Days of Doing – day seven

Hammered stems for hearts 

Not the bunny I’d planned….

I thought this weekend’s post would be introducing you to our new addition…but it’s just not felt like right time to see if there’s a bunny out there with my name on him/her. I’m a little worried that the longer I leave it, the less right it will feel, but I’m trusting in kismet. Or trying to.

However, I do have a little chap to show you, courtesy of my newest follower, The Green Dragonfly, and you can follow her excellent tutorial here – https://thegreendragonfly.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/nibble-nibble-hop-hop/

I’m relatively new to crochet but am pretty pleased with my efforts…tho I had to make do with google eyes!

He has a fuzzy butt!

What I am thinking about, is that I could adapt it as a crochet wirework brooch….hmmmm.

What’s everyone else up to?

(Ps – still no baby partridges….but the eggs are moving!!)

Recycling, up-cycling just not bicycling

Firstly, for those who’ve been along for the rid on the nest front, we’ve had two mornings of pretty hard frost in the last few days – like ‘having to scrape the car before I can see out’ frost. I’ve been worried about the my little egg guys, but yesterday saw mum and dad partridge very close to the nest, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’re checking in and know what they’re doing. So there’s that. And while we’re on the subject, we have a new addition to the window feeder – a blackbird. No-one’s told him it’s not meant for birds his size or weight and after a few bad landings and watching the others, he’s now got it figured out and manages to land and squeeze himself under the roof and eat all in one relatively graceful movement. He has also learnt that his tail wont bend no matter how much he tries to squish it against the window so that he can turn round. Smart guy. There also appears to be some kind of queuing system in place along the drystone wall amongst the blue tits, wagtails and bullfinches. The robins don’t seem keen on it, they’re queue jumpers, flying in from the other angle. Sneaky.

So on my to do list over the next couple of days is something thanks to my friend Annabel at work, who kindly donated some unwanted jewellery to anyone who wanted it. I picked three pieces and have plans….sort of.

I’m thinking this pretty stone is going to become the pendulum piece in a wind chime, if I can find some little tubes when I go to the hardware store tomorrow. I’m thinking crocheted metalwork frame, and suspending the tubes either with clear fishing line or actually making it a feature and using ribbon and then either ribbon or crochet chain and bead up to a hanging point. It’s one of those “I’m not going to know until I start” things, I think.

This bracelet is going to have several new lives! I’m looking at the little charms for…well, I don’t know yet, something will need charms sometime, I guess! The silver spacers I’m looking at for a necklace in crocheted wire, so it passes through and then fans back out, and also as a base for some biggish carved wooden beads, wrapped in fine wire. And the stones themselves can be used as centre points to a bracelet or necklace, I think.

The other bird’s nest

I’ve made a couple of these, one for me and one for a friend. It’s been a good way of experimenting with different thicknesses of wire – thicker works better than thinner. I like the browns and greens for the “eggs”. (Oh…eggs…maybe I’ll make some for Easter gifts…)
I am still struggling a bit with the jump ends though, but am having more success with some from one shop as opposed to another so it may not just be my inability (though if anyone has any jump end failsafe instructions I’ll gladly hear them!)

And as for the other nest? Five eggs still present and correct. Keep watching.

The Vanishing Lady

Yikes.

It’s been an awfully long time since my last post.

But that’s what happens when you work 12 hour days, with an hour commute at either end. We’re almost out of production, and as I’m possibly thinking about doing NaNoWriMo I guess I’ll need something to procrastinate on, so I’m going to try and do several short round ups every couple of days…

So, first up….

A crocheted cuff. I have to say I was so pleased with how this came out, even though its by no means perfect. But for a first attempt at crocheting with wire and using beads, I was really pleased. This is definately something thats going to be repeated and with some tweaking, I hope to be making it a regular on my shops when they’re up and running.

excuse the bad image, atop my mac, but better ones down the line!

I was worried how fragile it was, but wore it to work and it survived quite happily being leant on as I typed and squished by proofs, so I guess its tougher than I think!

Here it is at the start, to give you a better idea….

And another shot of the finished article

The pattern itself is pretty simply and it also looks really nice done in wool – I did a test run first, before I tried with the wire – so it may be that I knock up a couple of those too for little christmas gifts. Which is not happening for AGES. I dont care what the shops say.

More tomorrow – I promise!!