Creative side

Debbie Stoller, of Stitch n Bitch fame, announced that she's accepting new submissions for her next book - this time she's focusing in on beads, cables, and lace.

J gave me a good idea - try to knit a mermaid swimsuit for M.

My inspiration is Ariel from Disney's Little Mermaid:

I bought some cotton/elastic yarn from elann.com

Fresh Pesto (5605) for the suit and the wrap;

Aegean Sea (2194) for the flipper/ruffle and African Violet (6287) for the shells.

Then I've been playing with the bead effects. Here's a small chart for the scale effect that will be knitted into the body of the suit with beads.

Here's my first attempt at knitting the beaded pattern:

I initially tried to knit with 8/0 seed beads. I was able to get the beads on the loop, but it hurt my hand. The sample above was done with 6mm round beads (which is about a 3/0 bead). I think they're too large so I ordered some 5/0 beads from the Earth Faire web site. Transparent Green AB 5/0 round and the Noir Lined Crystal AB 5/0 round.

For some reason, Blogger won't let me upload more photo's. I'll have to do it in another post.