Tackle that stash - Mini wire crochet pendants with pearls

There was this pearl necklace. Big, bold, with a huge crystal. From the first time I laid my eyes upon it, I was determined to rip it up and make something else with the pearls.
You know how these things go. From the first time to now meant a few years in which I picked it up, put it down, picked it up again ... until I finally felt I tried to push this into the wrong direction. Why did I think the result had to be another big pearl necklace? Why not use the pearls individually?

Sometimes we need color and it doesn't even have to be much. So I ended up with little affordable pendants, just one freshwater pearl in a colorful wire crochet setting on a ball chain. No silver, no gold, but pink tones, purple, orange, green, light blue ... and who knows, there may be more to follow.
Which color do you like best?

Available in my Zibbet shop

Tackle that stash - Wide wire knit ring with Biwa pearls

You know how you drag a WIP around for months? Work on it a little time after time, but somehow you are not quite convinced?
The plan had been to add three round faux amber cabochons to this ring. All that was left to do was weave in the wires, but somehow it didn't feel right. One of the amber cabs sat slightly too high and slightly crooked and it felt as if it was laughing at me every time that I tried to fix it.
There comes a point when you know you have to rip a piece up or it will die in your drawer unfinished. So I cut the wires, I ripped off the cabs - I will be able to use them in another piece, I hope - and set out to look through my stash for something I could use instead.

I love these Biwa pearls. I have used them in two bead loomed bracelets (one of which is still available) and have been thinking about other ways to use them.
This kind of ring is now one of them. How do you think about light golden or silver wire?

It is available in my Zibbet shop.

Oldies but goodies - Wire

There is so much you can do with wire. You can wrap it, you can weave it, you can solder it, you can knit it, you can crochet it, you can do Viking knit or knit with a spool, you can wind it ... and all pieces are unique.
I think this time our JAC Oldies but Goodies Challenge participants were a little reluctant to show everything they've got because there is so much. Nevertheless what they did show is worth a look once again.

1 MC Stoneworks
2 Cat's Wire
3 Violetmoon's Corner
4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
5 The Crafty Chimp

Tackle that stash - Cab on cab earrings

It's not the first time that I have been experimenting with what I like to call "cab on cab". It simply means that there's not just one cabochon in a wire knit setting, but two.

In this case I used oval mother of pearl disks. Of course it makes sense that the bottom cab is as flat as possible which makes it easier to hold the top cab in place when making the bezel. A slight dome is fine, but flat is better.
I had two of those disks that came to me via a destash, now I needed to find two cabs that worked in both look and size. From the same destash I had two black acrylic cabs that worked like a charm. In fact they were the only ones in my stash that fit so perfectly, and I liked the contrast between the shimmering grey-white and the black, too.

When looking at the earrings you can see the mother of pearl shimmering around the black, and if the angle is right, there's the illusion of a mother of pearl ring surrounding the top cab.
From the side, however, you notice the domed look.

So far all the pieces I made like that are rather small, but I think eventually I'll have to explore the possibilities of a bigger piece.

The earrings are available in my DaWanda shop.

Tackle that stash - Wire crochet hedgehog family

Even a few beads do count! In this case it's the hematite beads that I used for the noses and eyes of this little hedgehog family.

I don't see hedgehogs that often. Our little garden mostly consists of higher spots and pots and isn't very interesting for them. Sometimes when I walk to the train station really early, I see one of them crossing the empty road, though. They come from one garden and go to check out the next one.
The other day one was a little confused and struggled his way up the few stairs to the hairdresser's, but I guess he had forgotten his keys ;-) He came back down and disappeared around the corner instead.

These three are a little smaller than the usual variety, though ...

The Great Flapper or How Christie got a new outfit - Part 3, Jewelry and shoes

Welcome back to Christie's story!
This time I am going to tell you about her jewelry and her shoes.

Actually the jewelry was the easiest part to do in the whole project.
I knew I wanted to give her long necklaces, so I just had to look in my stash if I had beads in the right colors that I could use with the seed beads. As it so happens, I had green and yellow crystals. In fact I tried all-crystal necklaces first, but I didn't really love them and after getting a no on that from my personal advisor as well, I went for a combination of crystals and seed beads. That was much better, also because the necklaces sit better that way.

