A Sassy Conspiracy

As warned, I’ll be posting the awesome handmade goodies I received this past friend’s xmas. Its been almost a month now since the party so I am rather behind (tsk tsk!) which is in no way a reflection of my feelings towards the awesome loot I received! I’m also rather disappointed in myself that I didn’t properly photograph all of the amazing baked/cooked goodies I received. It was a banner year for tasty treats! I received 5 different kinds of amazing cookies (ginger sparklers, chai, shortbread, vanilla shortbread, chocolate butterscotch chip), Bailey’s Irish Cream fudge, chocolate chip zucchini bread, chocolate-chocolate chip zucchini bread, roasted spiced nuts, two kinds of truffles, and boeuf bourguignon! It was so wonderful - thanks to Nven, Floorshow, Gee&A and elektrafying for the goodies :)

So lets start with the knit goodies from knitter extraordinaire, Nven. First up, the second installment of the pirate hat series, Blackbeard’s Pirate Hat, for the boy. She also entered this hat in a challenge on Craftster :) Its an awesome knit and felted tricorne hat with a beard of knit ringlets and, of course, the requisite gold earrings. Seriously, how epic is this. seriously.

I had asked for a snood as my gift, and she did not disappoint. Not only does this somehow magically stay on my head despite my ridiculously slippery hair, but its so great to have on the days where my hair is not fit for public consumption. And you’ve got to love this - the colourway is foxy lady, and it has a bit of glitter in it! glitter! How well she knows me.

Take a moment and check out her other knit goodies on her blog. Thanks so much lady!!

Back in January, the lovely Ms. Nven somehow managed to knit up a tree cozy to submit to the Winterlude Urban Cozy Project while caring for a very active two month old. Erika was checking out Winterlude and happened upon said tree cozy in the downtown festival site. Her’s is the forth one up :)

Check out her other knit projects on her blog. Her stuff is amazing - she’s responsible for the fabulous God Save the Queen mohawk hat in my profile pic and the boy’s pirate hat, amongst many other things.

(photos by Nven and Erika, respectively)

Yes, that’s right, I won the challenge! So excited! *happy dance*
You should go and check out all the great submissions here!

Finished my submission for the Craftster jewelry challenge! I struggled with the photos - didn’t have time to photograph it last night in my lightbox so I had to take pictures by a window this morning and they’re… not ideal. But there you have it, at least i HAVE pictures! My lovely coworker P also lent me her neck for an action shot.

The pendant is hand cut, pierced and polished from silver, and the necklace has two strands - one of clear crystal Swarovski chain, and another made of sterling chain and graduated Swarovski crystals which run from an AB clear to an opaque Caribbean blue. The “seaweed” is made of sterling wire and green Swarovski crystals (finished with handmade sterling headpins), and the blue bubbles are sterling wire and tiny apatite rondelles. Finally, the octopus’s “treasure” is a Tahitian coloured Swarovski pearl finished with a sterling bead cap and handmade headpin. The vintage-inspired double strand clasp is silver plated with clear crystals.

The theme of the contest is colours of the sea, so I stuck with clear and silver at the top of the necklace for the surf/bubbles, then used progressively darker/more opaque blues to give the impression of water depth, added the green accents for seaweed, and finished with the dark green/blue pearl to represent deep waters.

Took about 4 hours to make. I ended up using silver (not sterling) because its a little stronger and I was concerned about how delicate the design is. I’m still getting the hang of using the flex shaft to polish my work - sometimes I’m a little heavy handed and end up making the surface a little wavy, but I still think it looks good, and it helps catch the light too. It certainly is very shiny! I also got lots of practice drilling holes with this one.  This evening is pretty busy as is, so its going to be a challenge to get the necklace finished in time for the deadline tomorrow (and I have no idea when I’ll be able to get photos… eep!) but at least the work is half done now. I think it needs a name - any suggestions?

look look look! yeah, i totally made that.

Also, reposting the poster because the venue info has changed and, well, the show is in one week. Apt613 posted about the venue debacle (as well as some very lovely things about the SO) here if you’re interested. Anyone who’s free should come to the show to support Apt613 and cheer us on! :)

So I did what I said I wouldn’t and went on craftster last night to see if there were any jewelry submissions for the challenge. There was one, yes, and boy, did it set the bar high. I sat there for a few minutes, totally demoralized and sulking until the boy threatened to throw something at my head. He also (very kindly) told me “he didn’t think the submission was all that great anyway”. Sweet of him to fib for me ;)
While still convinced I have no chance in hell of winning, at least my motivation has resurfaced. That little competitive part of me (its there, just buried way way down there) is not only awake now, but is keeping ME awake at night too. How awesome. The octopus concept finally managed to crawl out of my head and onto paper at 1am last night. I have to say, I like it. I have to figure out what size to make it (and if I even have enough silver to do it) but I think it’s going to be a great focal piece for the design.

Craftster is having its first jewelry challenge and I’m dying to make something for it. I love working with a theme - this one is “colours of the sea”. I’ve done ocean-themed pieces in the past, so I’ve got lots of left over materials hanging about that I could use and, despite my affinity for reds, oranges and blacks, I have a surprising amount of blue, green and cream beads (in fact, I think these make up the vast majority of my collection). Every time I sit down to start though, I’m stumped. Its one of those cases of being overstimulated… I have an idea, and before I can even start I have a new idea, and then another… then I try to edit, confuse myself and am filled with doubt :) I’ve been toying with the idea of doing an octopus pendant for a while and this seems like a good opportunity - it would make a fun focal piece. I wonder how many other octopi will show up in the challenge submissions? The challenge opened yesterday and runs until February 10, so I’ve still got time, I just need to START and then I know I’ll figure it out. For now, I’ll avoid the submission thread in case someone else posts an octopus and totally discourages me ;)

I hate posting without photos. Frankly, that’s my favorite part of reading blogs - checking out the cool images. But alas, I’ve got nothing for you today. Désolé!

Figured I might as well give the Overtones a little plug here (since I’m now an official member, yay me!). The Sexual Overtones are a very cool non-profit burlesque troupe in Ottawa: check them out at www.sexualovertones.ca. Our group will be performing our silent film act at this event, which should be lots of fun :) We’ll also be performing the same act at the Snowblower closing party on February 20, 2010 with LADYTRON! How cool is that? Very cool, I says.
And just so this post isn’t entirely un-craft-related, I made the poster! woo woo! I’m [not so] secretly excited to see them up around town!. :)

The very last of the Christmas present posts, I promise. Well, actually, that’s not true… now I have a bunch of awesome handmade goodies that were gifted to me by my talented friends, so I’ll be posting photos of those soon. But at least its the end of the Christmas crafts made by ME :)

Aeramel really liked the family pendent I made for the boy’s mom, so I decided to do something similar, with the names of her own new family. The cherry blossom is about 1.25″ wide, and is hand cut from sterling silver. I forgot to lubricate my bit before starting the holes and the damn thing seized in the silver, nearly taking my fingernail off. Won’t make that mistake again! I added a small green Swarovski crystal to the baby’s leaf, just to help emphasize that they’re leaves, not petals. Overall I think the design turned out quite well, and it hangs very nicely. Its not the most flattering shot of the leaves - you’ll just have to trust me that they are shiny :)