Quiet, But Not Entirely Unproductive

I've been making class samples, or trying to.

Most of my classes tend to be in the Intermediate to Advanced range - at least, I think so, but then I'm not terribly good at evaluating difficulty - but supposedly people want beginner classes. The thing is, often what is easy to do looks sort of sparse and barely finished, but I think I've come up with a bracelet that is easy but full enough to get your teeth into, if you know what I mean. It's not hard to make, but it is blingy, and it does take a while (but then so many things worth doing take an investment of one kind or another).

I don't know why, but I'm ever so slightly obsessed with stars.

This works, but it's not stable enough. If you squeeze the points laterally, it poufs up like this, but if you sit on it, it squishes quite flat. Not quite determined enough, in my opinion: I might have to figure out how to give it a bit more backbone, so to speak.

I'm quite pleased with the rivoli pendant though, even though it's hanging from a rather rustic leather thong.

It's not terribly difficult (but I wouldn't recommend it to beginners probably), but the multiple layers and passes give it a nice depth. Might be fun to connect a series of them to make a bracelet or a more complex focal for a necklace.

The socks I told you about last post? Still pretty, but progress has slowed. Turns out I haven't really changed my mind about twisted stitches.

Way back when Nancy Bush published her wonderful Folk Socks,  I determined to knit a red pair, the Bavarian ones I think. After half a row of knitting through back loops, I realised that I'd have to be institutionalised if I continued on with it, and instead made something completely different, though still socks. It was sock yarn, after all, and I don't have any interest in knitting a sweater on size zeros, even though knitting my cashmere-silk handspun (excuse the blurriness) on size twos really didn't seem like much of a hardship at the time.

When I decided on the Baroque socks, I was certain that I'd become that much more mature and laid back and besides, they're really pretty, and how onerous could two socks' worth of ktbl be?

Not so bad, if all you were doing was ribbing, but extremely tiresome when you're cabling and your eyesight makes you feel older than you think you should feel. What you have to do is to order stitches One, Two and Three thusly: Three, Two, One, with One crossing in front of Two and Three crossing behind, or vice versa. It's especially tedious when it's EVERY SINGLE STITCH in a friggin' round, which fortunately happens only every eighth round, but still, my patience is wearing thin, and I'll tell you this: Sock One is not destined to be an exact match for Sock Two.

I've been offered four teaching slots at Bead Fest Portland next year, yay! I can't go to Philadelphia in August, as it's right over my daughter's birthday, so I was hoping for Portland. Plus, well, Portland! Seafood! More yay! 

Although, funnily enough and coincidentally and all that, SOAR is in Oregon next year too.

The other day I surfed to a blog in which the blogger had Pay Now buttons to sell her beading kits, and part of me thought "What a good idea" while I wondered if it really was. I'd totally be preying on people's tendencies towards impulse purchases, which in these times of economic Armageddon isn't exactly kind, is it? And I can't find anything [that I can completely understand] in the Blogger Terms of Service that might preclude commerce on a blog, which would certainly make my mind up for me.