In my stash were also smaller crystals in green, so I made a little chain stitch bracelet with them, and just look at that big stone she's wearing on her finger!
Newer dolls often have a hole in their hand where the ring is missing, so I had to cover that up.

I felt that dangly earrings would not go well with the fringe on the headpiece, so even if I love them, I settled for simple golden studs instead which are headpins that I put in the ear holes.

Christie's makeover was almost finished, how exciting! Little did I know how long she still had to wait.
I have big feet, but I don't have as many problems to find shoes as this lady.
There aren't that many Supersize outfits and the shoes are even harder to find individually. When I missed out on the one pair I found for sale, I had to figure out something else.

My first thought was polymer clay. Maybe I could make the soles from clay and bead the top. I had some old clay and decided on a dry run. I put Christie's feet on some paper and drew the outlines, cut out the templates, pressed them onto the clay and started cutting around.
I believe in recycling and have paper scraps around for notes, my to do lists, and stuff like this. I have a tip for you. Don't use paper with a tax return form printed on it. The print will end up on the clay. Of course it will. Doh. After all this was only a dry run, though, so it didn't matter.
I lightly pressed the soles onto Christie's feet for the shape. That didn't look too bad for a first try. I put them into my toaster oven and waited when I suddenly heard a weird sound. I can't even describe what the soles had turned into. It was a burnt and gooey mass with bubbles. I have no idea if it had been the oven that hadn't been used in a while - although I did wipe all the dust off - or the old clay or both. Time and temperature had been right. Oh well.

I had to get some new clay and use the other oven.
I had been optimistic after making the new soles, things didn't quite work out the way I wanted them to. I had my soles which had kept the shape of the feet pretty well, I had the heels, now I just needed to come up with an idea for the top.
Poor Christie leaned against the wall for weeks. My next doll project, still without head then, kept her company while receiving one garment after the other. They were an odd pair and a little sad to look at.

Finally I knew it was now or never. I sat down with my clay, the soles and Christie and tried to mold a shoe onto her foot that I could get off afterwards. Don't forget that again I had a whole doll attached to that foot, too. As Christie's waist is a little loose, she moved and wriggled a lot during the process. The lady has no patience at all!
I tried and tried, and when one thing worked, the other went wrong. The thought of having to do the same for the other foot drove me to take drastic measures. I broke the soles in two and tossed them.
But now what?
I can't believe it took me that long to realize that I could knit the shoes from wire and beads. T-strap shoes with a wire crochet heel. See, sometimes I just need time to come up with something!

And here she is now, in our 20s inspired hallway where she took up residence (no way she would have fit into my doll cabinet). Every time I come out of my flat, she makes me smile standing there and smiling at me.

You have missed the first two posts? Find them here!
Part 1, The Dress
Part 2, The headpiece

Will you be back for my next doll project? It's very different from the first two, but was just as much fun (and there were no shoe problems at all!).

The Great Flapper or How Christie got a new outfit - Part 2, The headpiece

Let's jump right in, okay? Today is about Christie's head.
 
Vintage dolls have a neck knob which allows you to move the head sideways. There are smaller and bigger ones and cone shaped ones and whatnot.
Later dolls got neck knobs which allowed to also tilt the head, make it look up or down, this is the kind Christie has.
Out there in the net you can find much more information on the subject and also on the subject of the dreaded neck split and what's the best way to behead a doll. A little hint, it is NOT the guillotine.

Again, I am not a doll artist meaning I have the patience to do repairs of all kind, replace limbs, heads, re-paint faces or more. I try my best to avoid some procedures if possible, and one of them is taking a head off a doll if not absolutely necessary.
As a child I was cooler about that. We had outfits that were impossible to put on a doll if you didn't take her head off first. Yes, my Stacey does have a neck split, but she also has a yellow face and one finger and half a foot are missing. You can tell she was a beloved and played with toy. I'm digressing, sorry.

