It’s always the way.\u00a0 You start a beaded project and partway through you panic that you are not going to have enough beads.<\/p>\n
Now normally I have this panic (at 2am, startling myself awake), and then discover that I actually have a billion-gajillion beads and end up wondering what I am going to use the remaining 200-500 beads on.\u00a0 But this time my luck has run out.<\/p>\n
My Garland sweater is coming along nicely thank you very much.\u00a0 I’m most of the way up sleeve one, and when I looked in the pot of beads I thought to myself “there doesn’t seem to be that many beads left”.\u00a0 Mmm.<\/p>\n
A count of the chart told me I needed 89 beads to finish the first sleeve (and a similar number for sleeve 2).\u00a0 A count of the beads in the pot told me I have 67 beads.\u00a0 Ah.\u00a0 I need to venture into the wilderness and buy beads.\u00a0 Whats the bets I’m incapable of only buying the ones I need?\u00a0 Oh the pretties….<\/p>\n
In other news, yesterday I spent some of my Christmas money (yes, in some respects I am still 11) and bought myself a “Zoom Loom<\/a>“.\u00a0 Oh, gosh.\u00a0 Does that ever sound exciting.\u00a0 Well to me it does, yes.\u00a0 Although the video just has me in fits of giggles – for no good reason, it’s a perfectly clear, comprehensive video.\u00a0 It’s the bit about ‘graceful extended sides’ that does it for me for some reason.<\/p>\n Now while the Loom comes with an instruction book, but there’s a whole website dedicated to these little portable pin looms – eloomanation <\/a>(I know, it’s great isn’t it?!) which has an entire section dedicated to the provision (free) of original 1930-1960s pattern books as PDFs.\u00a0 These of course have triggered all my ‘must-learn-new-craft” buttons.\u00a0 In the style of all vintage patterns out there, these little pamphlets assume that you are a previously unknown shape\u00a0 to mankind (a fitted tunic out of squares anyone?) and that you are a complete genius who’s taking time off from solving the dark matter problem by whipping up a few placemats.<\/p>\n I say genius because often vintage patterns assume that you have secret, insider knowledge.\u00a0 Secret, insider knowledge that we couldn’t possibly share with anyone just browsing this piece of literature for clues as to how one might start learning this magic craft.<\/p>\n Unlike today when even complex knitting books for fair-isle, cables or fine lacework have a chapter in the back on how to cast on, there was a more challenging time in the crafter’s past where certain assumptions were made to your level of knowledge.\u00a0 I think my favouritiest pattern ever<\/em> was for a Victorian Opera cape which says in it’s entirety “Cast on the number of stitches required.\u00a0 Knit until you have a cape.\u00a0 Cast off”\u00a0 Needle size?\u00a0 Yarn weight?\u00a0 Yardage?\u00a0 Tension?\u00a0 Decreases?! (and at this point I must take a brief moment to thank Franklin Habit <\/a>who bravely goes where i can not be bothered and makes those wonderful patterns shiny and wonderful.\u00a0 Gloves <\/a>are next on the list, and I might even get around to a pineapple <\/a>before I die)<\/p>\n So, there is a part of me that really hopes I’m required to take a staggering leap of faith, or need some form of higher degree to get my first little 4″ square.\u00a0 I love things like this…<\/p>\n If not I can always go\u00a0 back\u00a0 to that second sleeve!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s always the way.\u00a0 You start a beaded project and partway through you panic that you are not going to have enough beads. Now normally I have this panic (at 2am, startling myself awake), and then discover that I actually … Continue reading