and bracelets, à la Diane Hyde.'

Did I tell you that I love her book "Break the Rules". It is not just about Bead Embroidery!

Diane's Book - a Must

I love it because
- she shines through. One can nearly hear her voice, see her smile and feel like a good friend sitting together with her in her studio et café à volonté.
- she makes me feel confident to use things I like, which I didn't dare to use before, because I feared to (excuse my French) fuck them up. And there are things we don't want to fuck up. Diane has tested it all. Her advice is highly valuable. It takes so many years of tryal and error to find the right glues, varnishes, materials and techniques to use for this type of mixed media jewelry. Her tips are exactly what I needed to make the step.
- she broadens my horizon. She transforms my way of looking at things: everything becomes a potential element to incorporate in jewelry.
- she saves me time. I am busy writing tuts myself, but I really would like to make some mixed media jewelry with those particular things which are close to my heart. I started already, with my Tristan & Isolde Necklace, strongly influenced by her beautiful work, but very hesitating - I didn't have her book at the moment I made it. Now I don't need to search for disseminated information anymore - all the how to and what to use is there, in one publication. The pictures are excellent and the explanations very clear. It really is a toolbox, and we love toolboxes!

Tristan and IsoldeScented bottle necklace

I can't tell you how many times I have renounced making something just because I didn't know which product to use and didn't want to buy the whole store, nor work with  images which wouldn't last. So I had to either buy products made by others, or resign. I generally resigned, because the images I would like to use in my projects are different from those available.
But that's over now.

I will find a solution for printing durable images. Hubby has come up with several good ideas.

Now even if the price of inkjet printers has dropped over the past years, I must say that I still would have preferred spending the money on other things. You sure understand what I mean, don't you? ;)
If you like my work, then feel free to use coupon-code NEWPRINTER in my Etsy - you'll get a 25% discount - valid only until Sunday :)

Thank you so much for your support!

Hard won simplicity

The 'final' proofs of Contemporary Geometric Beadwork Vol. 2 are going back and forth between Kate and the Edit team which I am part of. It is a sparkling beautiful body of work. People from everywhere around the world have contributed to take the beaded Triangle to the level of Spatial Hybrid Structures, and Kate applied Multiple View Geometry to her excellent Photography, and put words on what was impossible to express, or to name... Like a botanist, she had to find coherent family names for all the pieces to be able to describe and sort them in chapters. Rick Rack, Zig-Wing, All-Wing, Horned Bangle... It's an encyclopedia. I am wondering if she could imagine what was behind the door she opened the day she took upon her shoulders the orchestration of such a huge collaborative project, but she opened it and the enormous mountain of possibilities shook, and a lawina of beaded awesome tumbled down, each piece more beautiful than the other.

I am proud that some of my pieces are in the book, but even prouder to have contributed to some of the newborn delights with Jalisco Bangle, which happens to be an All-Wing, with serious spatial intentions. I wish that I could make more pieces with huge wings and peaks and pods, but my own patterns also request time and I need the extra income. I am also working on a book together with Gerlinde Lenz, about her fabulous Diamond Weave, and also want to make something for myself from time to time, without patterns or books in mind. My studio has never been such a mess.

Esmeralda's bag with
'Jalisco' opening

My time dedicated to Contemporary Geometric Beadwork is a gift, and my rewards are to be part of the fabulous (every day) and the thrill when seeing others come up with designs where I can see my modest influence (sometimes). It makes me feel warm inside, proud, but admirative too. It is amazing to see where the beaders take the techniques. It is incredible how one idea morphs into another.
The book also features wise and interesting quotes about all kinds of things, such as architecture and color. My second favorite, right after the one by Seneca which Kate gracefully accepted to put in one of the pages showcasing my 'Moonrise' cuff, is this one, by the British-Swiss modern-times philosopher Alain de Botton (listen to his talk, you'll love this guy):

Click to see larger image
of 10-pointed  pod

“For us to deem a work of architecture
elegant, it is not enough that it look simple:
we must feel that the simplicity it
displays has been hard won.”

