Color Study Shawl #3

As soon as I had finished up the Robin Hood Shawl I cast on another crescent shaped shawl to use up the leftover yarn.  This is the third one of these shawls that I have done with leftover gradiance yarn sets that I have now decided to dub my Color Study series, this shawl will get a name at some point.  The first was Tart Berries and Honey and the second was Rose Bud.  I like these shawls because they really showcase the colors of these gradiance sets.  I love working with the gradiance colors, but in a lace shawl they can be overshadowed by the stitch work.  These simple crescent shawls let you really see the interplay of colors, and the contrast border kicks things up a notch.  Plus it is a great way to use up leftovers.  I hate having leftover yarn.  And, as an added bonus, if you need another one, the shawls are great to wear.  They stay in place and are warm.  I am currently wearing Rose Bud.  I usually wear Tart Berries and Honey, but decided to give it a little rest.  At this point I have used up all of skein 1 and am about half way through skein 2.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Well, this is a little embarrasing...

When I pinned out my Robin Hood shawl yesterday morning I did not pin my points out correctly.  They are not symmetric, a situation immediately made apparent by the fact that the beads do not line up correctly.  I really should have noticed it and fixed it, and I am a little chagrined that I did not.  I can only plead reduced mental capacity due to a migraine.  When I unpinned it this morning the error was glaringly obvious and I knew that it would bother me unless I fixed it, but I really didn't want to reblock the entire shawl.  I decided to try just reblocking the points.

I spritzed just the points that needed fixing with my handy dandy spray bottle and pinned them out.  You can see that I did get one point right (top right hand side).  We'll see if it works.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Tagua Nut Sea Horses

Shortly after I started going to Bead & Button I discovered Tagua Nut beads.  These come from palms that grow in South America, and they are often called "living ivory".  I have an iguana and a humming bird, but the shape that I really latched on to were the Sea Horses, buying one each year.  Unfortunately, the vendor stopped coming to the show so I haven't been able to get any for a while.  I still have a couple in my stash that I haven't turned in to necklaces yet.  These are the first two Sea Horses that I bought.  I used patterns from a book on Russian netting that was focused on bead designs inspired by Coral.  Quite appropriate.

Observant readers may have noticed that I have added two pages to my blog.  The first one Beadwork Gallery, is currently a catch all for my bead work, the second one is devoted solely to pieces that I have made with Larry Scott beads.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Done!

I finished up the knitting and wove in the ends last night, but put off blocking until this morning.  When blocking fingering weight I don't get as aggressive as I do with lace weight.  I noticed with this pattern that the ribbing in the last couple of clues tended to pull the shawl in more than the first couple of clues did, so I knew that the width would be set by the ends rather than the middle.  As I laid out the wet shawl I gently pulled it into shape being careful to not stretch it so much that the pins along the edges caused a scalloping effect.  I like to keep the edges as straight as possible.  Once all the edges were pinned out I pinned out the ends.  Here is a close up of one of the ends so you can see the beads.

Pattern:  Robin Hood Stole by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent, I used 174 grams of a 300 gram set
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 6 Done!

The final clue came out yesterday, so last night I knit to the skein change on one side (left hand side in the photo) and then went back and finished up clue 6 on the other side (right hand side in the photo).  Now I will go back and finish up the shawl.  The next Unique Sheep Mystery knit along has already been announced, an octagonal shawl inspired by Treasure Island.  I've already been browsing colors.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Frosted Rose Cardigan

After I finished the Honey Wheat pullover I cast on this cardigan, and ripped and cast on and ripped and cast on several more times until I finally got it right.  The instructions call for slipping the first and last stitches of the wrong side rows, but they did not specify whether the yarn should be in the front or the back.  I also had to figure out how I wanted to distinguish between the right and wrong sides.  Ordinarily this really wouldn't have perplexed me so thoroughly, but by Christmas evening I was so tired and my brain was so fried I'm amazed that I could even remember how to cast on and count (at the same time).  Between sleeping in a strange bed (the hotel) and visiting all day with family my introvert light was flashing like crazy.  I was done.  I may play an extrovert at work, but I am a hard core introvert and need my quiet time.  The only thing that gets me through these visits is my knitting.  I can handle anything as long as I have my knitting.

