The Blue Brick

Thermis Cowl in TFA Jewel

January 11, 2011
First and most importantly – my kitty is going to be ok =o) He had a bladder infection, but he’s looking much better this morning. Whew!

Lots to say about jewellery lately, so I wanted to put up a knitted FO post – so much going on lately that I’m having trouble keeping up!

This is another Thermis cowl (Ravelry project page here) knitted as a Christmas gift for a friend, who was gifting it to another friend. I made one of these for myself a few months back and I absolutely love cuddling up in this thing! It knits up pretty fast, and it’s warm and squishy.

The colourway is TFA Jewel. Loving this colourway lately, I’ve got only a little left and I’m trying to think of something fun to do with it.

Inspired by the yarn we decided to add a couple of sweet little cubic zirconia drop earrings to match.

There’s a fun story of how we decided to make it purple – We wanted to find out her favourite colour without giving it away, so I put out an open call on facebook to a bunch of our mutual friends asking for everyone’s favourite colours. After finding out hers was purple I knew what colour to make the cowl, and as a bonus, what colour to make everyone else’s Christmas bookmarks. Score!

Here is a pic of my cowl – knitted up in Viola Viola’s Graphite colourway:

More goodies coming up soon:
- I bought a new camera! yay! The Canon 7D – as soon as I have a chance to take it out for a proper maiden voyage I’ll put up pics
- I tackled DPNs! double yay! I made my first mittens, I had forgotten how much fun mittens were, and how warm and comfy. Part of being a grown up was wearing gloves instead of mittens, but forget about it, mittens are the way to go. Mitten shots will be my next posting.
- I bought new yarn! TFA goodness, and a beautiful ocean coloured laceweight Malabrigo for….. my first knitted shawl! I’ve crocheted shawls in the past but never knitted one, so exciting!
- I finally spent a day knitting at the Purple Purl (see above re: yarn) – what a wonderful day. Friends, knitting, tea, cupcakes, and …. new yarn =o)
Yes, life has been fun =o)
Silver and Aurora Swarovski Bracelet

January 10, 2011

This weekend mom made a very cute bracelet, with super glittery large Aurora Swarovski beads.

She chose to offset the beads with large silver balls, they worked perfectly with the sterling silver rope-textured toggle clasp she chose:

Large, single drop earrings on silver chain complete the set:

The piece has incredible glitter-factor ;o)

There is so much going on that I can’t wait to write about, but all I can think of is that my kitty is sick =o( We’re going to the vet today to see what’s up with him. Until I know more I can’t bring myself to really blog much, but I just had to share this adorable bracelet.
Designs by Sandra

January 6, 2011
Mom’s designs have come a long way since she started out, and last weekend she designed one of the best pieces I’ve seen so far.

She went all out on this one:
- 8mm Square cut smoky quartz Swarovski crystal centrepiece
- 4mm Square cut aurora Swarovski crystal accents
- Deep brown Swarovski pearls
- Gold toho hexagonal cut seed beads
- Sterling silver magnetic slide clasp
- 6mm Swarovski bicone crystals
Here it is showing the 4 strands separated.

One of my favourite things about the way mom and I make jewellery is that we never use plastic thread, fireline or stretchy cord (except in my woven bracelets, where I need the flexibility). Bracelets such as this one are made using light gauge steel cable. They’re reinforced with steel crimps at each end and the strand is doubled throughout. There is always a clasp, since we don’t use stretch cord, and the clasps are always silver, reinforced sometimes with magnets. In short, these bracelets will survive for many, many years without fear of wearing out, or breaking.

For Christmas this year, one of the things I gave mom were her own business cards, and website at last!

What cards would be complete without a snazzy little card holder?

You can check out mom’s work at http://shireen-n.com/sandra/ I’m hoping to get her set up with her own Etsy site soon as well!
Lace Beret

January 4, 2011

Quickie post today to share a knitted hat that I just completed for a beautiful friend.

This pattern is called “Meret” and it’s by Wooly Wormhead. You can link to their site and view the pattern here.

I followed the directions for making it extra slouchy, adding two pattern repeats. The gorgeous purple yarn is called Jewel, and it’s by Tanis Fiber Arts. This is my first time knitting with Tanis yarn – usually I crochet it, and I have to say it’s pretty amazing to work with. After blocking Tanis yarn relaxes a lot, allowing the lace pattern to open up beautifully. It relaxes so much in fact, that I do recommend blocking your swatch before taking measurements when working on large pieces.
Look! I made myself a bracelet =o)

January 3, 2011
At last! My mom has been at me for the fact that, despite all the jewellery I make, I’ve never made myself something. Well, here it is, the dragonfly bracelet.

It’s very me; I promised myself that if I ever did this I would go all out on materials:
- Sterling silver oversized dragonfly clasp
- 4mm bicone Swarovski crystals in Aqua
- 3mm bicone Swarovski Crystals in Caribbean Blue
- 4mm Deep brown Swarovski pearls
- 2mm sterling silver seed beads
- Smoky Quartz finish Japanese delicas
- 2 Sterling silver filigree cone ends
Front view

Weave view

I’m in love with it. It’s inspira’ish by my personality – I love turquoise, I love silver and I love photographing insects – particularly dragonflies. I love late summer when the big drowsy ones come out.

This one is sort of munching on a ladybug.

I can’t wait to see it in the sunlight!
Yarn Swift!

