Another Seamless Shirt done!

I forgot to put up another garment for myself that I finished while I was in Canberra. I really love seamless knits and I wanted to knit something light that I could possible wear during the spring when the weather's a little iffy. So I found Silken Straw Summer Sweater by Purl Soho on Ravelry and pulled out two cones of acrylic I'd picked up at various op shops. Since both yarns where very thin (the grey one looked about 1ply!) I worked them held together which made a quite passable 4 ply yarn.

Then I got started. It's unlike most seamless shirts I've knit that it started from the bottom and finishes at the top. I modified the hem edge on the bottom and the sleeves because I hate these rolling up so I garter stitched them for about  10 rows. It grew pretty slowly for quite a while.

Then I finally got to the fun stuff while I was at Daughter's. Finished the sleeves, did the I-cord bind off around the neck line, washed, blocked and worn! Was and am so pleased with the result from two ordinary yarns that I couldn't have used alone but together made this lovely heathered grey shirt!

One yarn was light grey with a slight halo and the other one was a smooth yarn in a subdued white, almost the palest grey. And it fits which I always think is a bit of a miracle when I knit stuff because I haven't the patience to do a tension swatch and the few times I have my tension when knitting the whole garment is completely different! But there we go.

Happy Knitting :)

Now I'm Back Home...

Well, after a lovely nine days with my darling Daughter I can start putting into place some new ideas I had about what I might want to try and sell in my etsy shop, when I finally get myself organised enough to stock it. My little tatted motifs are so sweet I thought it would be nice if I could present them in a way where they wont get dirty or torn off, you know, some way to display them in all their delicate beauty.

I've never used resin before so I've been tinkering. My first attempt was pretty ordinary because I wouldn't wait until I had a few tools I needed (like cups to stir the stuff in!) and the only moulds I could access where silicone muffin trays. Although they look like the bottom is flat they have just a trace of texturing which makes the bottom of the resin kind of frosted. Not the best for looking at a piece of lace :(

So I was more careful next time. I put a layer of resin in the bottom of the moulds and when it was tacky I placed the motifs on it and poured another layer of resin on top.

Then I waited.

After a day and a half I was pretty sure they were dry so I popped them out and gave them another day to dry out a little more. They looked pretty good although I was annoyed that one of them had managed to entrap a gnat so now I have a wonderful lace motif accentuated by a small winged speck!

I sanded them underwater with wet & dry sandpaper (grad 600 & 1200), dried them and dug out my jewellery making supplies and managed to find some bails I bought ages ago for glass bead pendants. Bored a hole in 5 of them and hey presto! I had 5 individual and totally unique resin pendants!

  Aren't they pretty? Don't bother looking for the gnat because it isn't in this group. I'm very pleased with them and will continue experimenting. The tatted motifs of the next lot will be PVA brushed and dried before they go anywhere near the moulds. 

This is fun :)

Stay Happy!

OKAY, Let's try this again!

After much fluffing around Etsy finally reactivated my old account that had my shop on it and I plan to open it up again soon. But this time I'll actually read the hints on how to be successful with it, take really nice photos and more importantly don't rush it! There's nothing there at the moment but this is my new shop banner.

Still fiddling about with some ideas of jewellery including some of my fibre crafts. Should be interesting :)

Happy Crafting :)