Ooops!

Ooops, it looks like I completely forgot to post this week!  I blame that bright orange hot thing in the sky.  Anyone know what that is?  Not sure I've seen it round here before...

A long time ago I knitted a wire bracelet with beads.  It was in my shop and recently I was contacted by a lady who'd seen it and wanted one, but with navy beads.  As I started to search for navy seed beads (not easy to find!), I found out it was to wear on her wedding day!

Wow, what an honour.  And now I was terrified.  I had to get this right.  My first attempt was with silver wire (about 0.22mm) and Preciosa seed beads in a size 8 I think.  Preciosa make the most beautiful seed beads with a wonderful lustre and these photos do not do them justice.

My client has suggested adding in clear beads, so I tried that, alternating between navy and clear with one bead per stitch.  The bracelets are 7 stitches wide, but the first stitch on each row is slipped to neaten up the edge a little.

Attempt 3 was with navy wire (from Wires) and both types of seed bead, threaded on completely at random then knitted - 1 bead, 1 empty stitch, 2 beads, 1 empty stitch.  I like the randomness of it.  This is also the only one I got a decent close up shot of!  Having said that, the navy beads are actually more navy than that.

I'm going to put the rest of them in the shop, once I've taken some decent photos of course!  If anyone does want a custom cuff making (size to fit your wrist, whatever colour you like), you know where to find me.  Oh sorry, that was a bit of a sales pitch there, won't do it again.  I'll leave you with a pretty picture, I've got a deer's head to glue...

clickety-click, klackety-klack

I had the urge to knit, but I couldn't face knitting with yarn.  I really don't know what the problem is there, I really enjoyed knitting until I learnt to crochet, now I see knitting as a bit of a chore.  I do still enjoy knitting with wire.

I made another wire and bead bracelet with purple beads on lilac wire.  Yes, the photo looks like blue beads on silver wire, but it's not. 

And for an even worse photo, see below!  I knitted this little flower from wire and really enjoyed making it.  It's quite large, about 10cm / 4 inches across.  I'm not sure what to do with it.  I'd really like to make it into a necklace but I'm not sure if it's too big for that.  I could of course make it into a brooch, but I prefer the necklace idea.  I've been making a lot of necklaces recently, I'll show them to you soon.

Wow, that photo really is crap, and it's the best one I could get.  I used two strands of wire, one blue, one turquoise so it's not as dark as it looks.  The wire in the middle is copper coloured.  I spent some time after I'd finished it bending the petals up to a pleasing shape.  I haven't forgotten to weave in those ends, I left them to make it easier to attach it to whatever I attach it to.

I wanted to show you my attempts at crocheting with wire, but once again I've forgotten to take a photo.  I was after some advice from any wire-crocheters out there.  It's a dc (US sc) stitch with a bead on each one and after my first round, the stitches have started breaking.  As they are the on the other side from where I'm working, there's not enough wire to repair them.  I'm going to have to start again and wondered if anyone had any tips?

Heart on a wire

I've got two projects from craft books here to show you.  That definitely counts towards the craft book challenge.

First up is a project I started last month when I made the wire knit bracelets.  This little heart is knitted from wire and comes from Wire Knits by Heather Kingsley-Heath.  I only used her instructions to make the heart, I then chose the setting myself.

I was twisting some quite thick wire and after 15 minutes I'd done about 2 inches.  Then my husband piped up that he knew how to do it quicker.  He inserted the end of the wire into his drill, held the other end with pliers and pressed the button - success!  It took about 30 seconds to twist the rest and is so uniform and neat.

Here's a close up of the knitted heart:

Next I had a go at a necklace from Boutique Bead & Wire Jewelry by Melody MacDuffee a gorgeous book full of beautiful do-able projects.  I thought it would be hard, but it really wasn't!

Sorry the photo isn't great, it was hard to get a good picture as the crystal beads are so sparkly.  Here's a close up:

I really, really enjoyed making these pieces and see plenty of jewellery making in my future. 

Sorry for anyone that tried to read this post and found only a single paragraph and no pictures, not sure what happened there!

A little something for a little head and a little something for a little wrist

See Nancy?  I tried with the title!

You may remember I recently crocheted a baby blanket for a friend who's soon to pop, I mean give birth.  Well, I had some yarn left over so I started to crochet a hat to go with it, then I ran out of yarn and had to buy some more.  I've now crocheted the hat and have loads left over!

I made this hat from Sidar Baby Bamboo using this pattern.  It was really easy to crochet.  I love crocheting.

Here's a close up on the sweet little trim:

Next up with the leftover yarn are booties and mitts and maybe a little bunny.  And maybe I'll run out of yarn again and have to order some more...
My stepdaughter saw the bracelet I'd knitted and wanted one for herself.  I'd ordered some ribbon clasps from the internet but they hadn't arrived.  As she was only with us for 2 days, I sent her and her dad to the craft shop to buy some and told her to pick some beads and wire too.  She came back with this pink wire and these opaque grey beads.  I can't say I like the combination myself...

The craft shop didn't have the ribbon clasps, nor did the bead shop in town which was a bit of a surprise so she went home bracelet-less.  The clasps turned up the very next day so she'll get this on Saturday when she's with us again for the weekend. 

She's 11 and really skinny so I thought her wrist measurement would be tiny.  I was surprised it is 13cm... mine is only 15cm!  Have I got stupidly small wrists?!?

Christmas 2011 - February

This is my February Christmas through the year post.  If you want to join in, you've got until the end of the day on the 28th to hop over to Allie's blog and link up.

In January I only managed 1 present, but I've done a lot better this month.

1, 2 and 3 - zippered pouches:

4 - Lavender sachet:

5 - wire knit bracelet:

6 - crochet wash cloth:

7 - Buttercup bag:

8 - embroidered bookmark:

9 - glasses case:

Oh yes, that's a grand total of 11 for February!!  A total of 12 overall.  Roll on Christmas, I'm ready for you... well not quite!

10 - crochet washcloth 2

11 - crochet washcloth 3

Now for something completely different...

For  my Craft Book Challenge no. 2 of February, I tried something completely different.  Ladies and ... erm... ladies, let me introduce to you - knitting with wire!

OK, so you're sitting there thinking "big deal, like we haven't seen this before", but I hadn't!  I went to a craft show back in November where one of the stalls was demonstrating knitting with wire.  I was entranced.  I bought some wire and beads and thought I'd get started straight away.  Then I forgot about it.  On a trip to HobbyCraft, perusing the after-Christmas sale section I found the book Wire Knits by Heather Kingsley-Heath.  I snapped it up and finally got to work on a bracelet.  Wow, did that knit up quick!  It's pretty much like knitting with yarn, the only difference is that you have to place the wire round the needle and nudge the stitch off the end.  Oh, and you can't wrap the wire round your hand unless you want to cut it in half! 

It's quite hard to keep it neat, especially at the edges, but a little tugging and stretching works wonders.

You will definitely be seeing more of these from me!

I'm linking up to Liesl's Craft Book Challenge.