Video review of Dominick: cables, diamonds, herringbone

A good basic intro to the world of ganseys.

Swarowski and Delicas bracelet

I'm planning on making more of these. I'm using the Toho 1-g thread which is fanstasic to work with. It doesn't fray, is easy to thread, doesn't make knots. Perfect for me. There are 12 colors at this time. It's made of nylon a nd seems to go a long way.

bugle bead brick stitch bracelet

The bugles are in an interesting color variation and it was something I just made without a pattern and decided to make my own toggle instead of adding something in gold. I am thinking of making a few more with different colors.

crocheted baby blankie for a boy

I used the final pattern: 101 in the 101 stitches for afghans book by Jean Leinhauser. The yarn was a cotton/acrylic called Topacio by Valeria di Roma bought from Elann. I think it's a good one for a baby and easy for the mommy to take care of.

Shelridge Farm Strata pullover by Lucy Neatby

I originally bought the Neatby bicycle sweater but found it would be too much work plus I stopped riding my bicycle anyway. So I contacted Shelridge Farm and they were very nice to me sending me the instructions for the Strata sweater plus a little more wool to complete it. I decided it would be nice as a raglan so changed the instructions using my J. Fee book for that. I did follow the row color guide exactly though. It's a nice medium weight sweater not as warm as my arans but definitely useful.

EZ hand to hand aran pullover

I started this sweater some years ago with the online email group but after doing one sleeve, I stopped and only picked it up again recently. I am very satisfied
with it after I made one change. I added ribbing for a neckline to make it warmer for me. I also found one mistake in the pattern added across the front and back from the Barbara Walker book. There's a mistake in row 2 and the last k2 shouldn't be
there. I did follow the pattern otherwise for the largest size for 42" chest. I used Forsell Slalom aran yarn bought on Elann also many years ago a nd I needed 15 balls of 50 grams each at 90 meters each. Needle size was 4mm and ribbing 3.5mm. I made my sleeve 17" long and the front and back sections were 24" long with about 8" for the neckline. The left sleeve came in a bit less than 17" but it doesn't seem to present a problem. For the bottom I changed from her instructions to do a hem with a thinner yarn and instead just decreased the stitches 10% and did a k2,p2 ribbing. My length on the body section was 14" total. It could have been a bit longer. I may decide to make it again but I don't want to make that lattice section from the BW book. I found it difficult to remember and had to use a row marker in order to do it right. The other cables though were nice and easy making it a fairly quick sweater to make. I never did understand EZ's final notes about making the sleeves narrower at the top as it seemed to be just fine as it was.

Crocheted shawls - book review

Crocheted shawls is one my latest purchases and it's from the Vogue Knitting on the go series. I want to make most of the 21 projects! That's amazing for any book and especially for this series which usually has just a few items of interest in each book. Most of the shawls are on the difficult side and many use unusual techniques also such as broomstick lace. Most of the designers are young and new such as Kristin Omdahl who has the broomstick shawl and the spiral shawl. The granny square shawl is a sort of cape. There's an interesting round medallion shawl. Others with motifs are the star shawl and the spiraled flower shawl by Robyn Chachula, another new designer to watch. Suzanne Atkinson, of the Rowan group, has two lovely ones.Doris Chan is also in this book. The only shawl I find unattractive is the aran shawl so this book is definitely a must if you're into crocheting shawls.

Climbing the ladder

This is by Victoria Pearlman in the Step by step beads for Nov/Dec 2007. I will probably make it again. I'm using just ordinary beads of which I have a lot so this will be good to do with some of my other ones as well. It was quick and fun. First you do the bugles lines in ladder stitch and then you hook them together with the seed beads.

embellished square stitch by Jiron

I finished an embellished square stitch bracelet from the latest Step by step beads by Regina Jiron. I just had the right beads for this one and it was a nice fast project that I will enjoy wearing.

knitted dolls

Why are patterns for knitted dolls done in lots of little pieces? Crochet is done spirals in the round. I think the Germans knit in the round also. Makes more sense to me.

Roberti crystal bracelet

This was a free online bracelet by Roberti. Took just a few hours and I'm very pleased with it.

poor blogger

I'm sorry about not blogging for so long, but I've been really busy with my crafts and stuff. Right now I'm beading every day and also trying to develop my own fairisle cardigan. I've done most of the design on the body with one more section still to go and hopefully I'll have enough of the yarns because if not, I have to change some designs to other colors.

I'm also working on an Aran pullover for my daughter and finished a small version for my granddaughter. Then I started making a crochet doll and am now very interested in doing more crochet toys as opposed to knitted toys. It just seems more organic to make them the crochet way where you crochet around all the time. With knitting the patterns are done flat and then joined. I imagine one could also do them around, but I haven't seen any patterns done that way.

I taught myself to do hairpin lace from a website and bought the Boye fork but it seems very flimsy when I use it.

