Pieces of Gold

Hello friends!

So today is the last day of my "March Marathon" where I managed to write something on my blog everyday during March! I have loved the interaction with you all and i think I've been inspired to continue updating my blog a lot more regularly :-) And I think it keep me busier than usual because I wanted to have something interesting to write about and show you. That can only be a good thing! 

 I have been very busy indeed, making lots of new necklaces :-) I've been experimenting with using more than one colour in each bead and I'm really happy with the results :-)
I'm a huge fan of red, turquoise and gold together.

 The classic black and gold together has also become a new favourite :-)
Even though I wear a LOT of black clothes I realised that I didn't really have much black jewellery... so I thought I ought to remedy this!
I hope you're enjoying your weekend and I'll be back in April with lots more to write about and lots more to show you :-)
xo Shara

Owl Necklace

Hello friends!
I hope you're enjoying your Easter Good Friday today :-) And if Easter is not your thing, then I hope you're enjoying the fact that it's Friday!
Today I thought I would show you one of the necklaces I have been working on recently. As well as the round beads I usually make I have added a little owl bead as well :-) He was lots of fun to make :-) I almost felt like he should have name, hehehe...
Enjoy your weekend!!
xo Shara

Primary Aztec Necklace

Hello friends!
I hope you had a lovely weekend! I did! :-) I went on a little trip to visit friends in the countryside with my sweetheart :-) Lots of good music, good food, good wine and most importantly, good company :-)
Anyway, it's back to the real world now, hehe...
So here is a new necklace I have been working on recently. One of my favourite things about working with polymer clay is all the textures and designs you can play with. It's very simple, but I love it! :-)
The photo doesn't really do it justice, because there are actually little specks of glitter in these beads, which is really fun... but they don't really show in the pic... never mind :-)
You can see some of my other necklaces HERE and HERE :-)
xo Shara

Olive Loves Making Things Too

Hello friends!
I hope you're enjoying your weekend! We're off to the Castlemaine Arts Festival today in Central Victoria. We have our fingers crossed that they weather is kind to us!
So, if you read my blog, you already know that I really do love making things... yes? Well it runs in the family :-) Sometimes I have a little helper, Olive, and she loves to making things as well! Here you can see a very excellent necklace that she made using polymer clay and neon builders twine :-) Pretty clever, hey?

Polka Dot Navy

Hello friends!
You may have seen my post last week about my Pastel Skull necklace, well here is another necklace I have made recently :-) If you follow me on Facebook, you may have already seen some more of my polka dot beads used in my necklaces and earrings :-)
Anyone who knows me also knows about my love of/obsession with polka dots!! I have polka dot everything! So I really do love these beads!! I also really love the slow, meditative method of making them as well :-)

You can find more of my necklaces and earrings HERE :-)

xo Shara

Pastel Skulls

Hello friends!
I hope you're having a great week :-)
I have been busy, busy, busy making and designing and writing!
Some of the things I have been working on are more beady necklaces and earrings. Here is one of my favourites, "Pastel Skull".
If you already follow me on Facebook then you will have seen these skull beads popping up last year as well. They're really a lot of fun to make as they all have their own "personality"... hehehe

This particular necklace has already found a new home and seems to one of the more popular one. I think it's one of my favourites too :-)
I'm quite taken with anything lilac!
You can find a few of my other necklaces HERE

xo Shara

Joya del Mar

Hello friends!
It's been such a busy time at the SLD Headquarters throughout December, with Birthday, mini-vacations, ALL the Christmas festivities... I ALMOST forgot to post my "Pattern of the Month!" (almost)
I devised this quick little pattern to make a beaded bracelet a few months ago and I have made many, many bracelets since, in all sorts of colour combinations :-) They're really fast and really easy to make! We've been wearing them at the beach, the kids have been wearing them around their ankles (cute!)

What you need:
-Approxiamtely 40-50 Size 6 (3.5mm) seed beads. These are large-ish seed beads and they're easier to thread onto the yarn, but there's no reason you couldn't use smaller seed beads if you can thread them onto your yarn :-) Also, glass beads are better, especially if you plan to get them wet (swimming, bathing etc)
-Small amount 4 ply or Fingering Weight cotton yarn
-2mm crochet hook
-bead threader or dental floss threader or waxed dental floss (for threading beads onto your yarn)

 I didn't have a purpose built bead threader and I couldn't find any dental floss threaders, so I used waxed dental floss to thread the beads onto my yarn and it was very successful :-) Take a length of WAXED dental floss, approx. 25-30cm long. Bring the two ends together and gently squeeze it together with your fingers, the heat from you fingers will soften the wax and the ends will stick together (see the picture above)

 Thread your yarn through the open loop in your dental floss, as shown in the picture above.

