A few days ago, my husband expressed frustration when trying to find the light pull on a fan in our house. As you may know, this house is new to us - but it was built in 1972, and has changed a few hands over the years. The previous owners weren't too handy around the house...they half-assed repair jobs, and they sure as heck didn't leave us anything they didn't have to. The light and fan pulls are both short - so they're pretty hard to find in the dark. So, I came up with this solution, after sifting through my art stuff for about 15 minutes: I've had the green pendant for a while now - I suspect I found it on one of our family's yard-sale excursions when I was a teenager. I got the fake pearls at our local JoAnn's Crafts store. I attached the pendant to a length of craft wire, then threaded on the beads. I weaved the craft wire around the existing fan light pull, and VOILA! A new, sexy fan light pull. Well, maybe not sexy, but it is pretty stinkin' cool, if I do say so myself. :)
I fell in love with the idea of this necklace when I seen the pattern - so I saved it for later use. I tend to break jewelry, so it is quite obvious, with little inspection, that I choose much of my jewelry for durability in addition to simplicity. Occasionally, I'll make a concession to "Oh, pretty!", and make something that exists to be beautiful and nothing more. I guess that this is one of those times.
I found the pendant and beads at Michael's Arts and Crafts, and bought it with my birthday money (sent by my awesome grandmas!) in September. The hole in the pendant is so small that it seems only wire or fishing line can get through it, which made me think of this pattern. I chose these particular beads because the color resembles jade, and they are a nice contrast to the black and dark gray Buddha pendant. The hemp cord just seemed to fit the color scheme and rustic theme of the necklace itself. Here is the original pattern at CrochetMe. The pattern doesn't include a pendant - I just took my theme and ran with it.
I was feeling frustrated yesterday, and wanted to create something, instead of destroying things needlessly. So - I got out some scrap yarn and wooden beads, and made this cool necklace:
It will probably make it's way onto my other blog, Crochet Valkyrie, because it was done on a whim...and it matches nothing I own! There haven't been a lot of posts on there as of late, because I've been quite busy with the business of owning my own home. Once things settle down and I get a larger, more peaceful, less chaotic place to crochet, you'll probably see plenty of action on that one.
Hope you enjoy my random necklace! I'll have to print out a Crochet Valkyrie tag and attach it, so whoever finds it can let me know how much they enjoy it.
I've made 3 snoods in the course of about a week: The first two snoods, I used the same pattern, a vintage pattern from 1942. This pattern was interesting...it required me to learn a new stitch, the "long triple crochet". To tell you all the truth, I love learning about crochet - the more skills in my repertoire, the more creative I can be! Okay, here are the snoods:
First, the plain black snood, good for everyday tasks (black goes with everything, ya know):
And then, the beaded snood. I decided to use wooden beads because they're lighter than glass. They look terrific with this brown yarn I chose from my stash:
I just continued doing rounds until I thought it was long enough, and then I single-crocheted on an elastic band. I was really surprised when I put it on...it was quite snug, with very little give. A snood is held in place with pins around the front, and the pins seemed to be much more stable in natural fiber than with acrylic. With acrylic yarn, hairpins tend to slide and not hold very well - I use quite a lot of them - almost 2X as many as the cotton snood required, in fact, to get a good hold with an acrylic snood. And it held GOOD. Absolutely NO slippage, and it didn't require me to readjust it at any time. A quick spray with hair spray, let it dry, then put on the snood and pin. It's as easy as that, and takes less than 5 minutes. The only downside: weight. It is a bit heavier than acrylic, and I'm tempted to add pins along the crown of my head to better distribute the weight. My scalp is a bit sore where the pins were the day after wearing it. But all in all, I am quite impressed!
I think that this was a definite eye-opener. Women in the Middle Ages definitely knew what they were doing, making snoods from natural fiber (well, that's all they had, but still). I can't wait to try making a snood out of thinner yarn - fingering yarn - or even #10 crochet thread! In theory, any hat pattern or doily pattern can be altered to make a snood. Oh, the possibilities! If you'd like to buy a snood, there is an awesome lady that crochets and sells them, to the Renfaire/SCA set: Lady MacSnood I love my previous two snoods and will continue to wear them, but I think that I will stick to natural fibers from now on when it comes to making crochet hair accessories!
