posted: Sunday, 30th September 2012
I heaaded off to Lancing yesterday so that I would be here bright and early today to teach for karen at Fine Lines. I have taught for Karen so many times since we first met back in 2003 and it's always a pleasure.
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posted: Saturday, 29th September 2012
I had heard of Beads of Courage but until yesterday hadn't realised it was also in the UK. One of the friends I met for lunch, Marlene Minhas, is a lampworker and has been busy making beads which are given to children with cancer during their treatment.
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posted: Friday, 28th September 2012
And a big boo to ill health.
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posted: Monday, 17th September 2012
A treat today when two magazines popped through my letterbox with projects from me in them.
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posted: Saturday, 15th September 2012
As my mind is full of text and diagrams all heading off to be laid out and soon printed to form the Geometric Book it's a pleasure now and then to actually see and hold the beadwork which will feature in its pages.
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posted: Friday, 14th September 2012
I am eternally thankful that I have a job, friends and a partner, that enables me to skip over to Paris, pop to the Louvre, eat Steak Tartare, laugh, chat and jump on a train back home infinitely reinvigorated and ready to work all night to catch up for the time away.
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posted: Thursday, 13th September 2012
Some days you just have to escape and today was one of those days where I grabbed my passport and headed for the port.
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posted: Wednesday, 12th September 2012
As the last of my Heroine Necklace kits sit by itself lonely in the shop two blogs about the necklace appear.
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posted: Tuesday, 11th September 2012
Today I headed back to London to work heads down on the book.
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posted: Monday, 10th September 2012
Today this poem was read at the funeral of my Father-in-law, as lovely and loving a man as you could ever meet.
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posted: Thursday, 6th September 2012
Well... we have some news...
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posted: Wednesday, 5th September 2012
After a long day of work I sneaked out this evening to head to the Olympic Park to finally see what all the fuss was about.
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posted: Tuesday, 4th September 2012
This can be subtitled 'the day I leant watching wheelchair fencing was not for me'.
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posted: Monday, 3rd September 2012
Today is my last day in Hannover and I shall be sad to leave. I loved the city, the people and the atmosphere. I hope to return very soon.
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posted: Sunday, 2nd September 2012
Today is my last day teaching and what fun we have!
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posted: Saturday, 1st September 2012
Today is my first full day of teaching and we're concentrating on triangles and ropes.
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posted: Friday, 31st August 2012
Today is my first day teaching in Hannover and I'm looking forward to it- though quite nervous- but soon I have no need to be.
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posted: Thursday, 30th August 2012
This trip to Germany had an inauspicious start, and an inauspicious middle but I am hoping the end result will get better!
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posted: Sunday, 26th August 2012
My latest beaded project is a flower I have had in my mind for a long, long time. Beading it and seeing it come together has been enjoyable, if slow.
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posted: Saturday, 25th August 2012
After teaching beaded ropes for a week recently I guess it's my just desserts to have to bead one of my own- 36 inches of twisted herringbone using Delicas in fact.
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posted: Friday, 24th August 2012
Today is a head-down-working kind of day.
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posted: Thursday, 23rd August 2012
Being away from home so much recently means I'm frantically behind with everything. But today I left the house and met with friends as I knew I needed the distraction, the laughs, and the visual stimulation to help me through the next few weeks.
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posted: Wednesday, 22nd August 2012
Unfortunately yesterday morning my beloved step-father-in-law passed away.
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posted: Friday, 17th August 2012
No rest for the wicked!
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posted: Thursday, 16th August 2012
This week of beading ropes, tubes and spirals has sent us all loopy and so as a reward for getting this far, I've decided to teach everyone how to make a RickRack bangle. This will appear as a project in Contemporary Geometric Beadwork and I'm interested to see just what everyone does with it.
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posted: Wednesday, 15th August 2012
Many years ago, through my work on Bead magazine, I 'met' Katie Dean who does lovely miniature beadwork. We finally got to meet in person recently and this week Katie popped to see me and my students and kindly brought along some of her beadwork.
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posted: Tuesday, 14th August 2012
This week I am away at Missenden Abbey to teach my second summer school, the theme of which is 'Beaded ropes, tubes and spirals'.
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posted: Monday, 13th August 2012
Some days as I write my blog I feel I have pages and pages that want to pour out of me and other days, such as yesterday, the words come harder.
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posted: Sunday, 12th August 2012
So beautiful and yet so horrid.
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posted: Saturday, 11th August 2012
Et Voilà!
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posted: Friday, 10th August 2012
For so long now I have had an urge to go to the zoo. It's probably 20 years since I set foot in one and the thought of seeing a zebra or a penguin is keeping me awake with excitement.
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posted: Wednesday, 8th August 2012
I had a meeting to go to yesterday and it was only on my way there I realised it was just near Caledonian Road, which I last visited almost a year ago to the day.
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posted: Tuesday, 7th August 2012
I first came across polaris cabochons in the US and fell in love with them- the combination of the colour and the weird way they look lit from within won me over
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posted: Sunday, 5th August 2012
When I first started beading, back in February 2001, I bought so many books on beading amulet purses and covering wooden needle cases as that seemed to be all that was out there in the UK at the time. Though I beaded oodles of amulet purses I never did cover a needle case, until now.
