Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

Tutorial: Turn Glass Beads into Cabochons with Glass Fusing

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finished1I was looking for some interesting tutorials to share with you guys. Especially something that blends two glass crafts. So here’s a tutorial on how to take your glass beads and fuse them into cabochons. It’s on GwacieBeads.com. Too cool. I’ve got plenty of beads that look good on one side but…the other side has an oops on it. Can’t sell that guy. Can’t even stick it in a piece of jewelry for the family. What to do? Fuse it into a cab that can be set in silver or metal clay or even wire wrapped. Or how about made into a magnet or something?

I’ve got some fusing to do for a macramé curtain I’m making and fortunately I’ll be using 104 glass so I’m going to give this a try later with some of my oops beads. Perhaps there sill be pictures tomorrow. I might even fuse a cupcake bead to see what happens. It’s always good to experiment to see what happens. You may end up with something totally cool…and if not you can always turn it into frit, but that’s another tutorial.finished2

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Knit a Blanket with the Texture of a Ceiling

Knitwear designers can get inspiration from almost anything when it comes to re-creating a color scheme, an image or a texture in stitches. Sometimes the inspiration isn’t always obvious in the finished project, but sometimes it’s more literal. 

That’s the way it is with the Tin Ceiling Blanket from Purl Soho. Not just because the inspiration is in the name, but if you’ve ever seen one of these old ceilings you can see that the design of the blanket is quite similar to the pattern of the tin tiles. 

This is also a good example of the idea that you don’t have to use fancy stitch patterns or lots of color to make a big impact with your knits. This single-color blanket (designed by Gianna Mueller and inspired by a washcloth and towel set designed by Sandi Rosner) is made completely with knits and purls, other than slipped stitches at the beginning of rows to make neater edges. 

The pattern is written out row by row, but there’s also a chart, which means this project is a great opportunity to practice reading a chart where you can check your work against the written pattern if you need to. 

It comes in two sizes, a crib blanket and a throw. The yarn used in the sample is an organic cotton sold by the cone, which is a great way to get a large quantity of yarn and have fewer ends to weave in. In fact, you can knit either size of the blanket with just one cone of yarn, which isn’t inexpensive but makes you a great, sturdy, heirloom quality but still washable blanket you’ll use for years to come. (Of course you can use any sport weight yarn you like to make this blanket.)

Check out all the details and grab the free pattern from Purl Soho. 

[Photo: Purl Soho]