My quilt is done and the bead tray is almost empty ready for new-ness!

Remember this quilt?

Well it is done. And, I didn't even have to holler Moooooooooooooooommmmmmm! Fix this.

That is a resolution, resolved :)

Here is the finished product...

And here are few highlights from the embroidered blocks. 

This was before he went to Trader Vic's...

And a One Eyed, One Horned, Flying purple people eater

And a witch and a ghoul...

I also finished my OTTBS entry for January, granted it's late, but I did finish it, and got to use some triangle beads that I've had in my stash since 2007 :) and those o-rings that I abslutely had to have...and alot of other beads. 

This is from the December 11/Jan 12 issue of beadwork.  The pattern is called Beaded Bubbles by Ann Gilbert.  There is a note in the corner of the page regarding tension.  It is absolutely true.  ANY tension makes the components hump up in the middle.  I stretched the O-rings themelves and got them to flatten out a bit, but your mileage may vary. 

And...after looking at the photos, I seem to have forgotten the all-important clasp. Crap-tastic.

Also, I'd like to introduce you to my model, Onslow, the blue lobster...

This is a great pattern.  It almost makes brick stitch pleasant, and it makes me wonder what else I could do with this stitch.  I'm starting to thing the mark of a good pattern isn't what you make with the pattern, but what you make in the future with what you learned from it.

I also found time to make some Peruvian String Earrings. These are super, super, simple.  If you can make a basic coil, do a simple wrapped wire loop and wrap some thread around stuff, yu can make these. And they look friggin awesome!!!!

These are actually neon pink, orange, and yellow.  They remind me of this picture of a ship that my parents used to have hanging in their living room. 

I used the tutorial found here.  I used embroidery floss, whose 6-strand skeins I split, then split the 6 strings into (I think) 4 smaller threads-I did use metallic sewing thread to great success on another pair. I used 24g wire for the coils and 18g wire for the frame.  Other supplies were a piece of 14 g wire that I used as a coiling mandrel, clear nail polish, wire cutters, and pliers as necessary.

Yay! for productive weekends!!!!



And there was that sporting event...right? :)

Resolution!

I think I may be on the way to keeping some resolutions

I studied and passed my PE exam!

I'm doing pretty well with the nose booping!

I'm not doing very well with the de-stashing, but since I've joined Operation Tackle That Bead Stash, I think I might see change on the horizon!

and two of my in-progress quilts are finished! My mom finished quilting the star quilt that I pieced-There are pics of the top here-I have photos of the quilt proper somewhere, but not here :(

Also, I pieced and quilted this one in quarters, but when it came to connecting the pieces, I gave up. I tried and tried and they just looked sloppy-so the obvious thing to do was...MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooom! Can you fix this? And she did. And it's perfect :)



I reckon after a washing, alot of the puckering will go away, but I'm so happy and I truly hope my bestest friend will like it. She likes Scooby Doo and the color pink, so she SHOULD.


Anyway, thats two finished out of five, so now I can start eleventy-three more? Right?

Also, I'm not getting any taller...

New Stuff!

I may be a glutton for punishment...

My mom asked me if I wanted to try my hand at piecing a quilt top for her. It was the least I could do since she quilted my top for me. I said I would give it a go. It took me 10 hours on Saturday to complete a single block. OM-friggin-G. Why did I do this to myself? Anyone?

Although, it is a pretty bitchin block...It is aptly called Storm at Sea



This a quarter of another in progress. All the major stuff is done, I just need to join the four quarters and its ready for a new home...



This is a cuff that I finished beading Saturday after I became thoroughly frustrated with the Storm. It isn't finished, as it isn't backed and is just kinda sitting there on the felt stabilizer, but it is very nearly done.

It uses about a billion (actually about 20) different seed beads including 15/o, 11/o, delicas, Toho treasures, cubes, triangles, hex cuts, etc...

The focal is a Magic the Gathering resin cab I made. Don't ask what card it used to be, because I haven't the foggiest.


There are also labradorite rectangles and 4 cubic zirconia stones. The CZ came from a friend of my mother's who was cleaning out some of her stuff. Apparently she used to sell jewelry, and asked my mom if I knew anyone who made jewelry. My mom mentioned me and now I have a sack full of CZ, imitation sapphire, ruby, emerald, etc. in little brown envelopes. I'll post more thoroughly about those in the future.


