Returning to London

Dateline: London, 28/6/08

My three favorite cities in the world span 6000 miles: San Francisco, my adopted home city; New York, where I'm from; and London. My first visit to London was in 1971. I had just graduated from college and wanted to travel on my own, but didn't want to have to cope with a country where I didn't speak the language. Since England had not been on the itinerary for the trip to Europe with my parents in 1965, it seemed a good place for my trip.

In the '80's and early '90's I became a frequent visitor. I worked for a Boston company that had a London office and I was lucky enough to travel here a couple of times a year. I also went on two Rowan knitting tours in the UK. I developed a list of "my" places that I would go back to each time, for example a yarn store called Creativity which no longer exists, and a sandwich shop called Tea Time in Clapham Common, south of the Thames, which a google search shows is still there.

Since I added an extra 3000 miles between me and London by moving to California in 1994, I have not been able to visit as often. Jim and I were last here in 1998, for an occasion similar to this one but 10 years younger. We are here now to celebrate my cousin Jeffrey's 60th birthday; he and Helene will arrive from New Jersey tomorrow. In 1998 we celebrated his 50th birthday. Jeffrey is an Anglophile and once lived here for a year on a job and house exchange. I expect that we'll be celebrating his 70th birthday here in 2018.

Jim and I are renting a flat, which has become my favorite way to travel; usually cheaper than a hotel room, and it gives you more room and a taste of local life. Our flat is in a part of London that is new to me, the east end. We are close to Brick Lane, famous for Bengali immigrants and as a novel by Monica Ali which I read after finding out that we would be living here (and which has just come out as a movie). We arrived this afternoon after a long, uncomfortable flight with little sleep. (Air travel really has become very unpleasant.) After a short rest, we explored the area. Brick Lane is lively with restaurants, shops, and people of all colors and nationalities. We had dinner at a very good Punjabi restaurant. I was glad to find lots of coffee places, including one of London's 112 Starbucks on nearby Whitechappel St.

Brick Lane also has two beigel (sic) bakeries right next to each other. My onion bagel, actually a bialy (which has an indentation instead of a hole) looks like no other bagel or bialy I've ever seen. It looks more like an onion hamburger bun, but not as soft. At breakfast tomorrow I'll find out how it tastes.

Third Bracelet's a Charm

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 6/26/08

This is a good example of my difficulties with bracelet length. I fell in love with this design, from Yvonne Rivero's book The Beaded Bracelet IV, when I saw samples at her store in Sacramento, U Bead It. My first attempt at making it came out too short for me. The problem is that the beads that connect the flower clusters are loose, but the last step in making the bracelet is to reinforce the entire length a few times, which tightened the bracelet more than I expected. I sent the bracelet to my mother, but it's also too short for her, so she will pass it on to her sister Roz (mother of my cousin Jeffrey) or to Jeffrey's daughter Emily.

In my second attempt, I overcompensated and made the bracelet too long. I sent it to Mary Beth for her sister Christina. The third attempt came out just right. I'm keeping it!

Bracelets for Mary Beth and Melody

Dateline: Emerald Hills, 6/23/08

One of the most difficult things for me about making bracelets is getting the length right. Even if I know the recipient's wrist measurement, I'm not always good at sizing correctly. In my earlier beadwork, I didn't always take into account that the clasp adds an inch or more to the length of the bracelet. Many of my creations have been too large, including some bracelets that I made for my sister-in-law Mary Beth for Christmas. She passed them on to her sister Christina, and I offered to make Mary Beth a replacement. Mary Beth requested the peyote pod design that I learned in a class with Teresa Sullivan. I was glad to have the chance to make this design again and correct some of the flaws that crept in on my first attempt.

I also offered to make a bracelet for my friend Melody, a writer and librarian who lives in Maine and who recently started a blog. Melody and I worked together 30 years ago (I can hardly believe it was so long ago!) at NELINET. Melody requested the African criss-cross design I learned from Sylvia Lagos.








As a surprise, I also made a current favorite design for me, Mary Beth, and Melody. The design is from Yvonne Rivero's book The Beaded Bracelet IV. It's a great way to use bugle beads. From left to right, the bracelets below are for Mary Beth, Melody, and me. Melody collects teapots, so I used a teapot toggle clasp on hers.
Mary Beth and Melody, I'm putting your bracelets in the mail this afternoon. I hope the lengths are right!