Hollow Glass Bead Tutorial

I’ve been making a bunch of hollow beads lately. I think of them as a kind of sorbet to all of the cupcake beads I make. A hollow bead is more zen like in its creation. Generally one rod of glass, one color, maybe a few accents, but usually very simple. I like to use glass that does all of the talking like a raku or other silver glass. The bead pictured above is one of mine made with raku glass that’s been frosted. I just love it!

So I went looking for a tutorial since I don’t have one yet and found a number of them in googleland. I’ll share links to a couple of them the first being Lori Greenberg’s blog (she used to write this blog). She always explains things well and has good pictures.

There are some videos out there in the internets but I do have to say, Lori’s tutorial can have you making a hollow bead in no time. That is with a bit of practice. Happy zen bead making!!

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

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