Progress

The Colorblind Librarian Sweater is coming along nicely. With the aid of a long weekend, I have completed the body up to the armpits and a few inches of a sleeve. I can't believe how quickly this sucker is coming together!



Well, okay. There's still plenty more knitting to be had on it, of course. I'm also starting to suspect that I WAY overbought the the yarn in the gray tones. I suck at guessing. I'm on my second ball of black, and all of the other colors are holding steady; I'm even starting to doubt I'll need a second ball of white! Perhaps at the very end for the neckline ribbing?

The only other real development here is the new titanium in my body:



Three tasty microdermal anchors. Love 'em. And I know you all don't believe me, but no, it didn't really hurt.

Reversible tote bag!

Based on this craftster tutorial, I made a reversible tote bag!



Red with cherry handles...



...or cherry with red handles?

The tutorial was really well-written. Any mistakes made are solely my fault. If I had to do it over, I'd have probably gotten heavier interfacing and more of it. The bag holds its shape and could certainly carry my laptop or something, but I think I'd have liked it heavier.

I decided that I needed to accent it with a cool vintage pin.



A cheap treasure from my last antiquing outing with my mother. I have another outing with her on Thursday, so hopefully we will find some similar treasures. There's not much other news to report on the Amy front...

Jewelry portfolio

I took a beginning jewelry (read: metalsmithing) class this past semester. It was my last semester of undergraduate studies (*sigh*), and it was that one thing I'd been wanting to take forever.

I got my pieces back, and there are actually a good amount of them that I will actually wear! And I had so much fun doing it, that I still want to continue my pursuit of jewelry-making. We shall see.

I'll go in chronological order, so you can see me go from being clueless to less clueless.


These were my first two assignments. A leaf, and a leaf bracelet. I used nice, soft copper on both. Impressively, the bracelet is already tarnishing. Wooo. I wouldn't wear copper, as it turns one's skin green; it's not my thing anyway. These make nice mementos, though.


Next, I had to do a chain project. Again, I used copper, as I didn't have to anneal the wire; it was already soft enough to manipulate into rings by hand. I got a C+ on this, by the way, even though I still think it looks pretty decent for being a boring bracelet. Probably won't ever wear this, either.


Next, I started to move on to more fun stuff! These are two ring bands made out of brass; the one on the right is my size, a petite 5 1/2. I was proud when it came out right. The one on the left is for a friend of mine, who joked that I should make him a ring. I did. It's a size 9, as his fingers aren't very large. I pressed some squares on his, while mine is perfectly smooth. You can't really tell from the photo, but my plain band is polished to a high shine to the point where it looks like a wedding band or something. I plan to wear it to work to hopefully deter creeps from hitting on me!


At this point in the semester, I invested in some silver so I could make some pieces out of the only metal I usually wear.

This was supposed to be a brooch rather than a pendant. I made my own pin back closure, and I was getting really proud of the thing... until I had a nice mishap on the buffing wheel that destroyed my closure. Pressed for time, it became a pendant. This is my first (and only) stone setting; this amethyst kicked my butt, as I had no idea bezel setting would be so... annoying. Oh well. I may yet put a pin back on the thing, as I'm more likely to wear it as a brooch than a pendant.


These earrings were the quickest, easiest, and less mishap-y of all the things I created! They, too, are silver, but aged a bit with liver of sulfur in order to give them a more pewter-y look. Like the ring above with the squares on it, these have circles imprinted on them.


A quick band I whipped up for the boy.


Now for my favorite piece, my casting project! It is so terribly awesome; but I'll tell you, lost wax casting was one of the scariest processes I've ever encounter. I looked around for a video on youtube, and none of them actually showed it being done. No fun!


This is the shape of the ring. Mostly square-ish, with beveled edges. I think I love it.

Now to wear it out tonight!

Etsy, how I love thee.

I didn't give Etsy much notice when it first popped up.

Now I LOVE browsing on it, and occasionally buy things.


I bought these from craftyone77, who notably makes really sweet notebooks out of found objects. I had a soft spot for the paint chip ones, having spent too many months behind the paint counter at Lowe's.

And today, it was the earrings.


How could I resist? These are from Resplendent Redhead. If I had more money, I'd have bought EVERYTHING on her shop.

I'm knitting one of my final exams. I'm getting there; might even finish it tonight. I'll post it like mad because I think it'll be pretty sweet when all is said and done. I do need to get my hands on some red or black or silver board that's used for mattes in a frame. Maybe at Art Attack?

Sorry I'm being mysterious about it. It'll be worth the wait, I promise! Hope my professor likes it. She did say, when giving the assignment, that we could basically do what we wanted, including glue macaroni to paper. Might as well use a method I enjoy, right?

One knitted thing, one not.

So, on one of my favorite blogs, Slipped Stitch, the lovely Alice recently wrote up a tutorial on beaded i-cord jewelry, a concept that had not previously occurred to me, being a much less inventive knitter. I had some beads leftover from Grandma's scarf, so I decided to use those plus some newly acquired glass beads (Findings is an amazing store, by the way!) and a bit of leftover yarn got me this:



It's clunky, and funky, and I think I love it. The tutorial is here. I personally used Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Rainbow and size 0 needles, which definitely complicated matters. It's just that those darn teeny gold beads won't go through anything much larger than sock weight, so I decided to just go with it. It's a first attempt, what can I say? I just need to go back to Findings and acquire a fastener, because in the photo I just tied the thing on. If I were better with beads, these things would make great gifts; especially with the awesome prices in Findings' orphan bin!

My other recent accomplishment is a cross-stitch! Now, cross-stitching is something I hadn't done since... well... About the age of 9? But it's very easy to pick up re-learn since there's truly nothing to it. I may never have picked it up again if it weren't for the book Subversive Cross Stitch. Here it is on amazon. It was cheap and deliciously funny and... yeah, well, couldn't resist, especially with my mild hatred of children:



It just seemed so ironic. It's not framed or anything yet, but I need to soon. It's going to be hanging in a prominent location... Next cross-stitch: "Bite Me."