i'm doing my best

Lost my mind a little and added (if my math is correct) 5,615 beads to Nim Teasdale's Odenwald pattern. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!

The goal was “soothingly weighted but not uncomfortable to wear, even as someone with chronic pain.” It could have been a little heavier, so maybe I’ll make a shawl with larger beads another time, but I’m very pleased with this one. I used size 6/0 seed beads, applied as I go with a .6mm crochet hook.

Yarn-wise, used 2 cakes of YarnArt Flowers. I knitted the fully purple sections from both, then knitted all the way through the yellow-oranges with a single ball. When I hit the beginning of red-oranges, I used yarn from both cakes, alternating between them. (Not the entirety of both, I played it by ear to make sure I made it through the full rainbow.)

I do have edited charts with bead placements. I will only share them with Nim's permission.

The worsted weight I'm using is thinner than the original yarn, but the measurements are coming out just fine. It leaves a little space between stitches on the bottom part. I expected this as the original bag is 100% cotton and likely made from dish cotton/kitchen cotton (aka Lily Sugar and Cream or similar). That would make the stitches press together a bit more on the 4.5 mm hook.

AND HOUR THREE:

We are officially going into less than $10 an hour in labor if you're selling it for $30. Shocking no one.

Our deck table had been showing its age already when the wind caught the umbrella and cracked it. I wanted to replace it with a mosaic table because I’d been enjoying that art form recently. But I couldn’t get one the size I wanted so I got creative.

I spent a few weeks looking for tile and figuring out a very loose design concept. I started by picking a limited set of tile shapes and a color palette.

Once the tiles arrived I had a piece of particle board cut to size for the base and I experimented with different motifs until I settled on a selection of floral shapes that gave me plenty of variety to fill space without locking me into one repeating pattern.

And then I was off! I basically doodled my way around the table, attaching tiles with Weld Bond (I went through 4 full bottles!) and rocking out to the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack.

Once the florals were done it was time for the background…

Over 3,800 1cm glass tiles make up the not-design part of the design. It went pretty quickly though because I just had to fill the space, leaving room for grout.

Once I had the tile done, my husband assisted with disassembly and reassembly. We used the legs off the original table for this one (waste not).

One huge bucket of black grout later…

She is finished.

Did finish it before the wedding!! My sister cried and I cried and her husband loved it and it was lots of love all around. It is actually queen sized, nearly 100"x100", done in worsted weight on size 8/5mms.

The final tally:

Just over 240 hours 💀

Also can't believe I didn't mention it but I also made a matching one for their cat. They put it on this chair which is specifically this guy's and has never been sat on by a human since they got it