The thumb and I

More embroidery?
You may wonder if that is a new craft/hobby frenzy. It wouldn't be unusual to go wild with a new technique that you have just discovered for yourself. I'm no exception although I have always tried to keep it mixed up, but it's hard not to succumb the excitement and adventure of new experiments ;-)

There is another reason for this flood of embroidery, however.
I have rhizarthrosis in both thumb joints, not that bad yet in the right one, but the left one has really been acting up for a while now. I'm right handed, but my left hand has to do a lot of the grabbing, holding and keeping tension which seems to be the harder part.
That meant more breaks, much shorter crafting sessions, days completely without crafting, and some things are right out at the moment, wire for example, and even beading makes my thumb move in the wrong way. It's frustrating and my friends are probably sick of my whining by now.
I haven't tried out yet how well bead looming will be working for me right now, but I have a plan for bead embroidery - well, and then there's the hand embroidery.

I quickly found out that holding my hoop is a bad idea, actually that's what started my thumb being angry at me. I know I should have taken more breaks a long time ago, but it's really hard for me to stop myself once I'm going.
When I purchased my course for the silk shading flower, though, it said I needed a stand for being able to use both hands freely, and that made a big difference.

It doesn't mean that I can have as long sessions as I used to, it also doesn't mean there isn't any pain at all, but there's no doubt, hand embroidery is the easiest technique for me to do at the moment.
So I got myself a second stand with different sizes of exchangeable hoops and used the smallest of them to make several pendants which couldn't be more different from one another.

1. At my jewelry forum, the Jewelry Artisans Community, we currently have a challenge with the topic "Music" going and I made a happy little musical pendant for it. Don't try to sing the tune ;-)

2. This was an experiment that came from a different idea that is still lingering in the back of my head.
I'm getting abstract 60s vibes from it which is helped by the shape, and I have to say it was fun making it as I could just let loose.

3. Yeah, not a big surprise here. We all knew there would be at least one cat pretty quickly during my embroidery journey, I just didn't know it would become kind of a caricature until I couldn't resist making really big eyes.

4. The last pendant has a backstory.
I have mentioned before that I live in Göppingen which is situated at the bottom of the Hohenstaufen, one of the "Drei Kaiserberge" (literally translating to "Three Emperor Mountains"), together with the Rechberg and Stuifen.
They get their name from the Hohenstaufen dynasty - the "Staufer" - of which Frederick Barbarossa is probably the most famous. They had a castle on the Hohenstaufen, but there is only very little of the foundation walls left (it is said that the city castle of Göppingen was partially built from stones from the castle ruins).
This is my hommage to our mountains and their long history.
Of course they don't lie that close together in reality (pictures under the link above) as in our city logo ...

... or in my pendant.

So yeah, I guess you will have to put up with more embroidery in the near future.
I will not drop the wire and the beads, though, and hope ice packs, splints, and more rest will be able to help me with that!

He came from outer space to save the human race

You know what's best about living alone?
I can do whatever I want. Whenever I want. Okay, of course there are always limitations. I try not to disturb my neighbors with loud music or the TV. I don't run up and down the stairs in the middle of the night. I don't fuss around in my kitchen at 3 am (which is something I have done before when I was much younger) or turn on the vacuum cleaner at all hours of the day (which is something my former neighbor has done before when I was much younger).
I can listen to what I want, though. I can watch what I like. I can plaster my walls with animal pictures, painted, drawn or photographed. I can keep my beloved Stairs to Nowhere and decorate them with hats. I can even keep my little artificial Christmas tree standing as long as I want to (because I still want to take pictures of my handmade baubles).

