June « 2006 « Spacecrafty

June 30, 2006

Tiny stitches and vintage beads

Filed under: Beads, Work in Progress — Meg @ 10:22 pm

I spent a marvelous evening with the lovely ladies of In Stitches, the Hull and surrounding areas knitting group. We consumed drinks and cakes, talked about knitting and mocked some delightfully 1980s era animal motif jumpers.

I did a few repeats on my portable WiP, a Ravenclaw PoA style scarf and then got down to business with the more time consuming WiP, Baby’s First Tattoo. The tiny stitches and I are getting on well but man, knitting in the round spoils me! All the smoothness of stocking stitch and none of the tedious purling. I don’t mind purling though, it’s just the monotony of stocking stitch. At least the bit I’m working on now has a 4 stitch seed stitch border to keep me awake.

I also made a set of stitchmarkers out of the beads I reclaimed. These beads came from necklaces given to me by my granmother as a child, so they’re vintage beads with added memories. The black beads are lovely but the necklace itself was horrible, so I’m glad I can reuse them.

I also made a set of earrings for myself out of some lovely greeny-blue beads Jam sent me and some square glass beads I picked up while splurging online. So shiny!

And now to go and consult my camera manual for tips on shooting with the Macro because the stitchmarker shot turned out fabulously but the earrings mocked me. Sigh.

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June 25, 2006

Works in Progress

Filed under: Beads, Knitting, Sewing, Work in Progress — Meg @ 4:29 pm

Yesterday saw me rooting around in the depths of Boyes for fabric. I managed to avoid the bead section in the process because contrary to popular opinion, I do possess an ounce of willpower.

…besides, I cannibalised two old necklaces found while doing a massive ’sort and throw’ on three years worth of pre-university junk. :cough:

I saw so many pretty fabrics but in the end, I came out with a yard and a half each of these two:

They’re earmarked to become a needle holder for my straight needles and if there’s enough left over, I plan to make this shoulder bag.

And while my mother and I were in town, we hit the charity stores. La Mere for books, myself for yarn (‘it doesn’t count if it’s for charity.’, she says, eyeing her stash and looking shifty) and other such crafty goodies. I didn’t find any decent yarn but I did find some belt buckles for 10p each in Oxfam. Bargain!

I am considering knitting Belt du Jour from SnBN at some point in the future, so I am sure they’ll come in handy.

And in the afternoon, I was drawn back into the lure of the Bead Box of Doom so here’s the second crop of beady things:

1. 2. 3.

1. Went to my blogging partner in crime. 2. Were made for my brother’s girlfriend. 3. Made for myself.

I’ve also started my second knitting WiP, Baby’s First Tattoo. First time I’ve knitted with 4ply and oh, the tiny, tiny stitches! But it’s going nicely and I shall photograph it when it looks more impressive than six rows of Moss stitch and an inch of Stocking.

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Stitchmarkers

Filed under: Beads, Finished Object — Jam @ 3:27 pm

On the basis that everyone is entitled to a little pretentiousness some of the time, I have decided to name my stitchmarkers

Aggressive!

Terribly Flash

Purple glass. The good kind.

Mother Nature

(Because it’s sort of like storms and nature and blue and green skies and… and it’s probably a good thing I never did a rosarch test.)

Sophistiqué

Yes, in French, because there’s no point being pretentious by halves.

Sparkly Space Glitterballs!

At some point, I’m going to have to think about how to sell these, because really, there’s only so many I can use, but no limit on how many I want to make.

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June 24, 2006

Leafy convertible by Jam

Filed under: Finished Object, Knitting, Patterns — Jam @ 8:12 pm

So my cousin is having a baby and my mum and I decided to do something for the baby and something for her (it probably being a bit of a letdown, opening giftwrapped packages only to find that the gift inside is meant for someone several years away from appreciating it).

Together, we made the SnB baby blanket using olive green (trusty, gender-neutral green) artesano alpaca, which is apparantly good for babies, being fluff and danderfree, hypoallergenic, water and flame resistant, or so the yarn sellers tell me.

For my cousin, I wanted to make something a little more interesting and came up with this:
Finished leafy convertible
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June 22, 2006

Beads, glorious beads!

Filed under: Beads — Meg @ 2:55 pm

My newest crafty addiction is beadwork. I’ve just invested in a box with many compartments and spent a happy couple of hours sorting beads by colour.

That is my Bead Box. I think — no, actually, I know — that it harbours thoughts of world domination. They’re so shiny. So addictive. So…crack cocaine like! I can’t just buy some, I have to buy lots! In fact, the postman bought me more this morning. /sheepish.

And this afternoon I found, lurking in the depths of the crafty Aladdin’s cave that is Boyes, these:

Tubes of assorted beads. Some of different shaped/sized lustre glass and the others are a mix of seed and larger pearls in similar shades. I was remarkably restrained. And now I get to spend some time sorting the seed beads out from all the other beads.

At the moment, I turn my beads into earrings and stitchmarkers. I harbour plans to move onto necklace and bracelet designs. Obviously, this blog will be the first place they appear.

First crop of beadwork:

1. 2. 3. 4.

1. Were made for the lovely Anatsuno.
2. Went into a package for Oscarcat
3. Have found a new home with Katie
4. My current set of in-ear earrings. :g:

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June 21, 2006

Current Project #2

Filed under: Asides — Meg @ 6:39 pm

Baby’s first tattoo from SnBN in Lilac and Cream 4ply

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Finished Object: Anthropologie-inspired Capelet

Filed under: Finished Object, Knitting — Meg @ 12:30 pm

From the files of recently FO’s I bring you the Anthropologie-inspired capelet. I fell for this one’s stitch detail – even though they’re just yarn overs, they look complicated and make people go ‘oooo!’.

It looks a bit like a baby cardi there, I know but that’s just the way I had it laid out. The original pattern called for Rowan Polar on large needles but with the help of Jam, I redid the pattern so I could knit it in on smaller needles and some Debbie Bliss Apalca Silk that I had lurking in my stash.

I finished it just in time to wear to my cousin’s wedding reception and it went down a treat, so I think I’ll definately be knitting it again.

All I need to do now to finish that one off completely is make or find a suitable brooch to pin it at the neck because otherwise it slides off when I’m moving. Woe!

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Shadow/Illusion knitting, what I did and how to make your own, by Jam

Filed under: Finished Object, Knitting, Patterns — Jam @ 10:00 am

This was the first thing I ever made which I designed myself. The design is based on the Batman Beyond logo. I relied heavily on Louise for helping me getting the design on to paper and general advice.

Shadow knitting: General notes, how to design your own and my original design.
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June 20, 2006

Hello World!

Filed under: General — Meg @ 1:39 pm

Welcome to Spacecrafty, the shared Craft blog of Meg and Jam. You can find out more about us by clicking the ‘about us’ page but sufficient to say that we’re both crafty and geeky and looking forward to joining the two in the heady world of crafty blogging.

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