The Challenge of Tiny

Posted on May 13, 2014 by jackiees

transform fine lace knitting beadwork into beautiful, sparkly jewelry

Have you joined us to knit Lorna’s Light and stretch the limits on how small you can go with tiny needles, tiny thread and tiny beads?

Carry your tiniest, precious treasures in this miniature purse. I wanted to let you know that the pattern for Lorna’s Light Necklace Purse is available now at discount for May KAL participants. Click here for the KAL page with pattern info, etc.

Need supplies? My summer/fall away-from-the-studio schedule is approaching fast, which means I will be traveling more and will not be shipping orders for physical items from the KnitHeartStrings Online Store again until the late Fall. If you have been thinking about getting kits or supplies for summer stitching, please get your order in before May 15, 2014. Thanks!

How small can you go?

This month’s Precious Treasures learn-and-knit-along combines lace knitting and beadwork in the tiniest project we’ve attempted so far with tiny needles, thread and beads. We are knitting this tiny necklace purse/amulet bag

  • on tiny size 4/0 (1.25 mm) needles
  • with tiny thread (size 8 perle cotton or similar)
  • with tiny size 10/0 or 11/0 beads (approx 2 mm diameter)

I hope this little project doesn’t intimidate you. There are some suggestions I have below to make the knitting more doable if you find it too much of a challenge. And next month, I promise that we are going to have an easy, pleasy project as a rest from knitting tiny and tinier, lol.  Continue reading →

Posted in Bits of Beads AND Lace | 3 Comments

See What You Could Win for the May Prize Giveaway

Posted on May 3, 2014 by jackiees

Congratulations to Wendy Gilmore, winner of the April Prize Drawing. See what Wendy won. Thanks to everyone who participated in the April KAL and Giveaway.

Ready for another giveaway?

To keep to this month’s theme of transforming fine lace knitting into sparkly beaded jewelry, May’s KAL Giveaway Prize is a Precious Treasures Kit to make a necklace purse in the amethyst scheme. This specially-prepared kit includes the premium upgrade to make a coordinating Necklace Chain, Lace Needles with Cape Amethyst Gemstone end-caps AND signed hard-copy Lorna’s Light pattern (over $35 total value). Read more about the prize here.

2014mayprizedrawing

Want to win? Simply hop on over to the Monthly Prize Giveaway page to read about the different ways you can rack up entries. The random drawing to determine winner will be held on June 1, 2014. Good luck to everyone!

Lorna's Light Necklace Purse

 

Posted in Just for Fun | Tagged | 1 Comment

Get Ready for Precious Treasures May KAL

Posted on May 1, 2014 by jackiees

— Precious Treasures –

May’s featured learn-and-knit-along project in the Beyond BOBBOL 2014 Series transforms fine, fancy lace knitting beadwork into beautiful necklace purse jewelry. Come join us to knit Lorna’s Light and stretch the limits on how small you can go with tiny needles, thread and beads.

Lorna's Light Necklace Purse

Lorna’s Light Necklace Purse

May’s KAL features a small amulet bag of lace knitting sparkling with tiny seed beads. Carry your tiniest, precious treasures in this miniature purse, or just enjoy the ooh’s and aah’s when you wear it.

Lorna's Light Beaded Bookmark

Lorna’s Light Beaded Bookmark

Don’t want to use beads? That’s fine; just omit them. You’ll get a different look than pictured here, but the pattern stitch is so pretty that it can stand alone.

Not interested in jewelry? There is also a choice of 2 bookmark versions included in the pattern.

Check the Precious Treasures KAL page for more details about the fun in store for May’s KAL and for your shopping list so you can be ready to knit!

p.s. If you will be purchasing the the Lorna’s Light pattern for the Precious Treasures KAL, the discount period does not begin until May 5th. But you can get your supplies now using the free preview of the pattern cover page that includes all the specifications.

Posted in Bits of Beads AND Lace | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Bonus Companion Project: Beverage Coaster

Posted on April 22, 2014 by jackiees

h147beveragecoasterAs promised earlier this month, here are the instruction changes needed in your Tea-time Serviette pattern to make a smaller-sized variation. This makes a nice companion piece as a large beverage coaster or teapot mat to protect your table.

Because the bias portion of the center area pattern is omitted, there is no auto-magic fluted edge and the overall piece is a bit less fancy. On the other hand, this smaller size with fewer stitches means this project is quicker and easier than the full-size serviette. So if you are not feeling up to the larger project, or just want to play around with this additional companion piece, this is how to mark up your Tea-time Serviette pattern to make this variation —
Continue reading →

Posted in Bits of Beads AND Lace | 1 Comment

Tea Dyeing

Posted on April 21, 2014 by jackiees

Tea dyeing is an easy way to give common white thread a lovely vintage look.

Dyeing can be done either before knitting or afterwards. The advantage of dyeing the completed item is that you will be dyeing the exact amount of thread that was needed to complete the piece. This is the approach I will be demonstrating with Tea-time Serviette.

comparison of white thread to after being dyed with tea

Plan that tea dyeing will usually change a white thread into a soft glowing tan or light brown. However, color can also vary depending on variety of tea, as well as strength of tea solution and soaking time. Over-dyeing other colors of thread can also have pleasant effects.  Continue reading →

Posted in Bit-size Tutorials | Tagged | 2 Comments

Zooming Along on the Center Area

Posted on April 21, 2014 by jackiees

The basics of outside-in square shaped circular knitting
plus a few tidbits for the ever-curious knitter …

center area begun

center area begun

Once you’ve got the relatively time-consuming edging completed for Tea-time Serviette, you can zoom along for the remainder of the project.

There’s nothing particularly tricky with the knitting going forward. But since this is the first outside-inside circularly-knitted square design for some of our members, I do have photos and comments about the process to share. Even if you’ve knit this type of project before, maybe something here will trigger an idea you find interesting or helpful.

Making a Square in 4 Triangular Sections

closeup of center area begun

closeup of center area begun

To begin, the knitting looks more like a circle than a square. Then, as the work proceeds,  you might be intrigued to realize you actually are knitting triangles to make the square.

center area in progress showing a triangular section between stitch markers

center area in progress showing a triangular section between stitch markers

The stitch pattern multiple is repeated 4 times in each round. Each repeat of the stitch pattern corresponds to one of the 4 triangular sections making up a side of the square.

Continue reading →

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Petit Scallop Edging

Posted on April 8, 2014 by jackiees

Tea-time Serviette features a dainty lace Petit Scallop edging that can either be started with a beaded cast on (shown right in the below photo), or left plain without beads (shown right).

petit scallop edgings beaded (left) and plain un-beaded (right)

petit scallop edgings beaded (left) and plain un-beaded (right)

Petit Scallop Edging is a bit unusual from what we’ve done thus far in our KnitHeartStrings KAL projects.

Continue reading →

Posted in Bit-size Tutorials | Tagged | 4 Comments