What's New?

Sorry to have been away for so long - life keeps getting in the way of letting me do want I want to do right now. 

But I have finished a few projects to share with you.  A few weeks ago my friends got together to celebrate the birthday of my good friend, Marilyn.  She is one of my best and oldest (not in age, but in years we have known one another) friends.  We go back to the "good days" at Siemens, when it was actually fun to work there and the company was still located in Walnut Creek. 

I love to make gifts for Marilyn because we love the same colors and we like the same style in our artsy-fartsy way.  So here is a look at the gifts I made for her this year.  First up is a coffee cup cuff made of different purple batik fabrics.  It is quilted and then decorated with fuschia rat tail cord and light teal fabric.This "personal coffee cup cuff" is a great gift for anyone who likes to stop and pick up coffee at Starbucks, Peet's or Seattle's Best.  The pattern was made by deconstructing a cardboard cuff from Peet's. There are 2 layers of lightweight fusible pellon batting in the middle.

The second gift was a crocheted bead bracelet in shades of teal.  I am still working on paring down my bead collection, but I ended up having to buy a few more beads in different shades of teal to finish this project.  I know that some of you are crocheteres, so I am going to provide you with directions to make a bracelet like this.

The finished bracelet was 7 1/2" long before sewing the ends together. These are the supplies needed to make a bracelet like this.
15 yards of size 10 Perle cotton
60 each of size 6 glass beads in however many different colors you want - I used 6 different colors
Size 7 steel crochet hook
Wire beading needle
Tapestry needle

DIRECTIONS:  Thread the beading needle with the Perle cotton.  Sort beads and place each color in a separate dish.  You will need to determine an order that is pleasing to your eye and string beads in that order.  The smaller the number of different beads (say, 5 different beads versus 6 or 7 different beads), the smaller the diameter of your bracelet will be.  I used 6 different beads for this bracelet.  They were strung in order - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on - until all beads were used up.

Now, take your crochet hook, and beginning with the last bead you strung (#6), chain 7 and join with a slip stitch to form a ring.  make sure you leave a tail of Perle cotton that is at least 6".
ROUND 1 - * Slide a bead next to work, single crochet in next chain (bead will be on right side of your hook). Repeat from * 5 times. Do not turn or join your rounds, you will continue to work into the next stitch and the beads will spiral on the outside of your work.
ROUND 2 - *Slide a bead next to work, insert hook under the thread that comes out from the left side of the next bead, make a single crocket. As you look down onto the work in your hand, this new bead will be to the left side of the same color bead in the row below. Make sure that you do not make a single crochet in the single crochet of the row below, but ensure that you are making your single crochet under the thread that is coming out of the right side of the bead.  Repeat from * around the rest of that row, until you have a  #6 color bead ready to crochet once again.

Repeat the last round until you have used all the beads, or until the bracelet is the desired length. Cut excess thread, leaving a tail of 12" or so, and pull the thread through the last stitch on your hook.  This will fasten off your last stitch.  Thread the end of this thread into a tapestry needle.  Bring the ends of the bracelet together and turn the ends of the bracelet so that the spirals line up. Sew the 2 ends together,  making sure that you maintain the integrity of the design. Run the extra thread through the center of the bracelet (the "tube") and pull the needle back out to the outstide.  Place a drop of clear nail polish on the thread where it exits the tube, and let dry.  Repeat with the other length of thread from the beginning of the bracelet.  When both drops of nail polish are dry, cut thread as close a possible to the bracelet.

Off to help my daughter study for her SAT exam next week. And finish sewing the binding on the quilt that I gave you a sneak peek of last time - yes, I finished quilting it but forgot to take pictures of the quilting process as I promised.  Will share machine quilting with you in the future!  And I am going to try my hand at dyeing some llama fiber with Easter egg dyes - won't that be a riot?  Stay tuned for a llama update, and you might want to listen to the llama song, at least once!