Wishing for spring?

I had recently gotten it into my head about creating a hydrangea arrangement. I already had these two guys and the vase sitting around the house:


The last couple of weeks, I was hard at working making another white bloom so now I have this:


I was hoping to get started on potting them but the Sculpey that I have has been around too long and has dried out. It resembles a big brick at this point. This is Donna Dickt's hydrangea pattern out of her book Designer Beadwork: French Beaded Designs. I need more greenery to fill this out.

Snow time adventures

So many factors came together last night to make the whole snow situation really awful. The snow came on fast and furious so that visibility was bad. It was cold. The roads weren't really treated or plowed. But for people trying to get home, the worst thing that could happen was probably that every one got on the roads AT THE SAME TIME.

Washington, DC rush hour spans 3-4 hours because we attempt to stagger our work schedules. But around 4, everyone realized it was time to get going, if they hadn't already done so. With everyone on the roads, the road conditions being as horrible as they were, people were having a horrible time driving.

It took me about an hour to get about 1 mile away from the office. At the rate I was going, I had a feeling I would end up getting stuck going uphill so I turned off on a side street and came back to the office. My boss was still here so we wandered out for some food. We wandered back and found some others were also still stuck here and were waiting for rides. Those rides came close to midnight. My boss ventured home around 1 in the morning. I slept under my desk. I didn't really feel up to attempting to drive home in the middle of the night. Anyways, there had also been some alcohol involved and I was still feeling a bit of the buzz so there was no way I was getting on the road in that condition (me and the road both).

It's morning now, the sun has come out, and it's still a beautiful snow covered white out

Flowers of the Field

I said I would have something by the end of the weekend and here it is:


This is Flowers of the Field by Melanie Potter. I bought the kit last year at BeadFest last year. It was a fun kit to work through and it definitely took a while. Finally when there was an end in sight, I just sat and beaded and got a bit of that mojo back. It's quite lovely! She sells her kits at her School of Beadwork website where you can also find some kits from Carol Wilcox Wells.

Now for something a little bit different

I started that this afternoon while over beading at Donna DeAngelis Dickt's house. Donna is my mentor for the beaded flowers. We have all been taking a bit of a hiatus from the flowers and are slowly finding our way back. For anyone local, she may be starting up classes again soon and I told her I'd help spread the word.

Workspace

It's not so much a workspace any more as much as a storage space.



That's one wall of the room. On the right, are my various seed beads. The Czech beads are in the drawers and the Japanese seed beeds are in the plastic containers. There are also gemstone beads and some focal beads in the plastic containers. To the left is all of my wire - stem wire (16 & 18 gauge), 26, 28, and 32 gauge copper wire. I have containers and floral tape in various colors.



Along this wall, is the bookshelf of books. There's also a table with more cabochons. The blue basket has all of my Swarovski crystals. Under the desk are various findings, wire, and random tool type things.

Once I got this stuff together, it didn't feel as if I had that much and found that I definitely had enough storage containers. At least it feels like a bit of a relief. My big project this year is to move into a smaller space. I think if I found the right armoire, I could fit all of this stuff in there.

Hopefully next week, I can post a picture of a finished beaded project. I have just a little bit more to go and I think I should be able to finish it up this weekend. For now, here's a little preview.

New Year, new project, new goals

Hello 2011!

This sweater barely made it into 2010. I had 30 minutes to spare.


It's Idlewood (ravelry link). It fits nicely and it keeps me warm.

I'm slowly knitting through a couple of projects, both old and new as well as trying to de-clutter my house and get a move on with things.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It's a work in progress but I wanted to show that I haven't been sitting around and knitting all the time! All I have left is to add all the little leafy dangles and add in the snap clasp and I'm done! My goal is to finish it for the Bead Therapy meeting in a couple of weeks so that I don't feel like such a slacker and have something to show off.

Life has been moving quickly. I've been working on organizing yarn and beads and have realized that when it comes to the beads, I'm a bit of a hoarder. Check back with you all next year! My goal for 2011 is to try to post at least once a week!

The joys of being a designer

I know I haven't really done much in the way of designing lately, or even beading. I've been too busy knitting socks!

