20130430

The Choker, and other beading lessons

While working on my first beading loom project, I quickly realized that it would come out too big to be the bracelet the designer had intended. I decided to finish the project though, find a nice ribbon to attach it to and turn the bracelet into a choker. I finished it last night and hope to wear it a lot:

Pattern by Lesha aka Beadholden Designs @ The Bead Coop
Beads: Size 9 Gütermann seed beads @ Veritas Bruges
Beading loom: barely used 2nd hand from Tobiasmeneertje!
So, loom beading lessons:
(-) Setting up the loom takes a while
(+) It's fast - pick up all beads for 1 row, attach, repeat
(+) It's probably more forgiving for less regular beads
(-) Weaving in the warp takes forever (40 warp threads for this project!)

This evening I want to use the same green and yellow beads to learn Nepal Chain Stitch.

20130422

Peyote

When it comes to my crafts, I can almost always draw from what I learned as a child and in my early teens. We were introduced to weaving, sewing, embroidery, crochet and knitting at school, and my mom and her two sisters would make clothes for themselves and me. Mum and I also played around with origami, pouring plaster into little moulds to later paint reliefs or "Venetian" masks. We would bend wire into petal shapes and cover them with colourful panty hose to create flowers, entire bouquets. And I remember a similar technique using some kind of coloured glue to make flowers as well. I'll nee to ask my mum about that last technique.

Beading, however, was never on my schedule. Working with the beading loom during the weekend wasn't that different from good old basic loom weaving. Learning Peyote Stitch was. It's been a long time since I felt so silly watching three different youtube videos to learn the basics. Eventually I found this helpful site and the low tech animations finally lead me to that Eureka!-moment.

So here are my first even- and odd count Peyote pieces:

20130419

Old &New Craft Hobbies

While browsing Dawanda for green jewelry yesterday, I fell in love with a peyote beaded bracelet:

 © MaritaHuicholJewelry
It reminded me of many a history lesson spent with my knee up against the table, a safety pin stuck through the fabric of my jeans and colourful threads I knotted into friendship bracelets. Many years later, I still have a couple of the surviving ones. And about two years ago, Knitty featured the pattern for really cute cuffs which I knit with great pleasure.

(All of the above pictures taken in my craft room after 7pm. Isn't the light up there fabulous?)

Tomorrow I'll get beads and a mini loom and start a new craft hobby!

20130416

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching you.

This is what I spotted on my way home from work today:


And this is what I was working on last weekend:


Keuns & Bears

My dear friend, the talented Karin (who is now going to blush, try and hide and poke me with her elbow all at the same time) has made her debut on Blogger last Sunday.

Join her for tales of big dogs, small sardine carts and a Belgian's love for rain, over at

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20130406

Cowl neck tunic

And while we're at it...
Using an extravagant print, I thought I might as well try another take on the neck line.



The print fabric comes from Verkempinck's "dollar bin". It was folded up nicely and pre-packaged, which turned out to be a cover-up for a coin sized tear in the fabric. Lesson learned. I worked around it though.

Cowls

The neck lines of the long sleeve tops are a bit too wide for me (I prefer to keep my neck warm), so I decided to sew matching cowls for them.
 

Tomorrow I'll either move on to the green shirts, or pay another visit to 't Slunsenkot to get fabric for my next Allerlieblichst pattern - the jacket

20130404

2nd

Much more time efficient & no issues with stripes.



Neck line had already been cut so I added broader neck band.

Long Sleeve Shirt 1 finished!

Between assembling my craft cupboard (it still needs a couple of storage bins) and tidying up the room, finishing this shirt took a little longer than expected. I had to take out the "skirt" yesterday evening, because I realized that stripey fabrics are really not forgiving for sloppy cutting and sewing. So I redid the skirt portion and now I'm happy with it.

Modification for future versions though: Take neck line a little higher.

20130401

According to Matt

One of those blogs that make me happy.
The language (Who doesn't like to be greeted with, "Hello Lovelies"?), the photography, the craft.
And I always hear Disney tunes when navigating to According to Matt (Read his blog to find out why)

Read the blog
ETA: Blogger was a bit buggy yesterday and didn't allow me to add Matt's blog to the link list, but it worked now!