Beaded Fish Windchime

Spring is here and we've been doing some work out in the yard. We still have lots of trees to finish cutting up and logs to split and one pile of limbs still to burn before we will be all cleaned up from the ice storm we had back in December. But this past weekend we spent some time turning over the dirt in our planting beds and putting in our tomato plants and some basil. My little garden helpers were right there with me, digging in the dirt and sprinkling carrot seeds, poking holes and planting green beans. The strawberry bed has been covered with netting, actually tulle right from Walmart's fabric department, to keep the critters from enjoying our delicious crop. This should be another good year from growing yummy treats in the gardens!

The front porch also got some new hanging flower baskets and my two fish wind chimes were brought up from their winter hiding place to swing in the breeze for the summer. Here's one of them hanging on the end of the front porch...


As you can see, it's a beautiful spring day here in New England. Just sticking out of the bottom of this picture, you can see the steel drum that we have been using to burn all the sticks and branches from ice storm. Hopefully we'll be able to put that away soon. But there's my little bejeweled fish, hanging from the end of the porch catching the wonderful breezes we get up here on top of the hill.


This is the one I made just recently. These were kits that I purchased from Herrschner's quite some time ago on clearance. I find some great deals there. I made up two of them and have used them for a few summers, but last night I was looking for a quick project to do before time to make dinner, so I checked my cabinet for something and found this fun little kit.


It came with the wire fish shape and all the beads and string and mirrors, and I put it all together. It only took about an hour to string everything the way I wanted it and then glue all the knots to make sure they wouldn't come out.


The little mirror shapes are in pairs, sandwiched together and glued with the string in the middle. The stained glass shapes in red and green have loops already attached to them for tying on the string. The colored beads of different shapes hang in between to add color and sparkle too. To make them stay put, I just threaded the string through the bead, then brought it back around and threaded it again in the same direction. This allows the beads to be moved up and down the string for easy placement, but they will not slide down the string on their own.


At the bottom of each string is a little puffy plastic heart shape to finish it off.

Beaded wind chimes can be made with any type of shape that you make or buy, adding any decorative elements you may already have around the house for color and sparkle, and stringing them in a way that you find pleasing. Of course a kit is always the easiest way to do something like this, since all the parts are provided. But with a little creativity and imagination, you can come up with your own original artwork to hang on the front porch and catch the fabulous breezes that are sure to be coming your way soon!

Happy Stitching!

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Tunisian Crochet Duck Pattern

Who doesn't love a bright yellow rubber duckie? My cousin's upstairs bathroom inspired this next project, and it's a great way to practice your Tunisian crochet skills. Supplies needed are only two: a ball of yellow crochet cotton such as Peaches 'n Cream or Sugar 'n Cream available at such stores as Walmart, Michael's, AC Moore and the like, and a size K-10 1/2 afghan hook available online at Herrschner's or Mary Maxim, or perhaps at your local yarn shop.


Here's my dapper little yellow duckie all ready to give your face, or even your child, a nice scrubbie with all that fabulous texture created by the Tunisian Purl stitches which make up the duck design. Of course, the back of the cloth is all bumpy too because that's just the way the back of Tunisian crochet is! Perfect for a face cloth or a dish cloth, don't you think?



This finished cloth measures 9 1/2 inches wide by 10 inches long, which includes the border. When I finished the Tunisian crochet body of the cloth, I switched to a regular size K crochet hook and worked a single crochet border all around the cloth, then a simple decorative border of (skip a stitch, 3 single crochets in next stitch, skip a stitch, one single crochet in next stitch) all the way around.

If you would like to make one for yourself, here is the chart which you can click on, then print.


At the bottom of the chart, I have included the information for working the project. The beginning chain for this is 33. For each blank square of the chart, you work a Basic Tunisian Knit Stitch and for each X square on the chart, you work a Tunisian Purl Stitch. Remember that each row of Tunisian crochet is made up of the forward half of the row when you pick up all your stitches onto the hook, and the return half of the row where you work the stitches off the hook.

To follow this chart, you would begin at the lower right corner and work 5 rows of Basic Tunisian Knit Stitch. Then you would start the next row by counting how many Knit Stitches you need to work before starting the Purl Stitches. In this case it would be 11 Knit Stitches. Then count the number of X squares, which is 8, and work 8 Purl Stitches, then finish the row with Knit stitches, and work the return half of the row as usual. Continue following the chart upwards and from right to left until you have completed the entire chart. Work your border however you like, and you are finished.

I have designed some other patterns as well, and will be sharing them with you in the coming days and weeks. If you make something from this pattern, please send me a picture. I would love to see it, and maybe share it with my readers!

Happy Stitching!

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Handmade Vintage Christmas Ornaments

My grandmother was a pretty crafty lady who lived with my family all the years I was growing up until she died when I was almost out of high school. She was quite an accomplished seamstress, crocheter, cook, and had many other talents as well. She taught me how to crochet when I was quite young, probably 8 or 9 years old.

Gram, as everyone called her, liked to make pretty Christmas ornaments from kits, similar to what we might buy today from Herrschner's or Mary Maxim or your local craft store. Dimensions is the brand that comes to mind when I see her felt and sequin ornaments.

