When you want to make your own ring

I'm doing a little wire work tutorial today. I had bought this cabochon as a set of 3 at the Gem & Jewelry Show. I had bought a ring setting for one, given a second away as a gift, and had this third one sitting around for a while. I wanted to make it a ring, but I wanted a different setting from the one I already had. I looked all over the place and either the settings were the wrong size, or I had to order wholesale and in bulk. Finally, an idea started forming in my head about using wire and making my own ring. I've included the instructions here. You can click on the pictures to see larger images.

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Materials

- 1 ft 16 gauge wire

- 1 ft 20 gauge wire. More may be needed if you want to wrap it a lot or if your stone is bigger

- Small cabochon

- heavy duty wire cutters

- wire working pliers

- ring mandrel or something round of approximate size to your finger with a little bit of extra room

Note that I like to use sterling silver (dead soft). Copper will be more bendable and you may end up with nicks on the wire from your pliers. The choice is really up to you.

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Sizing up your finger

If you already know the size ring you want, good for you. If not, you need to figure out what size ring you want to make. There are various resources on the web to find your ring size like this one at wikipedia. If you don't own a ring mandrel, you would probably want to figure out either the diameter of your finger to fit (so you can buy and approximate sized dowel at the hardware store) or the circumference of your finger (so you can find a similar object around the house).

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Creating the ring

If you are using a ring mandrel, you want to wrap the wire just at the notch just slightly larger than your desired ring size. If you are using a dowel or tubular object, you want to make sure the circumference is slightly larger than your finger. Using the 16 gauge wire, leave about 1.5 inches at the end and wrap it once

then twice

around the ring mandrel. Try to keep the size of the rings you're creating even. That's 2 full rings around the mandrel.



Take the end of the wire and you want to bend it around the two wire rings:


Then, cut the wire from the spool, also leaving 1.5 inches. Wrap that end also around the 2 wire rings:




Make loops with the two ends, or some other free form shape.




Trim the wires down to your desired length. You can stop here if you want. It's a very nice ring.

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Wire wrapping the cabochon

Full disclosure: I have never taken a class or been instructed on wrapping stones with wire. I experimented with copper 26 gauge wire to see how it would work. Please feel free to experiment with the wire and the stone.

I used the 20 gauge wire to wrap the cabochon, leaving a 2 inch tail at one end to be used for securing to the ring. Then I proceeded to wrap the wire around to stone so that the stone is "trapped" in a cage.
 

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I secured the 2 ends of the 20 gauge wire to the ring by wrapping each end 3 times around the ring. I then trimmed off the excess.


The stone was still wobbly on the ring so I took a small piece of the 20 gauge (you can use scraps at least 1 inch long) and threaded that through the wires under the cabochon and wrapped it around the ring to secure:

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Finally, the finished ring:

Confession time

I am a teenie bopper at heart. I love my boy bands. Now that I've said that...New Kids on the Block is going to be at Verizon Center on October 2, 2008. Is there anyone in the area who would want to go with me? Tickets go on sale 6/9 at 10am. It's been 15 years!

Did anyone catch them on the Today show this morning?

Yes, I love the New Kids. I love NSYNC. I love 98 Degrees.

Cyrstal necklace - refinished

I posted about two finished objects the other night. When I took the picture of the necklace, it looked a little tilted and I thought it was just me. After the photo session, I put it on. When I walked by a mirror, I realized that it wasn't me that was tilted. The necklace itself was tilted. Urgh! The middle 14mm rivoli was not centered under the 27mm rivoli. So of course, I had to take it apart and redo it so that the crystals were all centered. Now, this is better:








I have a friend with a hobby in photography and I've been threatening to send him some flowers to photograph. I've always found beads to be difficult to photograph because you put too much light in and they're reflecting everywhere leaving everything out of focus and fuzzy. The picture showing the entire necklace is out of focus and it drives me nuts. Those crystals are pretty but damn, they're throwing me off.

