South Bay progress and a 3-day weekend!

I did, indeed, start the South Bay Shawlette. Here's what it looks like after today's Stitch & Bitch:

I would link to the pattern, but the Lion Brand website keeps redirecting me to its sign-in page when I try, and if I link to it in Ravelry, you have to sign in to Ravelry. I think it's silly that you can't even see what the finished shawl looks like without signing in somewhere. At least you can see my version here. ;) (And--hey wait--I guess I did just link to it on both sites. Heheh. You just won't be able to see the pattern and/or finished product unless you're logged in. But you're welcome to click!)

Yes, that is one of my handmade fuchsia butterfly stitch markers marking the middle stitch of the last row. I have one set of those that I've kept for myself. That's right, I only have one set of stitch markers. Period. I will build up more of a collection as I sell more, and can afford to keep some more of what I've made. I do think I will need a set of coffee beans!

By the way, I can make jewelry to go with any of these stitch markers. That's right, you can match your stitch markers! LOL! Seriously, I keep meaning to make coffee bean bead jewelry, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I've seen what some others on Etsy have done with similar beads, but what I'm envisioning is a little different.

I have a 3-day weekend coming up, so I hope I will get to spend some quality time with the yarn and bead stashes! And with my hubby, too. But he's busy working on his dissertation a lot of the time.

I'll be visiting my grandmother tomorrow. Grams has just moved into an independent living facility. Things have been...interesting. I haven't seen her new place for myself yet. I hope it's better than she thinks it is. :-/

If you've made it this far, will you please do me a favor and go to my last post and tell me which yarn you think would make a better Sera Lace Top? Please help! I need some input! :) Thanks in advance!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yeah, I know, my last post was titled "Valentine's Day." A little redundant. But today, it actually is Valentine's Day, so I am wishing you a happy one. My husband and I will be exchanging small gifts later this evening, and I have no idea what he got me, so I am really excited! I won't say what I got him, either, since he doesn't know yet. ;) Maybe I'll tell you in my next post if any of you are curious!

I still have no projects on my crochet hooks (well, except the ones that are hibernating, and most of them will probably stay that way at this point). I have, however, spent some time on Ravelry lately (I'm smilingturtle on there, and I welcome new friends). I'm hopeful that tonight, I will start work on a South Bay Shawlette using my Yarntopia Rayon Boucle in the Arizona colorway.

That is the yarn of which I have half a skein wound, half a skein incredibly tangled (wahhh!), and 2 unwound skeins. (Is that right, or am I supposed to call them "hanks" when they're not wound yet? Yarn terminology is a little confusing to me.) I'll start with that wound half-skein and see what happens. I'll probably have to wind more, and I hope it won't get tangled again!

I also really want to start a Sera Lace Top for myself. Actually, the South Bay Shawlette is also for me--I'm being selfish for a bit! Anyway, I haven't decided yet whether I want to use purple Tatamy Tweed or NaturallyCaron.com Spa in Ocean Spray. The tweedy yarn might look weird in such an open pattern, but it might also look really cool. And I've been wanting to work with Spa for a long time. This is going to be a tough decision. What would you do? For reference, here's a pic of my Tatamy Tweed:

And here's a pic of the Spa, courtesy of NaturallyCaron.com:


What do you think? Which would make a better Sera?

I want to start the Shawlette first, since I may be able to take it to Stitch & Bitch on Friday if it turns out to be easy enough to work on while talking. :) I'll just need to have enough of the yarn wound for that. *gulp*

On the beading front, I have been making Purple Butterfly Stitch Markers. I am selling them in my Etsy store and donating 20% of the cost of the item (not including shipping) to the National Fibromyalgia Association. (They have not endorsed my product in any way; I'm just doing this on my own.) One of the symbols for fibromyalgia awareness is a purple butterfly, and fibromyalgia awareness is a cause close to my heart, so I thought this would be a good idea. I have sold some already, and I have 2 more sets for sale in the store now and will make more soon.

I also took a wire work class on Sunday. It was a lot of fun! I finally have the right sort of hammer for hammering wire, and I finally got to actually hammer some. It was exciting. I also learned to make head pins with curly ends, and brushed up on how to make briolette wraps. The instructor tried to teach us her way to make wrapped loops, but I am afraid that I'm stuck in my ways with that one, so I'll just continue to do what works for me as long as it still looks pretty and consistent!

There will be a second class in 2 weeks, and I am really looking forward to it.

And that, my friends, is my long Valentine's Day post. I hope you are all having a wonderful day full of chocolate. Mmmm, chocolate. (And if you don't like chocolate...I still hope you're having a wonderful day!)

New adventures in necklace-making, other business goings on, and a little crochet

Thought I'd start out this entry with a nice big pic of my smiling face. (Yeah, I probably should've put on some make-up, but my husband didn't give me much warning before he took this!) And what's that around my neck? Could it be...a brand new handmade necklace using fabulous green Israeli ceramic beads? Why, yes, indeed it is!

(If you look closely, you'll notice that I'm also wearing my own personal pair of Bali sterling silver puff bead dangle earrings.)

