beads | Exchanging Fire

It’s been too hot to knit. Even in air conditioning, with my limbs freezing, the wool slipping through my fingers makes me sweaty and uncomfortable. I’m trying to finish a boatload of projects – among them, my ill-fated Lost Scarf (it was supposed to be finished during the finale of LOST but a shortage of yarn led to its abrupt hibernation) and several tiny projects, that, if I just focused on one of them a day, I’d quickly whip into shape. But, like Alanis said, it’s just been too hot to hold any yarn, so instead I’ve found myself expressing my creativity in other venues – namely, making more stitch markers!

Enjoy another picture-heavy post (I swear, they all are these days) and remember, you can check out more of my work in my Etsy shop, Exchanging Fire, or click on the photo of the stitch marker set that attracts you to follow the link to that particular listing.

Take My Breath Away
“At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. See, once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you, and once in a while people may even take your breath away.” - Meredith Grey, Grey's Antaomy

Sunshine Flows
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” ~ John Muir

Dappled in Violet Twilight
“Inside, the cathedral is a Gothic forest dappled in violet twilight and vast with quiet.” - Wendy Insinger

Time Enough in the Desert Hills
”This is the sense of the desert hills, that there is room enough and time enough.” - Mary Austin

Mad Honey Disease
”There is a toxin, refined from the nectar of the rhododendron ponticus, infamous in the region of Turkey bordering the Black Sea for its ability to induce an apparently mortal paralysis. Enough to deceive even a medical mind as tenacious and well-trained as yours. It's known locally as...mad honey disease. What's wrong with Gladstone? Oh, he's just demonstrating the very effect I just described. He doesn't mind.” - Holmes in Sherlock Holmes, the movie

So I bit the bullet tonight and decided to sit down and really dedicate myself to making a bunch of stitch markers. For me, making stitch markers always comes in fits and starts because, after all, this isn’t just a business for me, but a creative outlet as well. If I’m not in the mood to make stitch markers, then I don’t. But recently I made a few for friends I was seeing/meeting and that got me on the warpath again. I’ve only done two styles tonight, which means that I’ll need to spend a couple of other nights with my nose to the grindstone to really build up a nice repertoire for my shop, but I’m very pleased with my current results.

I caught up on some backlogged tv shows in my DVR while I made them (else making stitch markers would not be fun, as my mind would be bored to tears), including some old Doctor Who episodes. I watched the two-parter about the Cybermen villians with David Tennant and Billie Piper, and it was fabulous, as always. And it also gave me some clever ideas about what to name my new stitch marker sets. The pink ones in that jumbled pile to the left are the last of my Limitless Love series, but the iridescent black ones with clever geometric shapes I think are all going to be named after different parts of the Cybermen episodes, once I get them organized, photographed properly, and up on Etsy. Which will be tomorrow’s job, once I have some nice natural light to work with. Whew!

Making stitch markers is a very laborious process for me, in part because I always take my time and am constantly making sure to do my best work. It’s not just knowing how to use just the right amount of beads so that the markers aren’t too heavy or unwieldy, but it’s also about cutting and twisting and bending wire just so in order to ensure that yarn won’t catch and that the marker will slide smoothly along the needle and that it won’t get caught or pulled or twisted. And there are still aspects to making stitch markers that elude me! So I’m glad to be done with it for tonight, and glad to be done with these beads. As pretty as they are, I need to work with some different colors and styles tomorrow else I’ll lose my mind. I will say, at least these vintage beads have already been removed from the jewelry they were originally attached to. That’s a whole other project that I don’t want to delve into right now. It’s hard work. It’s fun work, but after three solid hours, it’s hard as well.

Cats, of course, don’t make it any easier. Only about 10 minutes after I settled into my seat the cat, otherwise known as Mittens, aka Mr. Kitty, hopped up and wanted to sit in my lap along with all of the stitch marker making box and and tools and stuff. And at 16 pounds, my cat weighs more than most small dogs. So I had to ever-so-carefully move Mittens so that he was cuddled between my knees, and then manage not to lose teensy beads in his fur, and for the record, my leg went numb at one point, and then my legs got tired of being so uncomfortably split, and he still had the nerve to give me an annoyed glance when the scissors fell close to his face. Yes, cats and stitch markers are very hard to balance together. See? Doesn’t he just look superior?