Here are a few of the ornaments that my grandmother made which I was able to remove from my mother's Christmas tree and add to my own. I'm not quite sure my mother knows about this, so let's keep it our little secret, shall we?


This bell is made of straight pins, sequins, beads, gold trim and some glue. Its core is a dense styrofoam-type material that holds the pins securely once the glue they were dipped into dries. I love the sparkle it adds to the tree.


This colorful bird has felt pieces sewn onto the main green bird base and is decorated with sequins and beads that are also sewn on. The gold trim is sewn as well and the whole thing is stuffed and about 5 inches from beak tip to tail. It is decorated the same on both sides.


I remember Gram made several of these little drum ornaments and over the years a drumstick or two went missing. When I absconded with this patriotic little gem, it was the last one still sporting both drumsticks. I do recall my mother telling me I couldn't take it for that very reason...it still had both drumsticks. Of course I reasoned with her, saying that was precisely why I wanted that one. And here it is hanging on my tree so many years later. I wonder if Mom really thought I would put it back on her tree and take one of the others with only one drumstick.


And this lovely Snowlady has always reminded me of my grandmother. She could tie such beautiful bows with the sashes on our fancy dresses and in our hair. And she used to wear fancy hats too!

So these are some of my vintage ornaments made by my grandmother's hands many many years ago. Every stitch and pin and sequin and loop were perfectly placed. I always hang them on the front of the tree so they will be seen by everyone and if someone asks about them, I can tell them about my grandmother. Sometimes I wonder if the little things I make to decorate my home and Christmas tree will be treasured years from now the way I treasure these ornaments. I guess only time will tell.

Happy Stitching!

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Varsity Letter Music Beaded Banner -- Picture Tutorial

Just the other day, I wrote a little bit about how easy and fun making a Beaded Banner is...for me anyway! Well, I have started making another one and I thought I would show you step-by-step how these banners are made.

First of all, you need a Beaded Banner pattern sheet. This would come with your kit if you purchased a kit, or you would have to design your own using the blank that comes with the Make-Your-Own kit. The one in the pictures below is a pattern that I designed myself as a gift to my daughter's high school band director. Don't tell anyone, but his birthday is coming up next week and this will be a surprise for him!

You also need something to anchor your pattern onto, such as a clip board or other type of board. I use a plastic typing stand, with the 'stand' part removed.

Here are all my supplies: The pattern sheet, typing stand board, scissors, tape, pony beads in appropriate quantity and colors, box to contain beads, and then the pieces that came with the Make-Your-Own kit which are the spool of thread, large plastic needle, metal rod, hanging cord, and little plastic end caps for the rod.



So the first thing you do is tape your pattern sheet to your board and cut a 2 yard length of thread. Tape one end of the thread to the left side of the pattern sheet between rows 1 and 2. Thread the other end onto the needle and then, following the chart, thread all the beads for the first two rows onto the thread as shown in the picture above. In this case the beads are all blue, but your pattern may call for different colors, so you need to follow the pattern.

Each row is off set from the next row so that each row only contains half the number of beads for the width of the banner.



Then you take the metal rod and put it through the beads from right to left, only picking up the beads for Row 1 and leaving the beads for Row 2 beneath the rod, as shown in the picture above. When you are finished, line up Rows 1 and 2 with the corresponding rows on the chart to make sure that you have the right color beads in the right places.


At this point, you need to put the little plastic end caps onto each end of the metal rod to protect yourself from the sharp cut ends of the metal. Tape the ends of the rod to the pattern sheet with the beads lined up properly.


Following the chart from right to left, string the first bead of Row 3 onto the needle then put the needle through the last bead of Row 2. String the next bead of Row 3 on, then put the needle through the next bead of Row 2. Continue in this manner, as shown in the picture above, all the way across the row, adding the new bead and picking up the bead of the previous row.

I find it easiest to put the needle through 2 or 3 new beads and the corresponding beads from the previous row before pulling the thread all the way through. This saves time and also helps to keep the beads tight on the thread.


When you get to the end and have made sure that you have all the right color beads in the right places, untape the end of the thread and tie a knot as shown in the picture above.


Then put your needle through the last bead of Row 3 from left to right, as shown above, so you will be ready to start stringing the beads for Row 4.


String all the beads for Row 4 in the same manner, making sure you pick up the beads from the previous row each time you string a bead from the current row. This is how the banner looks after the first 4 rows have been strung.


After stringing the 5th row, you need to anchor the last bead by tying a knot with the thread from the previous row. Put your needle between the two previous end beads picking up the thread joining them, then put your needle over your working thread and pull it through, making a loop.


Then put your needle into the loop from back to front and over your working thread as shown above. Pull it nice and snug and you will have anchored the last bead of the row. This is how you end every left side row.


Then put your needle through the last bead so that you will be ready to start stringing the beads of the next row. Continue working each row, making sure your beads are the right color and in the right place before knotting the end.

Keep in mind that the thread only gets knotted on the left side, not on the right side. You just need to make sure it is pulled up tightly on the right side after beginning the next row.

