Monday, January 28, 2013

Design Immersion

When friends start to ask if I am ok, I know I've been away too long.  Thanks for standing by.  I gave myself a week of design immersion and have made great headway in the beading for the third book, The Bead Within.  I also got proofs for Beads in Motion which will be released on August of this year and is already available for pre-order.

It would seem that with each book there are things to be improved on, and I am Over the Moon (I love that British expression) with the pieces that are coming to life for this third book.

Last week I beaded day and night with some exercise and one outing thrown into the mix, so on Sunday I gave myself the day off, and made great progress on Malayna's newest knit, the Blue Sky Alpaca Lace Baby dress.  For the record the cast on was 549 stitches and 7 rows of knitting before a decrease to 275!



I of course stopped to make myself some pretty stitch markers because I do after all appreciate nice tools.  Speaking of which....

On Saturday, my one outing, I stopped by a trunk show at the Grove to see the beautiful shawl pins, made by Larry with enthusiastic appreciation from wife Claudia.  They are indeed beautifully crafted, light weight, and have a turned stick so they don't slide out of your shawl, which of course if brilliant as I have lost far too many shawl pins that way.  These are ones you will not want to lose.

Larry, being the multi talented guy he is, took up another of Claudia's challenges....a needle case to fit over those fragile circular needles we use for sock knitting.  He came up with the clever design you see here....yes Lisa, you definitely need this!  It  holds up to two size 8 needles and not only protects your needles, but keeps the stitches on the needles.   You can see mine in use on Malayna's dress.

To add to this talented duo, Claudia is an accomplished knitter with several beautiful yet simple knits you can find in her Etsy shop.  The stitches for casting on in the round and the join are already done for you!  Now that is customer service.  So if you have been intimidated by knitting in the round, this is a site you want to check out!

1 comment:

NEDbeads said...

I can't WAIT to see the projects for your new book!! And that Etsy shop is just amazing - I read over what they included in their kits and it's incredible that they can keep their prices so low! GORGEOUS shawl pins!! Makes me wish I could knit!