Technique fails

"We all know them, techniques that we simply can't or don't want to pursue any longer, either because we suck at them or because they are boring to us or maybe even outgrew them over the years."
This was the topic for the new Jewelry Artisans Community blog carnival. It's not necessarily failure that makes us eliminate certain techniques, there can be all kind of reasons beside those mentioned why we drop a technique or a craft actually because this doesn't just have to be about jewelry making. For example, I gave up on polymer clay because of cat hairs which just added to my mostly not being very good at it in my opinion ;-)

A jewelry making technique that I gave up on is quite visible in my everyday life. This knitting spool has been a cat toy for a long time which is why it's always on the floor. Gundel isn't interested much, so I guess it's time to put it away. I never used it much, anyway, it came with a smaller spool.



Unlike many children, I had never learned to use a knitting spool. Not that it's difficult, it's just something I never had.
I don't remember exactly why I got the spools to use them for wire, but maybe it was just a natural development after starting out with wire crochet. It's hard to believe that it was more than ten years ago!

I made spool knit ropes without and with different beads, in silver and in colored copper, with ribbons inside of the wire, but my favorites were the ones I made only from gift ribbons. Unfortunately these turned out to be surprisingly exhausting to make, especially my favorite one. The loops were so tight due to the width of the ribbon that it was hard work to lift them off the pegs and I had to take many breaks.
Here are some of my pieces.
As you can see, the wire ones are very airy, actually almost too airy for my liking. I'm crazy about regular stitches and I just didn't manage to make these loops regular. I would probably have needed a spool with very small pegs.
Excuse the pictures, too. These are early ones, I have become better ;-)

My favorite ribbon rope ... do you see now why I like these? Very regular!

Eventually I learned new techniques, the knitting spool - the one I actually used - got put away, the folder got moved to "Archive", and I moved on.
That's how things go.
In fact the last year has been full of beads and very little wire. My crochet hooks are having a long vacation, not much crocheting or knitting. I'm quite sure that is going to change again, though. I don't plan to put my crochet hooks into storage.
Who knows, maybe I'll even get out the spool again sometime?

As mentioned above, this is a blog carnival. If you want to know what stories the others have to tell, have a look here. I'll add links as they come in.

Silver Jewellery Girl (there's not one specific blog post, but have a look around or check out the JAC thread!)
My Bijou Life