This post is not about single life, however. It's about my fan wall, something I know would have been frowned upon in the old days of not being single.
On my page I said that it's a gut decision who will end up on the wall, just as much as I let my gut decide what I like and what I don't like.
Guess what ... I'm not a Harry Potter fan and I would never watch Game of Thrones (these are just random examples that came to my mind first). I like (some) Bollywood movies and the music, and the next moment I may listen to Queen, The Beatles, or Mozart. My comic hero is not Batman or Superman, but still Donald Duck. I like some fashion on others, but can't be bothered to look beyond my t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers myself.
I don't like someone or something just because it's popular, but it also doesn't mean I dislike something just because it's popular - although I do tend to be stubborn at first about things that get pushed into my face, by people, commercials, or trailers. I don't have to see a movie just because "everyone" loves it. I am not a fan of most action movies and even though I enjoy weird movies, there are weird movies I think are, well, too weird for me, and that's okay.
I listen to others' opinions and maybe I let them convince me and maybe not.
I could go on and on like that, but I think you got the idea ;-)

A few years ago I happened to stumble upon The Nomi Song on TV, a documentary about countertenor Klaus Nomi. I do love documentaries of all kinds and recorded the re-run because I had missed part of it the first time. Watching it I remembered having seen him once on German TV and the song he performed was actually quite familiar to me even though I can't say why.
I got interested and started browsing a little more.
Nomi was Avantgarde, New Wave, unusual and outlandish and not everyone's cup of tea, but when a friend suggested  him as one of the portraits, my gut told me to go with it.
And now he's #25 on my wall :-)

There's music in the air

And if there is none, let's make some ourselves.

We'll start with the clef. Actually I had so much fun with the clef that I needed to make a few. Two of them have travelled elsewhere, but two are left and I want to share them with you.

They are made of a wire crochet tube for which I used a small hook, so the tube is hardly recognizable as one. It couldn't be too big because it doesn't bend that well then and that might have prevented the shaping of the clef.

For the extra twist I added a "musical note", a beautiful labradorite on the first one, a white pearl surrounded by tiny peridot beads on the second.

The first one is already available in my ArtFire studio, the second one might get an oxdizing treatment, I'm still not sure about that.

Fine silver wire crochet clef with labradorite

Fine silver wire crochet clef with pearl and peridots

The seventh door - God rest ye merry, gentlemen

I have no idea what you would call this in English. We called it a "Musiktruhe", literally translated as "music chest" which is something different, I know.


It was a radio/TV/record player combination and I loved it. So so many memories are connected with it. Of course this chest had been there before me, in the late 50s, I think. When it had made its way into my room, the TV set didn't work anymore and a piece of the glass in the radio had been broken out. When we were searching for a new channel, the little pointer inside came out through the hole and we had to push it back while turning the dial.
We had a nice record collection as well ... oldies. I love oldies. We used to stand on the table and pretend to sing. Elvis, German hits of the 50s, Fats Domino, old fairy tale records (we didn't sing along with them), I loved them ... and one single we had was "God rest ye merry, gentlemen". Somehow I never bothered to learn the whole text and for whatever reason until now I always thought it was "God rest ye, merry gentlemen". Why? No idea. Maybe I just liked the thought of merry gentlemen ...

Ever since I was a child, I was drawn to Christmas carols. I'm one of those annoying people who starts whistling Jingle Bells in summer without noticing the weird looks all around.
I love the traditional songs, I love the pop songs (NOT "Last Christmas", though, ban that song off the radio, please!), I love the German ones, the English ones, I love "Santa Baby" sung by Eartha Kitt, I'm just hopeless!

One of my favorites will always be "God rest ye merry, gentlemen", though. In fact I'll listen to it now.

Hippie circles!

One of my favorite musicals is "Hair".
It was my sister's record - record as in vinyl for the younger people among us. Black, big and it was not a good thing to scratch them. My sister generously allowed me to record my favorite songs to tape.
I didn't listen to the tape today. By now I have the CDs and I have my favorite songs on my PC and my MP3 player.
I wish I could dance.
Instead I let it inspire me. There was nothing much else to do after the title song had glued itself to my brain.

Do you remember the cool tie-dye t-shirts? I had more than one and I might even still have one in my wardrobe ...

Wouldn't this pendant go great with one of them and jeans and a jeans jacket?
"Hippie circles" is made from scratch. I handformed the sterling silver wire and I filled the ring with colorful copper wire (crocheted of course!).



Peace, brothers and sisters! ;-)

Oh, and by the way, you find this pendant in my Zibbet shop.