21 March 2008

My first finished gold bracelet!

I attempted soldering the finals onto the chain first, but haven't got the hang of it yet. It turned out to be much easier to fuse the final & chain wire than to solder it!

I'm still working on a moebius scarf (300 stitches per side!) using dyed bamboo yarn, and being slow at handknitting, this one will take quite a while.

On the jewellery front, I'm experimenting with making a 2 colour knit bracelet using silver as the main colour & copper as the accent first. Once I get a working technique, I'll be making it as a bracelet or necklace with gold replacing the copper.

16 March 2008

My gold wire turned up on Monday morning, but it took til Wednesday night to get the nerve to cut it to start weaving. While I was working up the nerve to start with the gold, I finished spinning the last of my dyed bamboo fibre.



My progress so far - I've finished the chain, and now that I've measured the diameter, I can order the order some finals (end caps) and a clasp to finish it off next week.


I'm still working on the spiral knit from black diamond yarn, and just starting using the dyed bamboo yarn for a moebius scarf.

An update on the wire/metal swap from on Beading Forum dot com dot au.
This was the pendant I received in the swap, from Heather

My swap partner hasn't received hers yet though, so I won't spoil the surprise by showing a photo here until she has it.
update: the pendant arrived, so here is the pic I took before posting. The lower drops aren't lying right because I didn't have something to hang it off properly to get the pic -

For more of the swap pieces and info about the swap, check out Toni's blog.

9 March 2008

This week has been making use of the second week of a bout of insomnia, with dyeing and spinning bamboo fibres.

I forgot to take photos of the natural bamboo before spinning, but did take photos of the dyed lots

I started with about 500g of natural coloured bamboo fibres, and spun about half in the natural colour and dyed then spun the other half.

The colours aren't quite right, so I'll try for another photo during the day, when I get time. The cream coloured skeins are about 260g and almost 500m in length. The dyed yarn skein is 100g and 176m, with the remainder of the dyed fibres still being spun - the top bobbin shows some plied, and the bottom bobbin is 1 lot of singles ready for plying when I finish spinning the remaining fibres.

After this batch is finished, I'll be taking a break from spinning to make some more jewellery. I finally took the step of ordering some 9k gold wire (along with some more silver) to make my first solid gold chain bracelet and the order should arrive early this week.

1 March 2008

Well, I finished spinning up the black diamond fibre, hand dyed soy fibres and melanian wool/black diamond blend and started knitting. Unfortunately though, The circular needles I was using broke at the cable/needle join and gluing a few times didn't work, so I had to go looking for replacements. I couldn't find any of the same size though, so I gave up on the first idea, undid it all and started over from scratch.

I've been a bit obsessed with circular/spiral/pinwheel type designs lately, so I had a look round for some patterns to give me ideas to get started with and found this doily pattern at
Using the central spiral from the doily pattern, I'm working on a design for a jacket using the black diamond fibre. With my handknitting being so slow (specially when I keep changing my mind about design and undoing it), I'll have to settle for progress pics for now -

I'm planning to make this spiral wide enough for a jacket back, then work out the spacing and number of stitches for armholes and knit over that section with some waste yarn, then continue the spiral pattern til it's wide enough to wrap round for fronts as well - above the armholes can then fold back as the collar. Then I plan to thread the loops either side of the waste yarn onto a circular needle and knit the sleeves from the shoulder down to the cuff.

I have no idea if it'll work yet, but I'll find out in a week or so - if it doesn't, then I s'pose it'll be turned into some sort of shawl!