wow amazing photos

Marilyn,

I believe you're talking about the picot lace choker and bracelet set. Actually, those are beaded. It's a lacy stitch that was in Beadwork magazine ages ago, maybe around '00 or '01.

This kind of thing is *not* hard to do. It's best accomplished with seed beads (as opposed to cylinder beads or crystals). There are a lot of lacy patterns that can be accomplished. I did search through the Interweave Store and didn't find that particular thing, unfortunately. (Though IIRC, there were some mistakes in the instructions.)

The other suggestion I have is that if you try anything lacy, use a good *solid* fiber like PowerPro or FireLine (e.g., a fiber fishing line). With the picot lace bracelet, I had started with Nymo bead thread. It let the gold accent beads go completely wonky. When I examined the photo in the magazine, I could see their accent beads were also wonky. Most folded under the beadwork. When I got my hands on the PowerPro, it shored up the gold accent beads nicely. Before the PowerPro, the lacework itself was flimsy, as well. It *drooped* terribly. But with the PowerPro, it had some substance, some "body" to it.

Hope that helps...if you'd like to attempt this and have any other questions, I'll be happy to help you try! Really, it's *not* as complex as the above might sound...if you can knit, this will be a breeze. (And it's not half as complicated as tatting. LOL, so says the person who was only able to make *one* tatted knot and couldn't do it again.)

In the photos above, there's a white bracelet (I'm guessing it's a bracelet. Forgive me if I'm wrong.) that looks like tatting. Was that the plan? I saw a photo of something like that years ago and thought it might be fun to try. Easier than the tatting, anyway. I don't remember seeing anything like that again.

Marilyn

Actually, $15 sounds *very* reasonable for a handmade hat, even if one is supplying the yarn for it! (And maybe that helps them to appreciate not just the work which goes into it, but also the cost of the yarn.)

I think it's *wonderful* how you can barter that way!

Ugh, yes, sweaters are so not cost effective for hand knitting. I didn't have a knitting machine back then, and couldn't do anything except knit by hand. Even so, two days of work may not have been worth making that sweater! (I got my first knitting machine a few months after that, but it didn't have a ribber.)

Do you have a ribber for your machines? If not, what do you do for ribbing?

One of the things I do now is if someone wants a hat say, if they buy the yarn, I'll make it for $15.00. Otherwise the least expensive yarn is $5.99 a skein, two skeins per hat, plus $5.99 for the skein for the hat band. So, it usually costs more to make the hat than people are willing to pay for it.

I've been trying hard to network around the area so that I can barter for things too.

I figure if the economy keeps avalanching south, it will be worth the effort to make as many contacts as I can. I do make children's caps and hats as well so hope it might come in handy.

Sweaters is a whole other prospect. As you say, it just isn't cost effective, especially with 2 sticks. Now it's not that bad with the knitting beds. On the USM or a 260 or LK 150, it can be done in two days so it's easier to bargain.

In the next couple of years your skills might just come in very handy.

Charlene

Charlene,

Thank you!

You're so right...crafting is completely forgotten when artists can't compete with the prices of store-bought. Store-bought is cheap, but it's made cheap. Isn't it sad to see those items that you know were painstakingly made by someone in another country, yet were made with such cheap quality materials, the person pretty much wasted their time? (Several years ago, a dollar store chain was carrying bead-woven bracelets. They were made with peyote stitch, which is very time consuming. Except the beads were cheap beads that weren't made to last.)

Many years ago, a co-worker wanted me to knit a pullover sweater and cardigan from a certain knitting magazine, for her daughter. We discussed price. She was going to buy the wool, as I couldn't get to a yarn shop.

She wouldn't pay anything more than $20 per sweater. Her reasoning was that she could walk outside and pay $10 for a sweater from a street vendor (we worked in Manhattan). Ultimately, I didn't make the set. It wasn't worth it. I couldn't compete with goods that had "fallen off a truck," and she wasn't to blame, either, because she didn't have a lot of money.

It *is* sad about the department stores replacing handmade goods. This is why we can't let the fine old arts of stitching go away, IMO...because we don't want things replaced with that awful, store-bought stuff!

Thanks again for your kind words.

Beautiful work! I've been paying much more attention on Artfire to the beader/beading there since joining Stitchboard. It is so sad that crafting is so little known anymore and so under appreciated.

Hand made, home made is dissed in favor of the local department store. There's something so very sad about that, and something magical about all the work you've done and are displaying here.

Thank you!

Charlene