The ceramic beads are handmade and hand-painted by needy elderly people in Jerusalem, and I buy straight from the organization that employs them--it's a total win/win scenario, because they get the support they need and I get really interesting and completely unique beads to work with. I have a lot of these beads to play with right now, in a variety of different colors. It's very exciting.

I absolutely love this new necklace, which I finished last night. The larger round beads have silver glitter on them, and the smaller beads don't; the smaller ones are a slightly different shade and are textured. I've put fair trade greenish pearls (I say "greenish" because some look pretty green and others look more like peacock pearls) on either side of each of the ceramic beads. In between the ceramic bead and pearl combinations are Japanese seed beads in black, dark rainbow and silver. The seed beads make a nice asymmetrically colored design, which I think is spectacular, not that I'm biased. ;)

I finished the necklace off with sterling silver round beads, sterling crimp ends and a plain sterling silver toggle clasp.

It will be for sale in my Etsy store once I've taken good pictures and figured out what the price should be. Pricing is always a little tricky. It's very mathematical--I don't just pull my prices out of thin air. I have to figure out the costs of all the supplies involved and other expenses incurred in making each piece and listing it on Etsy, and then I have to multiply that amount by a certain number and hope that will make me a profit. Definitely lots of hope involved.

I also have a really gorgeous unakite and sterling silver necklace that I will be listing soon. It also needs to be priced first, but at least I already have the photos. I had never worked with unakite before. The more I looked at it, the more enamored I became with the gemstone's color combination of moss green and coral.

Here's a picture of it:


In other Smiling Turtle news, today I shipped off 2 sets of stitch markers to Chile (a woman ordered them for her aunt who lives there), and I will soon be sending a set to Minnesota. I've also had items featured in 2 treasuries (links below):

I'd Rather Make My Own Gift, Thank You Anyway! by PlainJane4 (A cool DIY-themed treasury! Right up my alley!)

and

My hearts a flutter by glamourpusscouture (Hearts and butterflies! Um, also sorta right up my alley.)


As far as my crochet goes, not much to report. OK, nothing to report. *sigh* Most of my creative energy and time is going toward beading at this point. I have yet to start that baby hat I wrote about. My Stitch & Bitch group is working on hats and scarves for a local children's hospital. I started a scarf at our last group, but got really bored with just a simple single crochet pattern, so I'm trying to figure out a good stitch or pattern for a kid's scarf (gotta be unisex for this).

I looked on Ravelry for kids' scarf patterns, but couldn't find anything that fit the bill. (I wouldn't know how to modify an adult pattern to fit a kid--I don't know kids' sizes that well, and I don't really know how to modify patterns.) I should check Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Crochet, which I have at home.

Any suggestions from my stitchy friends? (Crochet only, please!)

Hello! It's been quite a while...

I took some time away from crochet again, and now I'm back. Or trying to be, anyway. I've had some seriously frustrating crochet "issues" lately.

First, there was the lovely Java Jammie. I've been wanting to make one of these for years now. Literally. I had the yarn, so I finally gave it a shot. The first few rows looked weird, but I kept going...and it was coming out really cute! Then, I realized I'd screwed up around the flowers and hadn't increased where I was supposed to. So much for that ever fitting a coffee cup. I frogged it...and haven't been able to get it started the right way since!!! :(

The problem: Rnd 1: Work 1 sl st in each ch around.

A row of slip stitch? How's that work, exactly? Seems like, in my case, it doesn't. Did the designer really mean sc instead? Or am I just missing something? HELP! (Please?!)

Next, I tried to work on the Zen Scarf I'd started and left to hibernate for a while. I got it started up again, or so I thought; but it kept coming out wrong, with really strange edges. I ended up frogging it because I just couldn't figure out how to continue the pattern the right way. I also didn't like working with the pattern very much. It was incredibly difficult to keep track of which row I was on (I suppose I should've been writing it down, or checking the rows off, or something; but I hadn't when I'd started out, and maybe that was the entire problem). Maybe I'll try it again sometime, but for now, it's in the frog pond.

Then, I tried to make a Tunisian Lace Ascot. That didn't work out, either. I think maybe Tunisian crochet is not my thing. I eventually got the first row done, was all excited, and messed up the second row and couldn't figure out how to correct it without starting over. Then I couldn't even get the correct number of loops on the hook again.

GRRRRRRAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH.

I have finally decided to try out a Queen Anne's Lace Scarf. I hope that turns out to be easier; it certainly is pretty. (No working pics with the pattern, but there are a ton of projects with pictures on Ravelry.) I want to make it using some beautiful Handmaiden Double Sea Silk yarn that I bought last week in Toronto at Lettuce Knit, while my husband and I were on our (delayed) honeymoon. :) (Honeymoon was fabulous, by the way!!)

I hope the QAL Scarf is a quick project, too, because I will soon be starting graduate school and probably won't have much time for the yarny goodness. *sigh* We'll see, though; I may still be able to fit in my crochet habit somewhere, now that I've picked up my hooks again.

crochet question

When using a pattern, if it says to "join with a sl st" and then "--- stitches" (--- being the number of stitches you should have made in the row that was just completed), does the slip stitch count as one of the stitches?

Thanks!! :)