Last year, Laura Nelkin and I connected as she started teaching her first class at Craftsy, “Mastering Lace Shawls“. She had designed a wonderful half-pi shawl in our CashSilk Lace called the Skywalker Shawl. Following that, she started designing more beaded and knitted jewelry and created this fabulous piece called the Mudra Cuff using our Tough Love Sock.
Mudra means “gesture or sign” in Sanskrit and it usually indicates some sort of specific hand position or gesture used in meditation or yoga. This beautiful beaded and knitted cuff keeps me flipping my hand around and glancing at my wrist to see the iridescent beads shimmer. It’s a tiny amount of yarn, but it lends warmth as well as style.
In June at TNNA, Laura and I met for the first time in person. She graciously gifted me two of her beautiful kits — one for the Mudra Cuff in Cayenne and the second was for the Rippled Necklace in China Doll. I loved the designs and how they looked, but I was skeptical of my own ability to “get ‘er done“. I totally have knitting/spinning project ADHD and so I just didn’t think I would have the time or the patience to sit and knit something with beads.
The Mudra Cuff knit up surprisingly fast. In fact, from start to finish, I completed it while watching two episodes of Friday Night Lights on DVD. Quick knits are addictive and I immediately started itching to make another one.
The Mudra Cuff kit contains all the beads you’ll need (plus extras for safety sake), the clasp closure, a dental floss threader (ingenious!), enough yarn (plus extra yardage) and clear written instructions. Me, being paranoid about running out of yarn, I didn’t leave very long tails to sew in and generally gave myself more grief than I needed to… the kit has plenty of yarn so you won’t run out.
And one little tip… try to keep even tension/gauge as you work the three strands. One of my strands is looser knit than the other two and so my cuff is a little wonky.
If you want to use your own yarn and beads, you can get the pattern as part of Laura’s new Adorn Anew e-book or on it’s own.
Knitted jewelry… who would have thought? So quick and easy, and yet so satisfying to make. I have holiday projects on my mind now…
What a great honest review of Mudra! Thanks so much for taking the time to knit with beads… your yarn and my jewelry really do make a great team!
Knitting and irridescent beads – I can get behind that idea!