Luna's Baublebilities

Full moon scarfWhat a dreadful time we've had of it the last few weeks!  Back in October, I posted in my shops that I would be running a special - free shiping on orders over $30.00 - to make up for inconvenience caused by poky deliveries this fall.  I thought that my deliveries would be poky because of working so much over at the Beorningstead.

No sooner had I put up the free shipping offer than Maxx came down with h1n1.  Then I came down with it.  Then we both got better.   (HA!)    Then I developed an earache from purgatory, my head exploded and I've been unfit to drive or think or hear or talk or anything for a week and a half!  The worst part of it is that I've been so sick that I haven't even been able to work at projects - I'm just too darn dizzy.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to thread a beading needle wen the room won't stop tilting?

Anyway, I'm back to the doctor's today.  She says that the ear infection is a common complication of h1n1, I'm just worried about that fact that it didn't respond well to a course of antibiotics.

I did have a little productive time between the fever flu and the alien in my ear.  I finally finished off the scarves I had painted during summer fest.  They are set, highlighted and up in my Etsy shop right now.  I can't wait to get into my new studio where I will have a counter top just for painting silk scarves!

I also have been working on a custom order velvet scarf for a friend with a VERY lucky wife.  It is an incredible scarlet velvet with gold seed bead mesh with rich crimson goth roundelles at the bottom of each end.   I had lots of fun earlier this fall dyeing up a selection of velvets for him to choose from.  I'm only a little sad that he chose the scarlet.  I still have some purple and an incredible mallard teal to work with.

One of these days, I'll put up a tutorial for netted fringe.  It is one of my favorite things to do - it is a very simple and meditative process and usually goes pretty smoothly as long as one is careful not to get tangles in one's thread.  Ten inches of fringe usually takes me about 2 hours but the velvet is a bit trickier than a flat silk scarf would be, as the initial fringe stitch also acts as the finishing hem for the open ends of the scarf.   That requires a bit of extra time and care with pinning the edges and trying to take up the same amount of fabric on each side of the scarf with each stitch.  The first edge of this scarf took me about 3.5 hours.

You can see in this photo that I wasn't paying close enough attention to the spacing of my stitches on one side of the velvet.  This will have to come out as it makes the velvet drape poorly.  I'm very glad I caught it before I got too far along the edge!

If you love the scarf, I do have another one in sapphire blue over in my shop or I could order up some more velvet and make you any color you want!

I have a fun handmade gift project I hope to post in the next few days as well as show off the necklace I made with a beautiful Mary Harding pendant during the Beading party at the arts council.