Button Swap Received; Katya Choker

Oh, deary me, I'm very behind on this here blogging thingie...I keep misplacing my camera, and when I do find it it's too murky to get any decent photos.

So, apologies to Meridian Ariel for taking so long to blog the lovely swap she sent me: here it is in all its glory.


Fab, huh? I love the Evil Strawberry. I need some real steampunk-y pins to go with it now!

I'm sure I remember having a key like that for something when I was little...

Some great additions to my stash there, and such a great way of presenting them!

Whilst I'm on the theme of buttons, I whipped this up last week:

Katya Choker

This is the Katya Choker, a free pattern by Dawn LE Riden of Dawning Dreams, which I've had in my Ravelry queue for an age. You can get the pattern here. It hasn't photographed perfectly because I hadn't blocked it at that point, so it was turning up a little at the ends. Anyway, I haven’t been able to get hold of Aunt Lydia’s thread here in the UK so I used the (I think) much narrower Anchor Perle 5 with a 1.25mm hook. I also cocked it up a bit by forgetting whether I was reading the pattern in UK or US terms, so the “windows” for threading the ribbon through were much narrower than the author intended, I assume. I’ve used a 2mm ribbon in dove grey, and a vintage button from my stash, to make a narrow, elegant piece which works well despite the mistakes.

Pretty, isn't it? And I have the perfect winter dress to wear with it. You can wear black for a wedding, right? I may have to make several...

That's all I can write about for now - I've spent the last week or so working on projects which are going to be featured in the new Crafteroo magazine which is launching in September - I have three in this first issue! One will be a cross-stitch project for Christmas, one a Halloween papercut (this is finished and I'm thrilled with it but my fingers hate me after two test-cuts in two days!), and the third a tutorial for the upcycled crochet necklace I posted a few entries ago. So exciting.