I received an email a couple of days ago and when I opened it, I found these pictures from K. Ward:




It's my calla lily pattern!

I love getting emails like this! I love what she has done with the flowers and the shading. It looks like she even adapted some leaves to go with the flowers. The bouquet is put together so well that if you didn't know any better, you'd think they were real. There was a certain sense of artistry in the making of this piece. See why it put a smile on my face?

I do love my flowers!

This is the kit I bought at BeadFest. I do love the flowers. I've been working on it a little bit each night. So far, it has been all chevron stitch. There were a few different color options for this necklace and I liked this one. I'm glad I got to see it in person because if I had seen only the picture in the kit, I don't think I would have been as eager for these colors. The colors in the picture are sharper and contrast more than the beads in the actual necklace. I almost wonder if maybe she used a slightly different color scheme for the pictures or if it was actually adjusted to contrast that much more. The colors in the picture actually hurt my eyes.

BeadFest

I went up to Princeton to visit a friend this weekend and took the long way to get there. I stopped in Valley Forge, PA where there was BeadFest!. I did a little bit of shopping but I didn't go nuts



I bought a necklace/earring set from Melanie Potter at the School of Beadwork booth. I'm really excited. I even got started on it while I was at my friend's place



There are some heads in there that I hope to use in bead embroidery, made by Fired Up Ladies:


And a focal bead head that, well, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet


The plier thing is similar to the wrap and tap. It lets me make rings in 6 different sizes. I flipped through the class catalog and found a couple of wirework classes that I would have liked to have taken this year (like this) so hopefully, there will be similar classes next year. It's certainly much less expensive than going to Bead & Button, which I do hope to get back to in a couple of years!

Blinding myself with little black beads

A while back, I needed a break from this piece, I needed to work with color. Maybe it's the color overload from the Cynthia Rutledge piece, I don't know. This seems to be the piece that's calling to me right now. Bits of progress.

Changing it up

Yeah, I have a bit of an attention span problem :)

The last time you saw this piece, it looked like this:


A few days of progress you hadn't seen and now it looks like this:

Romancing the Lariat - a start

I've been working on this for a while, slowly. I'm taking a bit of a break from knitting and instead am trying to finish up some beading projects. This is a Cynthia Rutledge kit that I bought in March when she was at Bead Obsessions. Before I give you the next detail, remember that this is a kit and I DID NOT HAVE TO PICK THE BEADS. The lariat is 60 inches long and is a color gradient made with 24 different colors of beads. This part is done. Onto the dangles!

A little beading

I know, I keep disappearing. After finishing my sweater project for the Tour de France knit along, I wanted to get back to some beading. I have MANY MANY MANY unfinished beading objects so I decided to go for some low hanging fruit with a partially done Embellished Peyote Cuff. Instead of using a metal clasp, I chose to make my own using a peyote stitch ring and toggle. The toggle is attached to the bracelet using simple beaded ring chains so that the bracelet can be expanded for a larger wrist.

Juggernaut Bag

Not bead, not knitting but sewing.

Way back when I had made a bag using a hex frame based on the u-handbag hex frame bag tutorial. I wasn't very happy with its dimensions or some of its construction. I ended up pulling the hex frame out for future use. Well, the future is now.



This is the story of the juggernaut bag and how the tshirt came to be. Going into the ECAC tourny weekend, the USCHO writer was picking his games for the weekend described us as The Big Red are the dream-crushers, they play in games that end streaks and crush passion. They are the soul-devouring juggernauts of the league, because they are so systematically thorough in every aspect of the game that they will completely suck every ounce of energy out of your lineup.. Well, that became the talk of elynah and we kept joking about wouldn't it be great if there was a t shirt?

ECAC tournament weekend comes and goes. We win the Whitelaw (yay!) and Barry Melrose, in the selection show, picks us to go to the finals to face Miami who is facing their own road of hardship. Miami's equipment manager (and son of Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke) was killed in an auto accident this year. So again, we joke, "but doesn't he know that we are the dream crushers and soul devouring Big Red? The writer gave his permission to have his words put onto a tshirt (in return for a hoodie) and the design began. Within a day, there were more than 100 posts in the tshirt design thread and the local Ithaca tshirt printers (PSP) had jumped in and started coordinating with the campus store for sale and distribution. And then we had the tshirt for sale.

