Kumihimo Continues...

My new project is a 10 strand laramie braid using the lace weight merino.  Each spool has two strand of yarn, 7 feet per strand.  They're all carefully woven around a rat tail core.  Note to self:  Find core material alternatives as I only have so much rat tail and it makes a good cord all on its own.

Here's the yarn with a piece of the braid in front of it.

Here's a close up of the braid.

Here's what the under construction part looks like on the braiding disc.

The rat tail core is that yellow bit sticking up out of the middle of the disk.

When I finish it's either going to become the body of a necklace with an added pendant, or might become a tether for eyeglasses.  I won't know until I get there.

.....

On another note, I decide to jump into a BNS treasury deal on Etsy.  We'll see how it goes.  For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, Etsy is an online marketplace for people to sell their handcrafted goods, vintage goods and crafting supplies.  A treasury is where someone puts together a collection of picture of items from the Etsy shops around a theme of their choosing.  A treasury can feature anywere from 1 to 16 items in it.  Finally, a BNS treasury is a marketing beastie.  The idea is that you spend a predetermined amount shopping from one of the 16 people currently listed in exchange for getting one of your own items listed for sale in the next round.  Since I haven't made any sales directly from the Etsy marketing options, I decided to try this.  At least this way, even if I don't sell my item, I'll still have the other item I bought to show for my efforts.

I bought this from the last treasury round:  http://www.etsy.com/transaction/80519169

And here's the treasury for the next round.  My item is the bracelet with the Evelyn Leinbach lampwork bead.  http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTI4MzMwMjh8MjcyMjc3MTk2MA/open-best-of-etsy-by-ecochicsoaps-rnd 

Lace Weight Yarn

I think I finally have an idea on how to integrate my beautiful lace weight yarn with other crafts. 

I broke out my Kumihimo (Japanese braiding technique) supplies after the bead show - after buying some gorgeous ribbon and cording.  Looking through one of my books, I found a pattern for something called a Laramie braid.  It uses 10 spool with two strand of fiber per spool and is woven around a solid core.  When I finish my test piece, it'll be time to cut into the good stuff.

Bead Show and Stuff

This weekend was the annual bead show put on by Rocky Mountain Bead Society.  Normally I like to take some classes, but this year I focused on my shopping.  I found a lot of beautiful pieces that I can't wait to make into lovely things and post on my shop.  I found what I think were the only four strands of purple spiny oyster at the show.  I took the lot.  Spiny oyster is rarer every year - especially the purple.  Apparently it thrives in cold water.  The oceans are getting warmer which means divers have to go deeper and deeper to find the purple, which of course raises the price.  The vendor told me that he didn't restock this year because what used to be his retail price for the stuff is now the basic wholesale price.  That's a lot, considering his retail is $120 per strand.  Happily he puts them at 50% off at the bead show, but it's still a lot.

The day before the bead show, Friday, was our neighborhood garage sale.  Most places just had kids toys and clothes, or furniture items.  One spot I lucked out.  Apparently the person used to make jewelry and they had a ton of beads and findings dirt cheap.  I need to do some sorting to get at the good stuff, but it's still worth it.

Sunday, sadly, I paid the price for all the running around on Saturday - I was there five hours.  Woke up with a brutal headache.  It was probably 4:30 in the afternoon before I was functioning again - which means I still have beads and things to get properly cataloged and stored away.  And then I can start making things!

Rant of the day:

For homework in science, the child brought home a kit from the local power company.  Her homework is having her collect all of this demographic information about our energy and water usage and then they want us to install things like shower flow regulators and document how much water we're saving.  I"m sorry - I'm not volunteering to do free market research for the power company.  I'm not having my child time my shower with a freaking stop watch.  I've already emailed her teacher asking that they provide an alternative assignment that doesn't looking like a marketing survey for the power company.  I haven't heard back yet.  Here's what really ticks me off on this - they're collecting data for the power company that is none of their business - and they shouldn't be asking anyone's kid to collect it, and apparently this kit went out to all the 6th graders - as homework.  Now when the president of our country was speaking - for that they send home permission slips and opt out letters because they don't want to offend anyone with different political views.  Mandatory big business - a-okay by the school, listening to a non-partisan talk by the leader of our country - that's too scary and requires a permission slip.  @#$%!#@$

Vintage or ....