How it sparkle. How it shines. - Rubyhorse



It's a strangely appropriate song to pop into my head since the NHL used this as their theme song...I believe it was the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs. They had the cup all nicely polished up and silver. And now I'm watching the Stanley Cup and looking at this pretty sparkly thing. Wait. It may have been the 2003 playoffs. I think 2002 was Andrew WK's "Party Hard". Yes I remember my life by music.

2008 Maryland Sheep & Wool Haul

I finally got some pictures and loaded these into raverly. First, I got a basket:


My first purchased of the day, right at about 8am was from Persimmon Tree Farms. It's the Autumn Harvest Glitz blend. I saw this last year but I tried to hold off and by the time I decided to buy some, they were all out. So this year, I realized that I could spin this up in worsted weight and make Rowan's Cressida pattern.



At the Clover Hill Yarn Shop booth, I picked up some Spritely Goods Fey in the Manzanite in Bloom colorway.


And then I also drooled over Mama E's C*eye*ber Fiber in the Raspberry Ganache colorway.

While I was there talking to her, I was telling her how evil she was with the flashing of the Garnet colorway on her website and she mentioned that she had some in her warehouse...so of course, I had her bring me some on Sunday to be sent home with Amber.


And then I got some Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra to make Eunny Jang's Anemoi Mittens.



And finally, in the Woodchuck's going out of business sale, he was getting rid of some of his wife's yarn stash at a really good price. I picked up 10 skeins of this wool/viscose yarn:


All in all, I stayed in my budget and didn't touch my credit cards or go into my food money. Yay me! Lots of spinning and knitting ahead.

Two finished objects!

These were the two items I was hoping to finish this weekend. First up is the Simple Knitted Bodice. I'm hoping I can get a better picture of this at some point, but here it is:


It's Stefanie Japel's Simple Knitted Bodice. This was knit using Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool. The lighter green is 797 and the darker green is 7359. This was knit on size 5 and 7 needles. I'm going to wear this to work tomorrow. It will be cool enough. Next up...

Now I am done with this necklace. Give me a week to throw it on etsy. Sorry the photo sucks. This is one of the problems with photographing beaded objects. Beads reflect light, which makes them difficult to get the lighting adjusted correctly. When you're dealing with crystals, that just adds to the problem. Those silver beads are the new Toho permanant finish silver (no more galvanized, whoo hoo!) stitched in the St. Petersburg chain. I used 1 27mm pink Swarovski rivoli and 2 14mm pink Swarovski rivolis. The rivolis are joined using 6mm bicones.

Weekend goals

• Photograph my yarn stash and get them into ravelry


• Finish the Simple Knitted Bodice. I'm almost there. I just need to weave in some ends and do the collar.


• Photograph ALL of the jewelry I've made. They'll be getting tagged with prices and will all be going to etsy

Pink Ribbons

If you want me to donate to a cause, you can usually do so if it's related to breast cancer. It's something near and dear to me and I hope that it's not hereditary. And when you combine that with something like cute pink socks, you end up with me paying for The Pink Ribbon Sock Kit. She is putting together 100 kits. The total cost for those of you in the US is $45. That would be $5 for shipping, $20 for the sock kit, and $20 donated to the Susan G Komen foundation (the Race for the Cure people).

I finished some socks

These were the Caps playoff socks. I did two increases up the leg. What really bothers me about the increases is that I did the first one during one of the intermissions during Game 7. The Caps went on to lose that game. Boo! So when I walked out of Verizon Center, I had literally just finished the increase row, so I had to keep going! And I couldn't just do 1 increase so I had to do a second. And then I started running low on yarn so I finished it up. These will be good in the winter for some boots.

I'm not done yet

Really. Yes, you can wear it out, but I'm not done yet. That strap is made with the permanant finish silver beads that Patricia has recently started stocking over at Bead Obsessions. It's in a St. Petersburg chain. That is a 27mm Swarovski crystal rivoli there in the center.

