And She Knits Too!

Friday Beady-Eye Candy

Michelle* asked for more details on my Copper Bauble. I bought the beads at a shop in Scarborough called Bead F/X.  I know everyone talks about Arton Beads on Queen W. and no, I've never been, I happened to be on Warden Ave. and I liked this place a lot.  They light all the rooms with Ott lights so you can see the beads very well and they have lots of sparkly goodies.

The seed beads are size 11/0 Light brown czech beads. 

They're translucent and that was my starting point to building the colour palette.  Then I just walked around with my pal Keri and grabbed any appropriately sized larger beads that I thought would work.  We laid them all on the table and chose the ones that would work the best.  I also wanted a balance of matte and sparkle.

I started taking pictures of my own, but they're not as good as the ones from the Beads F/X sight, so I snagged some from there too.

6mm Diamond nosiette:

5X7mm Red Green Cubes (one of favourites of the group):

6mm flat discs in Bronze

Firepolish - 6 mm Faceted Round - The Evil Queen's Apple (love that name!)

 

6mm Atlas Beads in Bronze:

6mm Fire polish 2 way cut in poison green beads (fits nice with the Evil Queen's Apple--I didn't even see that until now)

8mm Rocco Rounds in Bronze:

And my favourite of the bunch.  I like the stone look they have and the very matte colour just popped on the bracelet.  Firepolish - 5 x 3 mm Faceted Donut - Ole Guacamole:

Makes you want to run out and get some sparkly stuff eh?  Makes me want to play with beads instead of revising this manuscript.  But I get to go bike shopping (finally!) when I'm done.

*(Thanks Michelle, I've been so busy with work I don't have anything to post, this was helpful!) 

Bauble in Copper

I'm playing a bit of blog catch up here.  I'm seeing this week streak by with no knitting, so it's better to be in the past than the present.

I finished this last Tuesday night:

This artsy accident picture shows off the colours at their truest.  It's not a shiny bauble like my first one.

I love it.  My pal Keri helped with the colour selection.  This is my favourite palette.  I have a lots of beads left and am thinking out some kind of necklace.

I have Rosemary to thank for the pattern.  And my new bead obsession.

Coppery Sparkly Thing

I finally got around to stringing the beads for my second Bauble.  While I love my other one, this one is more my colour.  The knitting doesn't take long, but I'm not done it yet.  I need to really concentrate and I'm not in the mood; I just submitted an article and my brain is tired.

Pretty eh?

I'm planning a matching necklace using the leftover beads.  Something less chunky, but I'm not sure what yet.

Bauble-i-cious

I finished it. 

The knitting was easy, only 35 rows of garter stitch.  The grafting was challenging (the idea is to get it to look nice, not a perfect kitchener; I had to do it three times).

   

The crimping was fine and now I have a sparkly bracelet.

I'm planning tomorrow's outfit around this.  And I'm starting another one.

Short

This beading thing is sorta fun.  It requires more of my concentration than knitting, and can't be done on the couch in front of the tv, but it's still neat to string those teeny delica beads on a piece of string.

Bauble is a neat pattern because you're making a strand of beaded "yarn" that will be knit into the bracelet.  That also means you're using a *lot* of beads.  Of course this means I ran out.

But I also get to go to the bead store today--I'm thinking a brown/orange/red more earthy bauble would be fun.

Beads!

Even though I have lots on my plate in knitting and in life, I got seduced by a sparkly beady thing and I *need* to make it now.

Here are the raw materials for Bauble.  I've discovered some of my beads are too big (ie the seed beads disappear into the hole), but the combination of textures and colours suits me fine and I'll just play and see how it goes.

There's a knit-along with a Yahoo group so you can chat with other people seduced by sparkly objects.  Rosemary the designer is the moderator, so she's around to hand-hold all the non-beaders like me through the process.

Off to start stringing.