Fortunately by Wednesday morning my brain was functioning a bit better, mostly because I knew we were heading home, so I cast on one more time and figured out that I needed to slip with the yarn in front, and that I could use different colors of stitch markers to clue me into which side I was working.  Soon we were on the road and I settled in for hours of knitting.  I hadn't bothered with a swatch for this project as I had recently finished another project using this yarn and had a good idea of my gauge, but when I finished the collar and started on the body I felt the fabric loosening up and knew that my gauge was off.  When I thought about it, it made sense as I was knitting back and forth and the other project had been done in the round, and I always knit a little tighter when I knit in the round.  Fortunately I was knitting with my Addi clicks, so I simply switched out my needles for a set one size smaller and continued on my merry way.

Pattern:  Vodka Lemonade by Thea Colman (Baby Cocktails)
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Serenity DK in Frosted Rose
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Christmas Presents

Bruce's family has a really nice Christmas tradition.  We don't do a lot of presents, there aren't that many of us that gather together, his Mom, his son and daughter, one of his brother's and his brother's wife, me, of course, and this time his son's fiancee.  We all sit in chairs in a circle and the kids distribute the presents to the appropriate person, and then we go around the circle taking turns opening presents.  Before opening the present we announce who it is from, and after opening the present it gets passed around the circle.  It slows things down considerably, but I find it very nice.  The ornament in the picture was made for me by Bruce's daughter Amy.  She is very creative and made several presents this year, including this cute catnip gingerbread man for my cat Jasmine.

I hung the ornament up in my studio, in the archway entrance.  Over the years I have received a few Godiva heart shaped boxes for Valentine's Day.  They were just sitting on a shelf.  I didn't want to throw them away and I hated that they were just sitting on a shelf, so I decided to attach them to the walls.  I used the cool 3M fasteners, so I can take them down if I ever need to.  And yes, that is the ship Serenity from the series Firefly as my computer wallpaper.

Honey Wheat Pullover - Finished!

I took this project with me on our annual trip to Florida to visit Bruce's Mom.  That is the reason I started it, I needed some good car knitting.  I knit most of the body on the trip down, knit one sleeve on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas day.  I still need to block it. I did a couple of minor modifications to the pattern.  I did not do any decreases in the sleeves until I got to the detail patterning just above the cuff, then I did all of the decreases evenly spaced around the row.  I also replaced the k1, p1 ribbing with k2, p1 ribbing, which I prefer the look of.  On the sleeve cuffs the ribbing ended up lining up with the detail pattern quite nicely.

Pattern:  Bombay Sapphire by Thea Colman (Baby Cocktails)
Yarn:  Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted in Honey Wilkes
Needles:  US 6 (4 mm)

Honey Wheat Pullover

I started knitting the swatch for this pullover a couple of weeks ago, and last week I finally cast on the project.  It is Bombay Sapphire by Thea Colman from Baby Cocktails.  The yarn is Primo Worsted from the Plucky Knitter, the color is Honey Wilkes.  I needed a mindless project to work on, and I do love top down raglans.  Needle size is US 6 (4 mm).

This is my first time knitting one of Thea's patterns, and I have to say the pattern is very well written, and I like her design aesthetic.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 5 Done!

It's been a quiet week here, mostly just wishing for the week to end and looking forward to some much needed time off.  I did start another knitting project this week, but haven't gotten any pictures of it yet.  This morning I put it aside and finished up Clue 5.  I didn't have much to do, knit Clue 6 on the right hand side until the skein change and then go back and finish up Clue 5 on the left hand side.  A lot of  folks are doing extra repeats of some of the motifs to make the shawl longer, but I am not.  I am looking forward to making another crescent shaped shawl with the left overs.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Emerald and Gold

The whole reason I started making the purple and gold chevron chain was because I wanted to make the Royal Chains Lariat by Kelly Wiese from the October/November 2009 issue of Beadwork Magazine.  The pattern calls for 3 mm crystal pearls, but I don't do crystals.  I do, however, happen to have some small gemstone beads.  Originally I was going to use my amethyst gemstone beads, but after working on the purple and gold chevron chain I realized that the amethyst gemstone beads were too large (they are about 5 mm in diameter), so I went back to my gemstone stash and came out with 3 possibilities: garnet, emerald or  sapphire gemstone beads.  I put some of each in my beading dish and went back to my seed bead stash to find matching seed beads.  It turned out that the emerald gemstone beads were the easiest to match.

