The colors! the textures! the complete wonderfulness of them- sigh….

For many years, I did a lot of off loom beading- using brick stitch and peyote stitch to create pieces like this necklace:

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

This necklace is an homage to the Minoan Goddess of the Bees.

The blue teardrop shapes are  dew drops, as the Minoan Goddess of the Bees is also known as ‘The Dewdrop Goddess’.

I love that—- dew happens when the earth is waking up and shifting from the dreamtime to the waking world.

How wonderful that there is a tiny Goddess there, guiding us back from our dreams, to our waking lives, and refreshing our spirits with dewdrops!

The red petal is a pomegranate seed, as The Minoan Goddess of the Bees is also closely aligned with the Goddess, Persephone.

Persephone was snatched from this world, and taken to the underworld, where she ate 3 pomegranate seeds. This meant that she had to return to the depths for 6 months of every year.

In Western Canada, where we live, winter reigns for at least 6 months of the year, often longer, so I resonate deeply with Persephone’s journey!

By the way, I love how the corded part of the necklace formed a figure ’8′ – tilt it sideways, and you have infinity!

I worked the cord in peyote stitch, using tiny brass beads that a friend found in a thrift shop.  Nice!!!

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

I carved her face from a tagua nut (an ecologically harvested palm nut) that is also known as vegetable ivory.

I have never done much loom beading, but that is about to change!

Every year, Claudia and Elena at Mirrix looms have a ‘social media campaign’.

They choose 2 weavers (a bead weaver and a tapestry weaver) to be part of the team, and then give them each a Mirrix loom.

Then, the weavers blog and post and tweet and fb etc about their adventures with their Mirrix looms for 4 months.

Well… I am soooooooooooooo delighted!

They picked me as one of their weavers! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

A few weeks ago, I bought a Mirrix Joni from another Canadian weaver who hadn’t bonded with it. I am working on a series of woven tapestries and fiber arts collages and I need Joni Mirrix to be my loomie for that

Woots! I fell madly in love with Joni Mirrix  (although I felt unworthy of her at first… will tell you more about it, later) and thought-

‘Hmmmmm… there must be a Ravelry group for Mirrix looms’.

I looked for it, and sure enough, there is! Link

I joined, and the first thing I saw was that they were having their annual Social Media networking campaign.

I sent in my application, and last night, I was doing a huge happy dance to discover that I got picked for the team!

(good thing I don’t have to catch a ball or throw one to be on the team, or else I would still be standing on the sidelines! ahem)

Oh ho! I want to fill my studio with Mirrix looms, (tapestry is slow, and I want to be doing bead weaving, toooooooo, so I am just ecstatic!)

Speaking of bead weaving, I treated myself to Claudia’s bracelet workshop on Craftsy  (anyone who has seen any of my video tutorials will know that I am madly in love with bracelets!) and I am chomping at the bit to get going on a bunch of yummy woven bracelets!

Alright…. back to work on design deadlines so I get back to my weaving!

Go gently!

Oh! PS: if you would like to knit yourself a Minoan Goddess of the Bees, I designed one for you to knit, and  can be ordered here:

Link to the doll page on my website (scroll down, waaaaaaaaay down the page to click the ‘buy now’ button)

I am almost done a fairly large piece, called: Mermaid’s Song: PLEASE DO NOT PIN THESE IMAGES

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

She’s large- 6 ft by 2ft, and hard to photograph in my studio, so I figured that I would show a video of her.

I used small looms, knitting, crochet, tatting, spoolknitting and flower looms to make her, along with copper foil work.

Some of the looms were: 2 inch square vintage weave it loom, potholder loom, pinboard looms, Martha Stewart loom and flower looms.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

www.crone-findlay.com copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

And, here’s the video:

Remember: The size of your loom doesn’t limit the size of your finished piece!

Happy weaving!

The bond was formed in childhood, when my beloved teddy was a panda (a pink and white one at that- you can see the very tiny homage I made to her on my website at About Us )

Panda designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay for Lion Brand yarns/Martha Stewart Loom

I hope that I will contribute to other people’s Panda love with this design for a Panda bear knitted on the Martha Stewart loom.

The design is available free at: Panda pattern

Please note… there is an error in the pattern- (honest, I sent the whole thing in, so it got munched somewhere in editing land)

The instructions for the arms are missing:

Here they are:

With Shape # 1:
Arms: make 2: Knit 25 rounds. Cut yarn and gather last row (See Notes).

Arms: Stuff the arms. Sew arms to body at shoulders.

Lion brand Panda designed by Noreen Crone-Findlay

I’ll send them a note to hopefully get this fixed asap!

Panda hugs all round!

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Here is Edward Bear with his head and one leg stuffed.

His foot is turned up and the stitching is started along one side of the foot.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Here’s a closeup of measuring the foot- Stitch the edges together around the fold to stitch the foot to the leg- around the sides of the foot and across the top of the foot.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Hope this helps!