I've done a lot of book reviews for Amazon but I think it's time I began to write a few on my own blog. I try not to buy yarns but when it comes to books and patterns, I haven't declared a diet yet. Today I just got the latest Evelyn A. Clark book on triangular shawls.

Bead lady bracelet

Cathy Lampole, bead lady, designed this bracelet using Delicas and Swarowski crystals. I first ran into it on a friend in London. I just finished it today and it took me about 3 days as I'm not all that fast with peyote and delicas. The central Swarowski section went quickly though. I plan on making more of these.

necklace based on "white Russian book"

I've seen this pattern used in Bead and button and I made it first from there. Then I went to the white Russian book and found the pattern the way it is here which I think is much better. When you use the bugles, you don't see the bead thread.

cabochons

I made these two cabochons in class. It turned out to be lots of steps, but all pretty easy. I have to go make more of them.

peg loom

This is the peg loom I bought at Missenden. I think it might come from Wales although a family in England made it. Mine is 20 pegs but right now I'm only using 12 of them to make a scarf. It's so easy to do as you just put the yarn around the pegs with your fingers. I'm hoping to use my leftover yarns on it.

Missenden Abbey

Well, I'm back from 2 glorious weeks studying at Missenden Abbey in England. One course was goldwork embroidery for the second time and t he other was beading around a cabochon. I learned the idea on the first day having never done it. The rest of the week was spent refining it and making 9 of them. I still need to do the simple necklace chains though. Food was wonderful also and we were busy all the time. I was fortunate in getting a larger private room (#51) off by myself. There were lectures every night and sellers sometimes. Liz Mann demonstrated one week how to use a peg loom so I bought one. I should have bought another hoop for my goldwork as the two I own are too big. My friend Tami was also there and we b oth were in the same classes and stayed together in London at the st. Giles hotel which is wonderfully located within walking distance of the beadstores.

Tel Aviv Eretz Israel Musuem goldwork exhibition

The picture below is the front cover of the catalog and the exhibition officially opened last night. I spoke to the curator a few times. It is an amazing exhibit and the catalog is very good. There are 7 articles both in English and Hebrew and a bibliography plus 104 photos of works exhibited all in color and actually easier to see than in the musuem because everything was kept dark. The articles include religious and clothing items plus others and they come from many countries where Jews lived such as the Middle East, northern Africa and parts of Eastern Europe. The cost for the catalog is 100 shekels and I'm sure it could be ordered from the bookstore at the museum. I will also add a few more of the photos from the book. The items are goldwork embroidery using lots of threads such as Japanese gold plus some beads and other materials. The level of craftsmanship is very high and most of the items were made over 100 years ago or longer.

Goldwork embroidery exhibit book

handbag

finally. I'm able to upload pictures again. wonderful. I have no idea what was wrong or what is right now but played around until suddenly it began once more. This bag is my first and I'm unhappy about the way I did the lining and the handle. Lots of room for improvements.

crocheting shawls

I'm not able for some reason to upload the picture of my new cotton shawl that I crocheted. The pattern was from Leinhauser/Weiss: 100 crochet projects. Now I'm struggling with a simple pattern from the Harmony crochet book called shell and v. The pattern is basically one row which repeats after the first one. I think it has a mistake though. But realizing that 7 balls of cotton (120 metres each) wouldn't be enough, I went back and am now struggling to make it a triangle which means basically inc one shell or v at each end every other row.

Beading: I got into stringing finally after just doing beadweaving. It's a rapid way to make necklaces using bigger beads a nd a good way to use up my beads. Or it would be but I have to buy more beads to finish off the ones I have. I'm not sure this will end anytime soon. One of the big stores in downtown Tel Aviv is going out of business and I found a terrific size 6 gold seed bead from France for half price so had to return again to pick up more w hen I saw how nice they were. Of course, there were other good beads that I also had to bring home. I finally taught myself how to make dangly earrings with chain so now everything is dangles. I'm making matching earrings for some of the necklaces. However, I really need to move on to working with my crystals.

Knitting: I'm making an aran cardi for dd in cotton using the famous Paton's pattern http://www.patonsyarns.com/patternbook.php?PBS=500989%20. This one is so easy and fast to make. I did change the moss stitches on the ends though to rev st st. The pattern is on the back of the booklet and is called must have cardigan.

Swarowski bracelet and earrings

The bracelet was for me and the earrings match a bracelet \I made for my daughter. I adapted a necklace pattern by Sheilah Cleary from Beadwork, June/July 2003. I didn't have the Beadalon wire so I used Fireline 6 lb in crystal and two needles.

Diet lemonade

I'm tired of diet coke. I couldn't find a good recipe for diet lemonade so I came up with my own and it's very nice.
3 lemons squeezed = 1/2 cup
1 1/2 cup water (I use cold mineral water )
1 tsp of sacharine or non sugar sweetener
Just mix and it's done. You might need to add more sweetener because not all lemons are equal nor are some of my teaspoons!