Crafts - Lovely Morticia & next projects

I've been a busy bee! I cast on the next Boo Knits project, a beautiful lace shawl named "Morticia". With me loving all things goth and the "M is for March" challenge going on over at Ravelry this was the perfect pick to extend my bead-working as well as lace knitting skills. I had some dark purple yarn planned for it some time ago but decided to go all black - same yarn though, Lana Grossa Lace Lux - with silver and purple beads (see my last post). Fast-forward 25 days and the shawl was done!

Blocking my last project went well enough but I knew the Morticia shawl would turn out bigger. Since I'm also a little bit of a perfectionist (at least in some areas ;-) ) I finally caved in and ordered some blocking mats and wires for my future works. I barely managed with the amount of mats and found using the wires somewhat challenging as I had to connect the three wires in some way to make the full bend but in the end it turned out quite alright, if I do say so myself:

Sooo, what's up next? I found a pattern for a mid-calf length hooded coat and also found that coincidentally I had the magazine the pattern was from at home already. Gnashing teeth at the estimated yarn costs and my birthday coming up resulted in a very generous gift from my parents (thank you!!!), a voucher for one of my favorite yarn stores. Yarn ordered, Morticia finished, coat cast on :-) I dubbed it "Something Death Would Wear?" in honor of my avatar and favorite comic character, Sandman's Death.

While I'm sure the coat will keep me busy for a while I do have some more Boo Knits' shawls queued up. Other than that I recently acquired various skeins/balls of yarn which ask to be made into something for my daughter, like this Wollmeise "Hoochie Mama" and "Xaverl":

 

Crafts - Mustardseed done, Morticia next - beading awesomeness

My knitting/beading hack from last post? Worked like a charm! But first things first...
After working the first beading rows I was hooked ;-) It's fun, it's a challenge (sometimes), it's variety and it's fun! Here's a picture of a lace border repeat, the shawl almost done.

 

Today I managed to actually wash and block the thing. Did I mention that I -hate- blocking? I still hope I did a reasonable job (minor adjustments happened after this picture was taken)...  I love(d) the pattern and I think, apart from the Dragonfly Shawl, this has been the second fastest piece I've worked. Did I mention I'm on vacation next week and have a lot of knitting time on my hands?

 

So, now that I knew how to work beads and stumbling over a pattern I've been wanting to do for quite some time, AND Bev calling out March to be M-KAL month (knit-a-long with one of her patterns that start with M) I finally decided to give the Morticia pattern a go. Seriously, how can a (half-)goth like me resist a piece named after a favorite goth/knitting TV character? *grin*

I actually wanted to use the exceptionally beautiful yarn my friend Betsy sent (see this post) but I had used the Lana Grossa Lace Lux in various other projects before and remembered there was a black variety of the yarn as well. So I decided this will probably be a better fit and went to acquire some at one of my favorite stores, Wedermann. Because... my friend & co-worker Anja, who does lots of beading work, recommended Perlenmix as a source of beads to me so naturally I had to go and check. As they're 5 minutes walk from Wedermann one thing lead to the other... and here's what I came home with - I've been good, I swear! ;-)

 

So, I've cast on my Morticia today and what should I say - it looks way more complicated than it actually is. Bev's directions are meticulous and perfect, everything fits together perfectly (yarn, needle size, beads - thank you, instinct!) and I can't wait to have this beauty finished.The beads are a little bit smaller than I the ones I worked with the Mustardseed shawl above, but as the yarn is a little bit thinner as well they're a perfect match.

Crafts - Knitting/beading hack

My most recent project is a very beautiful crescent-shaped shawl by Boo-Knits called "Mustardseed". It's the third pattern I got from her and it's again exceptionally well written and charted and a dream to follow and knit.

Bev gives you the option of adding beads to the pattern, which I have never done before but decided to try this time. So, off to the crafts supplies store that's closest (which happens to be Hobbykunst Vösendorf, where I also bought the supplies for the stitch markers, see my post about it) and find all required items. Which, after most beading tutorials I found, consist of the actual beads and a very small crochet hook. As I didn't get one that was small enough at this store the helpful young lady working there showed me a hack that she's using for her beading work, so I got the thin silver wire (0.4mm) as well, in case I wouldn't be able to find the crochet hooks (which I later bought in my other favorite crafts store, Neidhart's Nähkistl).

To cut the long story short - beading with this small crochet hook and a fingering weight yarn SUCKS and is a major pain in the ...

I resorted to trying the wire hack and you know what? Works like a charm!!! Here are the step-by-step instructions how to do this:

Cut a small piece off the wire, shape a V out of it. Then, thread the steel wire though the stitch you want to put the bead on, slip the stitch off the needle:

Thread the bead onto both ends of the wire:

Slip the bead down, pulling the wire and the stitch through the bead (like a kind of hook):

 

Return the stitch onto the left hand needle and work it as usual:

That's what the finished row looks like:

Easy and guarantees not losing any strands of yarn or splitting it, as it's likely to happen with the crochet hook. It's a fantastic way to work beads if you have thicker yarns you work with. I'll keep you posted about the final results, I'm really looking forward to finishing this shawl <3