beaded

I've been quite pleased with how little purse/smart phone pouch worked out. The base, the pouch itself, is crocheted with two strands of size 20 thread held together. One is orange, one is more of a pale coral color. As I created the pouch itself, I tatted, with the orange thread, strips of beaded lace that I then crocheted in as I went along. The beads are size 11 seed beads in a mix of colors that I felt coordinated with the thread colors.

For anyone who can crochet and tat, this is a really easy sort of project and the result is quite lovely. Just find a favorite edging pattern and off you go.

 

Here's how it looked in the beginning!

Three rows of lace added at this point, there are seven in all.

the finished purse

close up of the tatting

woven

A few weeks ago I bought myself a small lap loom and decided to try my hand at some basic weaving. I talked briefly about my weaving background or lack thereof, here. So ... now ... the project is finally finished! Here are my pics of process:

In the beginning...

It was fun learning how to change colors

It seems VERY slow going, but also rather rhythmic once you get into it

About at this point it was getting harder, the shed stick doesn't fit in anymore or the shuttles, so I started using a large, blunt plastic needle

Almost there!

Yay! Went as close as I could to the pegs and took it off the loom

Had to spend some time whip stitching around the exposed warp threads to make it look finished

And here's my result! I braided some of the weaving wool for use as a strap. I sewed the sides together and then sewed the braiding onto the purse, also added a button and closing

 I'm sure someone who knows much more about weaving than I do can explain why I got this sort of "bucket" shape to my final product... I'm guessing it's because my warp was not as tight as it should have been. Overall, it was a fun project. Would I do it again? Yes! I can see myself getting into this and if you enjoy working with fibers in general I'd recommend that you give it a try.

they came from outer space

Ok, so they didn't really come from outer space. I've had these tubular hematite beads for a while now. I created a necklace with them that I wasn't happy with, so snip, snip, snip...

I thought they might look interesting in tatting, so I loaded some of them on a shuttle and just like pod people, they sprang out!

Seems a matching alien necklace is in order now!