Thursday, February 21, 2008

Pretty Little Brooch

I'm feeling a bit broochy at the moment, so I may make a few more (but don't hold me to that), so here's the first real brooch that I've made.

It's made from beads which were in an necklace librarylass sent me, on felt, with a satin stitch border. I generally don't make anything this bright, but I'm really happy with it, so I may do more bright things!

Monday, February 18, 2008

Fabricy Naughtiness

I was in Spotlight the other day (well a while ago now), just getting a little bit of felt and some brooch backs, but Christmas fabric was 50c a meter, so...

The scale is a little hard to appreciate in this picture, but the two left hand piles are each 6 meters...I may have gone a little overboard.

In other news, I've decided to discontinue Scatterdays. It has just got a bit hard working two out of three Saturdays.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Anthropologie Inspired Shrug

I must say, Ravelry is fantastic, but I can see that with all the wonderful project galleries that I may end up with lots more WIPs and UFOs as I jump from one project to another due to the overload of inspiration.

Anyway, it has got me to retry knitting and although I've ended up with a successful project, I don't think I can call myself a knitter and I still love crochet much more.

There are a couple of mistakes in it, the most obvious is in one row of the stockingette stitch one the back where I've knitted where I should have pearled,or vice versa, but after all the times I frogged it I wasn't going back 5 rows, which is how far I'd come before I discovered the mistake.

These are all the attempts I made:
1. Thought I was doing moss stitch instead of 1X1 rib. Got past the ribbing and added 5 stitch markers instead of four. Frogged to start.
2. Got to the third row and realised my stitch count was off. Frogged to start.
3. Knitted first row with tail end of yarn before running out of yarn. Frogged to start.
4. Got 3 rows in, realised I was doing garter stitch and still wasn't actually pearling properly. Frogged to start, put the whole thing down and did some gauge squares, learning knit, pearl, stockingette, 1X1 rib and some cast off techniques.
5. Did the ribbing fine (and put some yarn through the stitches) did the raglan increases etc well (with a small bit of knitting in one pearl section - oops, sure no one will notice) then stuffed up the bottom ribbing and frogged that bit three times (but not back to the start). Finally finished the ribbing, and then the sleeves (with no mistakes there).

It's made with Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 8 Ply in Peppercorn.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Pretty Purchases

For our work Secret Santa, I got given money to buy some jewelry, so I went and had fun on Etsy (I can feel you guys getting envious already)


I love the way the wings slot into this so neatly (and I also want wings, personally I would love some big white feathery ones so I could fly around) but if I can't have that, this pendant is lovely too! It's from dasb56.etsy.com


Next is some mixed pendants, and they're all very lovely, from strandedgems

This one is called Love Birds, from Inspired Reflections and it's amazing how much of my stuff it goes with. It's also like wearing a sweet little piece of art around my neck!

Then there is this cute little pendant called Bookish, which is made from a scrabble tile and goes well with all the reading I do. It's from littleput


This final one was actually a gift from my sister for Christmas, but I thought I'd put it here too. It's a gorgeous brooch, and wearing it is like carrying a lovely piece of art around with me. It's called Jaala and it's by a Melbourne Artist, Nadia Turner at Wayward Harper.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

A lovely suprise package

Ok, the first time I said the internet was working at home it was, it just stopped working after two hours. Now it seems it's been fixed properly. Hooray!

Anyway, I was very spoilt with this package just after Christmas. It was a complete surprise from librarylass and she made me feel very special.



She sent me the fabric at the bottom, some beautiful roving and a whole pile of bits and pieces as well as a pet hair roller (extremely useful) and a book by Gerald Durrell, Birds, Beast and Relatives, which was a fantastic read.

All I need now is more time...