 Thread the closed ends of the dental floss through your first bead, slide the bead down the dental floss, and on to the yarn, as shown in the picture above. Continue doing this with the rest of your beads.

 How ever many beads you think you're going to need, add a few more! Once you start making your bracelet you won't be able to add beads, so it's best to have a few extra beads, rather than accidentally running out :-)

 Chain 25, *slide one bead up to your hook, as shown in the picture above, now slip stitch into the 2nd chain from the hook. Now continue to do one slip stitch each of the next 23 chain (for a total of 24 slip stitches)*. Chain 70, loosely & evenly, but not so loose that they are sloppy :-) (You can adjust the size of your bracelet here. You need to have 25 chain either end of your bracelet to tie it up, but the middle section can be varied to any length with more or less chain stitches. When you're doing the chains, measure it against your wrist/ankle etc, then do the remaining 25 chain for the tie). Repeat from * to *.

 Now you will be crocheting your beads into the centre bead section. Insert hook into next chain, slide bead up to your hook, wrap yarn round hook (as shown in picture above), draw yarn through, wrap yarn round hook, draw through both loops. Continue adding beads in this way until you reach the first slip stitch section. Fasten off. Carefully weave in yarn ends. Enjoy your new Joya del Mar (Jewel of the Sea) Bracelet!

Jewellery

Hello friends!
Recently I showed you some of my polymer clay creations, some necklaces with various beads and shapes and textures. I tried my best to photograph them well, but yesterday my very clever brother did a much better job of photographing them for me :-) So here are some of the pictures from the shoot :-)

I've also been making a series of new laser cut earrings. Below are a sneak peek of a pair made using mirrored perspex & sustainable Rimu wood :-)

I'll be back with more images of the new earring collection soon, so stay tuned! :-)

Textured Beads

Hello friends!
In my earlier post I told you I had been experimenting with texture in my bead making, and here are the results.
I know, the round yellow ones look like Froot Loops, don't they? :-)

I really love the look of the little grey ones, sort of like little rocks or geometric gems, I'm calling them "Geogems" :-)

This week I'll be experimenting with more colours, different shapes & different sizes. So stay tuned to see the results!
xo Shara

Beads & a Native Rat

Hello friends!

Today I have been experimenting with polymer clay. I haven't played around with polymer clay for quite some time and I had forgotten how much fun it could be. I made some beads of varying shapes and sizes, none of them quite match the others, but I like the "organic" feel of them :-)

I used a 4.5mm double pointed knitting needle to make the hole in each bead, and also to suspend them over a muffin tray while baking them, so that they didn't get any flat, shiny patches (which will happen if you bake them sitting directly on a tray :-) I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them yet, so for now I have just threaded them on a length of silver tone ball chain :-) I've also been doing a few experiments with adding texture to the beads (but they'll have to wait for the next round of photo's :-)

While I was in the back yard photographing the beads so I could show them to you I could hear a rustling noise by the back fence... I went to investigate and discovered that it was a little native rat gathering some old corn husks, discarded from the veggie patch, to make a nest?? I watched it for quite a while, it was very cute. It had a little friend too, so I'm hoping we might be lucky enough to have a whole brood of little native rats soon :-)

I know that photograph isn't very good, but I was trying not to scare them, so I couldn't get very close :-)

P.S. By native rat, I mean native to Australia. They're much cuter and sweeter than a regular rat. They're smaller, have rounded ears & a tail that is as short or shorter than its body length :-)

Xmas Design POP!

Yes, we're doing it again! We're having another Pop Up Shop in the Nicholas Building in Melbourne.

It's going to be running for 3 days, Thursday 8th December, Friday 9th December & Saturday 10th December. So come along to the Nicholas Building, Level Two, cnr Swanston St & Flinders Lane, Melbourne CBD

Here are some of the items you'll be able to find at my stall :-)

Playing with Patterns

I've been playing around, updating my blog and now you can find my free patterns easily along the right hand side panel of my blog. Making things easier makes me happy :-)

Skull Crochet Pattern

Hello friends!

Yes, here it is! As promised, this is my Skull crochet pattern.

You can use any yarn you like, in any weight, just match your hook size to your yarn :-)

You can do lots of fun things with your crocheted Skull. You could make a bunch of them and join them on a long crocheted chain to make some Skull Bunting, you could attach one to a chain to make yourself a necklace, you could use it as an applique and sew it onto to something fun, you could join them together, end to end, to make a VERY clever scarf :-) (check out my pictures for some examples :-)

Skull Crochet Pattern

Materials:

Approx 5-10m of yarn (this could differ depending on your yarn choice, but it will still be a very small amount)

Appropriate size crochet hook for your yarn choice.

Tapestry needle to weave in ends.

