Ditsybeads and knitted jumpers

I made a few Ditsybeads. These are Double Helix Rhea Light and Theia, enacsed in Effetre Super Clear 006 and decorated with flowers in Effetre White 204 and CiM Marigold.

At the time of typing I have some pendants left and one pair of the purple ones.

There's also a lone light sapphire blue pendant. The blue used here is Effetre Dark Blue 056.

The beads and pendants are available in my shop.

In knitting news...

I finally got round to taking some photos of the three jumpers I've knitted over the last couple of months.

Fear not, the jumpers were only on hangers for the photographs - when they're not being worn they are folded, not hung.

The porridge-coloured jumper with the cabled yoke is Sculpt by Unwind Knitwear. 

I absolutely loved knitting this and I've worn it a lot since I finished it before Christmas. The yarn is Drops Flora in shade 22 White Fog. The yarn is a wool and alpaca mix and although it's only 4ply it's nice and warm.

The green one is my current favourite jumper because it's just so smooshy and cosy to wear. The pattern is Urban Romance by Kutova Kika from her brilliant book Knits to Wear. It has a lacy front and back and floompy balloon sleeves with a honeycomb cable pattern.

I knitted the jumper in Drops Daisy in shade 17 Moss Green held together with one strand of Drops Kid Silk in shade 19 Dark Green. This merino and mohair mix gives a wonderfully fluffy, airy fabric that is just so nice to wear. I adore it.

The plain lilac-coloured jumper is another one from Kutova Kika's Knits to Wear and the pattern is called Simple Things. It's an oversized, snuggly jumper and I've got it on as I type.

I knitted the jumper with about fourteen inches of positive ease so it's proper roomy and comfy. This one is knitted in Drops Daisy in shade 07 Sweet Orchid and the colour reminds me of Parma Violets.

I currently have nothing on my needles. Chris has asked me to knit him a jumper so I've got to order the wool for that. I think I might cast on a pair of socks in the meantime because you can never have too many socks, can you?

I must away into the rain now to go and post some beads. See you soon!

Bracelet, beads and bargains

I had a load of lime green Ditsybeads left over. I don't quite understand why. I think I just made more of them than any other colour. But yeah, I've turned them into a very summery bracelet.

The beads are strung on macramé cord so the bracelet has a nice fluidity to it.

It fastens with a sliding knot so it's adjustable. The bracelet is ever so comfortable to wear and I like its boho kind of feel.

I also made a batch of the beads that I used for the 'Cosmic Blue' bracelet in my previous post and these are available as strands of six.

The beads remind me of stars and electricity.

The bracelet and the beads can be purchased in my webshop.

Silver core beads, big hole beads and selected normal beads are currently 20% off, so if you've had your eye on something why not have a wander over to my shop and see if it's marked down?

Have a lovely evening!

O, woe is me

I haven't had much to report because I've been working my way through Ditsybead orders.

I don't know if I'm gradually getting worse at beadmaking or if I'm struggling in some other way (my absolute pillock of a fussy brain) but I've found the past couple of weeks' lampworking to be extremely difficult and stressful. I've closed orders for the flower beads now and I don't think it'd be wise for me to do the taking bead orders thing again. I have a couple of orders outstanding which I will get done, but not today. Today is a day off after yesterday when I attempted one single flower bead eighteen times before calling it a day. There's no point in me sitting there wasting glass, electricity and gas so I decided to take a breather.

If I'm to carry on lampworking, from this point forward it's going to have to be one hundred percent me making what I feel like making.

This is totally about me, not people who want to buy my work.

For years I've prattled on about how my pickiness and perfectionism can be an utter pain and in the past I've always embraced it but it's honestly got to the point where it's debilitating. And not just with beads. At the foodbank warehouse the other day I wrote a box label that said 'BEANS 2026' four times because I wasn't happy with how it looked. That's mental. It's a label in a warehouse and I was irked because it wasn't centred and the '6' was squished etc. This past Christmas I bought sixty cards as I knew I'd end up rejecting loads for similar reasons and sure enough, I sent twenty-four and had just five left over. That's not right.

Anyway, enough of my self-obsessed whining. Pull yourself together, Laura!

