Russian Spiral With 8's

 Decided to make a new white necklace. I have a Russian Spiral I made some years ago and I wear it a lot. It's one of my favorites. Here's the new one.

Here's the old one. It's made with one color of size 8 seed beads in Miyuki Pearlized White and size 11 Miyuki Silver Lined Light Gold. Unfortunately, the light gold outside color came off leaving me with clear silver lined beads. I still love it though.

I used 3  colors in the new one. Miyuki Clear AB, Miyuki Opaque White, and Miyuki Pearlized Ceylon White, with a size 11 Miyuki Sparkle Metallic Gold Lined Crystal. 

Here's a close up so you can see the detail of the spiral.

I made a toggle clasp with a simple loop.

The rounds had 6 beads, so I attached the clasp by continuing the size 11's past the end by just a couple beads, so three lines coming to one. I also put a piece of wooden toothpick inside the toggle to stiffen it up. Otherwise, the toggle would be kind of bendy, despite my efforts toward tight tension..

I used 4 mm White AB Fire Polished crystals on the ends just to look pretty.

All in all, I think it turned out quite nice. I'll be wearing it a lot.

I had intended to do this post a few days ago, but I had problems. My little Sony Cybershot DSC-H3 is an old camera even though I just bought it this year. When I sat down to take pictures of the new necklace, I forgot to put the Smart card back into the camera. I'd been downloading pictures into my laptop a couple days before, and just forgot to put it back. After 14 pics, I got a message that said the internal memory was full. It was a surprise! I didn't even know it had internal memory. 

I put the card back in and took the rest of the pics. Later, when I took the card out to load them into my laptop, the first 14 pictures weren't on the card. Apparently, the camera can not transfer the internal pics onto the smart card. I need a rather large cable to hook the camera up to the computer and download them directly.  Arghh! I had that cable. I bought it special because it didn't come with my camera, though honestly, I didn't know what it was for. It was on the coffee table for months! Now that I need it, it's gone! Missing! Vamoosed! Astray! Disappeared!

Hubby and Ruth helped me ransack the house and the shop for 2 days and we did not find it. I can't, for the life of me, remember what I did with it, assuming I did something with it. I'm so careful with my camera equipment. I make sure any bits not being used go into the appointed camera storage place, except that cable being on the coffee table. When I saw it wasn't on the table, I automatically went to the file cabinet. It wasn't there. 

I've ordered another one. Thankfully, they are still available. It's supposed to arrive late next week. I expect the missing cable will appear right after I open the box for the new cable. In the meantime, I retook those 14 photos. I've also ordered more smart cards so I can swap out when downloading. Then it won't matter because I'll always have a card in the camera.

By the way, we own a LOT of black cables. USB cables, phone charging cables, tablet cables, computer cables. Dozens of them. Boxes of them! Three drawers full of them! Time to cull the herd and get rid of the ones we don't use anymore. Good grief!

We had a glorious rainy cool day last week! It knocked down the smoke, and was like a balm after several days of oppressive heat and solid air. It warmed back up yesterday, and today it's gonna be hot hot hot. Then it's back down to the 70's Monday. The smoke is building back up in the air. The lower temperatures will help the firefighters though. 

All my Learning links are updated. See the side bar, just above the knitting owl.

Sweet Hubby is teaching a class at the U of Idaho/Coeur d'Alene this semester. He'll be out of the house 3 times a week. I love him so much, but I also like to have a break every so often. He's home all. the. time. I shall enjoy this semester,

That's all for today.

Live long and prosper \\//

 

Updating the Learning Pages

 Just a  very short post. If you scroll down the side menu, you see a couple learning links. I've updated all the links in the beading page so they all work properly. I'll get to the knitting section soon.

Our area is completely socked in with smoke from both local and Canadian wild fires. It's blocking out the sun and closed the local freeway and highways. I'm trying not to get depressed. I'm taking Darth Vader's advice.

Live long and prosper. \\//

A Russian Necklace

 In my last post I talked about the necklace I'm making for the gal that works at the liquor store. I finished it last night. It's 30 inches long.

This is a close up of the chain. It's done in Biva Nepal stitch, though it probably doesn't look like it because Biva Nepal usually looks like a chain of flowers. 

It had been a very long time since I've made Biva Nepal, so I used this tutorial to refresh the memory: Biva Nepal Stitch  However, I made some substitutions to get this rather lacy look. For the three black seed beads, I used one white size 11 seed bead. For the 5 red beads I used 4 white size 11 seed beads and one 7mm clear silver lined bugle bead.

This is a close up of the transition between Biva Nepal and the focal section. I used 4mm and 6mm silver filigree beads, and a couple glass coin beads in an iridescent white.

The focal section is made in Russian Spiral stitch with size 11 white seed beads and 7mm clear silver lined bugle beads. You can find a video tutorial for this here: Russian Spiral With Bugles.

It was easy and worked up fairly quickly. The clasp is a sterling silver toggle. I used a couple clam shells to attach the clasp to the chains.

I'm happy with how it's turned out. I hope the receiver will be too.

If not, I'll wear it myself and find out what color she would like. I can make another one.

Live long and prosper. \\//

FO And WIPs

 I've finished and framed my knitting sampler. It's hanging in my kitchen now.