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posted: Saturday, 4th August 2012
I managed to finish my triangle necklace for my still under-wraps project and am really pleased with it.
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posted: Friday, 3rd August 2012
Yesterday was a busy day with a trip out of London to sunny Ware for all sorts of cosmetic body modifiations at Nutz Tattoo, and then onto East London for dinner at The Pale Blue Door.
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posted: Thursday, 2nd August 2012
After my blog post yesterday Sue Maguire kindly sent me a photo of her wonderful green bag.
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posted: Wednesday, 1st August 2012
A few months ago I found out that 3 of my photos had been chosen to appear in the new book from Lark: 500 Beaded Jewelry (Amazon link given for ease- please support your local bead/ craft/ book shop where you can).
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posted: Tuesday, 31st July 2012
Today I headed off to Dorset and StitchnCraft Beads to teach my Rivoli Roses and had such a lovely day. It's a treat to visit the shop (though I'm not sure my bank balance agrees!) catch up with friends and even finally meet people I have emailed and 'facebooked' for years and years.
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posted: Sunday, 29th July 2012
Despite all things geometric taking over my life I am madly beading and working away on other projects that are of course all needed ASAP.
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posted: Saturday, 28th July 2012
...to make me happy. Just give me:
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posted: Friday, 27th July 2012
I have put the final touches to the last of my pieces for StitchnCraft Beads's Treasure Challenge and it's all about to go into the post.
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posted: Thursday, 26th July 2012
Over 7 years since it was first announced they were coming to London the Olympics are finally here- almost, well practically.
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posted: Wednesday, 25th July 2012
This gorgeous bangle popped through my letterbox today and I was so pleased with it I nearly screamed with excitement.
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posted: Monday, 23rd July 2012
After what seems like an eternity of gloomy weather a heatwave has struck London and everything feels that much better for it.
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posted: Friday, 20th July 2012
I am lost in a daze of geometric beadwork, instructions and diagrams at the moment hoping that when we come out of the other end the book will manage to convey all our hard work, love of the subject and enjoyment of beading these items.
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posted: Monday, 16th July 2012
Antigravity yoga on a Monday is now something I yearn for the rest of the week. It's hard to explain but it's a mix of yoga, trapeze, cardio-work and relaxation which sometimes involves a hammock hanging from scaffolding.
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posted: Sunday, 15th July 2012
I was back at The Make Lounge today for a class on making a kimono top.
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posted: Saturday, 14th July 2012
A little while ago Sig Wynne-Evans contacted me about her travelling bracelet project and a,sked if I wanted to be a stop on the Ukrainian bracelet's journey so for just over a week now it has been sitting here watching me as I work on the computer, or bead, and it's been a treat to get to look at...
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posted: Friday, 13th July 2012
It has been a crazy week and I was planning to work right through the night tonight but fortunately saw information about a Courvoisier event and decided to give myself a few hours off.
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posted: Thursday, 12th July 2012
In the midst of Contemporary Geometric Beadwork taking over my life I'm trying to get thoughts of 2013 in my head and finish projects which have been ideas floating around my mind for months, and years, so that I have lots of new things to teach.
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posted: Wednesday, 11th July 2012
Today was the birthday of one of my sisters and of course we wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate. For a long time now she's been driving past a Vietnamese restaurant near her that she wanted to try
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posted: Tuesday, 10th July 2012
Phew- Kate and I are working very hard behind the scenes putting this book together and the past two days have seen us battling technical hurdles, overcoming being in different time-zones, embracing the wonders of PDFs and the trying not to bang our heads on our desks at the joy of the internet...
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posted: Sunday, 8th July 2012
I have got a huge amount of work to do over the next month from finishing Contemporary Geometric Beadwork to designing a lot of projects for my classes next year and lots of teaching so it's all going to be a bit hectic around here!
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posted: Saturday, 7th July 2012
In my ongoing quest to be the World's stupidest photographer I headed off yesterday ensuring I brought with me a fully-charged camera battery and my memory card. But no camera.
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posted: Friday, 6th July 2012
I'm still working away on my crochet bowl but knowing I have a long train ride today, and maybe an evening alone in a hotel room, I want to pack lots to occupy me so a rummage through my yarn stash reveals this gorgeous Debbie Bliss SoHo I bought a few years ago at The Knitting & Stitching Show.
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posted: Wednesday, 4th July 2012
I've popped down to Torquay again to do a one-day class with Joanna Radford.
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posted: Tuesday, 3rd July 2012
My head says geometric and fiddly but my hands say no so my 4 1/2 hours travelling down to Torquay today is spent proofing geometric and crocheting instead.
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posted: Monday, 2nd July 2012
I decided to give my poor geometric filled brain a break from corners today and worked on a cuff bangle with an interchangeable centre piece.
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posted: Sunday, 1st July 2012
Today I decided to take a couple of hours off and explore London by cycle looking for pineapples.
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