Clair de Lune

 Sorry I didn't get this up sooner but this is for day 5, the necklace I mentioned last night but I couldn't get a good picture of... and I still don't have a great picture of this but I like these pictures better!

So being the geek I am I love jewelry that is related to something science-y and this necklace fits the bill. I saw a necklace with black lava balls wrapped in silver wire then strung together looking like little sparkling moons. I can do wire wrapping yet nor could I find all of the right pieces but I had these beads and I loved how they looked together. I am also on a huge asymmetry kick right now (much to my husbands chagrin). I think it looks cool as a mixed medium piece. I added the mirror and velvet just to make it more feminine since it has so much chain. So this is still an early attempt at jewelry making so all comments are welcome.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Quizzes, doilies, and necklaces... oh, my!

 So I kind of missed posting for Day 3 and  4, sorry. Day 3 was insanely busy with an over 12 hour work day (these are going to be the norm next week too). But I did have my students make and program mini-store front signs, though I didn't count those nor did I take pictures. Maybe I will next week. My things for Day 3 were two quizzes and a charter for my club, which all had to be done for my job but I feel better thinking I got them done as part of my task here.

The next day was more interesting. I made this doily. I have never crocheted a doily before (and I still don't see the point in them) but it looked kind of interesting and I had a pattern and yarn readily available. This is called the Spider Web Doily and if from Coats and Clark. I am sure you can get the pattern free there but I haven't checked, I found my pattern as a project sheet in the yarn aisle a long time ago. I like how it turned out, it needs to be blocked, but I still don't know what to do with it... any ideas?

Lastly, I made a necklace. I am a beginning jewelry maker but I really enjoy it so I thought I would take on the challenge on my day off. It is inspired by a necklace I saw in a magazine once that was themed on the moon. I am obsessed with space and the moon in particular (I spent a whole week of my vacation this summer learning more about the moon, yes I am a geek but I love it). I can't get a good picture of the necklace tonight but I will try again tomorrow. I will also have more details on it then. I also plan on blogging about my other necklaces that I have made in the past too but have yet to see the light of the internet. You should check those out. Ok enough for now, my books are calling me. Happy making!!

Let's try this again since it didn't work last night.

Swatching: or a taste of what's to come

So I don't normally swatch. I often make afghans and scarves and even fingerless gloves without swatching so I am not all that talented or experienced with it. However, when a friend of mine asked me to make him a scarf and then bought the yarn for me I was more than willing to step-up to the task. We spent an entire hour looking for a pattern to match his needs and he picked a really cool one. Then the challenge hit, he wanted me to make it a bit bigger and longer and that would mean I needed more yarn than the pattern called for. Since very little of the lighter yarn was going to be used I really didn't worry about running out but the darker yarn, well it comes in dye lots and I worried I might run out when I only had one ball!!! So I swatched. I calculated out before the swatch and if I got it perfect I could do it with a swatch or without one but I am not perfect so it was better not to chance it. So my swatch is made and a lightly blocked and the math works perfectly, actually now that I see that might have a little extra yarn (go me!). So since I stayed late tonight again helping the new math/science teacher get her bearings I didn't have time for something more interesting. Maybe tomorrow I will, or tomorrow will be my Physics quiz or one of the robots I make during the robotics class I am teaching. We will see and I am sure this weekend will be full of making things. Enjoy!

The First Scarf

So today I worked a 12 hour day so my first project isn't actually finished yet.. and I technically I did my first row last night (I couldn't wait to start). I did the rest of this tonight but I didn't get the fringe done (that's why you can't see the fringe part) but I hope to do better tomorrow. I really like this scarf and think the colors look really cool. It is totally reversible but looks a little different on the inside. I have pledged to make 6 scarves (not  a ton but at least I think I will get them all done) for the Special Olympics this year so I am excited to almost have one done. When I add the fringe I will post about that too. Until then I hope this is an ok first day and I look forward to more impressive (or at least more finished) things in the coming month. Thanks for providing the inspiration to allow me to still be creative in my off hours. I am open to any comments or concerns as I think i will make this scarf again!

Thing-a-day & the other blog

So the month of February is dedicated to making things, well it is for the thing-a-day people. And since it is such a gloomy month here in Nor Cal I have decided to try it out. I have to make something and blog about it everyday for the whole month. I hope you will join me in trying to make something everyday for a month. However, I need to blog over on posterous in order for me to contribute to the community of thing-a-dayers. Therefore, I will try to blog here as well but since I do work full-time in a non-craft related career I can't promise anything yet. I will post a link here next week to the other blog so you can follow along and I will post weekly updates here every weekend. So get your crafty juiced flowing for a month of creative fun. PS I should be back blogging more frequently now so stay tuner for some awesome projects that I have been meaning to share with you all! Thanks for waiting for me.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6

Look Up

So this month is yet another blogging month and I am finally back. Well, sort of. I am on my final month of this school year and I want to start blogging again. I feel like I have missed a good deal of my life with this job and a bit of my creativity has been drained but I feel it coming back. In fact, I am working on a pretty cool new project. I found this book called Urban Paper and have introduced the concept of paper toys and robots to my students. I hope to get them to try to design their own Mars lander for Space Day (May 7th). Oh and for those of you who wonder about my title this month time... Look Up is the theme for this month. Space is looking up, right? ;) Check out the blog for the book.

It has been so long, and I am sorry!

So I got swamped with vacation travel and then my new job (which has put a permanent crimp on my crafting time) so I haven't been blogging either. And then I come on to see what I last blogged about and I see people have been looking at my blog and I am failing them! OH NO!! I must begin to blog again.

So in crafting news I am teaching Art to middle school students and I have no idea what I am doing. We have like no budget and not much in the supply department... not to mention the fact I craft not make art so I don't know if I should even be teaching this class... but at least the kids are having fun.

I have also gotten into paper crafting a little bit (though I still suck at it). I still crochet like there is no tomorrow (because according to some movies there is). I am working on a scarf, some Christmas presents, and maybe even another wearable. I do have a BIG flub-up to share but maybe later this week... I tried to make a really cute cardigan with a substituted yarn and did not think about drape or weight... oops!

Check out my Flickr for a few of my most recent (well more recent than here) projects, like my Toy Society Swap and Holocaust Butterflies.

I promise more soon and thanks to those of you who have stuck around waiting for me. I promise to be interesting soon... or at least posting more often. In the mean time check out my newest obsession for jewelry from Surly-Ramics on Etsy or ArtFire!! I have the Scientific Method one... so cute for a science teacher!