Random Saturday - Travelling books

In my post about "Little Nicholas" a few days ago, I said that my personal copies of the books had a story of their own.
Here it is.

The year is 1994 and it's two days before my birthday.
We three sisters happen to take the same train home after work and my oldest sister has my birthday gift in a bag which she just picked up from the book store on the way to the train station.
The commute from Bad Cannstatt is about 30 minutes. We talk, we laugh, we get off the train ... that's when my sister notices she has left the book bag on the train!
It's too late to hop back on, so there are only two things to do now, 1. go to the service center and try to have them contact someone, 2. hope that no passenger grabs the bag and decides these are nice books to have.

Losing or forgetting something on a train is a game of chance. Some people will give it to the conductor, so it ends up at the railway company's lost and found (and in an auction if no one claims it), but some go the "finders keepers" route or at least contemplate it (I've seen it myself), and some just ignore it.
The service clerk told my sister they would contact someone at the end of the line and have the train conductor check the train in case they hadn't already found the bag by themselves.
If the bag were there, they would then take it back on the next possible train and drop it off at the service center where my sister would be able to pick it up the next day.

Luck was on our side and my sister picked the bag up the next day.
To celebrate it, she drew a little picture in each book to tell the story.

From left to right - my sister A., yours truly, and my sister B.
There's a lot of detail, from A.'s braid to my long hair worn open
and B.'s bob, but also A.'s typical backpack, my shopper and
B.'s purse, and of course the book bag saying "Stehn", a book
store that doesn't exist anymore today.

What I love most about this picture are two things.
There is the company Hengstenberg which will be 150 years old
next year and produces vinegar, pickles, mustard, etc.
Nowadays there are only offices in that building, but it's still part
of the region's history.
Also, this is still one of the old trains. It's actually possible that we
did ride on one of them because the new double-decker trains
were only just introduced around that time.
Can you see us in the last window?

 

Oh no! We got off the train at home, but the bag is still on there!
Our shocked faces never fail to make me smile 🙃

Tell me without words how the books went back from Geislingen to
Göppingen. Did you notice the speed lines?

The service center of the Deutsche Bahn (which also doesn't exist
anymore because they lost the contract for this line some years ago
and because they expect everyone to be their own service people,
anyway) on the day before my birthday. You can tell from the
clock A. and I took our usual train at the time and oh what
a miracle, it was on time, too!

I think the drawings really make these books extra special. Do you think someone in the future will be holding them in their hands eventually, wondering what all of that was about ...

Happy Birthday! or Friday the 13th

Happy Birthday to me! Or not?
This is not something I usually do, congratulate myself, I mean, but I will reach the big 60 soon and that seemed like a good occasion to make something for myself in time.
It's not a medal for making it that far ... although years ago I did make a "medal" for a colleague for her 40th work anniversary (I'm close to that one myself, ugh). Just as a joke of course, we gave her something nice, too.

No, of course I wanted something beautiful and something that was yelling my name.
There was something I had been planning for years now, but I didn't know if my fingers were up for it. Wire wrapping has become so hard for me, but I really wanted this.

I had written until here and then this happened today.

After several days with a lot of breaks - and a lot of whining - the piece was ready to be oxidized. I took it to the kitchen and then there was that sound. The lampwork shark I wanted to use with the octopus had been tangled in the tentacles - the irony because that had been the plan - without my noticing it (both my own fault) and it had fallen to the ground.

Couldn't it have fallen three steps earlier in the hallway with the PVC floor which would have given it a better chance? Well, it didn't. I glued the two pieces I could find back on as best I could, but one part is missing. Now I'm heartbroken because I can't get another shark like it.

I had been saving that shark for myself for years.
It won't get thrown away, but I don't know if I will be able to make something with it. It will definitely not work with the octopus. I don't even know if I want to finish that now and also didn't feel like taking a picture of the octopus WIP or the broken shark 😭

I just needed to vent.

Tackle that stash - A handful of hearts

This is just a short post.
Hearts are probably boring you by now, but I offered to make a bunch of simple ones as gift for children.
The bonus for me is that I can use some leftovers and try out patterns.
Mostly I'm showing you these, though, as an addition to the Tuesday post because that is just what I meant when I said I needed to make it work for me.