Have you ever seen a Barbie doll which looks like she doesn't have a neck? She probably had one of those newer neck knobs, maybe even the ones with prongs. My sister and I have seen more than one of those. If a child pulls on one of the heads on such a knob, the neck can break and the knob part comes off. If you put the head back on, it's right on the neck instead the knob. We call them "no-neck monsters" after a quote from "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof".

After all the work with the dress *looking at Ponder who is trying to clean up around his food plate* I didn't want to risk Christie to become a no-neck monster.
A hair cut was out of the question, too. I didn't have a replacement head in case anything went wrong.
And honestly, the copper streaks didn't look very 20s to me, either.
So all that I could do was to put something on her head that had the touch of the 20s, but hid all her hair.
I chose to knit a wire headpiece because knitted wire is flexible enough to shape it if needed. I used golden wire and the bright green beads to pick up the colors from the dress.
The last rows were a little difficult because I had to knit them with the headpiece already on the head, so I could decrease. Not that easy with the whole doll attached to it, I can tell you.

The wire knit "flower" with the crystal center was easier to make, but a bit fiddly to put on. I used the dark teal beads for it to have some contrast.
I had still some peacock feather leftovers. What was funny is that they arranged themselves when I pulled the flower tight. I wish all components would be that cooperative!
Last but not least I added a fringe at the bottom to match the fringe on the dress and voilà!

The last post will be about the jewelry and about big feet. Not Bigfoot, big feet! Just wait and see.

Have you missed the first post? Here it is:
Part 1, The dress

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel.

The Great Flapper or How Christie got a new outfit - Part 1, The dress

A while ago I showed you my first Barbie doll project with a bead loomed outfit and promised you more.
Here I am now to tell you the story of Christie.
Think big this time.
In 1976 the only 18 inch Barbie doll was released. She had the new superstar face and wore a white and silver dress. In 1978 she came out in a bridal version and in 1979 she had super hair which could grow and be curled.
1977 was the year for Supersize Christie. Christie was an African American doll. She had long brown hair with copper streaks and wore a dusty pink and silver dress.

My Christie's story started at a fleamarket. I don't remember if she wore anything at all at the time or what I paid for her, but it can't have been much.
She was not in mint condition. Her hair was matted and had two little braids in front, her earrings and ring were missing, she had definitely been played with.
If she had something on which I threw away or if she had been naked from the start, fact is that she spent years in a drawer. I don't know if I had hoped to stumble upon an outfit or if I actually planned making something for her, but every time I went through that drawer, I felt her reproachful gaze upon me.
When my Flapper project worked out, the chance to make it up to her was there.
With the experience I had gained from "Little Flapper", I would make her into something special. As usual I was a little naive. There IS a difference between 11.5 and 18 inch, and not just in the number of the beads you need.

First I had to take Christie's measurements and design a pattern. Again I measured several times to be absolutely sure there would be no unpleasant surprises, then I started the pattern, first the outline, then the "fabric". I had looked at pictures on the net to get inspired and after several drafts in different colors I decided to use greens and gold.
This time I would have to make two pieces and join them later. The first piece went just fine. I liked the colors, a bright green (although I wanted to use a mint first that was out of stock, however) in combination with dark silver lined teal and gold lined crystal. I loomed it, I took it off, I re-wove, no problem.

Then came the second piece. I finished it and took it off the loom. There are different opinions about what exactly happened next, but the fact is that Ponder and I managed together to pull a warp thread out which of course resulted in a whole column of beads falling out. You have to imagine the feeling after working on this for a few hours, looming and measuring. I can't even describe it. My first impulse was to chuck the whole thing. There was no chance to get those beads back in and the thought of sewing it up anyway and hoping for the best was in my head for merely a few seconds. It wouldn't have worked. The only answer was to *sob* rip it up and sort the beads all over again.
By now I was a nervous wreck. It took me a while until I came back to the loom for the second try. This time I had done about half. Seriously, it was my own fault. I really should know better than to leave the room and let Ponder watch the loom if he is in a mischievous mood. I came back to warp threads ripped off the loom, and I'm not ashamed to say that I freaked out. This project was dead as a dodo. Enough. Sorry, Christie, it was not to be. I tried. At that moment I was so tired of this pattern. I couldn't do it all over again.
Some people say I'm stubborn. Often that's a weakness, but sometimes it's a good thing. After I calmed down, I came back even more determined. Again I ripped and sorted.

