In the photo above, the top part is a selection of the beaded earrings I've made. These are basically just the ones I wear on a regular basis. The black ones are an authorised Margie ripoff, and that bright pink mess is actually a pair of paper crane earrings. As you can see, I'm a big fan of making Camper inspired twin earrings. I'm definitely a Small Earring Person; therefore, the larger and more interesting earrings I've made I've tended to give away. Especially since my brother realised that getting me to make earrings was cheaper than buying birthday presents...Below this on the left are the earrings and pendant I made at my jewellery class. The pendant was made by sawing a tree shape out of silver and then soldering on copper leaves and riveting on the red acryllic leaf at the top. The earrings have holes drilled and lines sawed from them. Although you can't really see it in this dodgy photo.
The pendant on the right I made by covering a shell pendant with Japanese yuzen/chiyogami (what is the difference can anyone tell me?) paper and then lacquering it. People often think I've hand painted it myself. Sometimes I think I should just smile and nod.
The photo above shows the necklaces I've made recently. I'm not sure if I can really claim much credit for these, because I'm not sure how much skill there really is in just picking some pretty beads and tying them on to some string. I guess I could say that about most of my earrings too though. The top three necklaces came from beads I bought at the bead expo, which I found a bit daunting, because everything came in such large quantities. I'm particularly happy with the Venetian glass beads - they're so bright and colourful and can be dressed up and down.
The pink flower pendant and the Chinese lady were mega bargains. I saw pendants just like this being sold at Wish (?) for about $90 each. I found these ones at Lizards on the Fridge (I love that shop) as keyrings for $5. Nice one. Ok, I really can't claim credit for just hanging them on a bit of wire, but come on. Such an incredible bargain justifies inclusion.
At the bottom of this photo are my works-in-progress. On the left is a hollow-form silver ring that needs a lot of sanding (as you can see) to make the front and back level with the sides. And also to make it a little bit less deadly. At the moment it would be quite a good choice for exploring dark alleys with.
On the right is a tenor clef I cut from acryllic and plan to make into a brooch. I was in a very bad mood when I sawed it, and so it's actually quite dodgy. Hence I am spending a lot of time chasing my mistakes with the file. It might work out, or I might just have to start again.
The photo on the left is a big fruit bowl I made as a wedding gift for my friend Sasha and her husband Tim. The quote is from Mother Teresa, and I painted it at the Union Studio, which doesn't exist anymore, thankYOU very much voluntary student unionism. It actually wasn't meant to bloom pink like this - something weird happened in the kiln. But I kind of like it like this, so I guess it worked out ok.
These are my first knitted projects. The very first was the green scarf. I made this from some cheap Lincraft mohair using massive massive massive needles and a double strand of wool. About a month after I made it, I saw one just like it in a Melbourne shop, very expensive and with a label saying ' imported from Italy'. Heh. It was definitely a good (forgiving) beginner's project, although having recently taught a friend to knit, I might recommend making something (a scarf) that will be felted, because then you really can learn through your mistakes without them showing.The hat is a Carla beret Margie helped me make - it was good for teaching me how to increase and decrease, and introduced me to double points and circular knitting needles. And convinced me that sometimes I am a hat-person after all.
The colourful scarf is a My So Called Scarf which I made (as directed) from beautiful (but expensive) Manos del Uruguay wool, made by women's collectives, in, you guessed it, Uruguay. It's a nice simple repetitive stitch, basically variations on purl and plain, but you end up with something a little more interesting. I also made one of these for Tom-ace in brown-tones, which I knit on a circular needle lengthwise. I would recommend doing it this way as the skein change is hidden much better, and you get built in tassels. Mine is curling a lot and I'm thinking about ironing it.
This is my Branching Out scarf. I made it from some rust coloured Bendigo wool, as a thankyou present for my Honours supervisor. And unfortunatly the 'sweater curse' well and truly came into play. Anyway. I'm planning to make another of these for my mum, when she chooses what colour she wants.It was definitely hard work making this scarf, and took me a long time. Every time I made a mistake I had to frog it a long way to find a place I was sure about. I seem to remember it took me a fair while to get started because I was doing purl like knit into the back of the stitch. der.
It was definitely named well though, because it was a great way to move beyond purl and plain, and to get thoroughly familiar with a broader range of the more common stitches. It took a fair bit of patience, but I really learned a lot from this one, and felt proud of the results because it looks pretty fancy for a beginner knitter.
Finally, this is my felted bag. I made it with hand spun and dyed wool from the Spinner and Weavers guild - that's why there is variation in the colour and it's kind of lumpy. I'm really happy with the appliqued leaves, but you're lucky you can't see the underside, because I am not a good sewer. Sew-er. Uh oh. How on earth do you spell a person who sews? That just looks oh so wrong.Sorry about all the average photos everyone - I thought I'd been doing pretty well until now, but these ones are a bit manky. Well, you get the idea anyway.
Congratulations to any boys who've made it to the end of this post (Sam, I'm looking at you). Feel free to post comments about socks, cars... whatever boys find interesting. =)
3 comments:
So I removed the crank arms on my commuter road bike and replaced the front chainring with a 42 tooth, then I put a 15 tooth fixed cog at the back and had to shorten the chain to get the right tension. I haven't taken it for a spin yet but it seems like it will be a good all-purpose ratio.
Was that boy-nerdy enough for you?
Is that on the Peugeot Tom? Or were you just making up random boy-speak for fun? Nice list Emily... When you put things all together like that it is all rather impressive!
Yes, that was the Peugeot, and it was all true - although I tried very hard to make it sound like random boy-speak, just for fun!
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