Maryland Sheep & Wool 2008

Well, it was MD S&W weekend. I was good this year. I only spent the cash I brought with me! All of my goodies are still in the car since I'm carting it all around for show and tell. I bought some yarn and some fiber and some Noni patterns (Tulip Tote, Cascading Fuschia Market Bag, Prism Bag). I'll have pictures once I have finished with show and tell. My pictures from Sheep and Wool are here. I did a bit of a scavenger hunt and tried to take pictures of everyone I knew that I ran into. Hmm...did not see Amber and Stephanie. I am missing a picture of Beth who I even chatted with for a bit. I am also missing a picture of Lauren who made a last minute trip down. She IMed me on Friday to say that her boyfriend had decided at the last minute to visit his brother who just happened to live in Columbia, MD. She sent the boys off to do boy things while she got herself all overwhelmed with all things wooly. She is actually my friend Josh's sister and when she first started knitting, she didn't know anyone else who knitted and I was the first person he thought of :). So overall, it was a good weekend with good loot and good friends.

Hockey commercials

It's the NHL playoff time...so I've been watching a lot of hockey. Some of my favorite commercials:

• Verizon Wireless Maternity Ward


• the one with Ryan Miller and the yo mama jokes

Spinning away

I'm finding myself getting back into spinning. I kinda wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that this weekend is Maryland Sheep and Wool. But then, pure wool is quite lovely to spin!

It is horrible when...

You're on ravelry and an ad for hand dyed fiber and yarn looks cool so you follow the link and the find yourself staring at the words "Welcome from finally spring in upstate NY," and you go, "Oh! I wonder where they are in NY!" Then, as you keep reading down, you come across the words "just south of Ithaca, NY" and then their hours and the immediate reaction is "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" Yeah...guess who I'll be visiting the next time I'm up in Ithaca. This is the website

Socks.

I forgot about the socks. These socks I am now calling the "Washington Capitals Playoff socks".

Seriously. I started these in mid February and I've had them with me thru the end of the regular season. Then I went to Denver. I bought a second pair of size 1 needles cuz I didn't want to change anything and take these off the needles. I had these in my bag with me, partly cuz of superstition, partly cuz we needed something to hide the rum we were sneaking into the arena. They won game 1. I packed them in my suitcase to come home. I was in the air for game 2. They lost. They were not in my bag for games 3 and 4 and they lost. I put them back in my bag and have had them with me since then...and they've made a come back. I still have a good deal of yarn left and I will knit knee highs if I have to.

Let's go red!...I mean Caps!

Old habits die hard. Cornell comes first. Thankfully, there really isn't a chance for the Caps to play Cornell since they're at different levels. But the Caps have come back from being down 3-1 in the series and are forcing a game 7. Please Philly, another choke job your sports teams are known for? Please?

So I said that once I finished up the sleeves and got the needles back on the body, I would put it on and take a picture and post the pictures. So, here we go...


Labradorite chandelier earrings



Spiny Urchin Bracelet. Took the class with Paulette Baron a couple of weeks back. I need to put the magnetic clasp on and finish up the rest of the spines.

Denver pictures can be found here. A quick summary. I started taking pictures of various jerseys and we decided that next year, we'd put together some sort of bingo involving the various jerseys you see. The two guys in most of the pictures are my two friends Josh and Rich, my regular travel companions. Somewhere in there are pictures of the tour of the Coors brewery. Not as good as Anheuser-Busch last year. They knew how to present. As usual, the guys got my beer samples. It was kinda disappointing with how many beers Coors makes and yet they only let us sample a small percentage of them. The final turned into a battle of the Jesuit schools which we called "Which team does Jesus like more?" It turned out that Jesus preferred BC over Notre Dame.

