Nutcracker - The seventeenth door

Definitely one of the cutest Christmas ornaments (which you could also turn into a charm, a pendant, or earrings) that I found on YouTube is a little nutcracker by Juliet Erskine Jules and Rose.

I have to admit that the video tested my patience. You know that I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to videos and this one was an hour long, but I was so intrigued not only by the cuteness of this little fellow, but also the generosity, which Juliet is sharing these instructions for free with, that I couldn't do anything but pull it through, right?
And that's what I did although I got confused a few times which was not Juliet's fault at all.

She shows and explains every step, but I did get distracted by a (not so) little cat every, now and then who insisted on climbing the hills that are me. It was never a problem to save the project, though, by just going round once more to find the right bead to come out of, for example.
Another thing was that I had to improvise on the hat as the pearl I used seemed to be a little bigger. This is an intermediate beader's project, however, so I had been ready to improvise. The hat is a bit different now, but I think it still turned out nicely for my dark green haired nutcracker. Yes, he's ready to work at the Emerald City with his green hair and coat now.
Seriously, though, didn't he turn out cute?

Now I wondered if I could also make a slightly bigger nutcracker, adapted to my personal skills, meaning mostly using my beloved Herringbone and a bit of Peyote stitch.
Turns out I could, not without flaws of course and with some trial and error.
What bugs me most is that Magatamas fooled me once again. This is a kind of bead that I will never get along with, and the only reason to use two of them for the shoes was that the last surprise bead order had contained a tube. I had turned them this way and that way several times and still managed to get the wrong side up on one of the shoes. Now I can't stop looking at it. How is it possible that I only noticed when I was already up at the chest?? Ripping everything out again was not an option for me at that point.

I changed a few small things in the design as well, like the medal on the nutcracker's chest, for bravery, no doubt, because he was very brave to let me work on him ;-) I also gave him white hair and a beard. His coat is either very long or his legs are a little short, but that's okay, I'll keep that in mind in case I make another one (actually I did start one and messed it up royally).

What I want to make clear is that I would not have been able to make this version without Juliet's pattern.
Without it I wouldn't even have thought of making a nutcracker, and if I had, I wouldn't have known where and how to start. Thank you, Juliet!

Tut-tut

I'm not tut-tutting at you. It's just an early morning attempt to come up with a creative post title. Putting tutorial in the title may have created the idea that I am posting one and this is not happening - and with this we jumped right into today's topic for our monthly JAC blog carnival.

Tutorials.
I only ever made and posted one myself, a little bead and wire crochet flower. Back then I actually thought I would at least try to make more, but that didn't happen. Every, now and then I thought about it, but it's always the same. Once I start working on a piece, that's what I do. Of course I have to take breaks, but not for taking pictures or writing down things. I don't even want to think of making a video. I'm one of the (obviously unusual ;-)) people on the web who don't make videos - not of my cats (I have two of which one shows Ponder under the sheet, so you actually see, well, a moving sheet and the other one a dark room because it's really about the sound), not of my new shoes, my neighborhood, strange people I see on my train, you get the idea.

This really turns out not to be a flattering post of myself. You must get the idea that I don't have any patience, and it's true, for many things I don't have much patience.
That brings me to using tutorials and that is going to be even less flattering. In fact it sometimes makes me feel kind of guilty that I hardly ever use or even read/watch a whole tutorial, no matter if it's written down or if it's a video. The reason for that is not that I'm so immensely talented that I grasp things within the first 40 seconds (although that would be nice!), instead it's that patience thing again. Now if someone shows me something live, that's different.
So I start watching a video or rather single steps - mostly if it's about a beading stitch I don't know - and then fill in the gaps myself or experiment with changes. It's almost as if pick just part of the tutorial makers' brains, and that's where the guilty feeling part comes in.
I may be overthinking this one, though ;-)

So I'll just thank all people who take the time to help others learn something if they are ready for it.

Since a post without a picture always seems incomplete, here's something I made being inspired by a tutorial by Jill Wiseman.

Here you'll find what my fellow JAC members have to say about tutorials. Please drop by and have a look.

Violetmoon's Corner
Jewelry Art by Dawn

Bead and wire crochet flower - a little tutorial

Be gentle with me. I haven't done any kind of tutorial before, and I thought I'd try it with something small first. What I learned from this is that I need more hands (or a helper who can deal with my moods ;-)), better weather - I made this in my light tent and had a bit of a space problem - less distraction and maybe more patience. I hate to put something down to take a picture, that's something I seriously need to work on.

What you need to make this cute little flower:
Round nose pliers
Cutter
Copper wire 28 gauge of any color you like
7 beads - it doesn't really matter what kind or size you use, they can even all be the same. I like to use one large bead and 6 smaller ones, in this case it's riverstone and jasper. Not even the shape of the center bead matters much once you have some practice, it can be oval for example. If your center bead is very large, you might need more of the beads for the petals to avoid big gaps
A crochet hook - again you can use different sizes as long as the hook is not too big. My favorite one is a 1.65 mm at the moment, but I have used anything from 1.3 to 2.1 mm.

Which stitches you should know:
Slip knot, chain and single (double if you are in the UK) crochet stitch

1. First of all you need to put the beads on the wire, first the small ones, then the large one because this is the one you'll start working with.

2. Make a slip knot and tighten this knot around your crochet hook by tugging on both ends of the wire. Don't make it too tight as you'll pull one of the loops open again.
Leave a tail of wire long enough to go back and forth through your center bead a few times later on.

3. You can see that one loop is tightened, that's the little knot on the bottom. The second loop is big enough to go the whole length of the bead, it will be the foundation on which we put the "petals". Add a chain stitch as small as possible. If you don't add this, you won't be able to crochet the petal beads onto the loop, but you also don't want it to stand out too much.

4. The next step is to add the smaller beads with single crochet stitches. Slide your bead next to your last stitch, pull some wire through the loop wire. Then grab the working wire with your hook and pull it through both loops. Try to keep your wire tight on the same spot of your crochet hook to achieve regular stitches.

5. Once you got three stitches with beads on one side of the loop, turn it around and add three more on the other side. Cut your working wire, pull it all the way through the last stitch and tighten it.

6. As you can see, this flower is not looking very symmetrical yet, the bead holes look in different directions, and the petals look kind of loose. You can bend it in shape, you can add single crochet stitches to make them sit on a base or you can deal with that later ... as we will.

7. Cut your wire and leave a tail long enough to go one or two rounds through all of the petal beads.

8. Pull one of the tails through your center bead.

9. Anchor the wire in one of the stitches on the other side and go back through the center bead. You can repeat this as often as the size of the bead hole and the length of the wire allow.

10. After going through the center for the last time, anchor your wire, wrap it around the stitch once or twice, cut it and hide the end in your stitchwork.

11. If you now want to fix the symmetry issue, all you have to do is use your second wire. Just go through all the outer beads and gently pull the wire tight. Again, you can do that once or twice.

12. You see that the center bead sits slightly on top of the others now.

13. Wrap your wire around once or twice and cut.

14. Voilà!
You can do different things with these flowers. Turn them into little pins by adding a needle, put a bail on to make a pendant or add some chain and a lobster clasp to create a sweet little zipper pull. Use earwires to make them into earrings.
Use up leftover beads, go wild with colors and shapes, and most of all - have fun!

Again, if I left something important out, let me know and ask. I'll learn to make it better over time, I hope ;-)