queen of recycling

As you know, I am a member of the Silly String group over at Ravelry. Each month we are issued with a challenge, inspiring us to try our hand at something a little unusual.

'Legions of Queens' was the name of the challenge this month

The task involved firstly choosing your domain... What do you want to be Queen of???

Next you needed to create an appropriately themed tiara or crown crocheted from wire... one which would actually fit on your head!

So. I nominated myself 'Queen of Recycling'

Firstly I needed to source myself some recycled wire. I turned to Mr Goldfish for this one... surely he had some kind of wire stashed away in his garage that I could use?

Of course he had oodles, but nothing fine enough for me to crochet with. Then he came up with the suggestion of cutting open some old electrical wiring, and salvaging the fine copper wires from inside to use. Has anyone ever tried this? I would be interested to hear your feedback on it.

As it happens, Mr Goldfish couldn't find the electrical cables... and I was getting impatient. Can you believe that? Me getting impatient about something? So he handed me some telephone cables instead. I sliced them open and 'ooh-ed and ah-ed' at the pretty colours inside.

The telephone wires weren't too bad to work with. It took me about an hour to crochet the tiara. At that time my fingers weren't at all sore. I have heard some awful reports about people developing blisters and the like from working with wire. Admittedly my wrist was sore. Sore enough that I would have needed to stop for the day and continue again tomorrow sometime. And I'm happy to report that my hook was unscathed. Apparently the wire is notorious for destroying crochet hooks.

To embellish my tiara, and in keeping with the recycle theme, I used an old clip on earring for a a feature at the front, and then a couple of brass split pins to finish off.