it's still wearable art.

I've been busy doing, just not blogging about it.  A few weeks ago I decided that I needed some more stitchmarkers, and I really like the kind made from tigertail and crimps.  So I went to Spotlight and $123.00 later, had my stitchmarker making gear.  Thank goodness I was going to save $7 by making my own stitchmarkers!  I jest, I just kind of slipped and fell and whoosh.

For years, I've been almost grateful that "I don't do beading".  I can cruise past most parts of the craft store and craft shows are so much less stressful when you 'don't do beading'.  Of course I bought beads sometimes because I like to use them in my weaving.  Playing with the beads and tigertail was fun, but not satisfying like making something totally from scratch is, you know?

But then I had a few hundred beads left over, and all those extra crimps and tiger tail, so I made myself a necklace (I stripped and recycled an old broken necklace for its silver spacer beads).



And I dunno... then I thought I should really try to use up all the beads and things I had purchased, but that required, of course, the purchase of yet more supplies.  Because you totally need more spacer beads, and findings.  And well... you need a lot more kinds of beads.  Really, you do.

So pretty soon I had all this stuff and the beads are really pretty, but I actually found that playing with wire is quite fun and not that different to playing with fibre... not really. 

You can twist it into shapes, and then if you bang on it, it changes its character entirely, just like newly spun yarn.  So while beads and putting them on wire or headpins is fun... I am quite besotted with wire wrapping. 
 
You can get the kinds of weird organic shapes and asymmetry that I like to look at, so it's appealing to me.  I have some books coming and we'll see if I manage to make anything nifty.

Meanwhile, I finished the 'Simple Knitted Bodice' (Stephanie Japel) that I started last winter!  It only had a sleeve to go...not sure what was going on there.

I also started the Central Park Hoodie (Heather Lodinsky), which has been in my queue since it was published. I have purchased he pattern TWICE. Once because you had to pay for the plus sizes, and now because I lost that one and you have to pay for it in any size! I'm knitting it in Bendigo Woolen Mills something or other (!). In graphite. Which is way bluer than I wanted it to be, but nevermind.

This is a really fast knit- even with all the distractions it will be finished after a few nights in front of the TV.  I had better pencil that in.

Oh, and I knit my friend Meg a cowl, because she asked me to! I need to send it off. It's kind of a funnel shape so you can wear it up either way or pull it up over your ears and hair. The yarn was coils I spun a couple of years ago and it's so insanely gorgeous I couldn't bring myself to use it til now. Wow, can I say that about my own yarn? heh heh.

Comments

[lynne]

the necklace is lovely! and the sweater...I would steal it if I was near enough to reach out and grab it. The wee one is more adorable than usual.

Once I survive the next three weeks please remind me to explain knitting with wire. It came to me in a dream as I was working thru an electrical exercise. Perhaps you will have some advice...

[Meg in Nelson]

Beads are dangerous things... More seductive than yarns, I reckon. I can't wait to get my cowl - it is so pretty, but how DO I pronounce that word? And and and... what IS a stichmaker? Did you make one?

[Carol]

Meg's cowl is lovely (as is the model) - and she'll need it in Nelson in winter. I keep buying beads and have never, ever made anything with them except the occasional closure for a book. I did try knitting with beads and wire, which was fun but that went onto the backburner too.