Continuing on. We come to the magical season of the Washington Capitals. I started watching them in the 2001-2002 season when I had just moved down to the area and looking for an NHL team to follow. I was purely a college hockey fan at the time. I split loyalties between Washington and Colorado and finally in a game when they played each other, I found where my loyalties really were. In that time, I've watched them be unable to score on 5x3 and lose a game after leading it for a good portion of it. I've watched the Jagr era and go "wtf?" and all of the restructuring. It was frustrating and I stopped paying attention this season and all of a sudden, they made a playoff run and tonight, they came back from being down 3-1 and have a shot at advancing to the second round. I did believe they had a shot at beating the Flyers, though I thought they'd do it in 5-6 games. So, go Caps! Pics from game 5 here. And just for all of your references...yes I travel for hockey, and if we end up moving on and playing the Rangers at some point, I'd probably go to Madison Square Garden to catch a game, while cheering against Josh, the Rangers fan. But there is no way in hell I would go to Philly. I don't have a death wish.



Finally, Simple Knitted Bodice. The yarn is Elann Peruvian Highland Wool. The lighter green on the main body is the Fiddlehead Fern (0797) and the darker green on the lace portion is the Tuscany Green (7359). So far so good and I think I would actually have enough of the 797 to make this as long as I'd like. This yarn wasn't bought with this project in mind.

Update - hockey hockey hockey

Quick Update. Pictures to come soon. What I've been doing:

• Went to Denver for the Frozen Four. The final ended up as a battle of BC vs Notre Dame (aka "Which school does Jesus like better?")


• Caps are in the playoffs...and so I've been at the Verizon Center...when I wasn't in Denver. And btw, Flyers suck. And that's not just because we're currently playing them.


• I have a pair of socks that I'm knitting that it seems, I can't take out of my purse. When they have left my purse, the Caps have lost. They are knit using Socks That Rock in the Harlotty colorway. I must post picture.


• I started in on the Simple Knitted Bodice using some Elann highland peruvian wool. When I haven't been at work or at the Verizon Center, I've been sitting in front of my tv, watching the NHL playoffs and knitting this. I started this the night before I left for Denver and I should be finishing up the second sleeve tonight. Once I get the body back on the needles, I'll try it on, take a picture and that's when I'll go ahead and post all the pictures.


• The joys of a ravelry now also includes a hockey pool among knitters and people are donating yarn as prizes. Sweet!

crap crap crap crap crap!

I leave for Denver on Wednesday. I'm trying to figure out what knitting projects to pack. I have decided to pack the pair of socks I've been working on. I can't keep knitting it cuz I'm going to run out of yarn soon. Crazy superstitious hockey fan me won't let myself finish the socks as long as the Caps are still in the playoffs. What do decide to do? I decided to buy another pair of size 1 circs and start another pair of socks on those. This pair to be exact.

So while I'm surfing Ravelry tonight, I was browsing patterns and browsed back to the Simple Knitted Bodice. As I'm staring at the pretty sweaters people made, and they look really good if you made it to fit, and I realized that I have a swatch that are to gauge and I have enough yarn to do a two toned green sweater. Did I mention that I leave for Denver in 2 days? I kinda want to start this now! But I leave for Denver in 2 days. The problem with leaving in 2 days is that I have tomorrow night to pack cuz I head to the airport directly from work. Wah!

crap crap crap. craptacular crap.

In beady news, some of the ladies at Bead Obsessions "peer pressured" me into taking the spiny urchin class. I've got most of the spines along the edge of the bracelet in. I just need to add the spines to the end and then I'm done. I'll post a picture soon. It's in a theme of red and black.

the hockey

The hockey gods shafted me over ECAC weekend. Cornell lost in the semis. I wonder if they're making up for it by sending the Caps to the playoffs. I have a whole rant saved for a friend of mine about hockey fans and bandwagoners. I'd like to think that I've gotten myself to a point where I don't have to prove myself.

