A girl has to have her bling!

In our Dallas Bead Society meeting this month we worked on a Bling Ring pattern (pictures below). I loved this so much I decided to make a bracelet. Several members of our group made bangles and I knew I had to have one. I love it and I plan to make a few more in other colors.

Happy beading!

​Care'

Wow! What a busy couple of weeks it has been! This weekend marked the beginning of show season for me and my partner in crime Ruthann. Last year we only did one craft show, but this year we are going for three. Between the two of us, plus my sweet mother-in-law, we have a TON of crochet and knitted goodies for sale.

Since I had so much inventory, I decided to focus on making crazy hats. The idea was to get people into the booth and  have a great time. It was most definitely a success! Not only did we have non-stop traffic all day, we had a huge crowd of people stop by to take pictures. Our booth neighbor got into it as well and was encouraging people to try them on.

I ended up with several requests, one of which is from the local librarians (pictured above). They want a set of these for children's story time, and we may be collaborating on other characters. So fun!

The patterns for all four of the birdbrain hats (Turkey, Chicken, Peacock, Flamingo) are all available on this site, Etsy, Ravelry, and Craftsy. I have a couple more in the works and will publish those soon.

​Here are some pictures of the hats being modeled. Enjoy!

Happy Hooking!

​Care'

I love joining in on BALs (Bead Alongs), CALs (Crochet Alongs) and KALs (Knit Alongs) from time to time. Sometimes it's nice to just focus on the process and the stitches without knowledge of what lies ahead. Other times you know what you are making from the beginning, and that's fun too because you see the progress of everyone that is working on the project at the same time.

When I saw this CAL offered by The Crochet Crowd, I knew I had to jump in. I love textures so I was excited to see multiple stitches come together in one piece. Also, the way the pattern changes keeps it from getting boring.

I decided to go for something really bright as I tend to gravitate to more neutral colors. I also used this as an opportunity to knock a dent in my very health yarn stash.

I am pleased with how it turned out, and now I can add one more blanket to my list for this year.

If you'd like to make your own, the pattern can be found here. Also, you'll see the gallery of all the other variations of this great pattern.

Happy Hooking!

Care'

Yep. You guessed it. I've been playing with the clay again. This time I decided to make some cabs. As most of you know, I tend to go overboard when I decide to play. Here are some pics of my experiments. 

I have no clue yet what I will do with these. For now I will enjoy looking at them.

Happy Claying!

Caré

Okay, I broke my rule - the rule to finish up UFOs before starting something new. But, sometimes you come across something you HAVE to do RIGHT NOW! That was the case with the Ouroboros Dragon Cuff designed by Michelle Leonardo. You can find the pattern in the August/September 2018 issue of Beadwork if you'd like to make your own.

This was a lot of fun to make. The main part of the body was a breeze to whip up - especially once I finally managed to get the correct dagger beads after ordering three sets that were one-hole instead of two-hole - but that's another story.

The head was tricky and really pushed me with freeform peyote, but it was fun to make.

Okay - back to UFOs . .. 

Happy Beading!

​Care'

Sometimes happy accidents are the most fun. That's the case with this piece. The focal is made from polymer clay where I was trying to learn a new technique. I was about half way through conditioning the clay with the pasta machine (trying to make gray) when my mom stopped me - the marbled effect was fantastic! So, being a clay newbie I shaped it and baked it.

Well, as expected - and as all clay newbies learn the hard way - clay not properly conditioned will crack. I also managed to get some bubbles in this one too. Even with all the imperfections, I still loved it so I knew I had to try and save it. I covered those imperfections with the dots. I even added glass seed beads to some of the dots and baked again. YAY! Happy results.

The piece then sat around for MONTHS trying to decide what it wanted to be when it grew up. After a few months of thought, I decided to use bead embroider techniques and then add a CRAW chain. TA DA!

I'm very happy with how it turned out. What do you think?

