WIP's and windows

Well, I hope you've all been busy boys and girls? I've been madly working and crafting; I'm painting busily for the Christmas season, for craft fairs and for my eBay shop. Here are a few WIP's on the glass front:

Here's a crochet hook roll for IntrepisYarn for the stashbuster swap. She kind of likes the whole boho thing, and her favourite colours are blues, purples, sort of ocean-y type colours I think. This is made from some lovely soft pale blue denim, with a violet print fabric for the lining and decorative detail. There's also some satin ribbon trim and a cute lilac buttonon the front, and the whole thing ties up with a length of ribbon.

The whole thing is trimmed with purple bias binding. I'm a little annoyed with the stitching on the last pocket, it kind of went a bit crooked. I hope IntrepidYarn doesn't have a hook roll already, she's new to crochet, so maybe she won't have. I think I shall also make some stitch markers and maybe print out some crochet patterns. This is for the supply part of the swap.

Karan may recognise this WIP, I liked the one I made for her so much that I'm making myself one, although I think I may add a chunky tassel on the end of mine. Speaking of Karan, check here and here for the wonderful gifts that she sent me for the HPIYP swap. I love it all Karan, thank you so much!

I finally got around to making Chianna my size and it was kind of soul destroying. I've got so used to this totally petite dress form, and now I've opened her up, she looks huge, and I keep thinking, 'yep, I really am that big!' *curses* It does nothing for my self esteem, I can tell you that! It's all that banana bread I've been eating; check out my 101 blog if you want the diet breaking recipe!

Anyway, in a drunken haze last night I signed up for the Weekend Swap 4. Basically, you sign up Friday, get your partner Saturday morning, craft your arse off all weekend and post Monday. Cool eh? So my partner is Taoj and she wanted some jewellery, and this is what I've come up with today. She really goes for the neopolitan colour scheme, pink and brown, with some aqua thrown in for a bit of a change. Neither brown or pink is something I have an enormous amount of, but I did have this lovely big focal bead, which is gold and pink foiled glass, swirled together, I added some vintage wooden beads and some pink and brown seed beads strung on some gold beadalon.

I also made a swirly wire bail for the pendant bead.

I had some lovely rose quartz beads too, which I threaded onto a memory wire bracelet with some aqua and pink beads. I made a small bead charm for one end of the bracelet to add a bit of a feature. I hope she likes it all, I'll probably make something else tomorrow, but I'm not sure what yet.

And here's another little project I embarked upon, I've been facinated with the idea of a coin ring, and found this half dollar in one of my little trinket pots. I would have prefered a pre-60's silver dollar (they're bigger and have less nickle in them, but this will do to practice on. I have small fingers anyway. As you can see, it's taking a long time, but I'm only using a small jewellers hammer. I may get a bigger hammer to whack it with *lol* There seems to be quite a large copper content in this coin. Can you see the layer?

No economies were harmed in the making of this ring (and I have no idea why I have a half dollar, I've never even been to the US) but several fingers were severly bruised. The moral of this story? Use the molegrips (or a ring clamp) to hold the coin whilst bashing it! *Adds ring clamp to wish list*

And the best news of all? The window bloke finally rang and will be coming to do the window on Monday morning! Hurray!