International Jewellery London 2010

Wednesday I spent the day at International Jewellery London at Earls Court 2, celebrating both UK and International jewellery designers, wholesalers and manufacturers. This year there was lots of choice and variation, from glass to diamonds. 

Interesting statement sculptural shapes, strong bold modern settings, platinum, silver, aluminum, stainless steel, some with large clear gemstones.  
Saw several stacking rings & composable bracelets giving a sense of been able add your own flare and style to your jewelley.
Colour was everywhere crystals, glass, gems also many designs had used butterflies and dragonflies from small earrings to extra large brooches. There seemed to be more suppliers than last year and as always was an interesting day.

I got some nice interesting carved quartz beads, freshwater pearls and crystals, now to play with them and make up some new stitch markers.

International Crochet Day 2010

The 12th September approaches, also known as International Crochet Day I have designed 2 filet bookmarks to celebrate the day- the first has the graph below. Both are available on a limited edition pdf file, just email : nezumi@nezumiworld.co.uk with ICD bookmark and add UK or USA.

Here's one I made earlier

 

Ladybird Dance

To match the "Here come the Bee's" and the "Butterfly Dance" chart I have added another new chart "Ladybird Dance" check out  NezumiWorld for more charts, patterns, stitches and much more.

Knit Nation

I had an excellent day out with a good friend a couple of weeks ago at the Knit Nation event. It was held at Imperial College London, which was a great setting for it. The grounds were nice at lunch time to relax in and look at mid-day purchases. 

We don't attend any of the large array of workshops, but spent the day shopping in the market place. Here's some of the goodies I bought.

Denise Crochet Interchangables

Tunisian crochet with the Babylonglegs yarn

I have been waiting to buy the Denise interchangeable crochet hook pack for ages, I have the interchangeable needle pack with the extension kit now I have the complete set so am planning on making extra large blankets . I had to try them as soon as I got home and made a small Tunisian crochet necklet scarf with one of the skeins of hand-dyed yarn I bought from Babylongleg. I like the feel of the hook and how it grasps the yarn. The fact I can adjust the size of the cord for small projects or join lots of cords together for extra large projects is good, plus I got some extra hooks for double ended Tunisian, this set will be well used.

I was suprised to find Kumihimo Braiding kits and bought a plate, disk & a braiding book, the very nice author Helen Deigham was there and also signed our books for us, she was so friendly and knowledgeable to talk with. I have been braiding with wire and beads for many years but always make homemade card plates, it is so nice to use this lightweight foam plate and disk set.

I don't go mad buying yarn, I think I have more than enough but this supersoft 80% Baby Alpaca & 20% Silk laceweight yarn from Bluefaced.com was such a good price and the colour is so rich (plus do bargains count as spending or saving .......).  Again I had to buy the Lang - Magic from Brownberry Yarns the price and colour was to much of a bargain to miss and they put a parma violet sweet into my bag, I used to love the smell of these when I was a child I can not remember the last time I saw a packet : ) (mmmmmmmmm...smelling pack as writing).

Another thing I love is using nice hooks and knitting needles, I bought some smooth rosewood knitting needles from the Little Knitting Company they have nice points and feel evenly weighted.

Needles from the Little Knitting Company

EEkk a sweetie from Brownberry Yarns

 

Kumihimo Braiding plate, disk & book

Lang Magic - Brownberry Yarns

Alpaca & Silk Bluefaced.com

More polymer clay play

Some more fun with polymer clay, cured this batch on a lower temperture and the colour stayed the same. Going to make some more canes and will post the results soon. Also making some of the petals and leaves into stitch markers.

A bit of rolling and shaping and it becomes a leaf cane, below is new my leaf bracelet.

Polymer Play

This weekend I have been playing with polymer clay (I used fimo for these samples)

lots of blending and shaping the clay

These are ready for the oven
Just out of the oven and the colour has become must darker and stronger will have to experiment with different temperatures.
Here's some finished results

Just time to make another batch.

Saturday Classes

I have been busy on Saturdays (so blog is getting neglected again) attending a 10 week course in plotting pattern pieces (that's my hand with the mouse with all the buttons) and using Lectra- Modaris pattern design software to develop and adapt patterns. Grading sizes is so easy. I have added a few screen shots below.



We also used Lectra - Diamino software for marker making (laying the pattern pieces onto fabric) a giant pattern piece jigsaw puzzle.
I just need to win the lottery so I can have the software at home.
So now the course is finished it gives me some time this weekend to play with polymer clay (a quick pic of some work in progress), i'll post my results later when they come out of the oven :)