Project:  Royal Chains Lariat by Kelly Wiese, October/November 2009 Beadwork Magazine
Materials:
Chevron chain:
size 12 seed beads (Beadcats stock # 2-11-480-01 topaz transparent irid)
size 14 seed beads (Beadcats stock # 2-14-577-01 medium green transparent irid)
Green KO Thread

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 4 Done!

I finished Clue 4 last night but wanted to wait until I could get a decent photo in natural light.  I got home from the airport about 1am Friday morning, got about 6 hours of sleep, went into work for a couple of hours and then took the afternoon off and curled up on my daybed with my kittie and watched Poirot on PBS and knitted.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Beads on Display

I received the clasps that I ordered from A Grain of Sand today so I was able to finish my Winged Isis (renamed from Isis II) necklace.  I wanted to get a shot of me wearing it to show how it fits, so I took this one in the downstairs bathroom.  I turned the camera to face me and looked at the reflection of the image on the back of the camera in the mirror.  It took a little getting used to, but I did manage to get a decent shot of the necklace.  Then I decided to break out the portable light box that I ordered a little bit ago and try it out.

Arabesque

Victorian Parfait

Winged Isis

I should probably have a marathon session and photograph all of my beadwork and create a gallery.  Maybe Friday.  I have to travel to Huntsville tomorrow for a meeting, and in typical fashion I am doing one of my Blitzkrieg trips, up at o-dark-thirty to make a 7:15 am flight, go to my meeting, and then home again the same day.  My return flight lands at 11:35, so I should make it home around 1am.  What fun.  But then a short day at work on Friday - just there long enough to do my time card and attend another meeting.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 3 Done!

The colors are washed out because I had to use flash.  The top portion has been worked to the end of Clue 3 and the bottom portion has been worked until the skein change in Clue 4.  Once again I did not do any transition rows when switching skeins, I matched the colors of the two skeins, held both strands together for a bit and then dropped the old color, continuing on with the new.  I will probably finish up Clue 4 on that half of the shawl tonight, but I won't be able to work the top half until the next skein change.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 2 Done!

The top of the picture shows Clue 2, the bottom of the picture is Clue 2 and Clue 3 up to the point where I switched to the next skein.  So that is how the rest of the shawl will go.  I will knit the clues on one side until I switch to the next skein and then I will go back and knit the next clue on the other side.  It is a little bit of a pain, two needles, two balls of yarn, but so far it has been manageable.  Switching to the next skein is easy as I no longer do transition rows, I just match the colors of the two skeins and work with both strands together for a little while and then drop the old and continue on with the new.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Isis II - All I need now is a clasp

I already have a necklace that I named Isis, but this one really reminds me of Isis, with the amethyst drop fringe evocative of the feathers from the winged Isis figure.  I thought about naming it after Nefertiti, but it just didn't feel right, so I decided to go with Isis II.  I don't really have a good clasp for the necklace though, I don't have much in gold and I wanted something fairly substantial.  I ordered a couple from A Grain of Sand.

Materials:
Amethyst gemstone (12.44 carat) purchased from Unfinished Creations in Yellow Springs, OH
Amethyst drops purchased from Soft Flex
Gold seed beads (size 14 - no idea of the stock #)
Purple seed beads (size 11 and size 14 - Beadcats stock # 2-11-748-90 and 2-14-749-90 clear lined with cool purple)
Purple delicas (size 11 - Toho Aiko TB-328)
Gold and Purple thread (KO)

Amethyst and Gold - Half a necklace

I wanted to do something dangly under the chevron chain and I happened to have all of these amethyst drops in my gemstone stash so I started fiddling with them this past week.  As I played with different lengths and attachment points I noticed that the drops would not lay flat so I decided to just go with it.  I increased the number of beads on the loops and voila, they naturally twisted and now the fact that the drops won't lay flat is part of the design.  You really just have to go with the materials.  Now I just have to finish the other side, attach the clasp, and come up with a good name for the piece.

