25-26.9.12 Little Button Loafers #2 by Sylvia Schuchardt

There are some crocheters that I admire, like Sylvia Schuchardt (Silver designs / hook candy) who can make such pretty designs so perfectly crocheted!

To fit a 5.2”L on 2”W foot (Eshchar’s actual feet size), which is about the 6.5 American size, I used a doubled thread with a 4 mm hook following size 3 (9M) of the instructions and working IN THE ROUND (!). The notes from my last project were quiet helpful but not sufficient. 

This time as well, in order to make the shoe center well adjusted, I had to make some adaptations as follow: 

Round 3 - skip the 4 sc in the beginning of round and crochet 8 sc at the end. 

Round 4 - instead of 20 hdc at beginning of round, crochet 16 hdc and then 14 instead of 10 in the end of the round.

For the soles sl-st loop part, I used the 5 mm hook.

Each shoe took me about 2 to 2.5 hrs.

Other helpful notes, can be found here, such as the tip to crochet all the 4 soles at once.

22.9.12 Super Easy Cloche Hat by Tara Murray (Mamachee)

For the adult size of this beautiful cloche hat, I used a doubled thread of Malaga yarn, 8mm hook for Rnd 1-7, 10mm hook for Rnd 8 till the end. Rnd 15-17 was crocheted with Berroco comfort chunky doubled thread. Then I skipped to last Rnds with the smallest brim.

I am not happy with my main color choice. It makes me look pale. Will need to find a lucky new owner. Maybe my small sis.

12-20.9.12 Trim Brim Beanie by Amanda Tipton

 

Normally, one afternoon would be enough to make this adorable hat, but since I had 6 failure trials at least, it took much more. Not to say that even when I thought I had it right, the last rows were too tight for Eshchar’s head, so I had to unpick the brim and make it over with a 10mm hook instead of a 8mm hook. 

Thanks to the kind and speedy response of Amanda, I could overcome most of the troubles I had. 

My two main mistakes in the beginning were the gauge and hooks size which came out too small with the yarn I have used. I gradually used a bigger hook and doubled the thread, till I finally arrived to 8mm and 10mm size hooks! 

Another mistake is that in Row 3, there is apparently an error in the instructions, saying “in next ch2 space” (instead of “in the same ch2 space). This is why I didn’t get any increase for so many trials. 

Finally, with the yarn I used, for a 2-4Y size (maybe it is even 24M), I did as follow: 

8mm hook with 11 sts in rows 1-2. 

10mm hook with 22 sts in rows 4-8, 44 sts in row 9, 12sts in row 10 up to row 13. Then sl-st all the rest of the hat, excluding the brim.

23.6-14.9.12 Solomon Knot Earrings for Li-or Birthday

It's been long that I admire Maggie Meister's Solomon's Knot Bracelet. In her last book, Classical Elegance, she offers the instructions for the Solomon's Knot Pendant, on pp. 72-76.

Li-Or has already enjoyed paging Maggie's book. I asked her what she would like me to bead for her birthday present I wanted to give her and she said she would love the Solomon knot.

Obviously, I had in mind earrings and started beading following the pendant instructions.

While arrived to the first oval half, I just gave up. Too much time, too big, not able to accomplish timely. 

So I tried to make an oval with a different beading technique and it was still too big for an earring, especially that Li-or head is relatively small. So I moved on and draw on a paper the size that seems to me the most to fit and followed it to make the following earrings.
The project was on hold till came the Jewish new year and I was again motivated to accomplish this pair. I started all over again and ended up with this design after about 5 beading hrs. I may interpret it wrongly but when I gave it to Li-Or, I was a bit disappointed since it didn't seem to be an exciting present for her :-( Oh well...

12.6-19.8.12 Vine / Bacchus Earrings by Maggie Meister

It took two months to bring myself complete these Vine earrings, but this is finally done.

The instructions can be found in Maggie Meister's Classical Elegance, pp.24-29.

The leaf design is wonderful!

I made a slight modification in the last part of the leaf instructions and had to unpick the 2nd grape to make one that will look similar enough to the 1st one. The grape freeform part wasn't so fun for me.

The colors I chose were a compromise since I didn't have in my stash reddish drop beads nor gold Delicas. Maybe this is why it took me so long to finish. Not my favorite combo.

17-19.8.12 Open Teardrop Earrings based on Diane Fitzgerald's design

Happy New Year!
שנת תשע"ג טובה ומתוקה

To fit a new blue dress with white dots, Omer helped me choose an earring design that would fit to. He had in mind triangles. We looked together in Diane Fitzgerald's Shaped Beadwork book. From the several options that could be relevant, we decided on the open teardrop rhombus (דלתון).

After an earring was done, I discovered the 11/0 Delica blue tone I had chosen was more going to the purple instead of to the grey. That is why I added grey embellishment hoping that it would give from some distance a more grayish-blue tone.

This is a very odd combination, I know. I hope it works  though.

The second earring I made contained two mistakes. One of them was that I considered all the points as an hexagon increase pattern instead of 3 hexagon points and 1 triangle one. Finally, I liked the curvature it formed and left the 1st earring to make a third one like the second one. Working on the teardrop brought me a therapeutic sense of feeling :-)

14-17.8.12 Zoe Earrings by Maggie Meister

I have recently encountered a Beadshop seller in my city wearing beautiful and very delicate earrings. I patiently waited her to be available for answering my question and asked "what are the earrings?" (probably badly asked...) "what do you mean" she said surprised. "Is this your design?" I asked hesitating. "Yes, it is". So, I added "They are beautiful and very delicate".  I went out the store and was a bit thoughtful. Coming back home I had a flash and immediately opened the last book by Maggie Meister. Zoe earrings. "Proper design of  the beadshop seller". She made a slight variation and took herself generously all the credit that comes to Maggie. 

It made me quiet cross for her dishonesty!

The earrings were so beautiful, I decided to make a pair as well.

The instructions appears in Maggie Meister's Classical Elegance, under the Zoe Earrings project, pp. 59-61.

Though they seem to differ in 4 ways from the picture shown in the book:

1 - the 15/0 beads fringe number, 

2 - apparently 15/0 Delica beads are used for the smaller square in the pictured earrings, whereas round ones are used in the written instructions, 

3 - decorations next to the join area between the squares, 

4 - the earwires hanging loop

The materials I used are: Japanese 15/0 and 11/0 seed beads, 4 mm Czech multicut beads and 5/16 mm Czech Daggers.

In the pair I made, there is a slight modification to Row 7 when embellishing the large square, which seems to be mistakenly omitted from the instructions (pick up 2 beads instead of one and then pick up 4 beads. In Row 8 insert one bead between the pair of beads from Row 7 etc...).

Hanging on a tree

Reminding me of Muslim Tiles

On the way taking pictures, look what I found:

Reflection on Amber