I hope these tiny hearts will make children smile a bit when they get them as a surprise, and while making a small piece  which can be finished rather quickly every, now and then - although there have been moments when I seriously doubted my counting skills (up to 8 beads in some rows! 😂) - may not be super creative, it's something. Sometimes a little something just has to be enough.

No worries, though, it will not be all hearts from now on. Even if I plan to move along the color wheel some more, I'm not going to make look at all of them, promise.

The lantern

About a month ago, I shared my handmade miniature ring binders with you and promised you to share a picture of the office in the lantern that I made them for, once it's done.
As I had mentioned, the lantern is a goodbye gift for a dear colleague working in the IT department which is why my friend had the idea for the miniature office.

She also had the idea to get the mini electronic devices - I doubt any of us three working on this collaboration would have come up with something handmade quickly, so they are store-bought - and felt in the color of the carpet at work, and my favorite, to turn a game token she ruthlessly stole from her mother into a desk lamp, an idea which got realized by her husband.
Then she made the small pad of sticky notes for the desk and added an extra big note as a reminder for an appointment.

Her husband who is a talented woodworker (I'm already looking forward to setting up the beautiful candle arch he made for me) took the wooden bars off the glass, so you can see the office well even with the door shut, then he made the amazing desk and wall shelf and added the LEDs.

You already know that I made the waste paper basket and the binders, then I put together a quick poster with an IT joke which my friend printed out and put on the "wall" with tape. Tape is omnipresent at work.
It's a little difficult to see from this view, but the two green items on the desk are fat little pencils that I made from a wooden shish kebab skewer and cut labels that I painted green to remind of a well-known German pencil manufacturer.

In this picture you can see the details a little better.

I can even imagine our co-worker being able to add more to this little office if she feels like it.
It was big fun, and if we had been able to get together to work on this, who knows what else we would have come up with? I think we make a pretty good team!

Last but not least here's a picture of the whole lantern.

Beaded gifts

The last few weeks I have been preparing posts and making things for the advent calendar which I will be doing on this blog once again. Can you believe it's December soon?

I would have liked to keep these little boxes for one of the calendar posts, but need them for a showcase soon, so I'm not going to hide them from you.
Originally I wanted to take pictures of my Topper dolls bringing gifts, but they kept toppling over (no pun intended) because the boxes are too small for them to hold them with both hands - the hands are too far apart - and a little too heavy if I let them dangle from one of their hands. They finally refused to try another time ;-)

These little boxes will get jump rings, so they can be worn as pendants, but also be attached to a real size gift or put on a Christmas tree as ornament.

They are beaded from Delica beads, two of the ribbons are from seed beads and I added little drop beads for embellishment.

This one from seed beads was the first one I made, very Christmassy with the green and gold, don't you think?

Have you had yourself ...

... a merry little Christmas? Yes, I know I am late. I'm giving up on explanations or excuses why my blog is neglected. Sure I am hoping it will be better next year, but who knows?
Anyway, I hope you had a great time and most of all I hope you got a bit of peace and rest, on the outside and the inside.

What I want to show you today, doesn't have to do with Christmas, though. It's just another one of those posts that are sadly overdue.
There is this friend of mine, you know. She's crazy, she's lovable, she's funny, and she made something for me that made me freak out when I had to pick it up at customs.
Sharon is a bead loomer, too. Actually that's how we first met. Not in person (yet?). I'm not even sure if the planet would be able to survive us meeting in person. The way it is she's in California and I'm still in good ole Germany.

I don't want to keep up the suspense any longer. Meet Denis, my Cat's Wire logo loomed from Delicas in a beautiful and very personal tapestry. Can you imagine my gasp at the office customs when I pulled it out of its envelope? Can you imagine me telling the clerk more than once that this was my logo? From beads? Made by my friend? For me? My shop logo?

Thank you again, Sharon! You really made my day with this!

To remind you, this is the original logo that my dear friend Denis (hence the kitty's name ;-)) designed for me.
 

Sharon does not have a shop at the moment (if/when she does, you'll be sure to find an interview with her here), but if you want her to make a tapestry or anything else for you, you can contact her via e-mail sjkrauss@gmail.com
You won't be disappointed!