Way back when in 2001-2002, I first moved down here, I needed and NHL team to follow. All that I got to watch were the Caps on Comcast. They sucked, sucked, and sucked some more. It was not surprising that they couldn't score on a power play, much less a 5 on 3. But I cheered for them. I guess it was in 2003, cuz that's what the articles say, and all I remember was that I was living in DC at the time so it was either 2003 or 2004, but they made it into the playoffs and lost to Tampa we lost on 3 OT to Tampa, the eventual Stanley Cup champions. It was Easter Sunday. And since then, they have sucked, sucked and sucked some more.

But to see them to have turned it around in such a dramatic fashion. I admit that I thought Ovechkin was crazy when he signed a 13 year contract with Washington. So much talent...here. But...

I can't honestly say that I have high hopes for them since I'm so used to them sucking so much. But I'll stand by and cheer for them as they're on this streak.

Hockey weekends, always an adventure

This weekend was off to Albany, NY for the annual ECAC men's hockey tournament since Cornell was there. I was also there to celebrate the birthday with friends. Well...I haven't driven up to Albany in at least 5 years. It's not my preferred method. But I did this weekend. I was supposed to fly Southwest but since they managed to over sell all of their day time flights and it seemed I was the last person to attempt to check in to my flight. Me not happy. This weekend is the only weekend a year I fly Southwest and it looks like in the future, I'm just going to send the extra $50 to fly out of National with a guaranteed seat. So I stood at the counter, waiting to see if there was anyone who checked in but didn't show up at the airport but now. And so I called my friend who was still at home and he played travel agent for me. He found me a ticket out of National for $900....which wasn't quite worth it. We figured since I had my car at BWI, that I would get there in time if I drove, although he did also find me a train that would get me there at about 5:30, but I had already had my return tickets refunded as well. So, we worked out an altered itinerary for me and then I said, "I'll see you in a few hours!" I then called up another friend to also let him know of the change in plans and to leave my ticket at will call, and then another friend to get the fastest possible directions to Albany. I drove like a maniac and made it there in about 6 hours. I always marvel at the Travelling Lynah Faithful. I differentiate these from the usual Lynah Faithful because the Travelling Faithful are those I am well acquainted with...we keep running into each other at hockey games, not at Lynah! But on the Friday of the tournament at about noon, we're all in transit and you know that if you need directions, someone, at some point, has come from the direction that you are coming from. When I finally got there, they all welcomed me with open arms, and marvelled at the adventure. But you know what, if it had happened to any of them, they would've done the same thing. Yes, we are the Travelling Lynah Faithful...if there's a will to get there, there's a way.

Oh, and we lost. Boooooo! Harvard sucks! During the Princeton/Harvard final, I did have to whip out the socks I was working on. Hey, it was boring, Harvard has no fans, Princeton brought a couple of quiet fans, so again, we had to provide our own entertainment. Some of the people around me noticed that there was another woman at the other side of the rink who had pulled out her knitting. Yes, it was kinda boring...until Princeton started lighting up Harvard's goalie...mwahahahaha. And we made sure that they knew that our team may be out, but Harvard still sucks.

The guys took me out for a birthday margarita and drinks and even though we lost the first night, it was a highly enjoyable weekend. And now I'm really sleepy

I made some earrings!

That's about 34 carats worth of smoky quartz there in that pair of earrings. This was part of my first sets of experimentation with trapping stones using peyote stitch and I've learned some interesting things from it:

• It is definitely important to make sure that the initial peyote stitch ring is as big as or a bead or two bigger than the part you want it around.


• In the case of cut stones that are not factory made, you can't assume that the initial peyote stitch count for one will be the same for the other. In this case, I strung on 44 beads for one and ended up having to string up 46 for the other.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this. I have some white quartz that are a little smaller that I want to make into earrings as well. I do plan on putting these up on etsy at some point.

Beady things

Class on Saturday at Bead Obsessions with Paulette Baron.



In other play time, I got most of the serpentine strap done, yes the picture is fuzzy. I'll get a better one when it's actually done



And her teeny tiny arms - size 15 beads in tubular peyote that started with 8 beads:


Yes, I did feel like I was going blind.

