Seaweed, Socks & Knots

This green is CiM Peat Moss and it's one of my favourite greens. It reminds me of so many things - moss, olives, ferns - but today it's reminding me of seaweed so that's what I've called these beads.

A classic Laurabeads quintet with spacers. These would look great tumble-etched. The strand is currently available in my shop.

In knitting news...

Another pair from the sock pile, this time stripes.

Cuff down, five row stripes, slip stitch heel, job's a good'un.

These were knitted in Yarnsmiths Merino Sock in shades 2K060 Parchment and 2K201 Moss Green

And in other news...

I recently bought a tiny little silver inch plant; I fell in love with his glittery silvery green and purple leaves and I just had to take him home. He's grown so fast and started trailing and I wanted to get a macramé pot hanger for him. When I looked them up online I was like "I'm not paying that plus delivery when I'm pretty sure I can buy some cord and make my own!" so that's exactly what I did.

The only macramé I've done before is friendship bracelets when I was a kid, and basic square knot bead bracelets over the last few years. I got a roll of 3mm cord, watched a few YouTube videos and got to knotty work and a couple of hours later I had a pot hanger.

I'm so chuffed with it. I'm going to make another, larger one for one of my golden pothos plants and I might knot in a few beads too. I've just got to decide what colour beads to make for it now.

Knotty

I do enjoy being able to design a bracelet in my head and then create the beads I need to make that bracelet a reality.

I wanted to make a simple macramé bracelet that could be for both women or men. Men get left out of the lampwork bead jewellery market quite a lot, you see. 

I started by making some small 9 x 6mm cylindrical beads in Effetre dark topaz/root beer 016 decorated with Val Cox Raku Jitterbug (AKA Reichenbach R108 Iris Orange) frit. The resulting beads remind me of shingle beaches.

I then knotted them into a bracelet with dark brown nylon macramé cord and finished it off with a sliding knot and sterling silver ends.

I've just made that sound way simpler than it actually was; I ended up making the bracelet three times before I was happy with the bead spacing and finished fit.

But I got there in the end and I love it. I love it so much I'm keeping it for me.

I'm waiting for some different colours of cord to arrive and then I'll set about making some more of these bracelets for sale.

It's a proper warm one here. The fans are out and on, Nigel's upstairs sleeping in his favourite cool spot under the bed, and I'm drinking iced coffee (and by that I mean Camp coffee with milk and ice cubes just like my grandma used to make me) and typing this. Obvs.

My garden sunflowers are still sunflowering but when I was at the greengrocers on Thursday I couldn't resist buying myself a bunch of five sunflowers for inside the house.

I will never stop marvelling at sunflowers. They're incredible things, not only to look at but from a mathematical point of view too. This little video explains how they feature the Fibonacci sequence and spirals, and also the golden angle and ratio. Spectacular plants.

Right, I'm off to research men's bracelet sizes now. Enjoy your Monday!

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!

Tied in knots

Ages ago I bought a load of waxed cotton with the intention of combining it with my beads to make bracelets. The cotton got put in a box under my desk and forgotten about.

The other week when Chris and I were tidying up to prepare for him working from home, I rediscovered the box of cotton and remembered my plan and finally I have made some macramé bracelets!

I used to make those friendship bracelet things when I was a teenager, you know the ones made out of embroidery thread and a million tiny knots, so I'm not unfamiliar with the whole knotting thing.

I wanted to keep these bracelets simple; plain beads and basic macramé knots. I wanted them to be for everyday wear, so nothing fussy.

After a bit of faffing to work out how many beads worked best, how many knots in between them gave a balanced look, and getting the beads and the knots to sit as neatly as possible, I decided on this design as my basic macramé and lampwork bracelet.

The bracelets fit a medium 6–6.5 inch wrist but because of the sliding macramé fastening they can be adjusted for a larger wrist, or for a looser fit.

I wore the prototype bracelet all day yesterday and it's ever so comfortable.

I've written notes for potential different designs that will incorporate more beads, in more than one colour, and also ones with fewer beads – possibly slightly larger, decorated ones – so yeah, prepare for more knottiness!