It's been a while

First of all, we're expecting a little potato in January. I knit kidlet a little sweater as part of our announcement with our friends, from wool I bought while I was in Germany. I just have to decide which buttons I'll be putting on.

I decided I was going to be awesome and design my own shawl pattern. Mom doesn't really 'get' it, it's asymmetrical and requires a little bit of work to actually put it on properly. This lime green number is actually 100% viscose sourced from sugar cane. It feels like silk and drapes like a dream.

As it turns out, I kind of adore the pattern and I've knit it multiple times. I adore this one, which is a cotton/nylon/bamboo blend. It's also two colours, so when I knot it it looks really funky!

I'm fairly certain this is a wool/nylon blend, which was sourced from my Grandmother in NB's stash. It's an infinity cowl, and is so lovely and warm.

I've dabbled with crochet this summer. This rose took me an entire evening of work, almost 3 episodes of Supernatural. I'm not sure if I'll repeat this particular experiment.

I also got to try a bit of natural dying again. This experiment was with goldenrod! I'm not going to lie, I'm shocked by the colour I got. I didn't think I would get such a lovely, bright colour. I wish I'd weighed the goldenrod before dying!

It's been a very long, very busy summer and my blog has suffered as a result. Much apologies, much loves, and hopefully I'll be better moving forward.

A Suprise for a Baby

I guess it isn't that much of a surprise really. My coworker knows I'm knitting it for her.

We still aren't convinced it's supposed to become a sweater.

Even after casting off.. I'm still not convinced. Yes, I did run out of yarn at the end. But I did a bit of strategic colourwork, and now it's not terribly obvious that I ran out of yarn. To a non-knitter, anyways.

But hey! Look! It's an arm!

Oh my god, it's a baby sweater!

ProTip: This is Elizabeth Zimmerman's baby surprise sweater. I have to say, it's a pretty amazing little pattern!

Holey Knits

You wouldn't know it, but I'm actually kinda accomplishing something lately.

I'm about halfway through the third lace pattern now (I'll update a picture once I've got decent light again. After the third lace pattern, comes the net weaving. and beading.

Off again

Well, I've started another project that's going to look awfully familiar:

Eh?

This little scarf is knit up using Knit Picks Chroma worsted, in Impressionist and Grey. Lovely colourways. It's such a simple pattern! It's a simple 1x1 rib, two rows of each colour, and the first and last stitch of every second row slipped. Easy Peasy! You can check it out on Ravelry

Lovely ball too:

Once this scarf is finished, I have a hat to knit, two pairs of kilt hose, and a shawl. Phew!

If I don't get a nice glamour shot of this scarf I just might kill the recipient and take it home. Just saying.

Sunlit Lace

This shawl has been a labour of love since day one. Most times, it's very tough love. I'm not a patient person, and lacework really tests me. I've been working on this shawl for about 3 years now, and while it's limping along, it's getting somewhere.

WIP Wednesday, after all.

Same excuses, different results

I've been very bad and haven't posted on this blog for quite some time. Just so you know I'm not totally slacking, I'm trying to finish a skirt that I started a very long time ago.

Most of you will recognize it, it's Knitty's Carnaby skirt. I've been slowly working away at it for quite some time, but it's still got a ways to go.

In the meantime, I've still been very active on my jewellery blog, Blackmaille Jewellery. The most active blog, however, has been my family blog Many-Hues Acres. We're currently gearing up for spring, so it's been a very busy couple of months for us.

I've been busy beekeeping, so please forgive me.

Here's one of my little girls (Bonus: That's a tractor hat that I knitted for my Dad this Christmas! Lookit the little trains!)

I'll try to locate the chart for this hat. The hat itself was a modification of David's Hat. I ADORE this pattern. It's very easy to modify for multiple designs. I even did a hat for my Grandfather that had a celtic knot pattern around the earband! It was a super easy pattern to follow (especially when you use the Magic Loop knitting style.) I'll try to get a picture of him wearing it, unfortunately I wasn't able to give it to him this year as he was out of the country for Christmas, so I left it with my parents to gift it. Everyone tells me that he loves it though.