Retail Therapy

It can be expensive, especially after a hellish week when you finally fall asleep after dinner with a hockey game blaring from the computer speakers right next to your head. And then you think about going to Bead&Button. For you non-beaders out there, this is the equivalent of a Stitches event, except that it lasts for an entire week and not just a weekend. Me...I'm just going to take the weekend and attempt to take a couple of classes. I was flipping through the catalog this week after an incredibly bad day and when I happened to look online to check out class availability, there were still some available. eee! And I checked out my finances and stuff...and said, "If I can book a room at one of the block room rates, well then, I might as well book the room. I can always cancel later, right?" So there was a room available at the Hilton, so I have a room.

I'm just waiting for the results of the hockey game tonight. It will determine if the season's over, in which case I won't be going to Albany in 2 weeks, or I have another week to wait to find out if I'll be booking last minute tickets to Albany. And if not...that frees up some money for Bead&Button.

I"m just getting over the shock that I'm going this year. I"ll get really excited soon. This means that I must REALLY watch my spending at Sheep and Wool this year.

I have a dream...

That is a speech made by Martin Luther King Jr way back when. He dreamt of civil rights. Me, I dream of turducken. This weekend, I started on the next step of the progression and made "ducken". I had only meant to roast a chicken in the slow cooker this weekend but I felt the need to massacre some poultry. This could very well be some leftover aggression from work. I ended up coming home from Whole Foods with a duck and a cornish game hen. The duck was next to the turkey and I had to remind myself that I wasn't there for the turkey yet. If you can't stand looking at massacred meat, I suggest you don't look at the pictures. I have added more pictures to my "Quest for Turducken" set. Sometime last year, I had started with a chicken. I've added the picks of the chicken on top of the duck as I started stuffing. I did learn a couple of things.

• I need to buy a good roasting pan. The duck ended up sticking to the bottom of the pan here.


• The reason the duck is inside the turkey is because the duck is too fatty and with the roasting, the fat melts and the stuffing flows out.


• Using the turkey setting on my thermometer, this took about 2 hours to cook.


• I am managing to debone the birds at about 40 minutes per bird.

Catch up post

I finished some black socks I was working on. I found that I like Louet Gems :)

I do like them. I've worn them once, they were nice, now I need to wash them for the first time.

I've also been on a beading streak. I'm working on a necklace centered around a mermaid lampwork bead so I made Patricia's Serpentine Strap that she designed for our cabochon class at Bead Obsessions. I finished the second strap last night and am in the process of joining them together:


So, I continue on the the necklace for the mermaid and I've got the Snow Shawl on the needles and another pair of socks.

Life being random

It is hockey season and that means time for adventures. The first interesting event happened on a NJ Transit train. We had a bunch of Cornell alums (and 1 former Dartmouth band member) drunk on a train in front of us. We had a group of local NJ kids hop on the train and sit directly behind us. At some point, the drunken Cornell alums start belting out Aerosmith's "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and the drunken locals start singing along behind us. It was bizarre, it was entertaining. We'd always wondered what life would be like if life were like a musical and this gave us a taste. They worked through a few other songs and entertained us quite a bit. Finally, one of the conductors had to put a stop to it cuz as he was walking up, the drunken D alum was being told that his fly was open so he was taunting everyone about whipping it out...All fun must come to an end, I guess.

Then on the way home today, I got on the train and found a seat. Then a guy walks up and asks if the seat next to me is taken. I look at him and thinks he looks really familiar, except that he has a Penn shirt on. The Penn shirt threw me off cuz I thought that he was another Cornell alum hockey fan that I knew. As the train passing Philadelphia and we're both finally awake, I finally ask who he is and then two of us end up feeling silly cuz we're both sitting there thinking the other person looks really familiar and it turned out it was cuz we did know each other! And of course, we each go to one game this weekend but different ones. He's sitting there going, "You weren't at Q!" and I'm going "Why weren't you at Princeton?"