I'm having major frustration trying to research pieces that don't have logos or names on them.  The named pieces are bad enough - they're almost impossible to find out anything about them - at least the way I'm doing it.  I have jewelry pieces in my lot that I know are vintage - some because they look it - some because they resemble pieces I got a few decades ago as new pieces, but how to document them correctly, much less price them correctly, for Etsy?

I always thought you could find anything online.  Maybe I'm not asking the right questions or maybe when you're talking about vintage, it's not the most likely of subjects for online research?

I have several books on vintage jewelry too, but they tend to focus on higher end costume pieces and not the things I"m trying to research. 

I'm not even necessarily looking for knowledge on specific pieces.  I want a broader knowledge base.  I have different brooches.  There are a lot of different style pin backs.  Where?  How?  do I find out which style was common in which era?

I hate feeling like an idiot, and this lack of progress is maddening.

On another note, I have all of this beautiful lace weight yarn and I'm not sure what to make with it.  I can do the crocheted flowers easily enough, but the doilies book I tried made me want to hurl it across the room.  I know how to follow a pattern, and I swear this thing was skipping steps, like how to join one set of stitches to the next.  Lace weight yarn is not well suited to repeatedly ripping out sets of stitches and then trying again.  >-<.

This and That

Mission Impossible - Yarn Ball - Success

After several days of mostly patiently untangling my yarn, I finally finished last night.  Yay!!

I made a lovely flower barrette, which is about to be posted on my shop.

Minor Rant:

The past few weeks my remote entry key for the car has been sluggish to get a response.  I decided it probably needed a new battery since we got the car just over a year ago.  I found out the dealership had told my dad that if that thing dies, you have to bring it in to the dealership and they replace it for about $200.  No f***ing way!  No way was I paying $200 for this.  I took the key assembly to the electronics department at Target.  A nice young man popped the thing open - I think it took about two steps and popped out the old standard model battery.  We bought a two pack of new batteries for about $6.  He put the new one in and put the thing back together  - with no indication that it was ever opened.  And car dealerships wonder why they get a reputation for ripping people off.  They want to charge $200 to replace a $3 battery?  WTF?

Brokering a Deal with The Child

My daughter can be a little 'quirky'.  That's a good word to use for it.  It sounds nicer than other words I think sometimes. 

Last week she had a small group play she had to do with other kids in her class.  They're studying Aztecs vs. Cortez.  She decided she wanted to play the princess....There's no princess anywhere in this little project, but she's insistent that she wants to play the princess.  Now this is her social studies class. 

Meanwhile, in another area of the building, in her language arts class, they're working on their end of term living museum projects.  They had to pick a famous survivor.  She picked Princess Diana.  I think everyone went with it, just because that made her buy into the project.  If she doesn't like the subject, she won't do the work - period. 

Back at home, I'm digging through my stuff for my old Princess Diana collection of magazines and news clippings.  I don't find that >.< but do find an old purple, (fake) fur trimmed royal robe in my costuming stuff.

At this point, she is doing the Princess Diana project.  She's flatly refusing to do the social studies project.  Enter bribery.  She will do the social studies project if I let her borrow the robe to wear when she does her presentation - and if she gets to borrow the obsidian dagger I brought home from Puerto Vallarta to use as a prop in the social studies project.  Now Colorado has a zero tolerance rule about bringing weapons to school - but this is a deal breaker for getting her to do the project. o_O

The next morning I put the dagger (not sharp in the least - she could do more damage with a #2 pencil) in my purse, collect the child, and drive her to school.  We easily get the robe approved with the language arts teacher.  We have to discuss things with two school administrators to get her permission to use the dagger as a prop - and that's only if I give it to the special ed teacher, she hands it to the social studies teacher, he tolds it until the presentation, lets the child show it, hands it back to the special ed teacher, who then gives it back to me at the IEP meeting.  As we're discussing this, the child chimes in to the administrators, "I promise not to kill anyone."  (This is where I'm trying really hard not to laugh and hoping the team has a sense of humor - turns out they do.)

Everything went well.  She did the project for social studies.  No one was killed.  ...But my eyes boggled at the IEP meeting when he mentioned how easy the it ended up being to get her to do the project - he was so oblivious to all the wrangling that went on to get her to do it in the first place.

Home Storage Wars Continued

I've been working my way through the box.  Initially I've been trying to identify every piece as I took it out of the box.  After about 3 days of that, it became clear that I would never again have the use of my desk at that rate.  Last night I did a pre-sort instead of items by type into 1/2 gallon bags.  Now I can sort through at my pace and still work on other things on my now open desk.