Very busy

I haven't updated in quite some time...

That's because I've been busy working on my family's blog, Many-Hues Acres. My parents asked me to set up a blog that we can post all of our updates for the land on. So all of my beekeeping, all of my fruit trees and building, are all going to be on that blog from now on.

That leads me to my second excuse for not posting, my jewellery blog Blackmaille Jewellery. I fully ment for this to be a knitting blog on which to post my experiments and patterns, so I need to break it up a bit.

I'm really hoping that this will allow anyone who's following my blog for knitting to not be disappointed with my jewellery posts, or my posts on beekeeping and other land concerns. I do want to keep these blogs up so that people have an opportunity to learn from my mistakes and trials, I just want to make sure that my various followers don't have to dig for thier particular interests.

At any rate, thanks for being so understanding.

I'll be posting updates on my knitting as soon as I can, but lately it's been all Christmas presents! I will hopefully have a fantastic new pattern to release before too long, but as it's for a relative that checks in every now and then... It's going to have to wait till after Christmas.

Thanks everyone, I hope my blog(s) will be a little easier to follow from now on!

Lots of Jewellery

I've been quite busy the past few days. I finished a couple of fun projects:

This will be available on my Etsy right shortly.

And these, you've seen before, but I'm still really proud of them.

So there's my life right now. Gotta get some earrings made and mailed. Whoop!

Quick Update

It's been a very busy couple of selling weeks for me. I've sold a bunch of chainmaille pieces, like this lovely:

I also finished two wedding rings:

This is a bride/groom set. The grooms ring says his wife's name, Kari. Her ring has his name, Derek.

And then I finished this Tiffany style infinity band, which started out as:

And is now:

 I think it's beautiful, I really hope the recipient does too.

And now I'm leaving to go camping tomorrow morning. My very first manicure is DESTROYED but the wedding rings are finished.

Red Pepper Jelly

Is there anything quite as fantastic as red pepper jelly? James and I found peppers in chinatown on sale for 79 cents a pound, so clearly...

Makes about nine 250mL jars

• 2 1/4 lbs red peppers
• 1.5 cups cider vinegar
• 0.5 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp chili flakes
• 1 tsp butter
• one pack (57 gr) Benardin Pectin
• 7.5 cups sugar

Weigh out your peppers, and clean out the seeds and white membrane. Chop them finely, or do what I do and chuck them in the food processor. I don't puree them, just make sure they're chopped up really fine. I pulsed the food processor until it all looked good.

Put your red peppers, cider vinegar, lemon juice, chili flakes, butter and pectin into a large pot. At this point, I measured out the sugar. Bring your red pepper mix up to a boil over high heat, and add your sugar. Bring back to the boil, and stir continuously for 4 min. At that point, remove from heat and allow to stand for 5 min, stirring every now and then to redistribute the peppers.

Can using your preferred method. I'm a bit old school in this. I sterilize my jars in the oven at the lowest setting, then put the jelly in them and lid them while they're still hot. I don't bother with a hot water bath. I know many people advocate this, and by all means if you're happier with a hot water bath please do it. My family never has, and I'm just sticking with what I'm familiar with.

This recipe results in a jam that's a bit runny, which I prefer to pour over cream cheese. If you want it to be more firm, add more pectin or increase the boiling time.

(the butter just helps the jelly to not foam. If you leave out the butter, you'll have to skim the foam off the jelly before you bottle)

Of Harvest and Odd things

Another weekend at home, another Monday of being sore as all get out.

Can't complain about the results though!

My Dad and I had Saturday morning together, as my Mom was busy crafting with her ladies. Originally, I was supposed to make bagels. However, when my mom mentioned that the white currants really needed to be harvested, I decided I wanted to help.

