Spun and Woven

Hello hello! This week, I bring to you a fun project I did for a friend's birthday. (And since I know you read these, hi! None of this stuff will be news to you!). Anyway, she recently began to learn how to spin by hand, and was making yarn out of some lovely navy blue wool. The finished product was lovely, in my opinion: maybe a hundred yards of roughly bulky weight yarn. As with all first spinning projects, though, it was a bit uneven in spaces (thick-and-thin is how it's marketed, I think). Uneven yarn is a bit difficult to knit with, so she wasn't sure what to do with it.

Enter me, with my ridiculous penchant for learning as many crafts as possible. I don't much enjoy knitting with thick-and-thin yarn either, but I have learned that it's excellent for certain other crafts: namely weaving. It adds a wonderful texture to woven fabric, especially when paired with smoother yarns. I proposed an idea: I would take her yarn, add some store-bought yarns to the mix, and weave her a scarf as a birthday gift. She agreed, and so we set off to find yarns to complete the set!

Now, I mentioned before that this handspun was navy blue. This is broadly speaking correct, however it doesn't tell the whole story. The wool reads as solid blue at a distance, but upon closer inspection, it has strands of lots of different colors mixed into it: reds and yellows and greens. In order to use other yarns, they had to work well with all of the colors present. It was a bit of a challenge to find something that worked, but we eventually settled on a color palette that played to the handspun's strengths.

The leftmost yarn is, of course, the handspun. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't capture its color very well, but you can see the nice chunky texture it has. The right two yarns are the ones we picked out. The magenta was selected as a stark contrast to the handspun, both in texture and color. It plays off of some of the redder strands of fiber in the handspun. These two yarns were to make up the warp of the scarf, running in striped up and down its length. For the weft, we needed yet another contrast. I tried to find a matching color yarn that would blend in, leaving the striped as the major design element, but we had no luck with that. So instead of matching color, we settled on a very thin light grey yarn. Being a neutral, it worked well with both the previous yarns, and the thinness would make it disappear somewhat in the weave of the fabric. The sections that did show would really pop, though, adding another layer of interest to the scarf's design. Or so I hoped. Nothing to it but to do it now, eh?

After all the yarns were assembled, I got to work warping the project. Rather than simple stripes, I placed the majority of the handspun towards the center, and graded out with the magenta yarn towards the edges. I think it looks a little nicer like that. Then it was just a matter of weaving: it's all just a plain weave, so it went fairly quickly. When all was said and done, it looked like this!

I rather like how it turned out! I hadn't expected the grey weft to show up so much more on the handspun than the magenta, but it makes for an interesting design element, no? When in doubt, claim that you planned it like that all along! It's in my friend's possession now, in any case (and I hope you like it!). I really do like the texture of the handspun with weaving. Maybe I should do some more spinning and then weave with it...

Ah, but that's a matter for another week. For now, I'll take my leave. Stay crafty, everyone!

Tutorial: Beaded Necklace Design

Hello hello! It's back to the regular schedule again, hooray! As promised, I come to you with my methods for designing beaded jewelry. Like I said last week, I've been beading for quite some time now (and beading well for at least a year or two!), so I have some insights to share on the subject of creating a necklace.

Now, the "tutorial" in the title is a little bit misleading, since I won't be showing you a specific technique or walking you through concrete steps that you must follow in order to get a nice finished product. Unlike knitting and crochet, there isn't really much of a technical barrier to making a simple beaded necklace. As long as you can string beads onto a thread and use a pair of pliers, you have the skills. The trick is in selecting and arranging the beads into a pleasing pattern in the first place, and that's not something I can teach you how to do step by step. There are, in fact, countless ways to make a beautiful finished product! With that in mind, I'll be showing you just one way: my way. Pick and choose ideas that you like from it, and I hope it'll help spark some beading creativity in you!

Enough of that exposition nonsense, though. Onwards, to crafting!

Most of my beading projects start with a seed idea. Maybe it's an outfit that I'm designing jewelry for, or a particular color palette I like, or a flower I thought was pretty. Oftentimes, though, it's a particularly interesting bead or pendant that I want to incorporate. For this project, I dug up a whole bunch of beads that looked like this:

Pretty, right? They actually came off of an old necklace I got at a garage sale. I have no idea where they come from, but I love the detailed, colorful flower on the black background. It was exactly what I needed for inspiration.

The reason I had taken the original necklace apart was that, while the beads were pretty, it was composed of all the same bead, just strung in a loop. There was no variety in size, shape, color, nothing. It made these beautiful beads look downright boring! I learned from this mistake and decided that I needed a set of beads that contrasted my focal beads, for variety. I settled on these gold-colored metal beads.

The different shape and different finish would lend some interest to the necklace, I hoped. And yet, these beads still had something in common, too: the flowers on the focal beads were outlined in gold, which matched the color of my contrast bead! Similarly, the contrast bead had some aging done to it that left a blackish patina in the crevices. So far, so good!

I was happy with just the two beads as the main notes in the necklace, but there was still a lot of space to fill. Some beaded jewelry is composed solely of large beads, but I prefer a more delicate style. And what else to use for that than seed beads?

