shruggery 1

so i made my first shrug for the year last weekend. I did a modified crochet drop stitch and it worked up thick and fuzzy and fantastically warm.

I fell in love with the yarns colorway. I didn't buy it thinking about a shrug. i bought it thinking "OH. pretty." so when i sat down to work away, i was thinking hat, or maybe scarf. But then i thought i would have just enough to do a simple shrug with cap length sleeves.

and so i started to crochet. with hope, and joy and lots of thoughts about how pretty the yarn was. which is probably the best way to crochet. and in just about an hour and a half, i had a shrug. It was longer than i expected, running from elbow to elbow.



I finished it with perfect timing, as i found myself in sudden need of a sweater, and the shrug kept me from freezing until we could leave.



i love the colors because this is pretty much what my hair looks like. highlighted with purple and blue and darker blue and i love it. so its awesome that my shrug matches.

beginning to look a lot like jewellery

today i got to lay out everything i've done this week and just look at it all.
i had 3 necklaces, 2 pendants, 4 pairs of earrings and one ring. which is pretty great for grabbing a couple minutes a day here and there.

i spent most of my beading time this week working on peices for my first collection. which has been a scary thing to contemplate. but i had this idea, and i just wanted to make a sweet little group of elegant, lovely peices, all themed around the idea of fairie wings.



i leaned towards demure, velvet-y, pastel tones that make me think of spring time, the first blush of growth and butteflies. i'm working out of my color groove by pairing them with mixed metals and brilliant gold toned chains.



then the fairie wings come in. i used a fantastic tutorial that i found over on craftster to put them together. I grabbed some amazing butterfly stickers and used them instead of plain paper as the backing for the wings, ending up with elegant little fairie wings.



the collection is about halfway done, with 5 peices made for it already, some will be sold by them selves, but others will be available in sets. when the collection is finished, i'll replicate my most popular item from it, and the other designs will be retired.

fantastic not friday features

so as i was soundly beaten by bloggers picture inserting thing, and forgot that there was a preview button. what i got was a post with pictures, but the text was not where i wanted it and defeated, i deleted.

but i'm back with a html cheat sheet, some resized images and now this should work.

when i got to etsy and the ring section, i was a little blown away. there are 19 sections of rings. so with my eyes the size of tea cups i went a little crazy. i have five amazing rings for ya'll to look at, and my are they pretty.

this ring expanded my horizons. when i thought ring, i never thought crocheted or fiber would ever be involved. check out the full view to see an amazing creation over on etsy



this ring was more of what i was expecting to feauture. I love the idea of casting twigs and making jewellery out of nature. and a rose twig ring is awesomely romantic. see the whole ring in its knobby natural beauty.



this ring was also not something i would have thought of. silk and silver just didn't seem right when it came to rings. but this ruffled delight is awesome. just look at it, don't you want one?



i don't like yellow. i don't. but i want this ring. i want one for ever finger and one of every toe. this ring is adorable. its made of felt and acrylic, and screams summer and flight.


this is a bit more what i was thinking i'd be showing, a fantastic wire wrapped ring. its so steampunk it looks like it crawled off a switch board and wrapped itself around your finger. check the whole thing out


so for my first set of features i learned that my preconceptions about rings were ... definitly wrong. and i'm pretty pleased by it. next week i'm gonna keep expanding my conceptions by trying to feature 5 wire wrapped rings, from simple to complex.


all images belong to original owners, they are reposted here in admiration only.