Sunday, May 25, 2014

Faux Pewter Jewelry

OK so I decided to try my hand at faux pewter jewelry pieces. This is what I got...





This is a slightly better picture of the first one I did - but, that said, I think if I'd been able to find and use SILVER paint instead of GREY, my pieces would look far more metallic. 


Friday, May 16, 2014

Woven Lapghan


OK so I'm working on the white mesh part of this lapghan. When this is done, I'm going to use another yarn to weave into the mesh. I haven't yet decided which one to use. 

In this photo I did the top row with Lion Brand Fettucini, a t shirt yarn that may not be the best choice, because I can't guarantee I can buy enough of it to use for the whole blanket. It's made with scrap t shirt material, so finding more than 2 matching rolls is challenging. The Fettucini yarn is the one with shades of blue, in the top center of the picture.

The second row is woven with Starbella ruffle yarn in Toucan colorway. I think I like this color best, but this yarn can be expensive. At about $5 a roll, I may have to drop about $100 on that yarn by itself to get the whole project complete. Not sure. That's a bit costly. The Starbella yarn is the brilliant rainbow yarn top left in the picture.

The third row is a chain of Lion Brand Homespun in the Barrington colorway. This yarn is very soft and rather bulky, and that would make for a very warm lapghan. Hiding the ends in when I complete the weaving would be very easy too. It's a bit more affordable than the other yarns, and I get more of it for my dollar. Hmmm.

What I originally had planned was to chain some orange and some green and weave the chain into the mesh, and it would look like the Irish tricolor:


But then I thought "oh come on, get CREATIVE woman!" And I came up with the idea of weaving a more novelty type of yarn into the mesh. 

I do need to stash-bust, so I might use my Lion Brand Homespun, doubled, with some lavender sport weight yarn included, which I have. That might be my best bet. I know it doesn't show too well in this photo - the texture of the yarn is lost in my picture, but this is a closeup of the Homespun:


This shows the ripple in the yarn and the beautiful colors in it too. I find it's not easy to just crochet with, but there's plenty of other ways to use this yarn if you think outside the standard knit/crochet boxes. 

Given some of the other shades in this yarn, I bet if I made another mesh in seafoam green and wove this Barrington color yarn in, it would look stunning. Or do a soft rose mesh. 

Food for thought. 

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Paper Beads!

Yay, I've made paper beads! This was quite fun. I like making beads and doing jewelry (although I haven't been doing as much of it lately) because this is something that can be worn in hot weather such as we have a lot of in Florida. Crochet is very fun, but here in the sunny South it's often too hot to wear crocheted items.

So here are the beads I made this past weekend:


And here's the technique I used to make the beads...


It's actually very easy. Admittedly mine are not as perfect as Lindsey's but they'll get better as I make more. I am running low on bead ends, but I don't necessarily have to use bead ends every time I make these.

I have tried making other beads with different paper, and glazing them with clear nail polish. They are drying at home, and I haven't had a chance to get a photo of them yet. I must admit - I like the ones shown above better. I like the quality of the paper, I like the embossed finish better than the clear nail polish, and I like the silver bead ends I used.

I decided to use two of the smaller red ones as accent beads on a fat necklace I have...


Kinda cute. Gives a slightly feminine touch to the fat Thor's hammer! LOL!