Materials:
Amethyst gemstone (12.44 carat) purchased from Unfinished Creations in Yellow Springs, OH
Amethyst drops purchased from Soft Flex
Gold seed beads (size 14 - no idea of the stock #)
Purple seed beads (size 11 and size 14 - Beadcats stock # 2-11-748-90 and 2-14-749-90 clear lined with cool purple)
Purple delicas (size 11 - Toho Aiko TB-328)
Gold and Purple thread (KO)

Transitions Shawl - Beauty Shots

Now that the weekend is here and I am actually home during daylight hours I was able to get some beauty shots of the Transitions shawl.  It is an ample shawl, and quite floaty and ethereal.

Now I just have to figure out what to wear it with.  I am sure it will be a big hit at Bead & Button next year.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 1 Done!

I am a little late to the party on this mystery shawl.  Clue 4 came out yesterday and I am just now finishing up Clue 1.  This is the latest Unique Sheep Mystery knit along, Robin Hood, once again designed by Janine le Cras.  This is a rectangular shawl that starts out with this central spine and is then knit outward from both sides.  The instructions call for winding each skein into two roughly equal balls so that you can work both sides at the same time.  I didn't want to split up my skeins, nor did I really want to work from both ends of the yarn balls so I waited until several clues had come out and at least one transition had been made (the second transition occurs in Clue 4) figuring that maybe I would work one side until I was done with that ball and then work the other side.  That way I would still be working on both sides more or less at the same time.  We'll see how it goes.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Amethyst and Gold

Amethyst and Gold seem to be a recurring theme with me.  I started working on the gold and purple chevron chain this past weekend for a different project, but I soon realized that the bead choices that I had made were not going to work for that particular project (more on that later) but I really liked the chevron chain in those colors and wanted to do something with it.  My first thought was to use it as a foundation chain for a beaded collar, but I really didn't have any bugles that would go with those colors.  I let the chain sit on my beading table for a few days and pondered my bead and semi-precious stone stash.  Then yesterday I wore my Victorian Parfait necklace with my Japanese Maple pullover to work and as I was sitting at my desk fondling the focal bead it occurred to me that I really like those close-fitting necklaces where the focal bead rests in that little hollow at the base of your neck, and then I thought about an amethyst that I had bought while I was in Yellow Springs back in October and a design idea was born.

When I came home from work yesterday I pulled out the amethyst and went in search of delicas to bead a bezel around it.  As luck would have it I happened to have some Aiko delicas in the perfect purple that matched the stone exactly.  So last night I beaded a bezel around the amethyst.  It was a non-trivial task, considering the shape of the stone, but I started out with the modified right angle weave that Kate McKinnon has pioneered and am pleased with the results.  Now back to the chevron chain.

Materials:
Amethyst gemstone (12.44 carat) purchased from Unfinished Creations in Yellow Springs, OH
Gold seed beads (size 14 - no idea of the stock #)
Purple seed beads (size 11 - Beadcats stock # 2-11-748-90 clear lined with cool purple)
Purple delicas (size 11 - Toho Aiko TB-328)
Gold and Purple thread (KO)

Transitions Shawl - Finished!

Finished this morning.  I almost finished last night, but started to fall asleep while I was knitting.  It was hard to put down though with only 3 repeats of the border left so when I woke up a little early this morning I decided to finish it before going to work.  It always amazes me when I am working the knitted on borders because the first half seems to take so long, but the second half seems to go so fast.  I know this is all perception and the fact that the amount that you have knitted is greater then the amount that you have left to knit once you get past the half way point.  Those last 3 repeats took me an hour.  The other thing that amuses me about knit on borders is the designers who tout them as a way of avoiding binding off hundreds of stitches.  I don't mind the bind off.  I do a lace bind off with a crochet hook rather than a knitting needle, which makes it go a lot faster and is a lot less fiddly, and it certainly takes a lot less time to do the bind off than to do a knit on border.  I do like the look of knit on borders, however, so from a design perspective, they are a definite win.

Pattern:  Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie in Cucumber and Cantaloupe
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Transitions Shawl - NEB Half-Way Done!