This is a bracelet I made while playing around with RAW. I can't remember where the inspiration came from as I printed it out a long long time ago, but the final result differs significantly from the inspo.


This one was a bit of a pain in the ass, as it were. I don't do RAW regularly, so it was good to stretch my boundaries.


I like the colors, they are so vibrant and summerlike, but I'm not sure how I feel about the bracelet. Well, it was an excercise, and I accomplished what I set out to do, which was to play with RAW.

I wish I would run out of thread...

How often will you hear that come out of a beader's mouth (or any needle and thread kind of person's mouth)?

I like the quilt I'm working on, but I just kinda want to be done with it...I can't just put it aside. I need to finish it!! Why? Because I may have bought fabric for two more...And because I just, well, I just can't concentrate on my beads.

I started a bracelet, but I didn't enjoy it, so I listlessly dropped it back into the beading kit and said meh.

I need something to kick start my beading.

I've also been sadly, sorely, neglecting my poor little blog (and my bloggy friends!) Quilting is just so friggin slow! I can show you the 3 or 4 blocks I've finished since the last post, but they kinda look like the ones in the last post...

I secretly hope I wil run out of the thread I'm using to quilt this quilt. It's glow-in-the dark and I have only found it at Joann's and there isn't one near me.

If I run out of thread, I can start something else, right? :)

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at trader vic's

His hair was perfect.

The same could mot be said about mine. I tried out a new conditioner, Loreal's new Everstrong Hydrating sulfate free conditioner, to be precise. The shampoo is great. The conditioner turned my hair into a bird's nest. Half a bottle of detangler later...

Anyway.

I haven't heard anything else about the situation in my previous email. We've recovered 230k of the 480k I had miscalculated. It's something...

Today I'm posting pictures of my quilt so far. I've pieced all but one of the star blocks and quilted a "filler" block. I've quilted 4 of the stars as well.

What do you think?

Marvin had to investigate...He has recently decided that if I'm doing something, he should be sitting in the middle of it. It's very difficult to turn pages in books with a catbutt in the way...If I have a quilt block in the hoop, he feels the need to curl up on it if I set it down somewhere.


I'm thinking of filling the filler blocks with different Hallowe'eny type song lyrics. Or just weird lyrics. Or maybe some Hallowe'en clip art outlines. My backstitching needs some work, but I like it (and it glows in the dark)


This is the back of one of the quilted star blocks. My quilting stitches need more practice to be more even, but I have lots of blocks to go to perfect them.


No beading this week-I just haven't had time. But I really feel like I'm getting somewhere with the PE preparation. I finished a whole book of practise problems that was put out by the same people who administer the test. Out of the 80 questions therein, I missed 16, but I have learned why I missed those 16, and can now correctly solve them. I'm also nearly halfway through another study guide, which had thousands of problems in it.

I have to keep asking myself, did I know all this stuff at one point? Holy Crap I've forgotten a LOT.

I promised pictures!

I'm making good on my promise to provide pictures of what I've been working on.

Ok, I'm not posting pictures of the quilt I'm working on yet, that will get its own post once I get all the blocks pieced. (7 down, 5 to go :) ) This is totally one of my New Years Resoutions! However...however.... How am I supposed to not try this technique...


This is called Lost in the Stars by bruceseeds on Etsy. If someone wanted to buy me one of these, I could keep my resolution and not try making one...nah, I'd still want to make one.

I've been drooling over these quilts for like 2 days. It is shear resolve and lack of rotary cutter in my luggage that I'm not scrambling for the fabric store right this second.

I've done some beading from my new teeny tiny stash.

First, the wood knocker ring. I'm not happy with this ring. It's too big and just seems wrong somehow. I've seen this style done by others and it looks great. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but 1997 class ring is all its saying.

I think It may retire to the land of lessons learned until I find a better method.


The Husbeast picked out these beads at the bead store. He thought they were pretty, and they are. (Isn't it nice to have an enabler who picks up things and puts them into your basket?) These pictures show a dark forest-y green, but the beads are much less dark in real life, and they are transparent, so the light play adds to the interest.


I used my secret (even to me) car stash of Czech 11/0s in a nice green-y green. I used herringbone stitch to create spacers and used a few Japanese 11/0s in a matte semi ab gray. The beads themselves seem to be green, frosted with an AB semi-stardust finish with cuts to show the green core. I finished t off with a toggle (that actually toggles!)