I bought two. One to wear, one to turn into a bag


I stuck the hex frame in and stuck some feet on the bottom. It's lined with a scarlet red taffeta. The cotton knit is stretchy so I wanted something non stretchy on the inside. The bag is all set for Detroit.

Sadly, we lost our first game at regionals. The irony of this shirt was not lost on us. They could crush dreams and devour souls. We never specified whose dreams or souls that would be.

color changes

And yeah, I needed to get rid of the background color, cuz it was annoying me and hurting my eyes.

I need some color!

The black purse will look good but I'm really in need of something that is not a shade of black. So...





And now to do some sewing...

3/24/2010

Filling in

Also, here is the Cynthia Rutledge Milady's Brooch.

The brooch itself is done. I need to work on the necklace part.

Beading a progression

I've been lax in posting on the blog but I'm hoping to make up for it. Last summer I took a class with Sherry Serafini to make a beaded bag. Well, the colors in the kit weren't really inspiring me and I decided to start over. I'm going with a theme of black and using different sized black beads and finishes to create the bag. For some accents, there are some crystals in a clear white. I also thought it would be interesting to post a picture of the bag at the end of the night and follow the work progression.

Bead Embroidery Bag

Bead Embroidery Bag
Just a little bit of progress tonight.

Insanity is...

embroidering a bag with teenie tiny size 15 black beads with tired eyes at 1 in the morning.

Beading inspiration has been lacking at times. For a long time, my beading time was not my own. I'm slowing working on reclaiming that and hope to get back to doing some more spectacular beadwork.

Happy New Year!

Yes, it's mid month already. My main crafting goal right now is trying to get through Ivel so that I can stop paying for the cashmere. I've knit enough of the sleeves that I'm now working through the body so I can join them for the yoke. For the body, I'm up to the waist decreases. The updated pattern that was received in May, well, it is a little better than the previous version. The waist decrease chart, well, I think it's wrong. I think I may just say fuck it and go with what I think is right, since I really don't think the chart is.

A bracelet

Just in time for the company holiday party. I wanted something sparkly and cuff like and here we go:

Hockey promotional post

So... sicklipstick and I are trying to organize a meet up of area hockey fans to expand our local hockey fandom world. For this meet up, you need to be single. Please see details here

I know right? Haven't posted in ages and this is what I throw in.

Welcome back, beading muse

I spent this past weekend at Bead Obsessions in a 2 day class with Sherry Serafini. It's been a long time since I've been absolutely taken with the need to bead. Maybe you were able to tell with the lack of bead work being shown here. This weekend brought it all back. The artistry, the beauty, it brought it all back.



The end result is a small evening hand bag.



I don't think I'll be bringing this with me next week. Bead embroidery requires a mix of beads, which I won't have with me. Instead, I had purchased a kit this weekend that I hope to finish next week.

Cottage Gardens

Last year at Rhinebeck, I bought 4 ounces of fiber. I was looking for fiber that had been dyed using a few different colors. I was inspired both by looking at the before and after pictures of stuff that javajem had spun up and also by My So Called Scarf and how the colors blended in so well together. With those thoughts in mind, I went shopping and came home with this:


This was spun on Suzie and soon became a bobbin full of singles:


With the bobbin looking like that, I decided that I would try to create long color blocks rather than trying to mix and match because of how this was dyed and packaged. In order to create something like what javajem had been spinning, I would need roving that was more splotchy with colors.

Finally, after being Navajo plied and set, it became 230 yards of soft soft fiber:

A pound of fiber

Last of the Persimmon Tree Farm fiber
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

In 2008 at Maryland Sheep and Wool, I bought a pound of fiber with the intention of spinning it up and knitting a shrug out of it for my friend's wedding...in August of 2008.

Well, it's June 2009 and I have finally spun through it all! The last bit of it has been washed and set and is now hanging to dry.

