It's my first of 6 days teaching in Germany and my days gets off to a great start with lashings of fresh coffee, bread & cakes and lovely students.

Todays projects are my Sticks & Stones series of work and as before when I taught in Germany my fears about language being an issue disappeared straight away as everyone spoke such great English - maybe this will be the spur on I need to finally learn German!

One real surprise from the day was just the different, faster way in which everyone in the class seemed to learn.

Cubic Right Angle Weave can be a tricky stitch for some people to learn, especially if they are more used to beading flat pieces of work. The concept of a 3-dimensional stitch, and altering what you do as you work around the rope, can take some people many hours (or more) to master, especially in the distracting environment of a class-room. But not here.

Within less than 10 minutes everyone had got it and was working away. Truly amazing - especially as everyone was learning it in their 2nd, or even 3rd language.

I have many theories about why this might have been and am going to keep an eye on everyone this week and see if any of them are true!