Filigree Garden



The time is going by so quickly this summer.  I've been away from the blog for a long time and I realized I need to post  pictures of the things I've been working on during our intense heat wave.  I thought I'd start with one of my newer designs, the Filigree Garden! 

Filigree is available in so many different components now and I love it.  I like to layer it and use beads with it.  I know that's not surprising to anyone who knows me, but I thought I'd mention it anyway!  I've discovered that a lot of people think that the only thing you can do to embellish filigree it to glue rivolis to it.  But, actually, there are a lot of different things you can do.  With very some finer gauge wire and odds and ends of beads you can create something like this.  I just sorted through my stash of flower beads and crystals, threw in a few drop beads and started working.  I used fine gauge wire to wire the beads to the pieces of filigree and then used jump rings to attach it all together.  I thought it needed some leaves to finish it off, so I made some dangles with some leaf beads.  The butterfly was to add some interest and break up all the sameness.  I just used a few seed beads wrapped around his body. 

This was a quick and easy project that is fun to wear, goes with everything and is like wearing a garden on your wrist!  I've beaded filigree before and I've got an idea for fall that I'm anxious to work on.  Can't believe I'm thinking fall already!!!

Here are few close ups. 

The butterfly in a rather dark picture, along with one of the leaf dangles.

I attached each flower center with different beads or crystals, and using different attachment techniques.

I hope your summer is going well.  After intense heat and powerful storms, we seem to be in a lull right now.  Hopefully, it'll continue!  Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by the blog.

It always needs beads!

I've always loved fibers and fabrics.  But, just as long as I've loved fibers and fabrics I've loved beads.  So, you'll usually find beads in almost everything I make. I love to embellish everything!!  I usually don't consider a jacket completed without a bead or two.  Same with an art quilt.  And, once I started knitting with beads, I started feeling the same way about fibers.  When I began felting knitted bowls and handbags it didn't take long to realize I had to get beads in there somehow.  With handbags, I often needlefelt over the machine washed handbag.  Then I'll sew beads onto the bag, embellishing the needlefelting.  But, then I discovered a pattern for knitted, felted bowls.  I love bowls and vessels made out of fiber or  beads.  Of course, I had to try the pattern! I knitted the bowl out of two colors of Manos kettle dyed yarn and then threw it in the washing machine.   This is the result.  Of course it's been embellished!

I decided I would applique ribbons, trims, beads and ribbon flowers in a vining pattern.  I made ribbon fuschias, and then stitched ribbon wrapped wire down with beads.  I added leaf trim, one of my favorite trims, and then stitched scattered beads to fill in.  I was especially pleased with the results.  I love the ribbon fuschias.  Here's a close up.

I was hooked on making these bowls for a while.  I made an all white/ivory  frosty one for a Christmas charity auction.  Unfortunately, I finished it with no time to spare, so there's no photo of it.  And, I made a royal purple which my daughter had to have for her college dorm room.  She took it back to school before I had a chance to jazz it up!  But, she likes it plain.  I don't know what's wrong with her!!!  Then I had two skeins of yarn left over from a sweater I made so I made a bowl to keep knitting tools in.  I thought it would be fun to sew buttons on it rather than ribbons and flowers.  So, I chose shell buttons in different sizes and colors and stitched them down with beads.  You knew I'd get the beads in there somehow!

The yarn had slubs of color in it which gave the felted bowl an interesting play of color.  I used those colors in chosing the buttons and stitched them down with green and turquoise beads. To fill in between some of the buttons I added some shaped beads.  I also decided to line this bowl.  I could see some of the stitching inside the bowl, so I decided I would cover it with a coordinating batik fabric from the stash.  You can see a little of the fabric in this closeup.

I like the look of the lining.  I cut a circle of fabric large enough to fit the interior of the bowl and then pleated it as I hand stitched it to the top of the bowl.  It's a great place to keep tape measures, point protectors, scissors and such on my table. 

I made these bowls a couple of years ago and I've been wanting to experiment with other yarns and styles.  So, stay tuned and we'll see if I get back to felting bowls.  I have some fun ideas for embellishing them and when I start to get new ideas I usually can't resist trying them out. 

Thanks for visiting today.  Hope you have a great day.





Bohemian Scarves~ part 2.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to finish my post about the Bohemian Scarves.  Spring time means lots of time gardening and enjoying the beautiful weather.  But, here I am ready to share with you the last three of the scarves. 

This one was fun to do for a variety of reasons.  First of all I knitted in godets using short rows, and that was fun.  I didn't know how it would work out but I think it looks pretty good.  The godets are in this picture puctuated by the ribbon flowers.  When I embellished the scarf, after finishing the knitting, I pleated the godets on the back and stitched the ribbon flowers to the front.  I also knitted one section so that it had a notch which I filled with  the embroidered applique.  You can see it at the neck.  I was intending to add a strip of ribbon to that area but the applique looked better!

This is a beaded yarn over stitch I developed while playing around with beaded lace stitches.  The square bead mix blended perfectly with the yarn colors.  By the way, the yarn I used for this section is one of my favorite luxury yarns.  It's Alchemy's Silken Straw.  The colors are wonderful and the fabric it creates is very drapey and luxurious.

