Easy Beading

These were fun! I got the wire frames from my favorite bead store: Fusion Beads They come with the three shapes made out of fairly heavy craft wire and a coil of very fine craft wire. There a few very sketchy directions and pictures of one of each kind finished.





It didn't go too well with that minimal help! I tried the heart and made a mess finishing it, unbending

the pretty curved ends and cutting some off. Fortunately I found some help at Beadaholique where they also sell the frames. They have a video which is very clear and has some great ideas. I also ended up buying some inexpensive Czech size 6 bead mixes to use as well as the filagree beads.

I made the star following their instructions pretty exactly - it's my favorite of the three! The filagree bead allows multiple wires to go through in different directions. Cool! I even more or less salvaged the heart. This was a fun project.

Tiny knitting

 After last week's time consuming ornament I thought it was a good time for something simple. This little stocking kit fit the bill. The only thing that took time was undoing it when my knitting was too loose for the needle I chose. Down to a size 0 - a little like knitting on toothpicks!

So, eight ornaments to go! At this time of year, the ornament ideas are everywhere. My favorite bead store (Fusion Beads) has wire beading frames I'm going to use next week I think. Stampin' Up has a cute star kit I had to have. Lots of Pinterest ideas.  Knitting ideas on Ravelry. My favorite online chain mail store (Blue Buddha)  is making its November Mailler's Choice something I'll need to try. And I think I might have a chain maille design of my own if it works.

I get really busy in December with my Christmas craziness -

many dozen cookies, handmade cards, too many decorations (go figure!), etc. I have a few more involved beaded ornaments that might have to wait for later.  But still,  plenty to choose from. And no doubt far too many leftovers for another time.

Excessively not simple?

A bit later in the day than usual but I FINALLY finished this one! It took much longer than I thought it would. Since it's 9 at night there is no sunlight. Consequently, the color is not very accurate on these photos. The parts that look black are really dark green as are the beads inside the 4 leaf shapes in the center.

First of all I kept counting wrong and had to take stitching out. Seemed like the symmetry should be easy but I must have been tired and kept messing up flipping the design in my head. Yes - I should have kept looking at the pattern.

But the real issue was that the directions called for 2 of them, back to back. In the past, when I've done

counted cross stitch on perforated paper it has either had the back uncovered (ugly as that is!) or covered with felt or an unworked piece of perforated paper.

There are some places where I switched directions of the crosses I think. The symmetry got me! If I had all the stitches complete - no uncrossed half stitches waiting - I had trouble remembering which the top was. Rotating some ways kept them the same but others flipped them. I totally love it in spite of this. I think I'll even keep the kit and maybe do the second design later.

Another simple one

Last weekend I went on a scrapbook retreat. I worked on moving stuff from an old college album to a pretty new photo safe one. It was fun looking back at my William and Mary memories and seeing photos of my Theta sisters.


There were also a few craft projects we could choose to do. How could I refuse? Debby - my Heritage Makers

scrapbook consultant - had made the printed insets. All I had to do was trim them, inset them, and and tie the ribbon on the mini paint can handle. Perfect for another busy week.

Things have settled down a bit so next week I think I did to get back to something a bit more involved!

Beading of a different sort

I am having a busy October - lots of fun things including several out of town trips. So it is easy ornament month! This week I went with Ward to Seattle. He was invited to speak at a small conference and I had fun shopping. We both enjoyed some nice food too.

This simple little wreath is made with plastic beads on wire. Took about an hour in the hotel room.

The wire was a bit difficult to maneuver around

the thick plastic beads. I couldn't quite get it to lie as flat as I'd like. But it still is kind of cute.

A bit of beading

I went to the beach with my beading friends this weekend. It was beautiful outside - but we mostly just looked at it through the windows while we beaded. Or tried to block it with the blinds while we had our Outlander binge watch.

Since we were beading I thought I should work on some beadwork This little angel kit (from Bead Merchant in the UK)  has been in the stash for a while. She is made with mostly brick stitch. I've been beading for about 30 years and brick stitch was pretty much the first thing I learned. It should have been really easy (you can probably see where this is heading). It took me pretty much all of the first day to make her - and that didn't include one of the wings. Yikes!

The main problem was getting the head and halo attached and relatively centered. The beads are on an eye pin with a crimp at the end. Then a loop is turned and sewn to the beadwork.  Doesn't sound too hard but I used words that shouldn't be used in describing an angel!

Knitting a snow friend

 I usually knit with nice yarn from my local yarn store. This little guy it made with some funky acrylic bumpy stuff from Michaels. He was knitted all in one piece by starting with a 6 stitches joined into a round, slowly increasing up to 21 stitches and then decreasing back to 9. That makes the bottom. After stuffing it, you do it again increasing up to 18 stitches and down to 4 to make the middle. Then finally the head. Really cool construction.

After he's all knitted, stuffed and the top closed, the

directions said to squish it top to bottoms and pull the thread all the way through to fatten him up a bit. Perhaps my row gauge (the height of the knitted stitches) was off but there was no way I could get the needle all the way through in a straight line. Poor guy ended up with a bit of a spine curvature.

Three quarters done with the year and still going strong. Albeit a bit tired of ornaments!