Finally a better picture of the shawl.  I am half way done with the Never Ending Border.  I have been plugging away at it steadily during the evenings after work.  I weighed my ball of yarn before I began and was concerned about having enough yarn as I only had 16 grams left.  I did 6 repeats of the border and weighed the ball again and my suspicions were confirmed so I ripped back and did some stash diving.  Fortunately I had another skein of the same yarn in Cantaloupe so I decided to do a contrasting border.  The Cantaloupe skein was originally purchased for a Goddess Knits mystery knit along (Mystery Shawl 19, according to my notes), but obviously I never knit that shawl.

Pattern:  Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie in Cucumber and Cantaloupe
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Transitions Shawl - Clue 4 Done!

And another not so great picture taken with flash and pretty scrunched up (I'm only using a 40" needle), but you get the idea.  It is pretty hard to get good photos this time of the year.  By the time I get home from work it is too dark.  Sometimes I manage to snap one before I go in, but the light isn't really the best until late morning, and I really want to get started on the border tomorrow, so I couldn't wait.  It has been a pretty solid 4 days of lace knitting, which I haven't done in a while.  I seem to do this when I have to be around people a lot (have visitors, or go visiting), not that I'm antisocial or anything, but I do find lace knitting to be very meditative.  I have an increase row to do and then I get to start on the Never-Ending-Border (or NEB).  I had totally forgotten about the NEB, hadn't even printed it out.  The kids are gone and the house is quiet once more.  You know what really amazes me when they visit?  How much trash they produce.  We barely produce a bag of trash a week (13 gallon kitchen trash can size), but in the few days they were here we produced two.

Pattern:  Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Transitions Shawl - Clue 3 Done!

Sorry for the not so great photo, but it is dark here and I had to use flash.  I spent the day knitting Clue 3, working rows in between basting the turkey.  We did our dinner today, rather than yesterday because the kids were perambulating, visiting relatives, and didn't get here until late last night.  I actually like doing Thanksgiving this way.  I made the stuffing yesterday and only had to do the turkey, mashed potatoes and the cranberry sauce today.  It actually made for a much less stressful holiday.  Last year I was cooking the whole day and poor Bruce was constantly washing pots for me.  I think we have just established a new tradition.  Every one has gone back to bed except for me, so I am sitting here on my daybed, with my kitty, knitting and watching X-Files on Netflix.

Pattern:  Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Transitions Shawl - Clue 2 Done!

Last night I picked this shawl back up again.  I had actually started knitting on Clue 2 a month or so ago and had gotten over half of it done when I lost steam.  But last night when I came home from work I decided that it was a good weekend to work on lace and that I would see how much of this shawl I could get done in between cooking and cleaning.  I usually don't spend a whole lot of time cleaning (I would much rather craft), and with it being just the two of us we don't actually make much mess just some clutter, but the kids are coming home for Thanksgiving and the boy is bringing his fiancee, so I have to do at least a little cleaning, and herd some of my unfinished projects into a semblance of order, or at least get them out of the way.  Not that I am going to go all Martha Stewart or anything, but I thought I could at least change the sheet on the day bed (cat fur) and clear it off so that someone else could sit on it besides me.

Pattern:   Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Draped Vest - take 2 - Finished!

I finished the knitting on this last week, but didn't finish the assembly until last night.  I had to ravel some of the collar before I could attach it to the back.  The pattern called for 5.25 inches of the collar, but that was over an inch too long.  When I was attaching the collar I marked the center of the back neck, then sewed one side of the collar down, ripped back 11 rows until I was at the center and put those stitches back on a needle.  Then I ripped the other collar back the same amount and grafted the collars together.  After grafting I continued sewing the collar down.  This is an interesting construction because of the way the fronts are sewn to the back.

The stitch pattern ends up at right angles to each other between the front and the back.  When I was knitting the fronts I always attached new balls of yarn in the middle of a row rather than at the edge because the edge needed to look neat and finished.

I'm not sure that I like the view from the back, but the drape is good.  There is one other thing that I really like about the Karabella Aurora 8 yarn, it is always easy to find the start of the ball.  I had to practically turn the Naturally Vienna balls inside out to find the start, and I was not working from the center of the ball.  It was very frustrating.

