my obsession of the last six years...

I'm really not a very patient person, which is why I hate sewing. It can take days to make something nice, and almost every sewing attempt has ended in some kind of a disaster, like sewing one piece to another at the wrong place and having to rip everything out and start over.

Knitting also requires a lot of patience, especially if one wants to make something interesting. Knitting something beautiful not only takes a lot of time, but it can be very tricky to recover from mistakes with it. I decided, after stabbing myself with a knitting needle during an attempt to make a simple sweater for one of my children to be, that knitting wasn't really my thing either.

I do like crochet very much, though. I have made numerous scarves, and in my younger years even invented a small bag to hold my set of jacks and rubber ball. I made bags for my sisters, too. Crochet only requires one tool, the work goes relatively quickly (it's possible to make something beautiful in just a few hours), and it is also rather intuitive and easy to recover from mistakes.

Another type of handwork that I have always appreciated is beadwork with seed beads, especially that of Native Americans, and in my teens, I experimented with weaving beads and trying to replicate some of the patterns. I remember making a rather complicated and beautiful amulet of an eagle on a chain of beaded flowers for a close friend of mine and although I was very satisfied with the result of my efforts, I found the work tedious and didn't feel inspired to try making anything else after that.

I was therefore thrilled when my older sister taught me the art of beadcrochet in 2003. This craft which puts seed beads and crochet together has given me countless hours of pleasure in the last six years and I still feel driven to find new patterns and color combinations. I've made more than 400 bracelets and more than 40 necklaces. Each bracelet takes about four hours; necklaces take longer, depending on the length.

Following are scans of a few of my favorites.


This one with the dragonfly has a matching necklace and I wore them with a red gown to a ball at the Vienna Hofburg one year. The dragonfly is not crocheted, but is made with beads and wire.

The above bracelet was inspired by the colors in a painting in the home of a friend of mine. I like to wear it with an orange braclet on one side and a red one on the other.

This flower pattern is one of my favorite patterns. I made the above bracelet for a friend of mine who suggested the colors. I really enjoyed working with the bright orange beads.

I made the bracelet above for another friend of mine who wanted something with yellow, orange and red in it. There are approximately 30 different beads in the pattern. The pattern was kind of an accident, but a good one!