White currants are actually an albino variety of the red currants we're all so familiar with. I find they aren't as sour, and they just look so cool hanging on the bush. My parents planted 2 of these bushes next to the path in the backyard, and they were loaded! I started out with a just picking a colander full..

Which quickly escalated to two bowls full:

Which quickly escalated to me calling Dad for help:

That's 4.5 kg of white currants! It would be worth about 80 bucks in the store, and all off our two backyard bushes. We didn't even fully harvest the second, we were so worn out and it was getting quite hot.

We decided to make jelly. We used equal parts white currants and sugar, and 1.5 times the water. It didn't quite set up properly, so we're thinking we need to either reduce the water, or add pectin. Red currants are very high in pectin, so we assumed that white currants would be as well. Again, we're kinda playing here. Next year, we'll have a better idea what we're doing.

While waiting for these beauties to pop, my dad and I read up on black currants, and found out they make a fantastic cordial... And back out to the garden we went.

We filled up our Mehu-Liisa, added about 4 cups of sugar and 6 tbsps of lemon juice, and let it do its thing. This stuff is FANTASTIC. We tried it mixed with ginger ale later that night, and the next day we poured it into our water bottles to go hike the land. I'm so impressed with it!

So that was Saturday in Orangeville. I haven't even started Sunday! Oh dear...

The flower that blooms last

It's been a busy couple of weeks for my. My biggest conundrum is that my sister's birthday had passed, and I was struggling with the execution of her gift. On a whim, I made this:

Which she told me she really loved. It's a sheet of brass, nickel silver, and hammered copper held together with a sterling silver tulip bulb pin. It's spinny, it's cute... It just needed something to go onto. So I made this:

This part is awesome. It's copper tubing from my local hardware store, which I purchased at $1 a foot. I beat the hell out of it, annealing it whenever I thought it was getting too difficult, and hammering a pattern into the surface. This could also be accomplished using a rolling mill if you have one, with a texturizing plate. I have a couple of ideas that I'm going to use for the next one!

Each piece was polished seperately. Before assembly, I coated each seperate piece in a coat of Renaissance Wax. Theoretically, this should help prevent oxidization and stop it from turning your skin green. Once each piece was coated, dried, and buffed to a shine. Then I put them together:

And it's finished. The sharp outer petals spin, to help prevent any catching or skin slicing. It's a very comfortable fit, and I'm quite proud of the finished result. Thinking about having it on my etsy.

Oh, I finished this too:

Men's wedding band. Now to finish its partner!

Weddings wedding weddings...

It's been a long couple of weeks... full of work but not enough posting.

You may remember a few weeks ago, when I posted this:

Well, I'm happy to report that it's finally finished.

My brother is 18, and this is his present from me. I hope he likes it. I need to replace his other ring as well, but I haven't had a chance to get it put together yet.

My purple sweater is continuing, but I'm a bit stalled on it as I've started growing my various plants for the summer. My lettuce bed has been planted, I'm growing wheatgrass almost daily, and my tomatoes are just waiting for warmer weather to go out onto the balcony.

I'm currently working on a wedding ring, which my friend wanted to suit both her promise ring as well as her grandmother's ring:

Which now looks more like this:

From another angle:

As the ring is now to be made in silver, I wanted it to be a bit more sturdy to prevent anything from happening to it. It actually looks very similar to the matching Men's wedding band, which as you may remember, looks like this:

So... Except for a birthday present which I should be able to finish tomorrow, that's what I've been busy doing. Planting, knitting whenever I can, and getting jewellery work done for people.

I've been running a fever for a few days now, so I'm going to sleep to try to recover faster. I want this wedding ring finished by Friday.

We have to go deeper.

Just a quick doodle that I pulled out tonight. I'm making plans for a 16x20 print, and wanted to test out the focal point.

I was once told when I was young, by one of my teachers, that being a good artist meant that you knew when to stop.