I am about a quarter of the way finished with this banner as I type, but by the time this gets published, I am hoping to be much further along. Once it is finished, I will show you how it turned out and you can see what the whole design looks like. I bet you could guess just by looking at the first picture though.

So you can see that making beaded banners is not all that hard, and it is not too tedious if this is the kind of thing you enjoy doing. It does take A Lot of beads though! Almost 1700 in fact for one banner! I priced them at Michael's and Walmart and different places on line and found that just buying them at Walmart in bags of 500 was the least expensive way to go for a Make-your-own design. The kits that you can buy from Mary Maxim or Herrschner's are less expensive than designing your own and buying your own beads because you only get the number of beads in each color that the pattern calls for, with just a few extras.

Anyway, if you have been curious about how these beaded banners get put together, now you know! Give one a try if it interests you. If you order a Christmas-y one from Mary Maxim, you may just end up with the one I designed!

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Beaded Banners -- A Fun and Easy Beading Craft

Here is another type of project that I looked at in catalogs and on line for the longest time trying to figure out how it's done, and finally I just picked one that I liked and ordered it to satisfy my curiosity. Sort of like when I saw the Mitered Squares Baby Blanket and couldn't seem to "get it" so I bought some yarn and made it. Actually doing something is a pretty good way to see how it's done! That's my revelation of the day!

Anyway, back to this project...Beaded Banners. You've probably seen them around the neighborhood on front doors or hanging in windows, or maybe just in a craft catalog like Mary Maxim or Herrschner's or other similar places. I have made quite a few of them in all different shapes and sizes and for all different occasions, picking them up when they are on sale or when they come out with one I particularly like or that would make a nice gift for someone special.

Well, early this year Mary Maxim announced on their website that they would be holding a Beaded Banner design contest and there would be 10 winners, each one receiving a $100 gift certificate to their catalog. Here was my opportunity to take my liking for this craft one step further and design my own. So I printed out the blank template that they offered on their website for those wishing to enter the contest and I set to work with my freshly sharpened colored pencils and a few ideas in my head. I actually designed four banners, but only submitted one. It takes a Really Long Time to fill in all 3000+ little ovals! In fact, the one design I did submit, I had to re-do three times before I got it just right.

Anyway, long-story-short, several weeks had gone by past when they had said they were going to announce the winners, so I figured I was out of the running. But just the very next day after I had given up, I got a phone call from The Nicest Lady at Mary Maxim informing me that my design was one of the winners and my gift certificate would be coming in the mail shortly! What a thrill! And besides that, they were going to pick several of the designs to offer as kits in an upcoming catalog! Well, hot dawg! I couldn't believe it. I still don't know if mine was picked to be made into a kit, but I check their website frequently and anxiously await their Christmas catalog to see if it's in there since the design I did was most definitely Christmas.


This one in the picture is most definitely NOT Christmas! I made this one as an Easter gift for my oldest sister who is a nun and a teacher. She hung it in her classroom window and it was so pretty on a sunny day. You can see in the picture that all but the black beads are translucent and the design gives the effect of stained glass, in a beaded banner sort of way. Anyway, she liked it and I thought it was a fun design to do because of all the detail in it.

Coming up soon, I will have a picture tutorial on how these banners are made, just in case you are curious too! You will see that there really is no mystery to it and they are very easy and quite fun to make.

If you like Beaded Things, don't forget to sign up for my 100th post give-away which ends Wednesday, Sept 17th!

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New yarn just arrived! What a bargain from Herrschner's!

One of my nieces is getting married this fall and I love to give newly married couples a handmade afghan as a wedding gift. I usually use regular old Red Heart worsted weight yarn, purchased from my local Walmart or Michael's store because I like Red Heart. It is reliable, resilient, easy to work with, and most importantly it is machine wash and dry! It holds its shape well, doesn't pill and lasts a really long time. It is also affordable and fairly easy to find.

However, sometimes I come upon a bargain that I just can't pass up. The other day I was browsing around Herrschner's yarn pages and I found a Red Heart variety that I have never tried -- Red Heart Easy Tweed...

...which is a textured yarn that has the look of tweed. It's mostly acrylic, machine wash and dry, uses a size K crochet hook, which is fairly large, and is usually priced at $4.49 for a 3.5 ounce skein. That is way out of my price range, even for a wedding gift! Well, it was on sale for 97 cents a skein! Can you believe that? Less than $1.00 a skein! And they had 10 colors to choose from!

Well, I got on the phone and called my sister. I told her to have her daughter check out the site, look at all the colors and let me know which one she liked best. I had found the yarn I was going to use for her afghan! Yippee!

I ordered 35 skeins of the Pistachio color and just yesterday look what that nice man in the brown uniform left on my doorstep...


Doesn't it just make your heart skip a beat when you open a box and see all that Potential?

Since I already have a full size afghan in the works, which I will share with you shortly, this one will have to wait in line. But I will certainly let you know when I begin. It's just nice to know I have all the yarn I will need right at my fingertips, and for such a bargain! I'm happy.

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