Hard won simplicity. That's what Jalisco Bangle is. It was born from the Yukka flower: I increased the hole in the center of the flower, didn't add beads of different sizes and didn't close the tips. I stripped the design, simplified it. Doesn't that sound odd?

Samurai pod

What I call the Yukka flower was born from the Fork and the Fork was born from my wish to fold a triangle over a rubber cord so that I could wear it point-down. Not just any triangle. June Huber's Totally Twisted Triangle. Such a lovely design, we all wanted to make it here on this side of the pond. It wouldn't fold, so I thought: let's make a square. And a hexagon. And an octogon. Or only two points - that was the Pepper. I also made pods... tiny, multi-pointed pods... I still have no idea how to explain the Samurai pod design in a tutorial. If only I weren't photophobic, I would organize a retreat. Because anyone who has a good beading background can make it and a retreat is so much fun. It is so hard to explain spatial things - this is why Kate's and Karen's and Christina Vandervlist's work is so admirable.

Tiny Tulips - 3D flowers
with MRAW stems

I sometimes think that I should rewrite the Pepper, Fork and Yukka Flower tutorial so that the intermediate beader could try it too (I taught it to a beginner with success), but CGB opened my eyes on how things need to be brought to a student in writing; it takes an entire book and I am already busy enough. Since there is some 'reading between the lines' counting on the beader's profenciency, PFY will remain something for advanced beaders, or at least for the fearless ones. So far, only one person told me that it was not detailed enough and I helped her out, of course. I strive to make more precise explanations now, and my more recent patterns, like the Tiny Tulip pattern, are very detailed.
But still not for wussy pants.

“It is not because things are
difficult that we do not dare; it is
because we do not dare that
things are difficult.”
- Seneca -

Another example of 'Hard won simplicity': Some time ago, I found another use of the simple 6 wings (all increase): it wanted to become a chain. The elements can be placed in any order, like Lego.

Just because of the quote, I decided to bead it up, between two proofs, in two days.

This said, I would also like to shout out how proud I am that my very first entry in the Etsy BeadWeavers Team Challenge of the month of June has won the first place in the public poll! YAY!!! I am so grateful! Many thanks for your support! The Tristan & Iseult Scented Bottle necklace was designed to tell the story of the two unfortunate lovers and is for sale in my Etsy shop. It was made with Steampunk style in mind, an embellished MRAW band around the bottle, a Yukka flower with tiny Maypole stem and lots of love.

Tristan & Isolde Scented Bottle Necklace

Special Summer Sale

A quick update for you all following me here on my blog. I am so sorry for not being very active here. These days my writing skills are fully dedicated to the book Diamond Weave, a collaboration with Gerlinde Lenz I told you about last month. I am a slow writer and so blogging is a bit calm... I can't do this many at the same time.

Mosquito net

Of course I am beading a lot of things for this wonderful project and do enjoy the process in every way, but I regret not being able to show you my work right now. I also am trying to put together the pattern for the Tulip many of you asked for, and hope to have this done by the end of the month. Time goes by so fast. I wish that there were 48 hours per day. I have so many design ideas which I would love to make. I even bought glue and varnish for paper... maybe I will be able to make that little pendant "à la Diane Hyde" I'm dreaming of...

The weather has improved tremendously and I can finally bead, or work on the book on the balcony. I

call it BOTB-ing - Beading on the Balcony.  Hubby and I have eaten there last night and tonight and it felt great to be 'nearly outside' thanks to all the birds singing. With hubby, we went to buy mosquito nets for all he windows of our apartment because last year we had an invasion of hornets in the area, and a few of them tried to establish a camp in our bedroom... I also bought little flowers which have a lovely smell!

Potentilla and Heliotrope

Summer holidays are often the moment a beader can find a bit of time for a favorite project and so it seems to be the perfect moment to offer you a special discount on my patterns in my Etsy shop.

Check this out: if you buy one pattern, you may chose another pattern of the same or inferior value, for free. Simply let me know what you would like to receive and I will send it to you. This is valid until May 21, 9pm UTC (that is 21:00 in Geneva, Paris, Amsterdam and Barcelona)

Happy Beading!