Trying something new

Actually I had thought about that from the moment I started crocheting with wire, but yesterday, when I was trying out all the crochet hooks my MIL gave me and finally came to the smallest one, the spark of inspiration (that Terry Pratchett is talking about in his book "Sourcery") hit me with all the might a spark can hit you.

I hope this idea will develop, my big goal is to crochet a life-size elephant ;-) You don't believe me? So what about a kitty head, not quite life-sized?

This was my first attempt, in sterling silver wire, jade beads as eyes and a red seed bead as nose. Yeah, yeah, I know, no mouth. I will keep him as a good luck charm, I think. Without the ears he is about 0.4 inch high.



This is number two from brown copper wire. He is larger and he has tomcat cheeks. And a mouth. After all you don't really see cats' lips. The eyes are aventurine, the nose a red seed bead again. I'll have to search my stash for a pink seed bead or maybe a black one.



Stay tuned in case I post the picture of the life-size elephant some day .......

Meet Jo! ;-)

This is Jo. I didn't want to call her "The Head", after all she is gonna have to help me modeling my things. This morning we did a little test run with my hats. She doesn't want to smile, but I think it was ok for her, too. After all we were not in a hurry, no Paris fashion shows under pressure in this house.
I guess you will get to see her more often from now on :-)



I am still on the bangle trip. This one is from wire that looks more like brass, it's thicker gauge and very sturdy and it was probably not too smart to give the wire an extra twist every few stitches to give it a different look. Afterwards my fingers hurt, ouch. I think the effort was worth it, though.



This is antique looking thicker gauge copper wire with hematite. I really like this one. It looks much better in real, but hey, it's not easy making pictures at 6 a.m. Especially if you are tired and only up because the furry masters commanded you to. Oh, and if your camera is nothing special. And if you are just a lousy photographer like me :-P



Egg and copper ... I did it and it worked. Why shouldn't it have, though? Everybody told me it would. It looks much better on this agate than the shiny copper. I'll have to buy more eggs, I guess.



Now I should really get myself into gear. I'll go visit a friend overnight and there are still a few things to do around here. It's amazing how fast 5 hours can go by if you don't want them to. On the other hand ... I want to meet my friend and therefore want them to go by. Nah, too complicated for me now, I'll just get going. Litter boxes, here I come!!!

Bifocals!!!!!! ;-)

So I just picked them up - AND got home without falling. That is a good sign, isn't it? Later I'm going to put it through the hardest test of all, crocheting and looking TV at the same time. If that works I should be on the safe side. Of course my friend is already making fun of me. So I am an old woman, who cares? ;-)
At any case I hope making pieces like this moonstone pendant in a net of copper wire coated black (afterwards scrubbed down to let the copper color reappear a little) will be easier from now on. It took quite some fiddling, I can tell you, because the stone is small. I tried to make another one in sterling silver, but the stone kept slipping. In the end my eyes were so weary I had to give up. Sometimes you have to know when to put something down and give it a new try later.



Now I'm off to do my laundry. Not something I particularly love, but it has to be done. Although it is said about Swabians that they are crazy about housework, I think my mother's genes - she isn't a Swabian - come through here :-))

Shoot, I keep looking over the rim of my glasses when I want to look at something closely, I really have to stop that!