We all have them. Those Unfinished Objects that taunt us from their respective corners, begging us to pick them up and finish them for once and all. It's funny because, when I first started beading and crocheting, I swore I would never do that. Fast forward a few years and they are everywhere. Some of it stashed so long ago I don't even remember them.

This particular one is from a class I took a few years back with Shelly Nybakke called "Robust Rendezvous." Shelly is an amazing teacher and fun to be around, so if you ever get a chance to take one of her classes I highly recommend doing so.

During class I managed to do about three of the "loops" you see on the front of the necklace. I had a different class the following day so this was stashed away to be worked on later. A few weeks ago I found this again while looking for some projects to finish up at a bead retreat I attended. I was super excited to see this one as I really wanted to finish this. While Shelly's original design is stunning, I knew I wanted something a bit more simple, so I made some modifications to suit my taste.  I call mine "A Simple Rendezvous." since it's much less complex than Shelly's.

What was really cool about her instructions is I picked up several components from it that I plan to use it future work. In fact, I used the clasp for a piece I also finished up this week (more on that later).

Hope you like it. I'm off to tackle some more UFOs this week!

Happy Beading!

Care'

One of the things I've always wanted to do was create my own yarn. Not the whole raise a sheep thing, but hand dyeing. I actually took the plunge a few weeks back and started playing around. Of course I needed to whip something up to test the yarn and ensure it would feel great working with while still producing beautiful results. Having just recently whipped up this scarf in another color way, I decided to turn to it again.

The colors used are Black Cat and Blueberry Mojito. I used one skein each. To ensure it didn't get too wide and long I altered the pattern by only working 32 stitches across and stopping after row 199. I love how it turned out.

More to come on the yarns as I keep playing around. Eventually I may make enough that I cannot use it all and have to share. HA!

Happy Hooking!

Care
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I had so much fun making the first version of "Mind the Gap" I knew I would revisit it. What I did not expect was to revisit it so soon!

I had the fortunate to be introduced to the Safronie yarn line. I specifically feel in love with her fingering weight yarn called "Lovely." And yes, Lovely is the perfect name for it. A great bled of ultrafine superwash merino and mulberry silk, it is a dream to work with. Of course I bought a skein - or two. 

Imaging my surprise when, about a week later, I ran into her again at a local yarn shop. She was there hosting a trunk show. We struck up a conversation and, before I knew it, she had shoved two lovely skeins of yarn into my arms and said, "design something amazing with it." The two skeins are called "All Magic Comes at a Price" and "Time Lord." Of course being a huge fan of the shows that inspired their names, I was hooked.

I knew I wanted to create something that would show off the drape of the yarn, yet still pick up on the modern feel of the colors. I also wanted to play with the contrast of light and dark. As I was working on the original version of Mind the Gap, I knew this would be a possibility. I'm thrilled that it turned out as I had envisioned.

Also, if you happen to be a fan of the Fibonacci Sequence, then you will enjoy this pattern as it was the driver behind the row repeats.

Here are some more pics for your viewing enjoyment.

The pattern is available in all the usual spots - this site, Etsy, Ravelry, and Craftsy.

Happy Hooking!

​Care'

One of the things I love is having options in how you wear different pieces. I also enjoy mixing up patterns and techniques to see what comes out of it. And of course, I always love working with high contrast colors.

My new design, called Mind the Gap, combines all three. The pattern includes instructions for making four triangles, but how you join the triangles is up to you. Maybe you even decide to add more of the triangle pieces to make it into a shawl. I also provided some options for borders because I could not decide on which one is my favorite. I could see a really thick border making a strong statement.

I decided to call it "Mind the Gap" after i was drawing the pattern. It sort of reminded me of those spaces between the concrete and the trains you see in subways. Imagine my surprise when a Facebook friend posted a picture from his travels and it was exactly what I was thinking of. At that point I knew the name was a winner. As usual, you an find the pattern here in my store, on Craftsy, on Etsy, and on Ravelry.

I'm working on another variation now as part of a collaboration I'm doing with Safronie hand-dyed yarns. More on that to come soon.

In the meantime, Happy Hookin'!

​Care'