I could have sworn I found the pattern on Etsy, but I didn't. It's on the October House Fiber Arts web site and it's called A Knitters Sampler. The original is in 4 shades of red, but I did purple, of course. It was a nice easy, quick project to do after all those months of the bicycle.

I got the frame and mat from frameiteasy.com. I used to get them from another online shop, but they were bought out by another company and I had a very bad experience afterwards. Frame It Easy is awesome.

Now a couple WIPs. I started a beading project. I was wearing one of my necklaces when I stopped at the liquor store a few months ago. The clerk loved it and asked lots of questions after I told her I'd made it. I ended up telling her I'd make her one. Well, then the whole business of Sue getting cancer and dying happened, and I forgot about it. I remembered it a few weeks ago, so I popped into the liquor store to talk to her about it because I could not remember which necklace I was wearing. Thankfully, she remembered I'd said something about Russian Spirals, and I remembered what it was. Hurray!

It was a necklace where I'd done a Russian Spiral in purple bugle beads for the focal, and the chain was Biva Nepal stitch. I remember it was a pattern in a beading magazine, but it's been a long time (I made it in 2006) so I can't remember which one. Anyway, I finally got her necklace started. I'm going with white and silver this time. I forgot how much fun spirals are to make.

Next WIP is a pair of mittens I'm making for KnitWits. I've got one little thumb left to do.

I did the first thumb this morning at the Yarnies meeting. Took me the whole two hours. You'd think I'd never made a thumb before. 

We had a wonderful weather day yesterday. It rained, almost the whole day, and it was nice and cool. I opened all the doors to air out the house. The air outside smelled so good, like wet happy green plant life. Knocked all the smoke out of the air, and helped firefighters working on the wild fires. The 90's will be back this next weekend. It was nice to have a little break from it.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Layette Set No. 60

A couple of months or so ago I was at Joann's looking for something (I forget what) and came across some bee buttons. They were so cute I had to get them. Well, then I need fleece with bees on it, and some yellow and black yarn. I made The Bee Set.

The Hoody

Pattern: Bee Hoody by Me (Not available)

Size: 3-6 months

Yarn: Big Twist Value by Joann's
Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Pale Yellow

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft
Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Black

Yarn: Red Heart Classic
Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Saffron

Needles: Circular size 6 and 7

Started: June 5, 2023
Finished: July 22, 20223

Comments: I wanted to make a cardigan with a hood, instead of the usual cardigan and matching hat. I watched the bees visiting my flowers in the yard to get an idea for the stripes. We have at least a dozen different bee species living around here, from very large to very tiny. Some are very aggressive, and others don't even have stingers. It's fun watching them buzzing around gathering nectar and pollen.

The buttons that started it all.

I put a couple antennae on top. Just a couple i-cords sewed on. I wish I had a model to put this on. You could see the antennae better.

The Booties

Pattern: Seamless Garter Tassel Booties by Karen Strauss

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft

Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Black

Size: 6 months

Needles: Circular size 7

Started: July 24, 2023
Finished: July 27, 20223

Comments: I actually knit this as the pattern is written. I had 2 buttons left over from the cardigan, so I put them on the booties instead of tassels.

The Blanket

Pattern: Shell Stitch Edging

Size: 30 by 36 inches

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft
Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Black

Hook: Size G

Started: July 1, 2023
Finished: July 1, 2023

I like how it came out. I plan to write the pattern for the hoody.

Fire season has begun. One started east of us yesterday near Hayden Creek. Today two fires have started in Post Falls on the south side of Spokane River, and one started in Coeur d' Alene near 4th and I-90. There's also one that started a few days ago just a bit northwest of us. Authorities are speculating there might be an arsonist running around setting them because we haven't had any natural events, like lightening, to start them. It's pretty scary. I hope they don't decide to start one on the Parkarosa. It's super dry and it's been in the 90's all week. Doesn't take much for a fire to get out of control in these conditions.

A fire started in Rathdrum last Sunday in the brush beside the railroad tracks behind Bi-Mart. We drove by it just as it had started and I could not believe how fast that fire grew. Fortunately, people immediately started running toward it and worked to put it out. The fire department showed up very quickly and it was dead within a couple hours.

Which reminds me, we had a small structure fire in Lakeland High School yesterday too. I've never seen so many firemen in one place before (they were all gathered in the parking lot). They got it out quickly. I guess it was started by faulty equipment or something of that nature.

My biggest fear is a fire starting on our place. We have rain in our forecast for the weekend. I hope it happens cuz we really need it. We could do with a day or two of cooler air too. 

I worked on the new cross stitch, Flamingos, all week. On Sunday I worked on it for a few hours, only to discover I'd used the wrong shade of pink. There are two symbols: \ and /. I didn't notice and did both symbols in one pink. Took me just as long to frog as it took to stitch it in the first place. I have now colored all the squares with one of the slant lines in pink colored pencil so I can tell them apart. There's two other similar symbols, < and >. I should color one of those too.

Now I was worried I wouldn't have enough of that pink because it was so hard to get it out without it shredding and they only give so much in a kit, so I hauled myself to Joann's and found the matching DMC color. Yay! Now I've got a whole skein of it, so no worries.

Live long and prosper. \\//