Here we have a second pair of the Travelers Stockings, from Knitting on the Road, by Nancy Bush. Again, I have used Tess' Sock Yarn, which is 80% wool and 20% nylon for strength, but this time in black. Have I mentioned that I LOVE this yarn? Well, I do. It is wooly enough that I like it, but strong enough to last. These will be perfect for my black wool slacks.
I found a wonderful lace pattern beret on ravelry by Kate Gagnon, called Springtime in Philadelphia Canopy, and made my interpretation of the hat out of handspun wool and silk. The roving is from Interlacements and is the Scottish Lichen colorway, which I absolutely love. My spinning, (completed a few years ago) is extremely inconsistent in size and was a bit of a problem but it came out pretty well. The tam is knit from the top down - so cool.
It has a very nice hand to it, and is quite lightweight.
My grandaughter's American Girl doll is wearing her latest creation. I blogged about this project previously, but just got the first picture of the doll wearing it! It fit so well that I'm amazed.
I purchased a bunch of polymer clay beads on Etsy, but I didn't realize how big they really were until they showed up here! They are about the size of a quarter and very thick. Thus they presented a problem for a design. Originally, there were intended to be part of a bracelet of some kind, and the remainder still may be at some point, but these just jumped onto some earring wires I made. They are very funky and artsy and I am fond of them.
I just finished these lovely beads yesterday afternoon. I followed a very interesting tutorial, by Humblebeads, which may be found here: Humblebeads' Shells and made a very large cane to decorate future beads. My color sense is not very good, and I'm at a loss as to where to start sometimes, so I followed her suggestions. I can't quite believe that I even made them myself.
I fell in love with her beads the moment I found them online, quite a while ago, and actually found some at a bead store, where I admired them greatly. The beads above, are from the SCRAPS of the cane I made. They are rich, deep in color, and extremely interesting, to me. They have been buffed but there is no other finish applied.
I am most definitely in a pink phase. Most of the things I have been doing, are pink. I like pink. So, sue me.
These are the Traveler's Stockings from Nancy Bush's book, Knitting on the Road. I have been taken with the pictures of these socks in her book from the moment I saw them. And I am using the perfect yarn as well, one that is new to me - Tess's Designer sock yarn. It's 80% wool and 20% nylon and has excellent stitch definition. My friend Julia, told me that I simply had to try this yarn, that it is her favorite for socks, and now I know why!! Now it's my favorite as well.
I've been busy making a number of stitch markers so I can practice making wrapped loops. I still have a long way to go but I'm getting better and faster. This particular stitch marker is for those two row repeats, such as a decrease round alternating with a knit round, as in sock gussets, shown above. The fancy flower bead at the top, indicates to me, that I should do 'something' in that round (decrease stitches). When I come to the marker again, I simply reverse the marker, turning it upside down, so that now, the plain bead indicates that nothing needs to be done for that round. We'll see how it works.
Continuing with my obsession of making polymer clay beads, I experimented with mixing of colors. I took two colors, Premo copper and Fimo pacific blue, and mixed them in varying intensities. The first incarnation of this bracelet used 14 gauge copper wire but it was giving me fits, so I switched to simple elastic cording and I like it much better.
After another marathon bead session yesterday, I had enough beads to put together this lovely necklace. I made a bunch of smaller rounds from the leftover clay I had, and there were just enough to complete the necklace. I'm pleased with it.
Aren't these adorable? I came across this pattern, from Lagerman Knits, on ravelry and you have to be a member to purchase the pattern. It's the Mother May I? pattern from Phyll Lagerman and it was not only very easy to follow, but produced great results. She is a talented sock designer and you will find it difficult to decide which to start first.
I was SO excited about making these yesterday. I spent about three wonderful hours mixing clay and rolling it out, and cutting and stacking, and was so pleased with myself, UNTIL I BAKED THE BEADS AT 375 instead of 275!! They turned out very dark and yellowy, but to my amazement they still appear to be okay. I didn't really want to spend a lot more time working on burnt beads so I skipped the sanding part and went right to buffing. I may try these again when I'm not distracted.
This piece was actually completed a few days ago, but I forgot to post about it. The focal bead was made by Hari last weekend, and I found the perfect glass beads to complement it. It is a very interesting pendant and turned out very well. Thank you Hari.
Here we have a lovely deep blue polymer clay necklace, designed around a unique focal bead created by Hari. I couldn't find beads to match so I had to make them. It was a lot of fun too, I must say and I'm getting better at it. Also used in the making of the beads was my trusty dremel tool to buff the beads. I have to tell you that it was so much fun that it is addicting! I rolled the clay throught the pasta machine to the thickest setting, #1, and then cut out circles for the beads. The larger beads used two circles together.
