Beaded star edging

Celestarium edging

I recently finished the Celestarium shawl. I modified a popular edging that is used and have charted it. There are 2 charts on the PDF so that standard or mirror knitters can follow it. Due to the option of knitting this standard or mirror I did not label the / or \. use SSK or K2TOG as needed to get a matching lean per chart symbol.

 The edging is a 14 row repeat, but contains 13 beads per row! Make sure you have enough beads to compete this. I used 2 sizes of beads for my shawl and edging. For the shawl I used a triangular bead for the large stars and smaller 6/0 beads for the rest. for the edging I used mostly all 6/0 but used 1 larger one at the points.

My finished shawl is very bead heavy!

How many beads will you need?
total edge stitches divided by 7 (edge stitches needed per repeat). Take that and multiply by 13 (beads per repeat)
Stitches / 7 x 13 = beads needed

this is the PDF file for the star edging

And my ravelry project page for my shawl. I have detailed notes on how i completed it

May the stars be your guide

How to use tiger tail wire (Beadalon) to bead knitting

This is my preferred method for placing beads onto knitting. This is the same method as what people use dental floss, but the wire (found in the beading/jewelry making section) is stiffer and easier to handle. And once you have a kink in it you can load up the wire and set it aside and the beads don't easily fall off. Also you don't have to worry about your hook splitting your yarn as you try to work the beads onto the stitches.

This is the wire, it is a nylon coated steel wire used for jewelry making. I use a larger gauge of this type of wire for my stitch markers. The fine gauge works well and allows you to use more of your beads. Seed beads don't always have a consistant sized hole in the center which makes some useless because you cannot get a hook into it. With the wire, you can use the beads which may have a smaller hole.

 I cut segments about 5-6" and put 1 bead on and tie the wire around it into a knot towards an end of the wire. This creates a stopper so you won't loose your beads.

I'll use my current shawl, Celestarium, for this demo.

 load the wire up Leaving a long enough tail to fold over. Fold the end to put a kink in it (at least 1 inch from the end). 

 

Hook the end into your stitch

Holding both strands of the wire, pull the stitch off the needle.

 

 Slide a bead down and make sure to feed the tail of the wire through the bead as you transfer it onto the stitch. Place the stitch back on the needle and remove the wire and continue working.

For this particular shawl I strung the bead onto the stitch before I knit it. this creates a tight stitch and the beads sink back into the fabric to sit nice and snug. so I string the bead onto the stitch, place the stitch onto the needle and than knit it.

You can also place the bead onto the stitch you just knit. this will create a little more slack in that particular stitch because there is enough yarn to pass through the bead and go around the needle. I do this if I want to make sure the beads will stay on top nicely. Ilike if I'm following a line of decrease. It allows the bead a little bit of slack to be more raised on the surface.

Here is a bead in my current shawl. it's nice and tight

These are the beads on the Sagittaria shawl I did. I beaded the stitch after knitting it (knit the stitch, placed the bead and put back on the needle). They sit nicely on top of the lines of decrease. These particular beads were much smaller than the ones I normally use.

Facebook 101

Wanted to put this in a post because i captured screen shots to help explain things.

These are a couple things you can do to customize your feed on Facebook. If you have friends who you don't want to unfriend, but you don't agree with, or find some things they post offensive and don't want to see or deal with it you can customize your feed in a couple ways.

Part 1
 Editing what you see on your wall

If you have someone you don't want to unfriend. but really don't want to see their post, you can unfollow them. This will mean that NONE of their posts will show up on your wall. You can, however, check out their wall at any time and see what they post.

Click/hover on the down arrow in the upper right corner of their post. I used an example of someone (who I have no intention of doing any of this to, but it's an example). 

A menu will drop down. If you click "unfollow" you will no longer see ANY of their posts.




If you generally like their post, but don't like some of the stuff they share and don't want to see those things. Click on the down arrow of a post they share. In the drop down menu will be an option to hide all from XXXX

This person shared a post from New Yorker Cartoons. If I found this offensive or irritating and didn't want to see anything from this page/group I could click the option "hide all from xxxx" Now I will no longer see any posts that are shared from this site/group (regardless of who shares them).