This scarf used Maggie Jackson's linen yarn once again.  That yarn makes up into a wonderful fabric and it has a rustic appeal that I really like.  Up at the neck, in the center, is another color of Silken Straw.  Love that yarn!  I had fun with some of the embellishments on this scarf.  In a home decorating book I had seen fabric covered wooden beads used as tassels on the corners of a pillow.   I really liked the idea and filed it away to use someday.  I decided to use them at certain points on this scarf. 

Here's a close up of the tassel.  I used a batik fabric and some beads that I had used in one of the sections of the scarf.  Those little dangles are so cute and really added some fun to the scarf.

The last of the scarves really isn't a scarf.  It sort of grew into a wrap.  I had accumulated several yarns in a turquoise/lime green mix, along with a lot of turquoise and lime green solids and tonal yarns.  Since that's one of my favorite color combinations I guess it's not surprising that I would have a lot of yarns in those colors.  Well, I decided to put them together in one scarf.  But, as I said, I got a little carried away and it became a wrap.

This is the back of it.  I had some dichroic glass buttons that I had gotten at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and they were the perfect color to use with the yarns.  I decided to make the wrap in two pieces and sew the buttons on to attach the sections.  I really liked the way it worked out.  The beautiful turquoise ribbon that is threaded through the eyelets to the left of the buttons is Hanah silk ribbon.  I adore those ribbons for so many reasons!  The colors are to die for (or "dye" for!) and the drape is fabulous.  Anyway, I had this piece which just happened to be a perfect turquoise.

I hope you've enjoyed my minor obsession!  Ideas are always coming for more Bohemian Scarves.  I love making them because there are so many yarn combinations to try and  I can use  so many different embellishments on them.  So, there will be more coming.  I've actually got one in the very beginning stages right now.  We'll see where it takes me.

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog.  Have a wonderfully creative day!

The Bohemian Scarves

A few years ago at Stitches East, the convention for all things knit, I took a class with Maggie Jackson, the Irish knitwear designer.  I'm a big fan of Maggie's designs.  Her garments are easy to wear, with asymmetrical details which I love.  In this class we were making a scarf using Maggie's linen yarn and a few odds and ends of other yarns.  Along with the yarns she also provided embellishments, and a list of stitches which appear in her work regularly.  It was a great class, full of creativity.  Everyone had a wonderful time incorporating the different elements into the structure inherent in a class of any kind.  The method Maggie used for teaching the stitches and how to incorporate the different yarns and bits and bobs into the scarf was to have us make squares or rectangles of knitting which then would be sewn together. 

As I said, it was a fun session, but once I got home I decided to do my own thing.  This is what I do often after a class. During a class I'll get so many ideas on how to use what I'm learning, and when I get home I love to work those into the project.  Sometimes I even start the project over, and that's what I did with this scarf.  Thus was born the Bohemian Scarves! 

This was the first of the series.  It used the linen yarn from the class along with yarn from my stash.  I put aside the squares and rectangles that I came home with, and started from the the beginning.  I used a lot of the stitch patterns from Maggie's notes and from her books.  But, I also added some of my own.  I also decided to make the scarf in one piece.  So, I added stitches and decreased stitches as I went along.  In this picture you can see where the width decreases as it drapes around the neck. Those additions and subtractions appear though out the scarf.  The end piece is a half of an octogon which I attached to the scarf with a crochet stitch.  I incorporated beads, of course, and ribbons and buttons, all the things I love!  I even used one of my folded fabric flowers and a button from my friend Terrie.  In this picture, along with the flower, you can see some of the ribbons and trims I wove into the knitting, as well as some of the beads.

 

Of course, the ideas kept coming and I had to keep going!  More yarn and trim combination kept presenting themselves and each one was more exciting to  me than the next!  In the last three years I've made five Bohemian scarves with one being more of a wrap than a scarf.  One of my favorites, aside from this first one, is a very spring inspired combination of colors.  I love wearing this one in the spring and I named it Freesia because that was the color name of one of the yarns I used.

As I've been experimenting with this idea, and it really is experimenting, I've come up with different ideas for knitting elements and attaching them in the finishing process.  I have gone back to Maggie's original way of knitting these scarves and knit a square, rectangle or other shape and attached it later to the rest of the scarf.  The triangle you see here is one of  those ideas.  I attached it to the side edge with beads.  I always keep the neck edge straight and increase and decrease or add elements to the opposite edge so that the scarves are easy to wear.  As you can see I added a lucite flower bead to the end of the triangle as a little exclamation point!

There are more Bohemian scarves and there will be others I'm sure!  As I said, I keep getting ideas for yarn combinations and all the embellishments that I can use with them. I gather all the yarns and beads, fabrics, buttons and anything else I think I might use on a tray as a sort of design board. I've sent all but one off to Belle Armoire to see if they are interested in publishing them.  I'll post pictures of the others soon.  I didn't want you to think this was never going to end! 

Thank you for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderfully creative day.