Sometimes, the world is full of interesting surprises. Oh, and I did catch a good U2 coverband Saturday night and got some meat off a street vendor.

Happy New Year!

Tomorrow is the Chinese New Year, which makes today New Year's Eve. Since I found myself awake at 6 this morning, I called the family in Taiwan and got passed around to the various members. And then I remembered that I had to go to work in an hour or two and promptly fell back asleep.

A couple of days ago, I finished my Everlasting Bagstopper from the Summer 2007 Knitty.

The plan now is to tie this around my waist when I go running and run towards a farmer's market. From the office parking lot, it's about 6 miles to Eastern Market and about 8 miles to the Old Town farmer's market. From one of those, I can then take the metro back to the office. If I can manage to get out of bed on Saturday, I think I'll be headed towards Eastern Market.

Twisted Herringbone Pyrite Cab

The main portion of the necklace is based on the Gemstones in Ndebele Herringbone Components from Bead and Button, April 2007. I attached a pyrite cab to one of the herringbone spikes.

knitted things

I found that after some exercise, my calves really did get smaller! I put on my Anna Socks today

and wore them for the whole day. The first and only time I had worn them, I had to take them off in mid afternoon because they were cutting off the circulation in my legs. I guess after all the running last year, my calves got smaller!

In other news...I sat down and knit with Amber and Amber on Sunday and told them to yell at me if I attempted to work on anything other than sewing in the ends and putting the fringe on Charlotte's Web. It was not as painful as I had imagined it to be.

dear elann...

why are you so fucking evil? first i saw inexpensive kid mohair. now, 100% silk?

"blogging while drunk"

there are some...

frakin' evil people in the world.

I'M GOING TO DENVER!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

and I took a personality test...I'm a mastermind. Mwahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Some housekeeping

Yeah...of the beaded variety. It's a task I've had in mind so I finally got around to it today. I added 2 items to the etsy shop today:




I haven't decided yet what else will be going on there. I've also been toying around with the idea of putting some floral pieces on there.

Blog titles

Has anyone ever wondered why I titled this blog "From the Depths of My Creative Madness"? Well, if you haven't figured out why yet, let me present yet another example...



That second picture is a close up of the needles so you can see how the stitches look.

This is the Snow Shawl. I've now transferred it from DPNs to a 24inch circular needle. And well, I can't seem to stop working on it right now. Even though the needles are tiny for lace...and the mohair is really hairy...and if I'm messed up, I should just kick myself and burn the thing...I.just.can't.stop.

Beginning of the Snow Shawl

Beginning of the Snow Shawl
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

I bought this Snow Shawl Kit at Stitches 2006. I've been thinking about it recently and decided to start in on this after I finished the Swallowtail. It's pretty, I'm in a lace knitting mood and it looks warm.

So, as I started knitting, I started wondering "WTF possessed me to buy this?"

Okay, yeah, it's intriguing and it's a challenge and it sure will be pretty! But those are size 2 needles using kid mohair! And it's not nice small halo mohair like Doceur et Soie. No. This is mean nasty mohair where if you mess it up too badly, you might as well just burn the thing cuz you're never going to frog it.

Finished Swallowtail Shawl

This is my finished Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits, Fall 2006. The yarn was Schaefer Anne using size 8 needles. I did make some modifications to the original pattern. I wanted to try to use up as much of the Schaefer Anne as I could so first I did 2 extra repeats of the Budding Lace chart. This then added 4 extra stitches to each row. I divided the extra stitches evenly by adding an extra stitch just before and after the center yarn overs and an extra stitch by the edge yarn overs. When I get to the Peaked Edging chart, I now have 8 extra stitches on each half of the shawl. Four I added to the what amounts the first repeat (section closest to edge) and the other four I added to what amounts to the last repeat (section closest to center) of each half.

Me is happy.

