Bead Knitting Hatband

My workshop teaching date (Thursday, June 7, 2012) for "Knitting with Beads" at this year's Estes Park Wool Market is coming closer and closer. The handouts are done and I am sorting out what beads and samples I should bring along for participants to touch, feel and explore. But as usual, my mind is running wild and comes up with more and more designs. I just can't keep up! :)

Bead Knitting Hatband

In this case, I was mulling over ideas for a sample that could showcase bead knitting (every stitch has a bead knitted through it, on both, RS and WS rows, so that the yarn doesn't show at all), a technique that was very popular during the Victorian time period when you would see some amazing bead designs for coin pockets or evening purses.

With bead knitting, no yarn shows

But I was looking for something more practical for our times and came up with this arrowhead/chevron design for a hatband. Here out West, the rodeo season is upon us and we ladies like to dress up in some sparkling Western wear. :)

It's a great little project to try your hand on bead knitting.

After deciding what beads to use (size 6/0 Czech glass beads in 4 colors)) and what kind of pattern I would like to see, it was a surprisingly quick project; about 30-45 minutes of pre-stringing the beads, ~4 hours of knitting, and ~20 minutes of sewing it to the hat. Definitely a good choice for a weekend project.

Brown #10 crochet thread and size 6/0 Czech seed beads in 4 colors.

And just to show you how my mind zooms off and gets ideas - for just a moment there, I thought, I saw a beaded rattlesnake emerge from the work in progress... do you see it too?

Doesn't this look like a little rattlesnake?

So, keep your eyes open and put down your knitting from time to time. You never know what you will find. :)

Beaded Family Wrist Warmers

I am busily getting ready for my full day "Knitting with Beads" workshop that I will be teaching this year at the Estes Park Wool Market on Thursday, June 7, 2012. I am really excited about this opportunity to share my love of knitting with fellow knitters. And add to that a full day of play with beads! It can't get much better than that. :)

Besides learning how to read/create charts and finding out about the many different techniques for knitting with beads you will actually design and start knitting your own beaded Garter stitch wrist warmers!

Beaded Family Wrist Warmers

Obviously it would be a great idea for me to have a couple of beaded wrist warmers along as samples to show not only what works well but also what might not be the best choice. Don't we all learn from mistakes more than from successful projects? And I sure had some disappointments when designing these wrist warmer samples which I will be happy to share at the workshop. :)

But here is a successful design that I call the "Beaded Family Wrist Warmers".

It all started out with me wanting to use one of those traditional Norwegian patterns of dancing children or adults and convert it for beads. But as I was fiddling around with the beading chart my mind wandered off on one of its typical "what else can you do with this design" explorations and oh, boy, did I come up with lots and lots of other ideas. I wish I had more time in the day to keep up with my mind! :)

The one idea that made me pop up, literally, and was nearly a 'duh' moment was when it occurred to me that I could make a whole family circling the wrist warmer - just like you see on some decals on cars. I myself would LOVE to wear my family around my wrists and be constantly reminded of how lucky I am. :)


And as an added bonus, I would have a great Mother's Day or birthday gift for my mom that was coming up very soon. Ooh, I liked that idea.

Now, as I was thinking this idea through, it would make sense to allow other knitters to customize their family line-up to their needs to make it a really useful pattern. So, back I went to fiddle with the charts some more to allow a mix and match of the individual designs. I ended up with a chart for a

• mother
• father
• son
• daughter
• dog
• cat

that can all be put together so that they are holding hands, well except the dog and cat; they are free standing.

Chart for mother

I was able to size the designs so that a typical 7" cuff can accommodate 2 adults and up to 6 children! If you don't have that large a family, you would center your family line-up and have just the triangle edging around the back.

Then came the next decision: How wide should the wrist warmer be? I know that for at home use I like them to be on the shorter side whereas in fall/winter I like them to be longer to keep the draft out from my coat sleeves... So, I made one sample cuff shorter and one longer with instructions on how to adjust them to your need. And watch out when you work the longer version: depending on which side of the chart you will add the extra length will determine the direction the family will face - looking at you or at your fellow friends. :)

Writing the Pattern

Now that I had my samples knitted up it was time to tackle the pattern writing. It's always quite time consuming because you have to be so precise in your instructions and can't assume anything. I don't know the level of knitting experience the purchaser will have. Or, at least that's the standard that I am using.