*Note: if you comment on something you will get notifications. If you don't want to get anymore notifications, you can select "Turn off notifications for this post" from the same drop down menu.

That little "turn on notifications" means you can be notified whenever activity happens on this post. you can click it and get notifications even if you don't post on it.

Part 2
Editing what others can see that you post

Now if you post a lot and have a wide variety of people on your friends list. Maybe you have people who hassle you about your posts. You don't want to unfriend them for reasons, but you would like them to just not see what you are posting. You can customize who sees your posts.

This is where groups comes in handy. You can make any groups you want and they are visible for you. The people in those groups do not know they are in them (unless it's a smart group). I use lots of groups mainly to help id where my friends come from. Also to keep family sorted out.

But here is how you can filter what others see from you.

Hover over their profile picture and hover/click on the "friends" box.

A menu will pop up. I have highlighted  "add to another list". If you click on this another menu will appear. You can then add/delete them from any group at any time. At the bottom will be a "new list" option. you can use this to create a new group. Once you have your groups sorted out you can use this to filter your output.

For this purpose I used my group "pearl clutchers" which is a group that I created that I put people in who are easily offended by my posts or share drastically different views than I do who might give me trouble when seeing what I post. I'm very liberal.

You can actually skip this step if you only have a particular person who  you don't want to see your stuff. See the next step if this is the case.

 So you have your groups sorted. you can then change your defaults.

When you are about to write a post, hover/click on your "friends" box as seen below. a menu will drop down. You can scroll down to "more options" and click that.

This will be the next screen that pops up. Here you can go down to the "don't share with..." section and type in the names of the people, or groups of people you do not want to see your general every day posts. This will become your default settings. When done just click to save the settings.

*Note: the check in the "friends of tagged" box. This means that any friends of anyone who is tagged in your post will be able to see that post and it will show up for them weather or not they are your friend.

If you un-click this box, the person tagged will get the notification that they have been tagged, but only mutual friends will also be able to see it.

Now when you write a post your audience is "custom" you can hover over the custom box to see what the current settings are. As you see here it's "friends; Except: pearl clutchers" . Now all my posts will be visible to all my friends, but not the ones who are in my "pearl clutchers" group(unless my friends have unfollowed me, or I shared something from a group/page they have blocked).

And that is how you can tidy up your Facebook feed,edit who sees your stuff and fend off drama.

Your new default won't change until you change it.  I prefer to write all my posts under my default. and if I want to make something public, or change it's settings, I'll go in after it's posted and edit the privacy.

If you change your settings before you post, the new settings become your default until you change it back. This is important to remember if you decide to make your post public by changing your settings before you post. This will change your default to public for the next post as well unless you change it back.

Hope this helps someone.

Beef and Guinness stew

Making this tonight and it's pretty good!

5 lb. Stew beef cut into 1 1/2" chunks
1/2 c. All purpous flour
Salt & pepper
5 T. Vegtabl oil or suet
3-4 large yellow onions coarsely chopped
1 lb. White mushroom halfed or quartered
2 12 oz. Bottles Guinness Extra Stout
2 c. Beef stock
1 TSP. Brown sugar
1 TSP. Dried thyme leaves
Generous pinch of nutmeg
4 bay leaves

Toss meat, flour, salt & pepper till coated

Heat oil in large Dutch oven or stew pot. Add meat an brown thourly. Remove from pot and set aside when done.

Add the onions to the pot and cook over medium heat until they just become translucent.

Return beef to the pot and add all other ingredients with salt and pepper to taste.

Bring to a boil and cover. Continue to simmer gently for about 2 hours stirring occasionally.

If you want, you can make some Beer bread with another bottle of Guinness to go with the stew.

One row lace scarf

The base of this is co in multiples of:

Knit flat - 6+1

In the round - 6

Use a larger needle than called for. This yarn is some hand spun worsted and I'm using a size 9 needle.

For one I co 6+5 to create a 3 stitch garter edge.

Every row = k1, yo, k1, s1 k2tog psso, k1 yo. Repeat to end k1

This creates a richly textured fabric that is deeply rippled. Works great with self striping yarn. I will be turning minecinto s moebius cowl by grafting th ends