The courier took one look at me and apologized several times for waking me up (there was no faking, the “I’m really awake” thing… nope. No chance of that). He then assured me that it was -20 and truly horrible and I should go back to bed.

I did.

We had been out monstrously late at an annual event that we cherish- dear friends of ours who have the hospitality gene big time, have a gorgeous gathering once a year. It’s their ‘Chocolate Party’. They make fabulous handmade chocolates and then invite their musician friends and spouses to make and enjoy gorgeous music and eat heavenly chocolate.

I ate too much chocolate and enjoyed the bliss of spectacular music and promised myself a late start to Monday morning.

Which didn’t quite happen, but believe me, the package that arrived was worth hauling my post-chocolate weary self out of bed for.

See what I mean? Wouldn’t you jump out of bed, no matter how few hours you’d slept and how much chocolate you’d eaten the (verrrrrry Late) night before?

If you knit, you want this book.

If you don’t knit, you will want to learn.

The VK Stitchionary is better than chocolate, and that is saying a lot.

Although…. I have to warn you that it may interfere with your sleep, as it is a real page turner and ‘Ooooh…. gotta have that, gotta do that….’ is certainly going to be a theme as you browse through it.

Yep. It’s a winner.

And, of course, the usual declaration: Yes, I did receive this book as a review copy and no, I do not profit in any way by telling you that I love love love it.  (To be honest, if I receive a review copy of a book and I ~don’t~ like it, I just won’t review it. I know how hard it is to create a book, so I am not going to say anything that will hurt the other author.  So, when I review a book, you know that I DO indeed like it, or in this case, LOVE it.)

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Happy Knitting!
Noreen

The stork has made a delivery!

The Stork prepares to fly to California with baby Brownie copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Baby Brownie Bear has arrived, safe and sound and you can see for yourself that baby is truly adorable!

Hope Brownie isn’t keeping Edward and Anastasia up all night…

here’s a sneak preview: -previews/stork-bear-mobile

Edward and Anastasia with baby Brownie copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

BTW, if you don’t know what I am talking about, Edward and Anastasia Bear are tiny knitted teddy bears that I designed for the magazine, ‘Your Knitting Life’, back when it was called, ‘Knitting Today’.
Every issue has a different set of outfits for Edward and Anastasia, including their wedding outfits.

My sister likes them best of anything that I have designed in the more than 40 years that I have been a professional designer.

So, that makes them extra special to me!

It struck me that it might  be a good idea to get a little bit more specific when I say: ‘pick up x number of stitches along this edge’.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

So, I wrote out how I like to pick up stitches – which is with a crochet hook.

And, then it struck me that showing how to do this is probably even better than just writing about it.

So, I made a video tutorial, demonstrating on how I use a crochet hook to pick up the required stitches.

This technique works equally well for knitting flat or knitting in the round.

And, here’s the video tutorial:

In it, there was a review copy (courtesy of the publisher: LINK) of a completely delicious new book from Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably:

Knitting With the Color Guys: Inspiration, Ideas, and  Projects from the Kaffe Fassett Studio.

No books or dogs were harmed in the making of this photograph

We have come to expect perfection and lusciousness from Kaffe Fassett, and once again, the Wizard of Color has lived up to expectations.

Oh my word, this book is gorgeous!

The projects are glorious, the photos are the stuff of dreams, and the models (Rushka Chorr-Konn and Floss Barnett Howland) are beautifully REAL.

The projects range in difficulty from absolute entry level to “wheeeeeee this is fun” and “hallelujah! I CAN do this!”

No sweaters…. but scarves, fingerless gloves, stoles, and leg warmers are featured along with all manner of beauteous throws, blankets and cushions.

Many of the larger projects are modular, which makes them wonderfully portable as take along knitting.

This is a book that is well worth owning.

VERY drool inducing indeed!

Raise high the knitting needles in salute, once again, to Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably. Thanks, Color Guys!

copyright noreen crone-findlay

Edward and Anastasia Bear are 2 little bears that I have designed for ‘Your Knitting Life’ magazine (formerly known as ‘Knitting Today’), and they’ve been in each issue of the magazine since it started.

They are small… they’re 6 inches tall, and are knitted on 2.75 mm needles using Regia sock yarn.

Recently, on Ravelry, someone asked if Edward and Anastasia could be made larger, and the answer is, ‘You betcha’!

The humungous Edward Bear in the photo is 18 inches tall.  If you knit with 8 or 9 mm needles and super bulky yarn or 2 strands of medium weight yarn held together, you will get one very large Edward Bear!  Stitch through the hips to make them bendable.

The pattern for the basic Edward is available for free from the ‘Your Knitting Life’ website: Edward pattern link.

You can see pics of the all Edward and Anastasia installments here: Pics