Third time's the charm. I finished the piece and started sewing up the sides.
This is the very first picture I took to show my best beady friends how big this doll was, in the background one of my fiercest critics.

After deciding on the exact length I sewed up the straps with accent rows of golden beads and added three rows of the same beads to the back to make sure the dress kept sitting right.
Up to that point about 15,200 beads had gone into this dress. You might have noticed that I didn't use Delicas this time, but seed beads, or there would have been even more.
For the luxurious fringe I used the golden beads and bright green dagger beads.

So this was what Christie looked like now. It was time to think about accessories and what to do about her hair, but that's the story for the next post.

Stay tuned!

P.S. Please forgive the bad pictures. Whenever I'm in the middle of a project, I tend to take pictures at the weirdest times and often in the dark which accounts for the colors not always looking the same, too. I'll make up for it with the last picture, promise!

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel.

Tackle that stash - Tiny wire knit pendants

I don't know if I told you before that sometimes I make things that are being given to girls at a daycare center for their birthdays or other occasions.
Lately I have been making a bunch of tiny pendants with real gemstones with little flaws that were donated by a friend. For example there are amethysts, garnets, peridots or citrines.
Of course I also use other small glass cabs or stones.

This time it's an amethyst and a little glass drop with an AB finish on top.
Sometimes people think it's easier to use a small stone, but let me tell you that there are times when those put up a real fight against wire and hook. On some days I can't handle the challenge and give up after throwing away three or four bezels, but I always keep coming back eventually! ;-)
You can tell the size for these two compared to the Euro cent.

I just hope they will be liked!

Tackle that stash - Wire knit ring with tiger iron

When I look through my supply drawers to find inspiration for the weekly challenge, I usually go through my lampwork and cabochon drawers first.
It is such a pity to hide those beauties away instead of making something with them. This tiger iron cabochon must have spent years waiting for me letting it out.

The other day I started combining double layer wire knit rings with beads, cabs, and gemstones (stay tuned for more), and I thought the tiger iron would make a wonderfully bold and modern ring.
 
I chose the light golden wire for contrast and feel it works great with the shimmering tiger's eye in the cab. Tiger iron is a combination of hematite, brown tiger's eye, and red or brown jasper which make for beautiful patterns.
At first I wanted to make the whole ring light golden, but then I went for even more contrast and made the band from a gunmetal wire using a very fine crochet hook which makes the band so smooth and nice to wear despite the size of the ring. This is not a ring to overlook easily!

It is available in my DaWanda shop now.

Tackle that stash - Wire knit rope necklace with Boswana agate and lampwork

I have had these Botswana agate chips around for a while, they were a gift. Up till now I didn't have an idea for them. They were not regular in size and shape, just like chips are, and they were not drilled, either.
The only thing left was to cage them in wire which is what I did with one of my rope necklaces. It's a long necklace without a clasp. As the agate was mostly pink and grey, I picked the rose gold wire for knitting the rope.

I still have my problems with asymmetry, but we did talk about comfort zones lately as you might remember, so I did go for it. Some of the chips were randomly caught in the rope along the length, but I also added two "bubbles" full of agate and one with two grey lampwork bubble beads in it.
It's funny, when I learned chain stitch in elementary school for the very first time, we had to make a shopping bag. I picked pink and grey, since then these are two colors that belong together for me (they will turn up in a future project as well, by the way).

And here it is now, this week's stash tackler.

Tackle that stash - Wire knit bracelet with tiger eye

It's cold today, not wintery cold, but April seems to have forgotten that its time is over now. I connect warm colors with May, so that's what I went for with today's piece.
Not that it really helped, I'm still cold!

When rummaging through my stash I found brown tiger eye beads. The amount seemed just right for a bracelet. There is nothing more annoying than beads running out before a bracelet or necklace is long enough because you can't do anything about it except maybe buy new beads and that wouldn't quite go with this challenge.

