Tagua Beads in my mailbox!

Sending out a HUGE thank you to Pearl over at The Beading Gem's Journal for hosting a wonderful giveaway of Tagua beads from Ecuadorian Hands. I was very excited to find out I was the lucky winner!

I received my beads today and they are so cheerful and lovely!  I am going to have to take some time and think about how I will incorporate them!  I definitely see some drop earrings with the smaller beads. 

Seen here in the packaging:

And here in my favorite pottery dish from a local potter:

 

Tagua beads are made from nuts! I love how soft, smooth, light and warm they feel. 
Thanks again Pearl and Ecuadorian Hands!
♥
JQ

THE COOLEST THING

I was on the phone with my auntie, and she said someone posted a link to my blog online and that my DIY cardboard box inkle loom was quite popular! When I checked my stats today, HOLY MOLY!


COOL BEANS my inkle loom is on Pinterest! I only recently signed up on Pinterest and it is just a teeeeeny bit addictive. You basically pin links to all the things you saw that you loved online, and if you click on the images later it takes you right back to the source. So it's like a groovy visual bookmark.

Okay enough capslock for now. I was just so excited! Thank you to everyone who has visited, and definitely thank you if you gave this a try!

In other news for the past 2 months I have been up to my ears in crafty stuff. So thoroughly that I've been neglecting to make my usual updates. This changes now. :)

Speaking of addictive internet things. YouTube is SO my friend right now. I've found so many cool and informative videos for chain mail jewelry, spinning art yarns, weaving etc, and it's made me so excited to TRY ALL THE THINGS. Oh..did I say I'd stop it with the Caps? oopsie.

Yep. This manic vibe your getting? That is actually a regular February thing for me. I assure you, I am crafting with the same intensity and attention deficit-ness as I am typing.

Okay here are a few images of what's been going down in HeartsonFibre town.

Chain Mail is SO much fun. I wish I had better tools, and a better knowledge of metals and strength etc. Nevertheless the things I have been able to create have been super exciting even though they may not be of marketable quality. They are nice enough that I can enjoy wearing them.

This one is sort of a chain mail lace collar:


And I call this one Blue Goddess. Made for a friend. The arms of the goddess stretch up around her neck:


My camera is still dying slowly. but I got one half decent shot of this emerald green one. it is salvaged from a bunch of fine chain necklaces found at a flea market, and the beads are recycled from some long beaded necklaces I found at Salvation Army.


I call this one my bleeding heart:


And wouldn't you know the cleanest pic my camera took was this close up:


These Scale Mail flower pendants are fun to make, and look great! Make them in any colour!


All the rings and scales I used to make these pieces of jewelry were ordered from this totally amazing local shop called The Ring Lord. Check it out! There are some great videos on the process of creating the rings and the armor, and there's a really wide selection of metals and colours!

I don't know if you remember but last summer I emailed a lovely lady regarding some ugly batts for spinning. Well her and her husband run a Parrot rescue in Iowa, and when she sent me the batts she included a few beautiful Parrot feathers! They sat and sat because I really wanted to make something lovely with them. Well I chose two and worked them into this set of chain mail earrings:

Thank you again, Abi for the batts and the feathers! I'm still thinking on how to use the others!

Soooo, I'll leave off here, but rest assured there will be a post soon with all the spinning and weaving updates. My next tutorial on making string heddles for your DIY loom, threading it up and weaving a project will be up shortly as well!

Cheers!
♥
JQ

Adventures in Inkle Weaving

♥ ♥ Greetings fellow fibre junkies! ♥ ♥

First I thought I'd play around with supplemental weft. In the following two bands I have two wefts (horizontal) threads on separate shuttles: one finer and one that has 3 or more threads. I open the shed normally and throw through the fine weft, the, holding the same shed open drop selected warp threads, and shoot the thicker weft through. This allows that weft to pop up to the surface and create a pattern I couldn't make with a basic threading alone.


In this first example my supplementary weft wasn't very thick so the colours beneath shine through, but depending on the angle you see the band at the pattern becomes more or less visible:


In this band the supplemental weft is comprised of 4 strands of navy blue Clea crochet thread. The pattern is much more solid.


The Clea compresses more inside the shed but opens up at the surface because it's so much softer than other crochet threads, so I find it works really nicely for this!


