Before I move home to the States, I'm going to visit my host family up in Osaka. They very generously housed me for 4 months during my semester abroad, and they're fabulous. I've decided to crochet them all hats, which is no small undertaking considering there are ten of them between mom, dad, grandma, my host brother's family, and my host sister's family.
And yet, it's not an unreasonable task. In three days I've already completed five hats. In a mere 16 rounds I can make a whole hat. Try knitting a hat in 16 rounds; the yarn would have to be damn chunky and the needles like tree branches, and it would probably end up looking like a big clunky mess anyway.
Crochet also seems to lend itself to designing at a much earlier experience level than knitting. I've been knitting for years, but I only learned how to crochet back in college when some friends taught me how to make a basic single-crochet beanie, and I didn't expand on that knowledge until after moving to Japan. I consider myself to be at the advanced beginner/kinda-sorta intermediate level, and yet I've already created my own hat pattern which lends itself to several variations. Perhaps this also ties into the time involved: even if you mess up, it doesn't take long to rip it out and recover that lost ground. On the other hand, I have some arm warmers that I've been designing for over a year now just because I can't be bothered to restart them AGAIN.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Busy, busy, busy
I'm moving back to the States in a little over a month, so I haven't really had time to make things lately since I've been trying to dismantle my house and figure out how much I can feasibly take home, craft-related and otherwise. There are several FOs I packed up but haven't taken pictures of yet, so you can look forward to those making an appearance some time in August.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
A reply to Random Thought 6/12
On the other hand, I love it when an idea I've been kicking around in my head for a while ends up looking as cool as I hoped it would.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
What was that about "instant gratification"?
I saw a tutorial on Craftster for a beaded bangle and posted my interest in it at 7:40pm. I then dug two cheap, tarnished Claire's bangles out of the trash (not as gross as it sounds, the bag was only jewelry waste from the other night), bummed around Craftster a bit more, made some posts, and at 9:50pm I already have a new beaded bangle. Photos later.
As promised, a necklace.
Actually, make that plural. Necklaces. I think what appeals so much to me about beading is the speed with which projects can be completed. As I mentioned in my knitting heresy post, I'm really big on instant gratification, so the ability to finish a project in a night and wear it the next day makes it very appealing.
I made an illusion necklace while in the throes of sickness the other day.
It took longer than it probably should have, but I'm pretty out of practice with beading to begin with. Pair that with the not feeling so hot and it's not surprising that I had to redo it a few times, mostly because the cord got all crimpy and didn't look right. As it is, there's an odd crinkle in the final product, but it wasn't significant enough to make me want to redo it again.
All the beads came from the pallets I bought on clearance, and the clasp came from my pilfering the other night.
Now, as for what I was talking about last night (which was actually very early this morning by the time I posted it), I wanted to attempt making a pair of cherry earrings. I already had hooks up the wazoo, so I hit the craft store for jewelry findings (clasps, crimp tubes, etc.) and beads to use for the leaves and stems since nothing in the pallets really matched. Upon returning home and starting plan A, I discovered that there weren't enough red beads to make two sets of cherries. "Ok, plan B, let's make more fruit and make a necklace out of it!" After spending about two episodes worth of Mythbusters trying to make a mikan that actually LOOKED like a blasted mikan, I tried googling patterns for fruit charms to no avail. Then plan C hit: I would use the cherry pendant as the centerpiece, then link beaded kyu-pins (I'm not sure what they're called in English, but in Japanese they're named because they look like the number 9) to make the rest of the necklace.
I futzed with a few different combos before deciding on the green/blue/silver/clear color scheme. The bead pins are symmetrical up each side, but none of the patterns per side are duplicates. It had the world's tiniest, most obnoxious spring-ring clasp on it when I wore it today but replaced it with the much-easier-to-manage toggle clasp after work.
Here's a closeup of the cherries, I tried to get a shot of the beads up the side but was once again thwarted by my lack of camera talent, they all came out blurry. I may post a tutorial for the cherry charm later on, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out considering I just winged it and figured it out. I knew how to make "bead balls", and after that the stems were pretty much basic bead stringing.
I wrote up a tutorial and posted it on Craftster; I'll add it here with photos at some point in time that isn't when I'm sleepy and in need of a shower.
I made an illusion necklace while in the throes of sickness the other day.
It took longer than it probably should have, but I'm pretty out of practice with beading to begin with. Pair that with the not feeling so hot and it's not surprising that I had to redo it a few times, mostly because the cord got all crimpy and didn't look right. As it is, there's an odd crinkle in the final product, but it wasn't significant enough to make me want to redo it again.
All the beads came from the pallets I bought on clearance, and the clasp came from my pilfering the other night.
Now, as for what I was talking about last night (which was actually very early this morning by the time I posted it), I wanted to attempt making a pair of cherry earrings. I already had hooks up the wazoo, so I hit the craft store for jewelry findings (clasps, crimp tubes, etc.) and beads to use for the leaves and stems since nothing in the pallets really matched. Upon returning home and starting plan A, I discovered that there weren't enough red beads to make two sets of cherries. "Ok, plan B, let's make more fruit and make a necklace out of it!" After spending about two episodes worth of Mythbusters trying to make a mikan that actually LOOKED like a blasted mikan, I tried googling patterns for fruit charms to no avail. Then plan C hit: I would use the cherry pendant as the centerpiece, then link beaded kyu-pins (I'm not sure what they're called in English, but in Japanese they're named because they look like the number 9) to make the rest of the necklace.
I futzed with a few different combos before deciding on the green/blue/silver/clear color scheme. The bead pins are symmetrical up each side, but none of the patterns per side are duplicates. It had the world's tiniest, most obnoxious spring-ring clasp on it when I wore it today but replaced it with the much-easier-to-manage toggle clasp after work.
Here's a closeup of the cherries, I tried to get a shot of the beads up the side but was once again thwarted by my lack of camera talent, they all came out blurry. I may post a tutorial for the cherry charm later on, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out considering I just winged it and figured it out. I knew how to make "bead balls", and after that the stems were pretty much basic bead stringing.
I wrote up a tutorial and posted it on Craftster; I'll add it here with photos at some point in time that isn't when I'm sleepy and in need of a shower.
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