Stitch Markers!

I decided to make some stitch markers yesterday. I have shitloads of beads, here and at my parents’ house, and just needed the split rings and head pins (which I purchased at the good ol' A.C. Moore). Here are the results:



These are beads I bought several years ago. I had put seed beads on the one on the left (zebra striped), but managed to break them with my pliers. I have five more of the beads on the right, so I could do a matched set. I did have five more of the zebra striped ones, but I had made a bracelet out of those, and I'm not sure if I still have it.



I had two little plastic cubes I had purchased pretty cheaply years ago; one was shades of green and the other black and silver. Each cube has 20-30 beads of different sizes in it.



Both of these stars came from broken earrings. This gives me something new to look for at yard sales this year; bags of junk jewelry!



I went through a big polymer clay bead binge about 15 years ago, and still have at least one coffee can full at my parents’ house. It may be high time to do something with these.

I also still have tons of polymer clay. I should make some more beads, these ones knitting-themed. Plus, ZMrK has never seen beads be made via the roll-up method, and I think he'd be fascinated by it.



I think these are my favorites. I love the little black hearts; too bad I only had two black heart beads.

I do have one problem with these – the end of the head pin is still a little ragged, and I’m afraid I could snag my yarn on it. ZMrK says I should be able to file it down with a metal file. Has anyone ever done that?

I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point of selling these, but I may give some as gifts (if I can get them to not snag the yarn!). There are a few RAK opportunities going around out there, and I'm sure I could find them happy homes.

There's no big knitting news here. I made another pair of fuzzy feet but am still weaving in ends on them. The yarn I used is yarn from ZMrK's ex-co-worker, and I hadn't realized that each "ball" was made up of several long bits of the yarn, so I have to keep starting with a fresh bit. Snooze. I'm going to hold off on felting them until I can knit up a few toy catnip mice, too.

I have started the Swallowtail Shawl -- twice! I'm about 18 rows or so into it, so far, and have a long way to go. It doesn't seem like a very difficult pattern, and hopefully I'll have a pretty picture of my progress for next week. I'm using some laceweight cashmere by Just Our Yarn that I purchased at the Mass. Sheep and Wool Festival in 2007, in a violet/black/lilac colorway. I'm already wondering where the hell I'm going to block it!