Tension/Gauge:

Tension/gauge is not essentially important to this pattern, however I like to make mine a little tighter than the normal tension you would use for your chosen yarn. For example, when I made some skulls using 8ply/DK weight cotton, I used a 3.5mm hook instead of the recommended 4mm or 4.5mm hook for this particular yarn.

I found that the tighter your tension/gauge the more stable your skull is & it holds it's shape better :-) but it's up to you! if you're going to make a scarf by joining your skulls end to end, then you might like to have a looser tension/gauge, so that your scarf drapes nicely :-)

Abbreviations (the pattern is written using standard British/Australian crochet terms, with a conversion explanation in the abbreviations below for U.S. crochet terms):

ch: chain

dc = double crochet (U.S. sc = single crochet)

htr = half treble (U.S. hdc = half double crochet)

tr = treble (U.S. dc = double crochet)

dtr = double treble (U.S. tr = treble)

st/s = stitch/es

sk = skip

sl st = slip stitch

sp = space

Pattern:

Ch 8

Row 1: dc into 2nd ch from hook, dc to end. Turn. (7sts)

Row 2: 2ch (to count as 1htr), 1htr into st at base of 2ch, 1 htr in each of next 5 sts, 2htr in last st. Turn. (9sts)

Row 3: 2ch, 1htr into st at base of 2 ch, 1 htr in each of next 7 sts, 2htr into last st. Turn (11sts)

Row 4: 2ch, 1htr into st at base of 2 ch, 1 htr in each of next 9 sts, 2htr into last stitch. Turn (13sts)

Row 5: 2ch, htr to end. Turn (13sts)

Row 6: As Row 5.

Row 7: 1ch (to count as first st), sl st in next st, 5ch, sk 2 sts, sl st across next 5 sts, 5 ch, sk 2 sts, sl st to end. Turn.

Row 8: (3htr, 7tr) into 5 ch sp, sk next st, 1dc in next st, (7tr, 3htr) into next 5ch sp, sl st into last st. Turn.

Row 9: sl st across first 4 sts, 1dc in each of next 4sts, 1ch, 1dtr in dc of previous row (in-between "eyes"), 1ch, sk 2 sts, 1dc in each of next 4 sts. Turn. (This row may appear uneven, but it will even out in the end :-)

Row 10: 2ch (to count as 1 htr), 1htr in each of next 2 sts, 1htr in 1ch sp, 1htr in next st, 1htr into 1ch sp, sk next st, 1htr in each of next 3sts. Turn (9sts)

Row 11: 3ch (to count as 1htr, 1ch), *sk 1 st, 1htr in next st, 1 ch* repeat from *to * 3 times, 1 htr in last st. Turn. (9sts)

Row 12: As Row 11. (Do not cut yarn)

Now work 1 round of dc around the entire skull, doing 2 dc in each top corner, and 3 dc in each bottom corner. This helps the skull to lay flat :-)

Weave in ends. Finished!

To make the necklace pictured above I used a 4ply (Fingering weight) cotton and 2.5mm hook and it measures approximately 7.5cm (3") tall. So that it could be worn as a necklace, I attached it to a chain during the last round of dc, carrying the chain along with my work at the top of the skull.

To make the bunting pictured above and below, I used 8ply or DK weight cotton and a 3.5mm hook and each skull measures approximately 10cm (4") from top to bottom. I made 10 skulls, then joined them using the following method: using the same size hook & yarn, I made 90ch, then slip stitched across the top 7 stitches of the skull, then did 32 chain, I repeated this until all skulls were attached, then I finished with 90 chain :-) The bunting is approximately 2.5 metres long. I hope the bunting instructions makes sense!

© Copyright Shara Lambeth Designs 2011. These images & this pattern/tutorial are protected by copyright laws. Copying, duplicating, or distributing this pattern in any form electronically or otherwise is a direct breach of copyright. Feel free to link back to this post from your blog/site etc. And yes, you can sell the finished items made using this pattern/tutorial in your online store such as Etsy, but please do the right thing and credit the pattern to it's original source: here! :-)

Georgette Collar

Here is another pattern for you all to enjoy!

I really love the look a detachable "Peter Pan" style collar can add to an outfit so I decided to make one for myself :-)

The pattern is easy and quick. You could easily have one completely finished in under an hour. You can use any 8 ply or DK weight yarn you like. A nice woolly one for winter, or a cotton one for summer, perhaps :-) They're also GREAT for using up all those little bits of lovely yarn sitting at the bottom of your knitting basket. But because they use such a small amount of yarn you could always splash out and buy yourself a ball of something luxurious to make yourself a special treat :-) And of course, they make lovely gifts too!