In crochet news

The pattern for my 'Joan' shawl is finally totally done. Hurrah!

Originally I toyed with the idea of making this a free pattern but a nagging little voice kept asking "You get annoyed when glass publications want your tutorials for free and you turn them down, so why is this any different?" and in the end I listened. When I sat and thought about the hours that went into making the shawl pattern, the drawing of the charts (it was like the beans label and Christmas cards multiplied by three), the liasing with testers, and the pattern edits, let alone me making the shawl five times in various yarns, I just couldn't give it away for nothing.

So yes, the PDF pattern is available on Etsy for £2.50 plus any VAT applicable in your part of the world.

About the pattern

Named after my late grandma, Joan is a lacy triangular crochet shawl that is worked from the top down. The seven row pattern repeat is straightforward but not too tedious and the pattern would be good for an adventurous beginner or for anyone wanting a relaxing project that uses non-fancy stitches.

The finished and blocked white-to-black gradient shawl pictured measures approximately 170cm along its top edge (the wingspan) and about 83cm from the centre of that edge down to its point.

• Written pattern with step-by-step photographs
• Charts
• Printer friendly written version
• You will receive versions in both UK and US crochet terms

Materials

Approximately 1000m of fingering weight or 4ply yarn. For the white-to-black gradient shawl pictured I used a 1000m cotton and acrylic mix 4ply 'Stratford' yarn cake from Crochet UK. The plain blue one took five skeins of Drops Flora in shade 10. I've also made this shawl with YarnArt Flowers and Hobbii Twister yarn cakes. I've crocheted it with DK yarn too so pretty much anything goes. You'll also need your chosen hook and a needle for sewing in your ends, plus blocking mats and pins

The pattern has been fully tested.

Available on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1741126096/joan-crochet-shawl-pdf-pattern-digital

Thirty-five point seven

More Ditsybead pairs, this time in Double Helix Theia and Effetre dark topaz/amber 016.

These can be purchased on my Available to Order page.

I worked on bead orders this morning but I had to abandon shed at lunchtime when the thermometer said it was 35.7°C in there. That's too warm to think straight. I'll have to make an early start out there in the morning.

In crochet news...

I'm waiting for a yarn delivery as I have a blanket planned so in the meantime I've been making more mandalas.

I find the go-roundy-roundness of making a doily or mandala to be very relaxing. They're nice small projects too, both size-wise and time-wise.

This white one was made using a pattern named 'Chrysanthemum Tea' from an old Leisure Arts doily booklet called More Antique Doilies by C. Strohmeyer. I have two doily booklets by this designer and a while back I had a Google about to see what else they had done. I happened upon a blog post where someone was wondering the same thing back in 2016 and one of their readers told them that C. Strohmeyer was a man who once worked as an engineer and he ended up designing crochet and knitting patterns but he didn't use his first name, Charles, as he thought people wouldn't want to buy crochet and knitting patterns designed by a man. That made me quite sad. Don't worry, Charles, I love your patterns - they're so neat and nifty and I very much appreciate your penchant for picots.

The Chrysanthemum Tea mandala is available in my webshop.

Summertime

Well, summer has truly arrived. It was the summer solstice yesterday and now it's 23°C out there. I've even got my shorts on!

I've been working on Ditsybeads this week and I've made pairs of them available to order. I don't often do this but I'm in the zone with them and I feel okay about staying in said zone for a bit, so I thought I'd take a few orders.

Blue: Effetre dark turquoise 236

Right now there are six options available but I will be adding more next week including some in my favourite purple glass, Double Helix Theia.

Green: CiM Meadow

The pink Ditsybeads will be limited because I only have a few shorts of the CiM Gelly's Sty that I use for them and as far as I know, that particular glass is long gone. I donned my big gardening glove gauntlet thing and sorted through my sharp and perilous rod odds-n-ends box and this was what I found:

So when that's gone, it's gone.

The Ditsybead pairs are £10.00 each (and yes, I know that sounds like a lot but trust me, it's actually nowhere near enough time-wise) and right now the lead time on them is seven working days. You can purchase them on my Available to Order page.

In crochet news...