Keep on spinning

I must finish this - Creatively Dyed merino/bamboo:



I'm into the home stretch. Once it's spun, I will do a 2 play. Hope to finish this by July 1st. I want to finish it so that I can start in on one of these:


juliespins 50%alpaca/30%merino/20%silk in "Embers"
or

juliespins 50%alpaca/30%merino/20%silk in "Great Grape"

You can find juliespins here

And summer begins

Some progress pictures after the last game of the 2008-2009 NHL season:

This picture of the February Lady Sweater is from 1st intermission of the game. I knit a few more rows. I've still got another 2 balls of Malabrigo and since the game is over and I'm still knitting, I think I'm going to attempt a mid thigh length sweater, having been inspired by this one.


Also...not quite finished for class today but:

National Donit Day

Since today is national donut day
1. free donut at Krispie kreme.
2. Free donut with purchase of a drink at participating dunkin donuts

Yes, I sew too

I used to sew, before I played with beads, or before I took up knitting. In middle school and high school, I sometimes made my own clothes because I couldn't find anything I liked in the stores. I've done pillows. The curtains currently in my bedroom I made. But I haven't done much of it in a long time. And all of a sudden, the urge to sew is back. So yesterday, I made this:






This is the u-handbag Hex Open Frame tutorial/Knitting bag. The bag turned out bigger than I anticipated and I'll be using it this week to test drive this one. I did have a few thoughts about the bag and the construction as I worked my way through it:
- Basting is a wonderful wonder thing! It's how I held the bag bottom in place because I wasn't able to find feet.
- The bottom...well, I top stitched both sides along the bottom of the bag and that sort of holds the bottom in place but I'm not very happy with it. If I had feet for the bag, this would not have been a problem
- The bag lining is a little too big. Next time, I would probably take about a centimeter off the bottom of the lining and then continue with the rest of the instructions. As it is, it's kinda bunchy at the bottom.
- If I didn't have feet and needed to secure the bottom, I would do that first before I sewed the open hole in the lining used to flip the bag right side out.
- Pliers came in handy to hold the frame together as I attempted to shove the screw into the hex frame.
- I would make a wider bottom.

Before it all

Before the beading and the knitting and the fiber, I sewed. My mom started sewing because it was cheaper to make our own curtains than it was to buy them. It was cheaper sometimes to make your own clothes than to go out and buy them. I watched her, and thought it was fun and I learned. In high school, after I learned to drive, I spent a lot of time at the local JoAnn's. It's a little different now but it's still a familiar place.

I kinda want to do some sewing and make some bags.

The saga of the Ivel continues

Finally, after about 2.5 months, I received the updated version for Ivel. There have been some major changes.

- There are now more than the original 3 sizes
- I had cast on for either the medium or large before with 50 stitches. Now the small starts at a cast on of 64 stitches for the sleeve. Yup, definitely have to rip that out.
- The sleeve was knit flat, joined to the body, and seamed before you did the cuff. Now the sleeve is knit in the round. Well, I added 2 selvedge stitches to each sleeve so that I can knit both at the same time flat. I want the seams. The cashmere needs the support. Also, with the seams, it's easier for me to get measurements to use for the lining.

So yeah. There are also somethings about the pattern that annoy me. I guess I'm a language purist. If I'm reading English, I expect it to be written in English without a heavy use of abbreviations. You want me to repeat something 5 times, please write out "5 times" instead of "5X". Or, please write out "On the next round begin" instead of "On the next rnd beg". Every time I read that, I do a double take and go "WTF does that mean? Oh, next round begin..." I'm sure most of us native English speakers who deal with American knitting instructions can translate this, but think of those whose English skills are not so good. Also, is it really that much more effort to write out the word in the paragraph than to use an abbreviation. Yes, I do rant against using internet abbreviations when writing in a proper setting as well. Does that bother anyone else?

I know this sweater will turn out amazing. It just seems the ordeal with the instructions have made things a tad bit annoying. Plus, I'm also working with the endless supply of cashmere. I just keep telling myself, "It will turn out beautiful."

If you want to increase some stitches evenly...

I declared my undying love to a fellow raveler for showing me this link. It divided 38 stitches evenly into 207 stitches for me. I love this link. It's amazing.