One more thing

I finished this scarf Tuesday night. The wool/soy blend was great to work with: knitted up beautifully and felt wonderful in the hands. And the soy-based dyes are so lovely. The picture doesn't do the depth of color justice.



I also had fun making a tag of my own. Seems a little boring however (and blurry. Sorry!). I think I need to come up with a more interesting name than just "Handmade by Brandi." Any suggestions?

The beady stuff so far

I've been busy, with the holidays and birthdays approaching, with the annual gift-making extravaganza. Jewelry, hair pom-poms, scarves. I always make more than I actually give away. What happens is that as the deadline for wrapping and/or sending approaches, I take inventory and pick my favorites and give those. The others are either kept (Gabi never minds this, particularly in regards to bracelets and scarves) or torn apart and their parts recycled. So, a few more things so far...

First, two bracelets. The purple/blue one is all glass beads, the copper/white one mixes metal, bone and glass.





I've been having a blast using, finally, some of the gorgeous beads that I brought back from West Africa. These trader beads were purchased in Ghana and Togo. The "serenity" bracelet was given to Jenny as a birthday present, and Gabi laid claim to the "peace" bracelet before it could be given to anyone else. (That is her prerogative!)





This necklace also uses both glass beads from the local craft store and mixed-glass beads from Togo. Check out the close-up to see the lovely colors of the African bead. There are many varieties of these mixed-glass, matte-finish beads, and they are much less well-known than the trader beads. However, I really like their subtlety.





This three-strand is made of glass and metal beads. I found the finding at one of my favorite bead stores in Duluth. The other beads are locally purchased.



Lastly, I went an uncharacteristically sparkly direction on this one (glass and metal). I was thinking of my niece when I was picking beads... that's why it's so shiny.

Hair Bobby Thingys

I've been playing with string again.

Last weekend I spent movie-watching time playing with felt, buttons and embroidery floss and made some fun hair doo-dads. I got the idea from Heartfelt: 25 projects for stitched and felted accessories by Teresa Searle. There are some great projects in this book. Searle provides detailed and simple instructions, and the book is a joy just to look at. The projects would be great for beginner/intermediate as most of the embroidery stitches are very basic (chain, blanket and straight stitches, mostly) and felt is so easy to work with.What really makes the projects pop is the color combinations and the light-hearted, joyful feel of them. It can be hard to find beginner-level crafts that really make a statement, but Searle's do.

And for those of us who are beyond beginner stages, the ideas here are a great jumping-off point for more felty-flossy entertainment. Searle's ideas got my brain buzzing so much that I bought some lovely greenish blue felt to use for a cell phone case and/or little purse.

In the meantime, here are a few of the silly, pretty hair pom-poms I came up with. They stitch up so quickly I made four or five in a single evening, and the simple stitches meant that I really could watch a movie and stitch at the same time (free tip: never try to both watch a movie and make a neat, tidy pallestrina stitch ~ you're just asking for bloody fingers).

First, how the hair-bobs look when worn.



Next, the group I made over the weekend.



And a couple of my favorites.





Of course, Rosie thinks they'd make great toys!



(I did make her a couple, and she promptly lost them.)

Silly, pretty things

According to the weather forecasters, the Seattle-like drizzle that's settled in with a chilly fwump is actually the weakened remnant of Hurricane Ike. Go figure. I'll take the drizzle.

I welcomed the change in weather with a bit of beading creativity, playing with colors and thread last night until I was nearly too tired to brush my teeth before bed. But oh, what fun. Now, the even more entertaining part: wear these new pretty things a few times to test the design and make sure it will wear well for whomever I decide to gift it to.

Anyway, it was entertaining enough for me that I thought I'd share.




This pretty one is made with five strands of stone chips strung on cotton thread. It's easy but fairly putzy when you add up all the knots between stones.



My first foray into memory wire: a cute little choker with glass beads and silver charms.



I had some memory wire left over so made a simple bracelet with glass and stone beads and a magnetic clasp. This one is a true experiment since it's made with leftover necklace-sized wire instead of bracelet-sized wire.

Update: this little experiment ran badly awry. I'll have to break it apart and reuse the beads, and just throw out the left-over wire. Unless someone knows of a way to reuse this little slip of memory wire?

This last one uses a single circle stone that I found at one of my favorite bead stores in Duluth, plus two stones, on leather cord. I've made a few with a similar bead design, but I'm experimenting on this one with an adjustable cord length. Two slip knots should allow the wearer to adjust the length to suit different styles of clothing.

Scrappy Entertainment

Today (congenial bows) I successfully pulled off a "tween" program on Scrapbook Journaling. I wasn't sure I would. First, I'm not a scrapper. Second, I haven't done a teen program before. Third, well, I was just plain nervous about it. The 12-14 set can be a hard group to impress, and I've spent the last few days doubting myself about it.

However, the program went off well. Four kids showed up -- a small number but very comfortable. It would have been hard to spend adequate time helping them if there had been many more. We made a mini "explosion scrapbook" with three big squares of scrapping paper. Very easy, then I let them loose with piles of markers, stickers, ribbons, old magazines, scraps of cloth and glitter glue pens.

We also did the "I am" poem, and I had the kids cut up the three paragraphs of the poem to add to different parts of their scrapbook. Plus they had a little envelope to glue on so that they could add notes, pictures, or, in the case of one boy, baseball cards. These were particularly touching with the pink and yellow daisy-themed paper (this was the younger brother of one of the girls, and I just loved his paper choices!). He decorated his scrapbook with pictures of baseball players and candy bars.

It was great fun to see the way the kids decorated their individual books. The most entertaining part of it might have been to see how much fun they had with the fabric swatches, bits of trim, sequins, and other bits that I brought from my private stash. They were incredibly creative.