The other thing I like to do with my patterns, besides precise instructions, is to add pictures to show visually a perhaps tricky spot or to help you double-check what your work is supposed to look like at a certain stage...and sometimes I forget to take those progress pictures while I work up the sample because I am so enthusiastic about finally knitting or trying to finish... that I need to knit another one just to take that important picture!

Yep, I should know by now to keep my camera close. But then I do knit all over the place, at my boy's soccer practice, waiting to pick them up from school, at knitting groups, late at night, etc. when the setting is not right to take that progress picture. What to do then? Obviously, I should stop knitting and set it aside until I can take the proper picture. But do you know how hard it is to stop and wait!? It takes a mighty dose of will power - at least for me. :) So it comes down to - is it really worth to finish now and then redo a portion - or - can you wait, take the picture, and finish then?

Pattern was written, charts were made, progress pictures and a short photo tutorial for how to work a "Bead Stitch" were in the camera, and now it was time to format everything and get that all important cover page photo - the one that represents your work - that sells the pattern.

A brainstorming session was in order to figure out what I wanted to convey with my cover photo. And how do you photograph wrist warmers so that you show enough of the design but don't give it away? It also can't be too busy, else it would distract from the design. So what items would help me tell the story without overpowering the piece?

That's when I realized that I LOVE to receive snail mail and it would be a great gift to my mom to write her a letter, take some time out of my busy day and just think of her. The photo shoot was set: a cup of coffee with great chocolates (received from a friend over at ButterflyForge.com), a nice letter paper, the cuffs and my husband to take pictures. :)

And there you have it - a finished pattern.

If you would like to purchase your own copy for $4, here is the link:

Designer's Challenge: 1st Place for Beaded Peacock Socks

Whoohoo!
Thank you all for voting for my first time ever toe-up Beaded Peacock Socks over on the March Designer's Challenge thread!

1st Place Winner in the March Designer's Challenge on Raverly

They've placed first and even though it has been super rewarding and educational to design these socks already, the yummy yarn price just tops it off! :D

Thank you Knit Picks and Cascade Yarns for supporting our Designer's Challenge Ravelry group of talented designers of all ages and skill levels.

Designer's Challenge: Beaded Peacock Socks (Part 3)

After another round of additional swatching (see Part 2) to decide on the kind of beads to use and bead placement, I must have knit about 5 socks worth by now - but have only two 1/2 socks to show for it… and they are different sizes…!

Well, the sizing is sort of intentional as I am experimenting with how to size the design…

Decision: I went with color-lined, size 6/0 glass beads in multiple colors.

Used the "Hooked On" method with a crochet hook to add beads to fabric.

Only leg above heel has beads so to not interfere with wearing shoes.

And, I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten lazy with writing down what I am doing with all the unraveling and restarts that it will make it hard in the end if I want to turn this design into a pattern…gotta get my act together!

So, back I went to unravel my 2nd 1/2 sock and re-did it filling in any missing information to recreate a 2nd matching sock. :)

Cuff

At first, I rushed to finish my sock because I was getting awfully close to the deadline of end of the month and didn't consider alternate cuff finishes...and didn't like what I saw...and paid by unravelling again. :(

After a couple of attempts, I was finally happy with the cuff. The peacock "wheel" now comes to a nice finish and the bind-off is stretchy (used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off).

Picture Time

It's 2 days before the end of the month and I am off to take pictures or better, I've recruited my 10-year old son to tag along and take the pictures while I modeled the socks. :)

Luckily, here in Colorado, we rarely have to worry about not enough sunshine as sunshine seems to be the norm here (300+ days of sunshine per year), but how do you typically take pictures of socks? After a quick overview on Ravelry, I got some ideas and found the ideal spot not too far away from home: a clam background of gray concrete that will not interfere with the sock color and pattern.

I take all my pictures with my Canon PowerShot XS100 IS, so nothing really fancy. And the best thing with digital cameras is that you can take lots and lots of pictures, view them on the camera's little screen, retake and later delete all unwanted shots. :)

And here is the finished pair of my Beaded Peacock Socks:

March Designer's Challenge entry: Beaded Peacock Socks

 You are welcome to email me if you would like to be notified when the pattern becomes available. :)

EDIT: 1st place winner in March Designer's Challenge on Ravelry!