And you can find readymade Georgette Collars in my Etsy store HERE :-)

Georgette Collar

What you need:

4mm crochet hook

Approx 35-40m ( 38-44 yds or approximately 20g) 8 ply or DK weight yarn.

Wool needle to weave in ends.

Scissors

Tension/Gauge:

15 tr (dc) x 8 rows = 10cm (4").

Tension or gauge are not essentially important to this pattern, however if you know that you normally crochet tightly, you might like you go up a hook size and if you know you normally crochet loosely, you might like to go down a hook size.

Abbreviations:

This pattern is written using Australian/British crochet terms, however if you like to use U.S. crochet terms you see them "converted" in this abbreviation explanation :-)

Ch: chain

Dc: Double crochet, or U.S. sc: single crochet.

Tr: Treble, or U.S. dc: double crochet.

Dtr: Double treble, or U.S. tr: treble.

Sl st: slip stitch

st/s: stitch or stitches

Pattern:

Ch 71

Row 1: dc in 2nd ch from hook, dc to end. Turn. (70sts)

Row 2: 3ch (to count as 1 tr, here and throughout pattern), 1tr in each of next 8 sts, (2tr in next st, 1tr in each of next 9sts) 6 times, 1tr in last st. Turn. (76sts)

Row 3: 3ch, 1tr in each of next 9sts, (2tr in next st, 1tr in each of next 10sts) 6 times. Turn. (82sts)

Row 4: 3 ch, 1tr in each of next 9sts, (2tr in next st, 1tr in each of next 11sts) 6 times. Turn. (88sts)

Row 5: Skip first 3 sts, (4tr, 1dtr) in next st, 1dtr in each of next 7sts, (2tr in next stitch, 1tr in each of next 12sts) 5 times, 2tr in next st, 1dtr in each of next 7sts, (1dtr, 4tr) in next st, sl st into last st of row.

Fasten off.

Make ties:

There are a few different tie variations to choose from.

The picture above shows where to attach the ties to your collar :-)

Disc Ties (above):

4 ch. 11tr into 4th ch from hook, join with sl st in ch #4 at the beginning of your disc. Ch 60, join with sl st to top corner of your collar. (See pic above)

Make another tie the same, joining it to the other top corner of your collar using a sl st.

Weave in ends & you're finished!

Flower Ties (above):

2 ch.

- Sl st into 2nd ch from hook, then *2ch, 2tr, 2ch, sl st* into same space, repeat from * to * 4 more times, creating 5 "petals" in total. Ch 60, join with sl st to top corner of your collar. (See pic above)

Make another tie the same, joining it to the other top corner of your collar using a sl st.

Weave in ends & you're finished!

Leaf Ties (above):

10 ch. 1dc in 2nd ch from hook, 2htr, 1tr, 1dtr, 1tr, 2htr, 3dc in last ch, turn to work along the other side of your foundation ch, 2htr, 1tr, 1dtr, 1tr, 2htr, 1dc, sl st into 1st st at beginning of leaf. Ch 60, join with sl st to top corner of your collar. (See pic above)

Make another tie the same, joining it to the other top corner of your collar using a sl st.

Weave in ends & you're finished!

**For a few more exceptionally cute Tie option take a look over at the Sister Outlaws Blog for a Love Heart and a Sugar Skull!!

The collar above is made using a love Saffron coloured wool blend yarn, with flower ties.
The collar above is made using some very beautiful yarn that is a wool/silk/alpaca blend, with disc ties. To make this collar I used the dark colour to make the foundation chain & Row 1, then I changed to the lighter colour yarn for Rows 2-5, I then did a row of dc around the outer edge of the collar (adding a few extra stitches are the corners so it would sit flat & wouldn't curl up. I them made the disc ties as per the instructions above, then added a round of dc in the darker colour (with 2 dc in each tr), then continued with the dark colour to make the chain part of the tie, then attached it as usual to the collar :-)
The collar above is made using some lovely pure wool yarn, I used the same method as written above, using two shades of green. I then added a some scallops to the outer edge and attached the disc ties.
I used the same method as written above to make the two colour version of the collar pictured above, I then added Leaf Ties :-)

Have fun with this pattern. Make one for a friend to make them smile :-)

Coming soon is the Toddler/Child version of this pattern! :-)

Also, if you're not a crocheter you can find ready made version of the Georgette Collar in my Etsy store HERE & I do take custom requests if you have a yarn fibre or colours in mind :-)

© Copyright Shara Lambeth Designs 2013. These images & this pattern/tutorial are protected by copyright laws. Copying, duplicating, or distributing this pattern in any form electronically or otherwise is a direct breach of copyright. Feel free to link back to this post from your blog/site etc. And yes, you can sell the finished items made using this pattern/tutorial in your online store such as Etsy, but please be kind and credit the pattern to it's original source, here! :-)