I'm trying not to shawl. In trying not to shawl I've doilied instead. Then as I was doilying, I thought about my doily stack in its box in the spare room and I felt bad about them all sitting there so on Monday I sorted through them and picked out a few doilies that fit nicely in metal hoops and turned them into mandalas.

Pattern: 'Sunvale' by Julia Hart

I do like the way attaching a doily to a hoop turns it from something that would sit under something on a horizontal surface into something that can be displayed on a wall to be looked at.

These are available, along with some others, in the Crochet section of my shop.

More Ditsybeads

I'm not really a pink person but I'm quite taken with these pink Ditsybeads. They're CiM Gelly's Sty encased with Effetre 006 super clear with flowers in Effetre white 204 and Reichenbach opal raspberry.

And these plum-coloured ones are Effetre medium amethyst 042 encased with Effetre 006 super clear with flowers in Effetre white 204 and CiM Hollandaise.

Both of these sets are in my webshop now, along with the lime and teal ones from my previous post.

Faffing is my thing

I'm back into the swing of Ditsybead things. These little beads look simple but I tell you, the execution of them is anything but. If I don't place the dots just so, and if I don't heat them flush in a particular way, they just don't look right. Much faffing is required but that's the way I like it.

The beads that appear easy or effortless are often the ones that take the most skill and experience and it's very easy (and understandable) for non-beadmaker people to assume they are a doddle to make. As a maker I get way more satisfaction from crafting a well-made polka dot bead than I do a cat or cupcake bead but judging by the number of requests I still get for them, people seem to be more enamoured with the latter. I decided a long while ago to make the beads I want to make when I feel like making them and I know that makes me sound like a selfish twerp but honestly, if I'd stuck with making cat and cupcake beads I'd have ditched lampworking ages ago. Sometimes you have to be selfish, I guess.

These two sets are Effetre dark grass green 024 and light teal 026 with flowers in Effetre white 204 and CiM Hollandaise.

I'm hoping to get a couple more Ditsybead sets made this week and then they'll all be for sale in my webshop, probably late Friday afternoon.

I set fire to my cardigan yesterday. While I was wearing it. A glass rod popped in the flame and I could smell this lingering weird whiff and I looked everywhere trying to find out what was melting and it took about five minutes for me to realise it was my cardigan. It's one that I knitted a few months ago that I've practically lived in since I finished it, so that's annoying. I'll have to make me another and keep it for non-shed use.

Nothing particularly exciting is happening in the garden. The rose and hibiscus bushes seem to be settling in, the sunflowers are starting to go full Triffid, the tomatoes are still doing next-to-nowt, but...

 ...my sea holly has finally gone blue. I flipping love this plant. I don't know why it pleases me so much but it does.

In crochet news...

All forty-two sunflowers for the throw are complete and I've started turning them into squares.

I'm off for a tinned red salmon roll and a cuppa for lunch now and then I'll be heading shedward. TTFN!

That'll do won't do

When did I last make Ditsybeads? I think it was about a year ago. (I've just checked and yes it was. I wanged on about them for a whole blog post.) When I've not made a certain design for a while it's like I have to retrain my hands and brain in how to execute it. I spent Thursday doing just that and ended up with five Ditsybeads that made it to the kiln. Of those five, two are not quite right, one is just about passable and two I'm happy with. This photo shows the latter three.

Today will be about properly getting back into the swing of making Ditsybeads, good ones that I'm totally happy with (you know me when it comes to beads – "That'll do" simply won't do) and then I expect I'll make them until I get bored of doing so and no doubt I'll repeat this whole process in about August 2025.

While I make Ditsybeads I'll be listening to a podcast that I discovered a couple of weeks ago called Imagined Life.

It's a Wondery podcast (I love Wondery podcasts) and each episode tells the life story of a world-famous person and you're given clues to their identity along the way but you only find out right at the end who the subject is. Sometimes you'll guess before that point but I've been really surprised by some of them. Great stuff. Imagined Life is available on Wondery, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.

Will the weather please make up its mind? On Friday I wore sunglasses and a sun hat for my walk to and from the foodbank warehouse and today it's been raining for hours and I'm dressed like it's early October. As I'm typing these words the sun is putting in an appearance. Sort your mind out, weather!