And a shot of the two finished supplemental weft bands next to a plain weave one:




And now for the pick-up patterns! Pick ups are where the pattern is created by a secondary warp (the vertical threads) that can be lifted or dropped to create the pattern. So only one weft was used for this:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Celtic knots! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I can't get enough of this celtic design. It's sooo cool. And the way the pattern is drafted in combination with the threads lifted and dropped on a normal shed--you really don't have to lift or drop more than 3 or 4 threads on any given row. It's too much fun.


This basket weave structure always reminds me of snakeskin, so I thought I'd try and obtain the effect. I'm not as close as I'd like, but getting there. It did give me a really cool idea for a future band. But I'm not telling!


This purple one was a pattern I designed myself on graph paper, but it involved picking up AND dropping the supplemental threads in every row and it just about made my head explode. This is why there are only about 2 inches woven on it. But I will conquer it:


I was inspired by a project (thank you Anne Dixon) in this Autumn's issue of Hand Woven magazine to weave a pleated necklace on my inkle loom. I used crochet thread for the project because it was what I had on hand, but in hindsight I should have used the size 30 or 50 thread for this, as my final product turned out super chunky. I really didn't beat down the weft either, so the ruffles wound up being bigger. Overall I am pleased with the outcome and hope to try it again soon with finer cotton. My brain is already chewing on some possibilities for integrating the technique into my other jewelry work. this done in a small scale with just one ruffle would make pretty snazzy earrings. Also I am wondering about crocheting lace along the bottom edge (again of a more delicate inkle).


Thanks for taking a peek! Happy weekend!
♥
JQ

A Wonderful Sale!

HOORAH!

The sale was very successful!

I would like to send out mad props to the ladies of the Saskatoon Spinners and Weavers Guild for drawing together to create such a great event. We had all manner of beautiful handmade items for sale including handwoven scarves,stoles, table linens, blankets, jewelry, garments and rugs as well as handspun/knitted toques and scarves. I am so excited to be a part of such an industrious group of people! Also the demonstrations were tons of fun and I think that we got lots of exposure as well as some interest in future workshops which is awesome!

Thank you to my friends and family for support, encouragement and feedback I appreciate it immensely.

And thank you to everyone that came out and took a peek!

Here's a shot of the business card holder I fashioned with black card stock, double sided tape and some 8 inch pieces of inkle left over from past projects.


Here are a few images of the last set of jewelry I made before the sale:


I am currently setting up shop at etsy, and I hope to spend a little time altering the remaining chokers to make the sets more versatile. I want to make the pendants removeable so the choker may also be worn alone, and the pendant could then be clipped onto a chain of choice. Also looking into ways to make some of the pendants double as brooches. I plan to experiment more with the lariat style of necklace as well!

Anyway, stay tuned in the new year for some inkle updates and possibly a few workshops!

Also a fellow fibre student from college has a wonderful knitting blog where she posts all her designs. She recently made a wonderful blog mention of my inkle jewelry and I thought it was super sweet of her! She has some fantastic patterns available and I highly recommend checking out her blog Little NutMeg Productions ! So much knitting candy!
<3

Hearts off the Charts,
JQ

The Last of the Inkle Jewelry!

Hello Jellos!

I'm feeling much better now that the deadline has come and gone. We had so many beautiful submissions. I can't wait for the sale! Slowly the crazy-meter is dropping in this house. I got so much done I just feel on top of the world. These are the items I made between the last post and this past Saturday.

Some inkle bracelets decorated with fringes, picots or crochet scallops:





A set of teal/brown/cream chokers and cuffs:



And (my favorite) the high contrast black and ivory:




I adore anything Tim Burton. My best friend told me they were very Helena Bonham Carter. Here's a photo of her I found on fanpop.com:



She's pretty rad (both HBC and my best friend).


Thanks for stopping by!
JQ

Inkle Jewelry Frenzy!

Hello everyone! Just a quick post with pictures of the recent creations! 6 days left until the deadline!

Peach and brown/caramel lace cuffs with three different matching chokers:






Pink and brown with cream. Three chokers:



And a strange set of bright red and purple chokers, with one matching cuff that was the trial cuff:





Thanks for dropping by! I usually ramble off on in my posts but I am in a crafting tizzy!
Cheers!
JQ