Pattern:  Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56
Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8
Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Arabesque

I recently received a copy of Japanese Beadwork with Sonoko Nozue published by Lark Crafts.  I actually have met Sonoko because of my sister (co-owner of Beadcats) and like the Japanese aesthetic.  The book had been sitting in my stack waiting to be shelved, and when I was sorting the stack the other day I accidentally put it in the pile of knitting books.  When I spotted it later I pulled it out and flipped through it and decided to do some beading.  This necklace is my take on the first project in the book.  The project is titled Cheerful Midafternoon and is more muted in the color choices.  Here are the beads called for:

Size 11 triangle beads
Size 11 3-cut beads
Czech lily beads (5 or 6 mm)
Size 15 beads
Bicones (5 mm)

The project called for 3-cut beads, and I have plenty in my stash, most acquired when I was first getting into beading some 30 years ago now and was attracted to the glitter, but I wanted something different so I pulled a bag of iridescent beads out of my stash.  I am pretty sure that they are size 11, and they are probably Czech.  They have no stock number on them, but they are dark purple with glints of peach, teal, green and gold.  For the triangle beads I selected lavender transparent with teal luster finish.  I have a fairly decent selection of bicones and I pulled out both teal and peach, and ended up going with the teal.  The only beads that I did not have in my stash were the Czech lilies.  The ones that Beadcats offers are a bit bigger than the ones used in the pattern.  I ordered both peach and lavender.  They came yesterday so this morning when I got up I started on the necklace.

The necklace is built up in layers.  First the lavender lilies, then the peach lilies.  Here is an in progress shot.  you can see my work table.  It is a folding TV dinner table.  We use them in the booth at Bead & Button and one year I forgot them so I had to buy more, which meant that I now have extras which have found their way into the house and into use.  I have my little folding Ott light and my watercolor trays for my beads.  After you finish with the second layer of lilies the instructions call for you to add the picots and join them, finishing up with the bicones.  I decided to work my way up through the layers and did the bicones next.  It really stabilized the piece and I think it made adding the picots easier.

After finishing up the bicones I added the picots.  When it came time to join the picots the pattern actually varies the number of beads between each picot.  I decided to use the same number of beads (I settled on 7 based upon a quick calculation of finished length) and I also decided to string them on Soft Flex instead of beading thread and used one of the clasps that I picked up at Bead & Button from A Grain of Sand.

Materials:
Size 11 purple iridescent Czech seed beads (< 20 g)
Size 11 triangle beads (34 beads), Beadcats stock #1-11-597-02 (lavender transparent with teal luster finish)
Size 14 seed beads to go with the Czech lilies, Beadcats stock #s 2-14-130-01 (blush pink transparent irid) and 2-14-773-01 (lt lavender transparent irid)
Czech lilies - pressed glass - Beadcats stock #s N-F7-114-00 (darker peach transparent, 66 beads) and N-F7-776-00 (lavender transparent, 33 beads)
Bicones - pressed glass - Beadcats stock # P-R1-594-00 (medium blue-green transparent, 33 beads)
KO thread in purple
Soft Flex 925 Sterling Silver Extreme Flex Metallic Flex Wire (Fine)
Box clasp

Beyonce Structured Tee - 2 Corsets Done

Both corsets are done and blocking.  Unfortunately that means I am at a standstill on this project until they dry as the next step is picking up stitches for the bodices.  I actually had to reknit the first corset because I had messed up on the central spine.  It is one stitch over - if you look at the previous post you may be able to spot the asymmetry, despite the poor quality of the photo (taken at night with flash).  I raveled that piece and the yarn is currently drying so I can reuse it if I need to.

Project:  Beyonce Structured Tee from S. Charles Collezione
Yarn:  Nepal from S. Charles Collezione
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Beyonce Structured Tee - 1 Corset Done

Having finished the knitting on my Draped Vest (I'll finish assembly tonight) and knowing that I had a long telecon today I knew that I needed to find another easy knitting project to cast on, and quickly.  A while ago I actually organized and cataloged my stash, but of course, my stash kept growing, and my storage bins did not so the overflow has been accumulating in random piles, mostly localized, but with some distributed around the house.  Of course, one can only carry on this way for a finite time because yarn is not infinitely compressible and I am not yet allowed to take over the other bedrooms upstairs (kids in college but they do visit from time to time - okay, I did take over the spare bedroom for blocking and storing finished projects in, but it wasn't as if we had actually turned it into a spare bedroom) so in addition to finishing up my unfinished projects I have also resolved to work through the random piles of yarn. This project happened to be very near at hand, and looked to be pretty quick and easy, so I grabbed a ball of the yarn and some needles and started knitting a gauge swatch.  I finished my first gauge swatch, knit on US 5 (3.75 mm) needles and knit a second one on US 4 (3.5 mm) needles on my way uptown for a meeting yesterday (no, I was not driving).  I blocked the swatches after I got home and last night I started on the first piece.

