Bead Dreams

Do you do that? Dream of beads, of patterns, of thread paths. I know I do. I'm putting together a necklace for the new book and the thread path didn't work out easily. After a nights sleep where my mind went to work on the problem, I woke up with the answer. I remember clearly thinking through how it would work, and it did, just the way I dreamed it.

Occasionally an entire piece shows up designed, but not as often lately and I think I know the reason. I am not allowing the time to expose myself to creative outlets. I am moving from one engagement to the next, packing, unpacking, sorting out things at home, paying bills, shipping ringlet kits, the things one must do to keep everything moving along.

I hope our visit to Holland and a wander around it's canals and cobblestone streets and into the museums and shops (a Dutch shop is called a winkel which I find quite whimsical, a beadstore is a kralen winkel) will do the trick to energize my creative needs.

This is the Droste factory down the street from where we lived in Haarlem. On the morning the factory was making chocolate it smelled like a huge chocolate cake was baking.

This beautiful canal is actually in Brugge, one of our many outings while living there

And this is the Grote Markt which happened every Saturday morning in the main town square just a few blocks from our home. The largest bouquet of flowers you could imagine was $5 euros. We took turns picking the weekly flowers, sometimes my taste and sometimes Mark's but we always had a fresh bouquet.

The trip to Holland will be followed by a trip to Bonn and the store of Petra Tismer, Das Perlament, where I will re-unite with my German friends from Bead and Button while teaching for 4 days. I will also be meeting with Perlen Poesie the German beading magazine....there will be an article involved....