The Knit and Crochet Show 2015!

123 days until the Knit and Crochet Show this summer! Registration is now open for classes, and there are some really interesting classes being offered. I signed up for Reversible Intarsia Crochet, and Edgeless & Reversible Cables with Laurinda Reddig, and Crocheting with Unspun Roving with Karen Whooley

 I am really looking forward to meeting new and old friends in San Diego! Will you be attending?

The Cherry Blossom Necklace for Interweave!

Photo by Interweave Crochet/ Harper Point Photography

The Spring Issue of Interweave Crochet is now out, and I am pleased to introduce my contribution: the Cherry Blossom Necklace. 

It is an elegant combination of two classic jewelry elements, beads and chain links. I intended it to be worn with the chain off to the side, but you can also turn it so the chain is at the center front or center back for a different look. 

You can have fun choosing yarns for this necklace! In the necklace in the photo above, I used a cotton yarn with a shiny streak running through it for the beads. It gives the effect of natural turquoise. If  you choose a yarn with an all over sheen, the beads could look more like pearls. The Magazine sample beads were made with the beautiful Filatura Di Crosa Brilla yarn. It is available in gorgeous colors that would give you either a stone or pearl effect depending on the color you choose.

Photo by Interweave Crochet/ Harper Point Photography

By crocheting fewer beads and chain links, you can make a bracelet with the same pattern. Since the pattern includes two elements, you could also make your piece with beads only, chain links only, or alter the length of either element within the original pattern, to suit your personal taste. 

A Free Pattern In Honor of National Crochet Month 2015!

I am so happy to be participating in Crochetville's National Crochet Month Blog Tour for the third year in a row! Thank you to Amy Shelton and Donna Hulka for organizing it! Each day there will be two crochet designers doing special blog posts, and there will also be daily giveaways. This year, Crochetville is featuring the charity Halos of Hope, who provides volunteer-crafted hats to cancer centers across America. They would love donations of crocheted hats, and/or money that they will use to cover shipping costs when they send hats to cancer centers.

This past year has been a great one for crochet, and to celebrate, I designed an elegant triple strand beaded necklace that can be crocheted in any yarn, with unique results. It is a great pattern for a novelty yarn, such as City Life by Premier Yarns, because the combination of stitches allow the colors to be showcased in a beautiful way.

To give you a few ideas on how other yarns work up in th pattern, I made 2 additional samples. The first was made in Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light yarn. I used 3 shades of orange, and I really love the graduated effect of the colors when doing each strand in a different color.

For the second sample, I used Berroco Weekend yarn to show how a cotton yarn looks. Cotton is nice for jewelry because it is comfortable to wear next to the skin, and the weekend yarn has a subtle texture that adds interest to the beads.

The Ultra Alpaca Light is a DK weight yarn and the Weekend yarn is a worsted weight. I followed the pattern instructions exactly, which resulted in the Ultra Alpaca Light version becoming more of a choker. You can easily add or subtract beads from the strands to make the necklace the length that you desire.

I hope I will see many pictures of the necklace made up in different yarns! This pattern is now available as a FREE download via Ravelry. 

To continue on the Crochetville Blog Tour,   check out Marty Miller's blog today, and visit the blogs of Stacey Vaka and Dora Ohrenstein tomorrow, to see what they have in store for you! You can view the entire month's schedule of designers here.

Exciting New Additions to Our EwoodStory Etsy Shop, Coming Soon!

Spring is in the Air and we are busy preparing some exciting new things for our Etsy shop. Soon we will be listing our unique Blooming Bracelet crochet kits that will be available in 6 different colors, painted Mini Masterpiece Frames, and Nouveau Necklace Kits in new color combinations as well as some of our most popular combinations. Please stay tuned, new stock will be winging its way to the US, this week!

Mini Masterpiece Pendants, will soon be available in beautiful colors!

Nouveau Necklace Kits, and Exotic Wood Mini Masterpiece Frames