It was easy to pick the right wire for this project. Warm and bright gold colored copper wire team up in this knitted bracelet. Actually the warm gold looks a lot like pure copper, but not completely, and the bright gold is more of an orange tone. Perfect for the brown of the tiger eye!

I picked antique copper tone findings to finish the bracelet off and voilà!

It is available in my DaWanda shop now.

Tackle that stash - Back to the roots

What do I mean by back to the roots?
I think that people who crochet with wire often make bracelets first. I'm no exception. I quickly tried my hand at other things, but bracelets came first.

So I picked out some glass drops today and set out to make a bracelet, colorful and so much fun to wear!
It's available in my DaWanda shop.

 

Tackle that stash - Delicate Cantera opal pendant

You have seen this tiny Cantera opal before, in this post where I showed the magic world you can see in it.
As you know, tiny cabs or faceted stones are a bit of a challenge to use in wire knit or crochet. To do the opal justice, but also keep it safe in its bezel, I made very small knit stitches. That way I was able to only cover the matrix, but leave the window to the magic world open. Actually I keep staring into that window! I just love opals.

For that little bit of movement that I like so much I added a small amber bead dangle. It's a pity I only had one opal in that size, I think this would make a beautiful pair of earrings if I had two.

To compliment the delicate pendant, I crocheted a slim rope in the same color.

Tackle that stash - Faux amber and wire knit ring and earrings

A few years ago I got a little bag full of faux amber cabochons. They were different sizes, different colors, different shapes and over the years they have made for some big fun. I made earrings, rings, necklaces, pendants, in fine silver or in copper wire, in wire knit or crochet technique and sometimes I even mixed both.
Often when my muse was out of town I grabbed the little bag and matched pairs, sets or contemplated the best bezel for a unique shape like the little rounded pyramid.

Finally the bag is almost empty. There are a few last small round cabs left now after I took two of them to make this pair of starburst earrings.

Available in my DaWanda shop

And then there was the cab that had been haunting me from the very beginning. Shaped like half a circle it defied all my attempts to put it in a bezel. More than once I thought now was the time to show it who was the master and more than once I kept ripping up what I had made half way through. If I ever heard a cab snicker, it was definitely this one.
I don't give up that easily, though. Eventually the time comes when I put on my determined face and do the job, and that's what I did.
With this ring. Ha!

Available in my Zibbet shop

Wire knit, Viking knit and netting

"Why do you call it knitting if you are using a crochet hook?" "I like your crochet." "Is that woven wire?" "You can't knit with a crochet hook." "It's called knooking." "Is that spool knitting?" "Oh, but that's Viking knit!"

I admit it can get confusing. I blogged about the differences between wire knit and wire crochet before, in this and more elaborately with sample pictures in this blog post. I didn't want to repeat myself here, so please look up these two posts if you want to know more.
The wire knitting I do is also not the same as Viking knitting although I get why people may think that at first. Knitting is knitting after all, right?
Actually it's not.

A few things before I show you my samples:
I am by no means a Viking knit expert, so far I have only dipped my toe in. For the sample I skipped the making of a base part. This is NOT a tutorial, this is just supposed to show you how differently wire knit, Viking knit and netting look.
I do knit with a crochet hook. I could use knitting needles and end up with the same look, but with a crochet hook I feel I have more control over the wire. I call it knitting because the result are not crochet stitches, they are knit stitches.


This is a knitted wire rope sample and this is a very short explanation of how it's made with an ordinary crochet hook.
First you make a row of chain stitches (which is different from the first row if you knit with needles) and close it (if you make a flat piece, you just work your way up back and forth, but the technique is the same). Then you pull the wire through the first loop with your crochet hook, towards yourself and bend it upwards over your loop to avoid the wire slipping back out. You will see that it looks like a knit stitch already, and that's how you go on. Go through the next loop with your hook, catch the wire, pull through and bend upwards.
The wire in the last row is in no way anchored to the other stitches and unravels easily if you are not careful.
You don't have to cut a length of wire off your spool for this technique. If you use it with beads, however, you have to put the beads on the wire before you start knitting.
You can use a draw plate to even out your rope or make it longer and slimmer.