This harlequin ladybird was loving the lavender in the sunshine last week, though.

I know some people don't like harlequin ladybirds because they pose a threat to our native ladybirds but they're here and living their little lives and if they want to feast on the aphids in my garden they can fill their boots. Munch on, you glossy spotty funbugs!

In crochet news...

Guess what? It's another shawl.

I have got to stop making shawls. I need to. I think I've got one more upstairs that needs blocking (but I made it for me so it doesn't count) and I still have the lacy black one on the go but I must put an end to this shawl madness after that one is complete.

This magma-y, fiery, sort-of-maybe Halloweeny one is listed in my Etsy shop and my webshop. The pattern is the Sis Shawl by Joanna Grzelak of Sis Homemade and the yarn is YarnArt Flowers in colour 259.

I'm nearing the end of sunflower production. I've almost got the amount I need for the the blanket. The next stage will be turning them into squares.

Right, it's time for me to make a brew and get down to the shed. See you later!

Ditsybeading

I've always said that you never stop learning a craft. There's always new knowledge to be had, skills to be honed and new materials and techniques to try. Whenever I make a bead design that I've not done for a while I enjoy applying my current knowledge of glass to it. Oftentimes this knowledge is minor but it's knowledge that the me of three years ago didn't possess and it allows me to understand the bead better. I am aware that I'm probably sounding really wanky but I'll carry on anyway.

With these Ditsybeads there are several things required to get the effect I'm after. The most important of these is the dot placement for the petals and making sure they're arranged correctly so that when melted flat the petals stay in a nice neat flower shape and don't end up like a vague splat. The dot-melting part is also really important and it's not just a case of bringing the bead to an all-over even heat; I concentrate on one flower at a time in a very particular way.

Adding the flower centres is also carefully done so that the dot touches all five petals and then it's heated to be slightly raised but not too flat. If it sounds fiddly and time consuming that's because it is. I worked out the Actual Price* of one Ditsybead the other day and almost laughed my tits off at the thought of asking that much for it.

Anyway, all of the Ditsybeads scattered throughout this post have new homes now but there are more on the way.

*By 'Actual Price' I mean what the bead price tag should be if I paid myself minimum wage based on time taken, and also taking into account materials, gas and electricity. I don't factor in the cost of nineteen years of skill because that would be the Actual Actual Price and I would never sell anything at that rate.

In crochet news...

I finished this blue shawl last week. It was one of those patterns that was so straightforward it kept catching me out. You can be lulled into a false sense of comfort when there are so many unfancy stitches involved and it only takes one stitch too few or too many to muff up an entire row.

This pattern is called 'Destination Unknown' and it's by Lisa Cook of LisasAttik. I really love Lisa's designs - all those straight lines and blocks of pattern are right up my street.

The blue shawl is available in my Etsy shop.

This week I've been mostly...

Listening to:

Cast On by Brenda Dayne. This is a knitting podcast that I adored back in the day. I kind of stopped knitting when the whole knitting-is-racist thing occurred in 2019 and then I nuked my Ravelry account a bit later when they decided that only 50% of their users could talk about politics (Trump supporters weren't allowed to voice approval of him, and no, I'm not a Trump lover but I am pretty flipping fond of free speech) and those two things combined with the behaviour of certain knitting people I'd formerly greatly admired kind of shat on knitting for me. I think I've knitted three pairs of socks since then and crochet has filled the knitting hole. However, discovering that Brenda has got back to podcasting after a six year hiatus was wonderful. She restarted Cast On during the pandemic but I only realised this last week so I've got many episodes to catch up on. Brenda is even making me want to fish out the old pointy sticks. Maybe. We shall see.

Watching:

Ashes to Ashes. Every now and again I need a dose of DCI Gene Hunt and I do a Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes rewatch and right now I'm halfway through season three of the latter.

We cancelled our TV licence about a year ago so now we live in telly-gone-by and it's marvellous. Anything from the now that we do want to watch (rare) we get as a DVD, digital box set or download. I do not miss live television at all.

Reading:

Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain by Amy Jeffs