Seed beads are minuscule and incredibly useful, so I tend to keep a lot around in these little plastic containers. For color choice, I used the focal bead as reference and took out any seed bead I could find that matched the colors of the focal bead. It ended up being quite a nice spread: that's the beauty of using an already-pretty item as your inspiration!

Now that I had all my components lined up, it was time to start thinking about the design in earnest. I knew I wanted to make a lariat necklace, which is a long, ropelike necklace with no clasp. Instead of latching it at the back of your neck, you wrap it a few times around your neck and let the ends dangle in front. Some lariats have a loop at one end to thread the other end through, while others might be tied or just left loose. I decided to go with the first option, and have one end of the strand terminate with a loop.

Since my lariat wasn't going to have a central pendant or anything, I started playing around with simple sequences of beads, laying them out on my workspace to get a feel for how they would look in a finished necklace. I ended up liking this quite a lot:

The 2:1 ratio of focal bead to accent bead keeps the focus on the focal beads, I think. I liked it in any case, so I kept it! The next step was to design the seed bead pattern to fill the space in between the larger beads. A single strand of seed beads looked too plain to me, so I decided to make a double stranded chain-type pattern instead. This took a little bit of fiddling around with to get right, though. First, I laid out seed beads just like I did with the larger beads.

Then, I got out a short length of thread and a needle and strung those beads on in that pattern. The two-by-two chain ended up looking a little too stilted and stiff for my tastes, though, so I tried again with a three-by-one chain and got much more pleasing results.

With everything planned out like this, I was just about ready to start when I had an idea. What if the size of the focal/accent beads tapered off at the non-loop end of the lariat so that it was easier to thread that end through the loop? I didn't have different sizes of my focal beads, though, so I dug around some more in my stash and came up with thematically similar surrogates.

Okay, now we're ready to start. With everything figured out like this, beading is very simple and actually quite a relaxing process. It goes by quickly once you have the pattern memorized, and I was at the end of my beads sooner than expected!

The far end needed no finishing whatsoever, but I still needed to secure the threads on the working end of the necklace and add a loop. To make the loop, I bent a gold-colored ring into shape and added a jump ring as a connector. Then, I just threaded the loose ends of the threads through a crimp bead and around the jump ring to attach it. If you don't know how to use crimp beads, there are plenty of resources out there. Suffice to say, it's an easy way of securing threads without having to make knots! The end of the necklace then looked like this.

And really, that was all there was left to do! Lariats are nice and simple that way: no need to worry about fiddly clasps falling breaking and spilling your hard work everywhere. I stuck the finished necklace onto my display bust to take a couple pictures.

And there you have it! This is basically how I make necklaces. Sometimes I use a bead board with curved ditches to lay out bead patterns, but other than that, you saw every trick I use. While you're certainly entitled to your own opinion about the end result, I personally like it a lot. So much so that I actually made a second identical necklace with the beads I had left over! I'm not sure what I'll wear it with: maybe it'll spice up an otherwise monochrome black outfit? The future is full of possibilities with this colorful piece!

What did you think of this pseudo-tutorial? Did you like seeing my thought process in detail, or was it a bit boring and rambly? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! If people like this sort of thing, then I might do more of it for some of the other crafts where I don't follow a pre-made pattern. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the break from yarn-craft as we move into summer. I'll be coming back to knitting, crochet, and the like shortly though, don't worry. Until then, stay crafty!

Mother's Day Magic

Okay, I think I'm back to my regular schedule for the foreseeable future. Thanks for bearing with me!

That's not what I'm here to talk about though. I'm here to talk about Mother's Day. You see, I happen to have a mother (a wonderful, supportive, intelligent, and kind mother to boot), and every year, I try to hand make something for her for Mother's Day. Sometimes it's a scarf, sometimes a hat or even placemats, but often, I turn to jewelry. I've been making beaded jewelry for her for a long time, you see, and so I'm rather practiced at making things she likes. Plus, I have approximately 100 million beads that need to be put to good use. After rummaging around in my collection, I settled on some beads that I thought would look good together.

First, these spiky translucent numbers. The holes are near one end, so they hang down like teardrops.

And second, these assorted lampwork beads. Most of them look different from one another, so they add a lot of interest and variety to anything they're a part of.


With those in hand, and a variety of seed beads, I got to work laying things out. I wanted something fairly simple, with only one string of beads, so it went quickly, and I was putting it together in no time. A little finishing with a clasp, and it was all done!

I think it has a bit of a fall feel with the warm colors and the leaf-shaped red beads! And fall is my mom's favorite season, so hopefully she likes it and wears it a ton!

In the same day, I also went ahead and made a couple other necklaces. If you're interested in my process for beading, I made notes of how I went about designing one of the pieces. So stay tuned and you'll see that soon!

"Woven" Warmth

Spring is well and truly here, but I'm still in winter-crafting mode. The chilly rains and dreary skies have me searching for projects that are warm, but not quite dead-of-winter-knits warm.

