Neuschwanstein Castle - fertig?

I'm pretty happy with it.

I've been there at least 7 times, maybe more.

First time was in 1981 when I traveled with my friend Tricia.

Then when I lived in Stuttgart between 1984 and 1987, I was there

with friends and family who visited.

I followed the Lone Beader's lead with painting a canvas and

mounting the beadwork on it.

I really like it.

Now, I have a crewel embroidery castle, a lace version,

a cross stitch version and a beaded version.

The public debut will be on Sunday, October 5th at the

Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild Bead Bonanza in Southfield, MI

Now to continue on my Bead Journal project

that I put down a couple of weeks ago.

Neuschwanstein Castle - seite seiben

It's been a while since I worked on this piece as much as I have. Here's the current view of the castle. It's moving right along. Tonight, my friend is coming over and we are going to bead boxes, if we can figure out the instructions......

Sunday morning.....

....just a nice Sunday in Detroit......

Labour Day Weekend 2008

I had a really nice, quiet weekend camping with my husband and dogs in Monroe, MI. This wasn't the skunky campground - this is the one that is just 28 miles from our home, but feels like we are very far away. What a great feeling. Alan and I took Friday off work to make it a nice long weekend. I spent a good amount of time this weekend with needle, thread and beads in my hand working on month one of the Bead Journal Project.

I originally was going to have a hawk as my first month, but I really love this owl. For some reason, when my mother visited me in Germany (while I lived there), she learned the German word for owl: Eule.

From Wikipedia: Owls are an order of birds of prey. Most are solitary, and nocturnal, with some exceptions (e.g. the Burrowing Owl). They are classified in the order Strigiformes, in which there are over 200 extant species. Owls mostly hunt small mammals, insects, and other birds, though a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found in all regions of the Earth except Antarctica, most of Greenland, and some remote islands. Though owls are typically solitary, the literary collective noun for a group of owls is a parliament.

I also worked quite a bit on Neuschwanstein Castle. I finished work on the castle towers and started some of the trees in the front. I hadn't really worked on this since April but I do like how it's coming along.

Neuschwanstein Castle - seite drei

Und wir haben Schloss Neuschwanstein, with (mit) much (sehr) more of the castle (schloss) completed. This castle is being done in layers, with many of the towers being two (zwei) to four (vier) layers of interfacing thick. The towers (turm) that are not completed are a different layer than the brownish red charlottes that is in between them. The stone colour (farben) around the door (tur) is also a different layer. The outline that you see in red (rot) is placement lines for some of the trees (baum) that will be in front of the castle.

Not far from the castle is the great Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where I learned that I don't care for skiing on the Zugspitze. When you are skiing for the first time - yes, even on what they considered the "bunny hills" - and you fall; when instructors kick their skis off and come running to see how you are, you know that you should be really hurt (I was) and that you don't belong on skis. I spent the remainder of my ski week in the resturant "Sonn Alpin" with Colonel Check, drinking hot spiced wine and expressing our dislike for skiing.

Neuschwanstein Castle - seite zweit

When I was taking art classes in high school, my work with perspectives sucked. As an adult, 30 years out of high school, my perspective still sucks. The difference is that I don't really care now. I love my castle. And my friend Sandy called me a "queen" today - she titled me the "Queen of size 15s" - although we all know that the title belongs to her.

When you go to Bavaria to see Schloss (Castle) Neuschwanstein, don't forget to stop in a nearby in nearby Linderhof to see another to the famous castles in the area.

Neuschwanstein Castle

This is Neuschwanstein Castle, located in Bavaria, Germany near the village of Fussen. The foundation stone was layed in 1869 and construction was finished in 1886, after King Ludwig II untimely death. The castle receives over 1 million visitors per year, and during the years 1984-87, when I lived in Germany, I can't begin to count how many times I visited the castle. My first visit was during the summer of 1981, when I traveled to Germany with my friend Tricia. Want a great meal in the shadow of the beautiful building? Check out The Hotel Mueller and check out the views from the Sun Terrace. It's wonderful.

My castle is about 6x4 inches, pretty small for such a grand castle. With the background, I think it will end up about 8x10 inches or so. The castle beading will be completed using all size 15 seed beads.