More Crafty Jewellery
Aug. 19th, 2012 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenI've been playing with my new toy, a deluxe spool-knitting gizmo, which I bought on Friday. I don't think it will be quite as portable as my crochet stuff, because it doesn't appear to be quite as amenable to shoving into a bag when one's bus stop arrives; it's designed to be put down on a table when one needs to pause in working. That's okay; it being the weekend, I did get quite a bit of working in.
So what did I want a deluxe spool-knitting gizmo for? To be able to make wider knit tubes than the standard size spool knitting devices allow. This gizmo has two fittings; one a three-stitch-per-row fitting, and the other a six-stitch-per-row fitting. It was the latter that I wanted to use.
Why? So that I could shove marbles down the middle of it. To make necklaces with pretty marbles. Because pretty marbles don't have holes through them, so one can't thread them like beads.
So I made my first tube, out of silver acrylic/polyester/whatever-it-was yarn. I closed up one and, and filled it with marbles, and closed up the other end, and put fasteners on it.
And didn't like the result. It was one long tube and you couldn't really see the marble-ness of the marbles.
And then discovered that one could pull the marbles out of one end because the stitching was a little loose at that end. So I pulled them all out. Strangely enough, what I was left with was a good enough necklace that I decided to keep it that way, and make matching earrings.
Necklace and earrings the first:
Then it was time for the second tube. I decided to use only a handful of marbles for this one, and keep them spaced out by wrapping wire on either side of where the marbles were. My first efforts were with quite thick silver wire, and I found that quite difficult to wrap. So later bits were done with thinner wire, and that was easier. We shall see which bit works better in the long term for keeping the marbles where they're supposed to be.
Necklace and earrings the second:
I made some hoop earrings to match; this was done with hoop findings, and I crocheted over the hoop with the same yarn that the spool knitting was done with. The earrings ended up rather large; oh well.
All the images are rather more sparkly than the actual things are, because the light of the scanner was reflected by the glittery yarn.
All in all, I deem this experiment a success, and foresee more glittery yarn spool-knit necklaces in my future, with or without marbles.
(edited to point to different offsite album)
So what did I want a deluxe spool-knitting gizmo for? To be able to make wider knit tubes than the standard size spool knitting devices allow. This gizmo has two fittings; one a three-stitch-per-row fitting, and the other a six-stitch-per-row fitting. It was the latter that I wanted to use.
Why? So that I could shove marbles down the middle of it. To make necklaces with pretty marbles. Because pretty marbles don't have holes through them, so one can't thread them like beads.
So I made my first tube, out of silver acrylic/polyester/whatever-it-was yarn. I closed up one and, and filled it with marbles, and closed up the other end, and put fasteners on it.
And didn't like the result. It was one long tube and you couldn't really see the marble-ness of the marbles.
And then discovered that one could pull the marbles out of one end because the stitching was a little loose at that end. So I pulled them all out. Strangely enough, what I was left with was a good enough necklace that I decided to keep it that way, and make matching earrings.
Necklace and earrings the first:
Then it was time for the second tube. I decided to use only a handful of marbles for this one, and keep them spaced out by wrapping wire on either side of where the marbles were. My first efforts were with quite thick silver wire, and I found that quite difficult to wrap. So later bits were done with thinner wire, and that was easier. We shall see which bit works better in the long term for keeping the marbles where they're supposed to be.
Necklace and earrings the second:
I made some hoop earrings to match; this was done with hoop findings, and I crocheted over the hoop with the same yarn that the spool knitting was done with. The earrings ended up rather large; oh well.
All the images are rather more sparkly than the actual things are, because the light of the scanner was reflected by the glittery yarn.
All in all, I deem this experiment a success, and foresee more glittery yarn spool-knit necklaces in my future, with or without marbles.
(edited to point to different offsite album)