This was an interesting piece.  It's a mens ID bracelet from Spiedel USA, and by the logo on the back, it's from the 70s.  Now this thing is solid.  Very heavy chain.  The gold badge on front is perfect for engraving, right?  Now what you're seeing below is the cleaned up version - because the last person who owned it decided to save that pesky engraving money and had his name on it with old plastic white label tape.....Yes, label tape - petrified at this point.  If you can't afford the engraving, leave the damn thing blank.  I guarantee the label tape made you look ridiculous.  I'm looking at you, Walter from the 70s.

I found a few other pieces, so far, that I can't identify.  This one has no pin back or attachment and doesn't appear to have any pieces broken off, so what the heck is it?

And this one is equally as baffling.  Popular vote is that I should use it as a business card holder at a craft fair.

Finally, there are a ton of large hoop style fashion earrings in the mix.  I'm experimenting with micro-macrame to modify them sufficiently so I can actually use them in my shop.  The results aren't bad so far, but I'm trying to figure out how to tie off at the end so it doesn't slip off.  I'm thinking glue will eventually be involved.

Oops..

I was working on doing the center pull ball for my beautiful silk merino blend yarn tonight and something went badly awry o_O.  I don't know quite how I managed without touching any scissors, but I think I'm up to 6 ends..okay, actually 4 ends now and one ball on its own.  I think I zigged when I should have zagged and started working from the wrong end - and then instead of stopping as soon as I realized the mistake, I started winding the end I did have in and out of the larger skein.  Anyway - I'll be working on it tomorrow while I work and when I watch Big Bang Theory.  Hopefully the lesson is now burned into my head to start the project right in the first place.

In other news, my giant 17+ pound lot of vintage/repair/misc. jewelry and whatnot I got on ebay arrived today.  I have much sorting and cleaning and scrubbing to do.  I really need to find a class (preferably online) on learning to identify jewelry styles and vintage pieces.  Google has not been particularly helpful in this area.  Sometimes even when I can find a mark, it gets so many hits that it's impossible to narrow down what exactly it is.  I'm all for repurposing things and making fun new items, but I don't want to dismantle something that has vintage value without knowing what I'm doing.

This large bottom box is about 12"x12"x6" and filled to the brim.

My iPhone alarm tells me it's time for meds, but I'm not ready to call it just yet.

Yarn me, baby!

Received my gorgeous new yarns from Canada today.  Approximately 1300 yards of a minty green 90% wool, 10% angora blend  was the appetizer.  The main course was in the next bag.  These are the goodies made by Raven @ Trampled By Geese.  My first hank was 200 yards of 100% wool dyed Thunderstorm colors.  This was hand spun into 1 ply lace by Raven.  The next hank is the gorgeous orange madder dyed bit I've been lusting after for quite a few weeks now.  This too is hand spun by Raven.  Cotswold wool, madder dye, 1 ply lace.  A whopping 535 yards.  Next I have a lovely merino/silk blend spun by Raven.  It's 3 ply sock weight, not that I know how to make socks, and 460 yards.  It's a beautiful burgundy wine kind of color.  Finally there is the lovely creamy hank, also spun by Raven, of corriedale wool, bamboo and silk.  There's a nice 75 yards to play with.  Right now I just like petting it.

I'm going to be working on stepping up my crocheting and knitting skills to be worthy of the lovely yarns.  I look forward to the challenge.

A dragon by any other name...

To explain the title of my blog, I'm going to jump back to when my daughter was about four.  At this point she had been walking for two years and was just starting to get language.  I would say I was definitely still in my bitter/depressed/black humor stage.  I'd see all these cars with their 'honor student' bumper stickers while my angel was kicking me from the back seat or throwing her shoes at my head while I drove.  About this time my husband and I played an online multiplayer game called Horizons.  In this game you could (and can still) play a dragon character.  I called my darling child my little hatchling - she was such a fierce little thing (and she loved playing baby dragons).  I didn't foresee a future where I would ever have an honor student while I had a child that screamed all day and climbed the back of my chair while I tried to work (doing tech support from home).  I used to joke to myself that my hatchling would eat their honor students.  Fast forward to middle school and 2011, and my little hatchling has made the honor roll the last two trimesters.  Go figure.  But I still have the bright yellow messenger bag we had made that I take to all my school meetings.  There's a little red dragon on the cover, and it says, "My hatchling ate your honor student".