Knit This Time!

Can anyone guess what these bracelet charms are?? Oh come on, you must have guessed based on my blog title. These stellar jewels are made from knitting needles. So clever!!! Nancy has a shoppe called Sassafras Creations. She makes me want to take up knitting as my second hobby. Okay, maybe not, but they at least make me want to turn something ordinary into jewelry. :)



I have always crafted; I'm 46 now, so let's say 4 decades.

I did a lot of sewing in my teens and 20's and also learned to knit somewhere in my early 20's. In my late 20's I had 3 sons (#2 and #3 are twins), so I pretty well lost all my free time for a while. After my twins got out of diapers, I found I had a little more free time again and I got into beading and jewelry-making, then eventually came back to knitting. I was laid off from my 24-year corporate career in 2006 and I became determined to do something more creative with my time, so I took some metalsmithing and jewelry-making classes. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea of using aluminum knitting needles in my jewelry - they're colorful, come in assorted sizes and are very lightweight. So, for the past 6 or 9 months, I've been playing with that idea and just seeing what I can come up with.



Inspiration comes from all over - I read lots of knitting and jewelry magazines and books. I also have a tendency to try to apply whatever medium I'm currently working in to everyday situations -- a few years back I was heavy into working with polymer clay; when a plastic guide rail on my dresser drawer broke, I made a new one out of polymer clay. I also tried to knit with polymer clay - it could be done, and it was unique, but it was a heck of a lot of trouble to make the string. Now I'm using the tools of knitting and seeing what else can be done with them.



The challenges I'm facing right now are questions about my own capabilities and where I want this to go - I'm ramping things up slowly and trying to be very conscious of my production time - since I am making all of the little pieces that go into my jewelry, I have to try to calculate how much it costs to make each one, in order to ensure that I am really able to pay myself for my time. But I'm having a lot of fun and have really enjoyed the positive responses that I've gotten from folks all over.





Nancy has plenty more awesome jewelry items for you to look at, so head over to her Etsy site and tell her hello!!