December 30, 2010

Santa was very good this year! Among many lovely things (like girls-night-out tickets from my best friend, and lots of gift certificates to the Purple Purl!) I got two absolute killer gifts:

1. Tito got us tickets to see the Lion King! Mufasssaaaaa!!!

2. A yarn swift at last! A lovely wooden umbrella one. In one evening I believe I went through every single skein I had and wound it up. I even ran out of skeins and started re-balling stuff just because it looked messy.

You might notice a small bottle of mezcal amidst my yarn arsenal. There’s a reason for this – and it’s not the one you think! 20 Years ago I was given that bottle by my uncle Len because I was fascinated with the worm in the bottle. Throughout my teenage years many people (including me) were dared to open and drink it, but it never happened (probably a good thing). Now, after all these years I’ve finally discovered the perfect use for it!

See ? I still need to feed the yarn with my left hand a bit, and to keep it from burning, the bottle is just perfect! It shall stay with my swift from now on. Feel free to bite my tequila technique should you ever be in search of the perfect tool for feeding yarn to a ball winder.

I love the way yarn looks when it’s all balled up! These two are both alpaca skeins from Rivendell Alpacas, and were dyed in my first Kool Aid experiments. I can’t believe how nice they look! You’d think I knew what I was doing.

Speaking of mad skillz check out my lovely line up of un-skeined Tanis Fiber Arts yarn – 6 lovely balls of the Sunset colourway – the first ball is halfway though in my first ever sweater! It’s been a while coming; I have a feeling it’ll be ready in time for warm weather ;) It’s a simple top-down cardigan, I’m pretty excited to see how it turns out.

Mmmm… Yarn. I’m such a nerd, but I still can’t wait til the Purple Purl opens so I can go spend those gift certificates on more things to wind up!
Christmas crafting goodies

December 29, 2010

Here are a few shots of presents that I made over the holidays, I love giving stuff away – but whew! My hands are ready for a break ;o)

The Serenity prayer is very dear to many of our friends. Instead of cards this year I made a ton of these lovely, colourful little glass tile bookmarks.

One of my other friends had commissioned a knitted cowl for another dear friend. We had no idea what colour to make it, so I put out a group call for everyone to tell me their favourite colour for a ‘special Christmas experiment’. From that I not only found out her fave colour was purple, but we got to make everyone’s bookmark in their favourite colour as well.

More Christmas goodies coming soon!
Happy Holidays!

December 27, 2010

What an amazing, beautiful Christmas we just had. I loved every minute of it – we spent Christmas eve attending the nativity play at the Metropolitan United Church. The Met is very special to us – I called them up one day and asked to photograph their church and they were very warm and welcoming – taking us into their church tower to photograph their beautiful carillon (one of only 11 in Canada).

In addition to allowing us free range to photograph their beautiful old church they have been spiritually welcoming as well. I am not religious, but the people at the Met have been warm to me nonetheless. They have never tried to convert me, and they focus very much on the ‘do’ aspect of faith – including lots of wonderful community work.

The service was outdoors – I thought it would be freezing but I was too busy shooting to notice ;o)

This shot shows a little of the architectural beauty of the church.

This is the first time I’ve ever attended a church service on Christmas eve – I really had a wonderful time!

All the little candles reminded me of the longest night festival in Kensington Market a few days prior.

After the service we went to mom and dads place and spent the night there. The next morning after presents we visited some close friends and came back to mom and dads place for a beautiful evening of family and friends, good food, music and all that amazing holiday stuff. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer Christmas!
Deadly Assassin…

December 23, 2010

My Sensei (Karate instructor)’s daughter is about 3 years old. Now 3 is old enough to have your own deadly assassin ;o) For Christmas I’ve made her a little ninja doll, using the Japanese technique of amigurumi.

Amigurumi (編みぐるみ^?, lit. knitted stuffed toy) is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals. The word is derived from a combination of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll. – Taken from wikipedia.

Look at the depth in those eyes! Clearly, they have seen many battles.

All deadly weaponry has been embroidered right onto the body, to avoid creating any choking hazards.

A photo of the work in progress.

She’s a weapon of mass destruction alright, I can already tell.

I couldn’t distract her long enough to take photos with the good camera, but I managed to snap these quickies as she was guarding my windowsill.

I haven’t made many dolls, I’m pretty new to the technique of Amigurumi, but I had a lot of fun doing this and I hope she loves it!
Kensington Market Festival of Lights 2010

December 22, 2010

Last night we were out shooting again – this time at Kensington Market’s annual festival to celebrate the winter solstice. I love this celebration because of how much crowd participation there is, everyone makes their own little light at home and brings it out with family and friends to help light the longest night of the year.

Celebrations of the longest night of the year are very old; the return of the sun is probably one of the oldest metaphors in human history for the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness. It’s also an old metaphor for renewal and new life, all beautiful things =o)

I love this one! Someone made an angler fish.

These last two pictures were my favourite shots, I’ll be looking to turn one, or both of them into paintings. Next shoot will be this Friday, at the Met’s Christmas eve presentation =o)

I’ve had a great year, I’ve enjoyed starting this blog and sharing my work with others. The positivity and encouragement that has come back to me has been enormous and I’m so grateful! I wish everyone a wonderful holiday season, celebrated in whatever way makes them happy, filled with warmth, family, friends and good food =o)