If you will forgive my self-portrait shot, then here are the final pics of my coat. I have worn it already, and it is very warm and heavy. The sleeves are slightly too short because I was worried about the shoulders and neck stretching and took extra steps to prevent that - binding off stitches instead of the 3-needle bind off and picking up of live stitches that were called for in the pattern. Most of the projects in Ravelry which I saw for this coat had much too long sleeves and sloppy necklines. Mine does not. I am still hoping the sleeves will stretch a little bit, but I am mostly very pleased. And I love the buttons I made!
I have been having way too much fun. First there was the marathon polymer clay session which started all this. I still had rose and violet clay left over, so I made some fun beads. Then when I began the design process, I knew that I had far fewer beads than necessary, and couldn't find beads from my stash, but I found the right color wire! So I spent a great day just fooling around with my Twist 'n Curl tool and wire. I am very pleased with this wild piece.
This bracelet utilizes some of my earliest beads, made over a year ago, and waiting for inspiration. I used fun wire (plastic coated wire) to make simple wrapped links and hook clasp.
These beads were made from a skinner-blend, which was so kindly made by Hari when she was here on Saturday. I added a few white polka-dots to them and then glazed them. I don't like the glazing much, neither the process, nor the outcome, as I think they are way too shiny.
I interspersed the polka-dot beads with two size 8 white seed beads in order to get the length needed for a choker. It's very cute!
I mixed and mixed colors until I got something I liked, and then played with different ideas. The spiral button which is posted first, is the winner and is already sewn on the coat. I like all of them actually but the spiral one, done with a skinner-blend coil, is my favorite.
These beads were designed by Hari, and strung by Aoife. Here she is modeling them!!!
This is all because I was going to make coat buttons for my pink/mauve coat. My son's girlfriend Hari, who has NEVER worked with polymer clay before, asked if she could play with the clay too, as I was getting out the supplies for the day. So, here are some of her resulting beads!!! Amazing. Then my granddaughter, 13, made some beads too, and we just strung them on some clear elastic and they are wonderful.
(The buttons will be in the next post.)
I purchased three beautiful skeins of thick and thin merino/mohair yarn at Stitches East last weekend with the idea of making a swing jacket similar to the one my friend Shafer made. Her jacket used multiple strands of yarns to create a very large gauge - like 7 stitches / 4 inches on #13 needles. The pattern comes from Sally Melville, and is called 'Not My Mother's Jacket'. According to the pattern, each yarn in the strand needs to be 540 yds, but of course, I only have 480 yards of the lovely thick and thin purple. Sigh. So I had to put on my thinking cap.
I have a lot of yarn, on cones, and otherwise, from my long-ago weaving days so I pulled some out, and found some wonderful mohair, and wool yarn, both of which have enough yardage. I also found a wonderful skein of bulky weight plum merino wool, that I had originally bought for felting. It is 320 yards. Again, not enough for the entire project. And I really didn't want the jacket to look like I ran out of yarn!!!!
I also found a huge amount of 2-ply knitting worsted in a beige heathery tone, and so I swatched quite a lot and came up with the idea of knitting just one row with a strand containing the thick and thin, and one row with a strand containing the bulky plum weight yarn, and since I was knitting on circulars, but flat, I just push the work to the other end of the needles when necessary. So by knitting alternate rows, I have effectively cut in half the yardage needed for each yarn!! Pat myself on the back....
Then I had to deal with the beige yarn, so I played with koolaid and that worked beautifully! I used 8 packages with a glug of white vinegar for 2 four ounce skeins of the wool, which was soaked first. I brought the 6 quart pot to a boil and turned it off. I notice that the reddish part of the dye got absorbed quite quickly, leaving the water very blue, but soon that was absorbed as well. I really needed a larger pot for 2 skeins, but since I don't have one, the wool was quite blotchy. But it came out great that way. Sort of reddish-purple, and light blue-gray areas. You can see that yarn in the third picture above.
I am using 3 yarns for each multiple strand, as you can see above. I am hoping to have enough yarn but I'm worried. Stay tuned.....
These bangle/bracelets were from a kit I purchased at Stitches East in Baltimore last week, and they turned out really well. They are knit on #0000 dpns with 3 stitches and 2 beads per row and were simple, if fiddly, to make. I originally intended to make a necklace but I was too worried about a tiger-strip effect and made 3 bracelets instead. They are very comfortable to wear, fit tightly when on my wrist, roll on and off easily and have no closures to make things difficult.