This is a simple single Viking knit sample.
The loops are woven around the loops of the last row. No unraveling there. You can use a mandrel, a dowel, a special Viking knit tool that helps you with the start, a pencil ... I used a large knitting needle for this sample.
There are different Viking knit variations like double or triple knit.
You have to have a length of wire cut off the spool to be able to weave the loops, but you can add wire while you go along. To even out the chain and make it longer and give it a different look, you can use a draw plate.

Last but not least I made a small netting sample. In this case loops are not woven around loops, but around the wire between two loops which makes this a very open net.

I hope I made the differences at least a little clearer, but should you have questions, I'll do my best to answer them!

I do have to say, however, as I keep getting asked that I don't make tutorials and don't plan on starting making them. Thanks for understanding.

Tackle that stash - Black wire knit ring with acrylic cabochon

Is it Friday already? I completely forgot! Not only did I have to look after my Esme since last weekend who was sick and refused to eat even the finest snacks I had to offer, but I have also been working on a project for which I had to order the beads *gasp* It's a bead looming project and if I am missing one or more colors, there's nothing I can do. Now I only wish I knew where I have hidden my polymer clay ...

Oh well. I set myself a challenge, so I had to make something quickly, a simple design this time.

Tackle that stash - Wire crochet ropes with different size seed beads

In my stash I have a small collection of seed beads in different sizes. As you know I mostly do loomwork and rarely use different size beads for it unless I make a channel cuff.
Instead of buying new beads to go with the old ones I decided on a classic design for this red, blue and gold, wire crochet ropes with the earrings being the slimmest to avoid them being too heavy, with the bangle being bold and big and the necklace even a little bigger.

As I still felt somewhat under the weather, this was the perfect project.

And don't you think the colors are a little like spring, so bright and happy?

I am still waiting for end caps for the necklace, then these pieces will make it into my shop individually.

Tackle that stash - Under the sea

Isn't it sweet how things sometimes come together even if you have not expected it at all?
This time it was the color blue that pulled it all together.
First of all I found this dyed blue agate slice in my stash. The other day I had made a brooch with a purple agate slice in a wire knit setting. The irregular shape of the agates is easier to set in wire knitting, so that's what I decided on again here.

From there my muse took things into her own hands. I remembered the blue pearls in my drawer and as I like to do, I strung my wire with a whole bunch of them. As you can tell, though, I didn't need that many after all. My plan had been to crochet an extra edge onto the bezel and to fill it with pearls, but the shape of the slice seemed to call for a freeform edge.
That's when I began to see the ocean theme. I don't know what you see in this pendant, but to me it became part of a coral reef and I knew I wanted to have something else on there. I wracked my brain to remember if I might have hidden a fish or maybe a crab charm somewhere, and I was almost ready to go and look for charms to order - which wouldn't have gone together that well with the goal of using my stash - when I remembered my fishes by Melissa Vess. 

Among all of her beautiful beads of which I have not enough by far, Melissa's fishes have always been my favorites. I always felt her love of the ocean and diving made them even more special.
Unfortunately Melissa isn't a lampworker anymore which makes me think even more about how I use her beads in my work.
And there it was, a blue fish which matched the blue of the agate perfectly as if it was made to swim through this underwater world. Bingo!

This one of a kind pendant is available in my DaWanda shop now.

Tackle that stash - Classic elegance

If you make a bezel for a stone, there are three things you want. You want to compliment the look of the stone without hiding too much of it, you want the stone to sit safely in its setting and you want the piece to have your own style.

With wire crochet or wire knit it's not always easy to make sure the first two work together in the best way.
This last pendant I made features a dark green cabochon in a golden wire knit setting. It was the first time for me working on the edge in a way that not only shows most of the beautiful stone, but also a delicate golden border.
A lovely pearl is adding a little movement to the pendant - yes, I still am in "dangly mode"! ;-)

You can find this in my DaWanda shop now.