Flowers

These bracelets are for the same little girls as the charm bracelets in the previous post, so once again I used the same pattern in different colourways. The pattern is called Flowers by SnowMirna. I found it on Pinterest here. It's a pretty design, perfect for little girls.

Charmed

A friend of mine asked me to make bracelets for her granddaughters. I used the rainbow pattern from beadpet and added plastic 'charms'.  I thought this pattern would work better than a spiral pattern because it's easy to make sure all the charms are on the same level. I've made the bracelets 'the same but different' to avoid sisterly arguments.

Poppie's Necklace

I hope Poppie likes the necklace I've crocheted for her, a combination of her 'bead soup' and plastic 'pearls'. I had to scratch through the bead soup to find the right size beads - not the tiniest ones, the ones a bit bigger, perhaps size 11/0. It's interesting how difficult it is to be random in loading colours. When I was crocheting, I'd often find a colour repeated sooner than I think ideal. In the end it doesn't matter much, I think the effect is fine.

Sprinkles

My neighbour Poppie came over the other day, bringing an assortment of beads with her:

In truth, most of them are not suitable for beaded crochet. Poppie asked me to make her a necklace using the 'pearl' beads. Hmm. After some contemplation, I thought perhaps I could combine the 'bead soup' in the jar at the bottom of the picture with pearls. I did a sample and thought it looked alright, so I've carried on. Here's a close up:

Fudge

I've been wanting to try Diane's  fudge patterns. (I nearly said recipes.) Left to right these are Purple Fudge, Root Beer Fudge and Pink Fudge. I tatted the Root Beer Fudge first and thought the long chains might benefit from being joined to each other. So I joined the chains on Pink Fudge and it cupped! Sorry Diane. But I rather like the effect, it looks like a flower.

Frivole's Qanik

Joelle kindly sent me the pattern for her Qanik snowflake and so here it is! The long chains are quite hard to tame, but I think I did ok for a first attempt. I made a mistake on the first chain of the second round, but I didn't want to undo a Josephine ring, so I just used the same stitch count throughout.

Beaded

This is another of Nicola Bowersox's patterns, called Beaded Ice Drop. I do like the way Nicola gives instructions for needle and shuttle tatters, her patterns are ambitatterous.

Joining

I've resisted joining tatting groups on Facebook because I'm afraid of spending too much time on line instead of in the real world. But when I saw the Birthday Ice Drop on Frivole's blog and God's Kid's blog, there was only one thing to do: I joined Diane's Ice Drop Addicts group. I'm a bit dense about negotiating such pages, but I did find files and Nicola Bowersox's pattern. So here are three Birthday Ice Drops:

Now to upload the picture on the group page, peruse other people's pictures and look at more patterns. The real world will have to wait!

Scarf Begun

I finished the beret and started on the scarf to go with it. The beret needs finishing off and blocking, but I'm going to show it to the gurus in my craft group before I do that. It has a good beret shape, which was one of the requirements for the competition.

Beret Begun

I dyed the wool for my beret in August, it's been languishing ever since. At last I've got back to it. The pattern is Cup Cake Rose by Wedina Schmidt, on Ravelry. I've just started decreasing to make the beret shape, so the edge is turning up, but that's temporary. So far, so good! 

Beetroot Galore

I spent all morning bottling beetroot, after baking the beetroot in the oven yesterday afternoon. I rather think Jack got a bit carried away when he planted beetroot, there is way more here than we can eat, and he has already given a lot away. Anyway, I have done my part in processing it. Some of it I made into chutney and some I just bottled in vinegar with onion, also from Jack's garden.

Dragon Bracelet

It makes me think of a dragon, but after I'd finished the bracelet, I did some reading and learnt that it's called a Cellini Spiral. I learnt that on this website, Perlenhaekeln, which has a wealth of information about beaded crochet on it. I quote: "The spirals were named after Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), an Italian goldsmith and sculptor, a famous representative of Mannerism."   

If you google Cellini Spiral, you're more likely to come across patterns in peyote stitch. That's a different type of beading altogether, though the result looks similar.

Button Flower

I tatted this one a few days ago, as relief from joining crochet squares.

Off Centre

After carefully working out how to centre the 'blank' squares in the blanket I've been putting together,  I joined the last row of squares to the wrong end. I didn't notice until after I'd done the edging that the squares are not in the centre at all. I don't want to re-do all that, so I'm going to say that centred is boring and predictible.  I meant it to be like this all the time!

For those who don't want to follow the link, this is a group project blanket that will be given to a family whose son died. His name will be embroidered in the blank squares.

Oops!

The question I'm most asked about crocheting beaded ropes is, "What if you make a mistake?" It happens! The picture below shows where I've threaded three green beads instead of two:

The only solution is to get the scissors out, cut the thread and remove the extra green bead:

Luckily, it's easy to join in a new thread, so I just rejoin the thread. I pull the new thread through loops to duplicate the last stitch on the rope:

That stitch is worked as one and then crocheting continues as before. At the end, the two ends are threaded into the rope:

Voila, the join doesn't show:

I have tried hiding the extra bead in the middle of the rope, or missing one stitch to compensate for a missing bead, but it just doesn't work, the smooth 'scales' of the rope are disturbed and the correction is glaringly obvious. But cutting and rejoining is not difficult, thankfully.

One Pattern, Two Colourways

The bracelet on the left is made in the same colours as the original pattern. I wondered how it would look in bolder colours. Interesting how changing the colours changes the effect. The pattern is one I printed out some time ago, I can't find the original now, so there's no link, sorry.

Invisible Decrease

I was watching a South African television show yesterday afternoon called Show Me How. The interviewee was showing how to make an amigurumi snail. During her demonstration, she showed how to make an invisible decrease. Hmm, I haven't seen that before. I thought if I wrote about it here, I might remember how to do it next time I need it. And someone else might find it useful.

My usual method of decreasing is just to skip a stitch in the row below:

It leaves a small hole in the fabric:

For the invisible decrease, the hook is put into the front loop of the following two stitches:

The yarn is pulled through and then through again as usual. The result is a decrease with less of a hole:

Aha.

Two More

I managed to tat two more ice drops after crocheting together one row of squares. I like the combination of green with another colour.

Diversion

Ice Drops make a pleasant diversion from crocheting squares together. They don't take long to tat, so I can stick to my schedule of crocheting but make something else too.