First finished object of 2008

The Swallowtail Shawl is now soaking in preparation for blocking. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Finishing

Last time when I wrote, I was working on some socks for my dad. Well, here they are:


Not only was the foot long, he likes a long cuff...I cast on last Wednesday and finished this up last night. I basically made myself sit and knit mindlessly in front of the tv when I was home. I'm glad I got it done. He leaves tomorrow.

And now I continue on with the Swallowtail Shawl and am making good progress.

New Year, New Goals

So, 2008 is finally here. The last months of 2007 have been a bit difficult with some upheaval at work. That caused a funk in the knitting and the beading and a lack of motivation to continue with the running. It saw me running off to New York when I could for whatever reason. So here's to 2008, I hope it's a better year.

What I hope to accomplish this year:

• Create a pattern for a beaded cherry blossom branch


• Knit the Cherry Blossom shawl from Interweave Knits, Spring 2002


• Put the fringe together for Charlotte's Web and finally mark that off as "Done"


• Work through my unfinished objects and either finish them or cut my losses and frog


• Figure out my beading life


• Create some potted plants for some friends to whom I have promised potted plants to in 2007, beaded of course


• Finish 1 amaryllis

Btw, the African Violet pattern is here for anyone who is interested.

Happy Xmas, New Year, everything!

So, I spent Christmas day on a plane back from Las Vegas. I really enjoyed it! Good eats! Good shopping! Good gaming. I took the $200 that I won and we ate with it that night. I didn't take that many pictures but they're found here. I took a few pictures out the plane window. It's amazing to see a desert and then a city pops up. I admit that I ended up leaving the camera at the hotel for most of the trip. I also finished some socks.


These were made with Colinette Jitterbug on a 40 inch size 2 (magic loop). Pattern was Wendy's generic toe up sock pattern.

Beady Inspiration

My god! Two posts within a week! Things have been hectic and I had been forced to stop and do some beading. I had class this weekend so I was forced to write up the instructions for that, so we'll start there:


Yes, I am quite happy with how this turned out. The tea cup is one of a set of 4 that I had picked up in an antique store in Old Town Alexandria.

Class itself went well, I thought. There were only a couple of students so the pace was slow. Also, I think this may be a better fit for a beginner pattern.

The tiger eye cabochon went to the Bead Obsessions staff party gift exchange. I was trying to decide between that one and this one:

Yeah, inspiration struck and finally, between the beading and the knitting, I was truly inspired. I just hadn't been for a while. And in the mean time, I've been struck with a need to make shawl pins. "Need" I say. I've given one away as a present so far...and the one in the picture may end up on etsy sometime soon. It would, of course, be after I wear it.


That's a purple glass heart that I've had for a while and I've been trying to figure out what to do with.

still beading

8am at Target

It seems that 8am at Target in Parsippany, NJ is very similar to 8am at Target in Alexandria, VA. You have 10-20 cars with people sitting in them waiting for the Target to open. Yes, I have sat at Target here at home waiting for them to open. The one at Potamac Yards, that area gets crazy if you go on a weekend so you might as well go early when everyone else is still asleep! Well, I was successful. I found a $40 dress that fit me perfectly and is a muted purple/grey color with lace and lining. I think I'll wear it to my other friend's reception next summer as well. I also found some jewelry to match as well and what was going through my head was, "These look great but 1. They could be of so much better quality if I made them myself! 2. I must stop and examine this style of necklace so I can recreate it. 3. The quality really would be much better if I just made it myself! 4. Why do I travel and not bring my own jewelry supply???"

I spent last night in Brooklyn with a friend. We went to Hill Country for more BBQ cuz we were both craving it. I had about a pound of meat consisting of prime rib (don't get the end cut), moist brisket, and a pork rib. Oh, and some diet coke. That's right, no vegetables. Our eating adventures were ruined by this couple sitting next to us. The woman was complaining about how the food wasn't done right and how the meat was too fatty and not cooked enough. I was ready to reach across the table and smack her.

The drive time back went remarkably fast, even with the weather. It snowed last night in Brooklyn and it rained all the way back and I still made it in just under 4.5 hours.