This is a sleeveless top that is knit in 5 pieces, front and back corset waists, front and back bodices and a peplum.  The pattern is from S. Charles Collezione and is knit in S. Charles Collezione Nepal a 100% cotton yarn.  I bought the yarn from elann.com on sale and got the pattern for free with the yarn.  When I buy yarn I do try to only buy it if I have a project in mind, and then I try to put the pattern with the yarn, or a note with the name of the pattern with the yarn so I don't forget what I was going to knit with it.  For a while this yarn was in a bag without the pattern and I couldn't remember what I was going to knit with it, but when I was going through one of my pattern notebooks doing some organizing I spotted the pattern, which I had printed out and put in a page protector, so I took it out of the notebook and slid it into the bag with the yarn.  Ever since then the yarn has been quietly whispering my name.  Maybe it is the hot pink color, or the fun construction, or the fact that it has been sitting in a project bag literally at my feet for months, who knows, and frankly, who cares.

Project:  Beyonce Structured Tee from S. Charles Collezione
Yarn:  Nepal from S. Charles Collezione
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Draped Vest - take 2 - Right Front Done

Getting the left front of this vest done inspired me to finish up the right front.  When I blocked this piece I did not let it soak for very long, so it didn't stretch out much.  After I pinned it out I laid the left front on top to make sure they matched.  I've already sewn the left front to the back, except for the neck band.

Before I blocked the right front I wanted to take this picture to show the effect that the blocking had on the piece.  Besides growing a little, you can hopefully see that after blocking the fabric drapes better, and seeing as how this pattern is called "Draped Vest" I thought that better drape was important.

Pattern:  Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56
Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8
Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Knitterati Mystery 5 - Done!

I finished this up last night while watching the Firefly marathon on the Science channel.  I knew that it was going to be a bit of a challenge to block, so I took some progress pictures to show how I did it.  Here is the shawl after I cast off.

You can see how ruffled the edges are.  After I soaked it I laid it out and spread out the center stockinette stitch section and pinned the top edge.  I followed the natural curve of the knitting and stretched gently, pulling the shawl out.  Then, starting at the bottom center and working up each side, I pulled out the center spines and pinned them.

The next step was the tricky one.  I had to decide what to do with the other leaves.  I played with a section a little bit trying to understand what the shawl wanted to do.  I ended up pulling out the panels and pinning them, adjusting the spacing on the central spines if necessary to allow room for the two smaller leaves.  This left a fold of fabric that I opened up with my fingers and folded over.

The whole thing took less time than I thought it would (between 30 and 45 minutes).  When blocking shawls I always try to listen to the knitting and determine what it naturally wants to do.

Pattern:  Knitterati Mystery 5 by Janel Laidman
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Squooshy in Horne Creek Fall (September 2012 Art Walk Club)
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Victorian Parfait

The focal bead is another one of the Larry Scott beads that I have bought at Bead & Button.  This one always reminded me of an ice cream parfait and originally I thought I would do something very colorful and maybe a bit silly with it, but then last weekend I was rummaging in my semi-precious stones and decided that I really needed to use some of those garnets that I have been hoarding.  I knew that I wanted to do some embellishment to the strand so I used a size 8 bead in a matching color to space the garnets, knowing that after stringing the garnets on the Soft Flex I would not be able to get a needle through them.  I then used the same size 8 beads and some transparent gold drops to make the netting.  I thought about using some smaller garnets, but they didn't match in color or in reflectivity.  I was going to do another set of netting interlaced with the first set but after trying it I decided that it cluttered up the design too much.  Less is more.

Materials:
Garnets
Size 8 seed beads - Beadcats stock # 2-08-280-91 dark red transparent lined with black, irid
Small drops (4 mm x 6 mm) - Beadcats stock # D-T2-840-00 amber transparent
KO thread in gold
Soft Flex 24k Gold Extreme flex wire (medium)
Gold clasp purchased from the Soft Flex site