Well... With this art I just don't have to.

My family keeps planting seeds

It's been a sleepless week.

I've been working away at a present for my little brother. I decided on a signet style ring, set with a sunstone that I picked up in Tucson, Arizona.

Here's a photo of the beginnings of the project. The square block is hand-tooled until all the sides are 90 degrees to each other. This makes it easier for me to plot the ring out and be completely accurate.

 Then I gradually take pieces of wax off until the ring looks... ring-like.

Once it looks ringlike, I carved out a space for the sunstone. I rounded out all of the corners, and made it ring-like.

I was lucky enough to spend the Easter weekend with my family, and spent Good Friday in my Dad's studio. This ring took me most of the day to make, but it looks pretty good.

It's hard to go home sometimes. It makes me think too much! It's so amazing to go home and be able to talk with my family about my design ideas, technical difficulties, and design issues. They're so helpful, and are able to talk me through any issues that I'm having. They suggest really creative ideas, help me to think outside the box, and plant seeds in my brain.

I'm currently playing with these:

My mom taught me how to make these when I was a little girl. She used to draw them to keep her occupied during church. I use it to zone out.

I'm also going to be using them to etch onto metal for jewellery. I could make these etched pieces to make earrings, bracelets, and pendants. I'm hoping mom can use them in her Fibre arts as well.

I'm working on a lovely bracelet as well, but I think that's enough pictures for one post. Very busy.

A rough week

It's been a rough week for me. My boyfriend has been working security all week for Toronto's Fashion week, which means that he gets home very day after I've already gone to bed. So I've been a bit lonely.

And then I found out that on Thursday morning, my beautiful big girl had to be put down.

Whiskey was our first family dog, and she would have been 13 on April 7th. I remember how all of us kids had our calendars marked for the day we'd finally be able to bring her home. She was tiny, she was friendly, and she was a great dog throughout her entire life. She's always had her health problems, but she never lost her amazing personality and her trust in us. I'm going to miss her a lot.

I've been working all weekend as well, so I haven't really had a chance to just sit and let everything sink in. Hopefully the good nights sleep that I had last night will help counter-act that. I did find these at the Bead Oasis show that I'm working at:

I'm giving one of the strands to my brother, he's got a thing for skulls. However I broke into one of them last night

Just for fun.

I really need a bit of fun right now. I'm trying to keep smiling even though I really just want to go home, curl up in my bed and cry. Sleep until I want to wake up. Knit. Cry. I just want to go home.

Holding out till Thursday.

Pen clips and Rings

It's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks for me. I've been working with my Dad on a couple of projects, and they're finally starting to show progress.

Firstly, the pen clip he wanted me to make.

This is fresh out of the casting machine. My mold is injected with molten wax, which is sealed in a plaster 'pillar'. This pillar is put in a kiln overnight to melt out the wax, leaving a hole for the silver to be forced into. Once the silver has been forced into the empty space, the plaster pillar is removed from the casting machine and plunged into cold water, breaking it apart to release the completed silver piece.

Because you lose the wax model during this process, it's referred to as the 'lost wax' casting technique.

I think it looks cute, no?

It looks even cuter when it's almost finished:

This has been taken to a very fine emery finish. Then we polish it:

And blind ourselves on the resulting glare. This clip will be going on a test run with my Dad, and then we'll see about making more.

I also made a couple of rings this week:

This is a Sanskrit ring that my sister was having difficulty wearing because it was copper, and turned her skin green. Now it's gorgeous in sterling silver, and I'm extremely proud of the finish that I got on it. So professional! The ring is available on my Etsy

I also finished off this ring, remember it from my last post?

It's all polished up and lovely now. This picture shows you how I started with the piece, and how it finished. The two ridged ring is completed, and is available for purchase.

So that's my crazy busy week. I still have so much to get done, and will possibly have more work from Dad on Monday. Better get my sleep in while I can!