The third piece I made is a bracelet from the new Super Beadwork quick and easy section. I used silver 15/0s, AB black Tohos Treasures, Hematite Japanese 11/0s, 8/0 AB Black seeds, Adventurine 4mm rounds, and Chinese half AB adventurine funny shaped thingies (rondelles?)

It is basically a three strand strung bracelet with a fancy toggle. I do NOT recommend using the toggle ring pattern from the magazine. I have a good toggle ring pattern I like, and should have used. Trying to "zip" the damned thing together, I popped like 4 beads in the ring. If you do use the pattern as per the mag, start with a row using treasures, then do all the 15/0s, then finish with the bigger beads. It is easier to zip the outside than the inside. Shame on me for not thinking about it until it was too late...

I do like the bracelet. The pale grey-green against the oily AB just makes it really special. I bought another strang of the crystals in a dusty blue and may make another one. Maybe I'll do something else with them. I don't know yet.


Well, that's all for now kids. See you next time :)

Hiatus?

I've relocated! I'm on a project in South Carolina for the next two months or so, which is quite awesome as I've missed nearly all of the snow, ice, and general ick of a northern winter. I'm not bragging, but it is sunny and 60F outside right now. Lucky me :)

On this trip I brought all my study materials for my PE test, and have really been studying hard! I have also come to the realization that I didn't care for structural analysis in college, and I really don't care for it now, especially since I have forgotten nearly everything I had learned. Blah. The ther disciplines are coming back to me including Geo-technical engineering, water resources, fluid mechanics, construction topics, and transportation engineering(you know, where we make up fun ways to screw up your commute?) But structural analysis continues to taunt me. And so I study. and study, and study...

I brought NO BEADS with me on this trip. Smart or silly, we all knew that wouldn't last...Especially since there is a Hobby Lobby and a real live bead store within 5 minutes of my hotel. And we don't work on Saturdays. Heh...I have a very small stash now...really, absolutely tiny :)

You see, I'm always knocking on wood, or looking for wood to knock on. I've decided I should make a ring with a wooden focal so I always have something to knock on. I now need to figure out a decent ring pattern though. If anyone has a pattern or tutorial, I'd be especially glad of it. I'd even send them a wood knocker ring of their own...Really I had to buy beads. I had no choice...

I was smart enough to bring something crafty with me though. I brought my Ohio star Hallowe'en quilt with me. I have pieced 7 blocks and am working on number 8. I also have one of them quilted (with glow-in-the-dark thread)

I promise to post some pictures sooner than later of my goings on!

I'm still out here...somewhere...

Work has been absolutely nuts lately! I've quite literally been burning the midnight oil...seriously I was up til 1145 last night working on this:


This is an Autocad drawing of an area of our marsh. These take between 2-3 hours to complete, depending on whether the contour drawing program decides to work correctly(it didn't yesterday) and keep track of 30 large pieces of earthmoving equipment, and who is in them, and what they did, are doing, and will be doing tomorrow. And keep our dirt moving far enough ahead of the planters...and make sure the surveyors are on track. And play with the cat-beast.

I take pride in creating these drawings. I really think they are beautiful when they are done. :)


I have spent a moment here and there doing crafty things. For example, I made another necklace for a co-worker, in the colors of his football team. And then I wire-wrapped a shark's tooth and applied it to a necklace for our superintentant whilst doing laundry the other day.

I also made one of two Cubeys from a kit by Charlene over at More than Somewhat. She does awesome beadwork, let me tell you!

I have also scrounged up a few moments here and there to start sewing things together and making a few of these


They will eventually meet up with their friends and become a quilt. Hand piecing gives me a small sense of pride. This one I plan to do mostly by hand. Hand cut, hand pieced, hand quilted. I think it will be handy :) And the corners may not match up exactly. I think that is more due to cutting than sewing, though.



Also, I heart Hallowe'en fabrics with spiders with googly eyes. Especially if the fabric includes glitter.


Really, I am a sucker for glitter and spiders. They were in my centerpieces at my wedding last Hallowe'en.


And on the tables


I think one or two ended up in my grandma's hair by the end of the evening:)

Quilting

I finished piecing a quilt top recently, and it has gone off to live with my mother, because she quilts things. And I don't.

Here are a few pics before it went off...

It'a a star pattern with a partial star inside each arm

I'm willing to bet that this one would have been the perfect quilt to try the fancy "quilt as you go" technique, but I didn't learn of that until after it had been completely assembled. Not so 'to go', when your quilt is like 7.5' square...