Valentine's Earrings

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

How could I let Valentine's Day pass without a craft project?! After doing lots of work for others over these past couple of weeks, it was time to spend an itsy bitsy time on me. :D

I opened up my treasure box of beads (and I have quite a few... ehm...) and spent some time day dreaming about all the jewelry projects that are hiding in there, waiting to be discovered... it felt great to admire all these different kinds of beads (glass, metal, stone, pearls,...), and handle them, and arrange them, and... oh, there was an interesting combination for a pair of earrings...

I combined a glass heart, with a wavy black ribbon curling its way around the round glass rod of the heart, with a multi-faceted red glass crystal heart. Very cute, dangling Valentine greetings.

It will have to do for today, but I think I can improve on this design a bit by, e.g. wrapping the wire all the way down to the glass heart to make it look a bit more solid... will have to revisit this pair during my next little break.

Until then, I hope you had a great Valentine's Day.
Cheers!

Beadstar Finalist!

I was so excited to find one of my necklace submissions for the Beadstar stringing contest selected as one of the 20 finalists in the "Designs with Heart" section: It's the lucky #13!

"Ribbon Heart" - Designs with Heart

You are invited to vote on the Beadstar site for you favorite design in 9 different categories. So head on over their and check them out. You can vote until June 9.

It was a lot of fun diving into my bead stash and re-discovering all the treasures that have accumulated over time.

Here are my other design submissions:

"Black Butterfly" - Metal category

Various butterfly themed burnished black metal beads and pendant with Olivine fire polished Czech glass beads. 18" long.

"Nearly Jaded" - Stones category

Aventurine carved focal bead and stone chips, interspersed with Cloisonne beads, gold metal discs, and crystals. 20" long.

"Squared Pearls" - Pearl category
Natural Lavender colored freshwater pearls and Hematite beads. 20" length.

"Double Dip" - Plastic category

Various black and white plastic beads with Turquoise flowers. 24" long.

"Candy Coral" - Under $25 category
Real coral beads with Filagree tubes. 16" long.

 I'll list them in my Etsy store over the next few days.

"Circle the Pearl" Necklace

This morning I woke up with an idea for a pearl necklace that would break the traditional strung pearl look a little bit. It's more modern twist on the strand of pearls. - And I had to try it out to see if it really would work in the real world. :)

Sometimes what you imagine just doesn't look so nice in the "real world" and you've got to go back to the drawing board. But this design really worked!

The lavender/blue fresh water pearls looked great inside the silver plated rings and the small pearls and silver beads give the rings a nice spacing so that each pearl could shine.

The necklace is a little bit more than 20" long so that you can wear it comfortably with a turtle neck.

It is now available in my Etsy store.

Wood Frame Necklace

While working on a new submission for Petite Purls my mind was wandering a bit to come up with a use for a few dark brown stained wooden frame "beads" that I've picked up a while ago...

A new vision of the traditional Turquoise necklace

With the first snow fall for this season reaching our door steps, the warm wood "beads" and fresh Turquoise colored cubes (dyed Jasper) were the right "medicine" for my eyes. Trying to hold on to the beauty of crisp fall weather before everything goes to rest until next year.


I like simple lines and bold colors with a little surprise element mixed in to keep things interesting. It allows you to dress up or down depending on how you match it up with your wardrobe.

And I always need some matching earrings with it. :)


You can find this necklace set in my Etsy store.

Shell Rays Necklace Set

It was Sunday morning 7 am, the house was still nice and quiet, and I realized that I needed a necklace/earring set for an outdoor BBQ party later that afternoon. Nothing in my jewelry drawer quite fit to the skirt I was planning to wear.

Perhaps a design idea that I've been carrying around with me for the last couple of weeks, after falling for some outrageous shell beads, could work...

1.5" - 2" long shell beads

After my first design idea was rather underwhelming (seemed much nicer in my mind than when actually put together) I started rummaging in my bead stash for some ideas. I couldn't believe that in all my beads there wasn't quite the right match around... until I remembered some amber/copper lampwork beads I've just picked up the other day!

Yep, that was it! Working off and on throughout the morning on getting the bead placements just right and feeding the family, I finally settled on an arrangement and strung it up. Nice!

Shell Rays Necklace

And as before with the necklace, my idea for the matching earrings didn't work out either. There were too many shell beads fighting for attention so that I decided to go with a simple supplemental earring.

I felt great at the BBQ and made another set for sale in my Etsy store after receiving quite a few compliments.