Which is to say, now is the perfect time to turn to thinks like fingerless gloves! I get cold fingers at the drop of a hat, so having a variety of hand coverings gets me all the way from October to April. I broke out some of my pattern books and found a prime candidate from Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders. The pattern? "Woven" Fingerless Gloves by Laura Hein Eckel. They looked super cute, and quite easy. Exactly what I needed for some relaxing knitting after a busy day.

There was one problem I didn't consider though. I had no free sock yarn to make these mitts with. Everything I had was either reserved for another project, or too little to make two gloves with (and I did need two of them). I did have dk weight though...

It's not something I would recommend for a first or second project, but if you have a few projects under your belt, you can modify patterns for slightly different weights of yarn. Sometimes all it takes is moving up or down a few needle/hook sizes: check your gauge and see where you are.

If you can't get gauge with your new yarn, fear not. Measure what gauge you do have. With the power of math and this measurement, you can still make patterns work! The trick is to find the major measurements of the pattern, and adjust the number of stitches to match. Sometimes, patterns will tell you what these measurements are. A hat pattern might tell you that the circumference at the brim is 20 inches. How many stitches do you need then? Take your gauge, in the form of "X stitches per inch", and multiply it by the number of inches wide you need your piece to be. There's the answer! As long as you follow the major measurements (in both length and width), you should get the right shape. Lace, cable, and colorwork designs may need to be modified to reflect the new stitch count, but a strategic repeat added or removed usually takes care of the problem. Less shaped items (like hats, scarves, and fingerless mittens) are easier to modify than more complicated ones, of course, but with some trial and error you can modify almost every pattern.

(As a side note, please make your gauge swatch more than an inch long. The longer it is, the more accurate your assessment of gauge will be. Dividing the number of stitches in the row by the length of the row gives you the measurement of "stitches per inch".)

Well, that was a roundabout way to explain how I used DK yarn for a sock yarn pattern. The results turned out quite well I think!

Anteeksi!

Since I forgot to make a post last week, here's a bonus! I dug through my old photos and came across an old project of mine. About five years ago, I discovered the webcomic Scandinavia and the World, and I really enjoyed it. I particularly liked the sullen Finland character and his expressive faces.

This is about the time when a dear friend of mine tried to get me to learn Finnish. It didn't take, per se, but I did enjoy trying!

Anyway, Finland in SatW is usually portrayed with a distinctive green hat. Being the fledgling cosplayer I was at the time, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to make my own. And because I was (and still am) averse to photographs, I drew a face on a balloon and used it as my model!

This was one of my very first freestyle projects: no pattern for me! I toyed with writing it down but never got around to it. Tell me, would any of you like a Finland Hat pattern if I drafted one up?

Sweet as a Snail

Aah, sorry for forgetting to post last week! It was a very busy week, and honestly I'm still quite busy. So I think I'll have to go every other week for a little while, just so I can keep up with life stuff.

BUT that's not what I'm here to talk about! Whenever I get busy and stressed, I end up making cute softies, and this one is a whopper of a pattern. Let me introduce you to Laci:

Isn't she adorable? She's a banana split snail! Who even comes up with this stuff?

Apparently, Knot Bad does. His pattern is pretty darn good. It's got a lot of parts, but clear instructions and ample pictures make it fairly easy to put together. The one thing I will say is that this took more yarn than I expected it to, especially of the banana yellow color. Be careful of your yardage if you make it! That said, it's a super fun pattern with a super cute result. Laci sure brightened up my day when I finished her!

Lace! Again!

We're getting into another busy part of the year for me. Which, naturally, means that I should start another complicated lace shawl. The last one wasn't that bad, was it? No, I must be misremembering, exaggerating even. Besides, I have some pretty green alpaca lace that I bought ages ago, and it's just begging to be knit!

I didn't have a good shawl pattern in mind for the yarn, so I went searching for one. What I came up with was Argyle by Anna Kotsolainen. I'm a big fan of classic angled patterns like argyles and plaids, so I was excited to start it! It didn't seem too difficult from the pictures, anyway.

I'll be honest with you, this pattern was a bit of a challenge. I'm fairly certain that it stems at least in part from translation issues; the pattern seems to have originally been written in Russian, and I think some key details got lost in translation. Specifically, the pattern notes that the lace chart shows only "half" of the pattern, without elaboration. Half? Which half?? How do I figure out the other half???

Only after staring intently at photos of other people's completed projects did I learn what was meant by "half." The pattern is otherwise quite nice, so if you want to try it for yourself, allow me to explain:

When the pattern tells you to begin to work from the chart, you'll notice that the first row has significantly fewer stitches charted than you have on your needle. This is okay. First, knit 3 stitches for your garter border. Then, knit the stitches on the chart, ending with a yarn over. Next, knit one stitch (this is the center stitch). Then, knit all the stitches on the same row of the chart again, and end with another 3 stitches of garter border This is what was meant by the chart only showing half of the pattern. For every subsequent row, follow the same pattern: border, first pass through chart, center stitch, second pass through chart, border. It should look something like this:

Once you get it going, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. That being said, some people made just the "half" shawl without repeating the chart, so you could go for that if you'd prefer. It would make the pattern look rather different, but you do you! I'm going to keep going as intended, and I'll be sure to fill you in. With my luck, this thing will get done just in time for it to be too warm to wear!