Let's start with the good news. The blogiversary tassels have been awarded to the 2 commenters. I was going to give one and keep one for myself, but as there were only the 2 commenters and I want to encourage y'all, I'll give them both away and just make myself one later at some point.

Should I try this again? D'ya want free stuff? 8)

Sooooo, remember what I said in the first post that this daily posting thing was doomed to failure? This is past 2 months (or so) is pretty much what I meant. But, since I am trying to give myself something of a personality adjustment, I will not yet admit complete defeat. There are still delusions of backfilling in the missing days and continuing onwards as well.

If you would like to help, I would completely adore that. Guest posts of a knotty or braiding nature are totally welcome. Words of encouragement would be, y'know, encouraging. Even constructive criticism would be gratefully accepted. I do my best to answer questions and take requests under advisement. 8) Email or comments all work.

The black beads were too small, the clear beads were too big, but I think the iridescent blue beads were just right. Having finished the grey with black, I thought there's no reason I can't use different beads on each side. The visual crossover is quite minimal. That said, when it was time to bead the neck of the tassel, I wanted to use both bead colours.

Having finished the grey knot off with little black beads I knew I wanted bigger beads (if the package had sizes I would tell you what they are, but there's no label and I can't really guess). I started with the clear and they're actually a smidge on the large side. They work nicely with the knot itself giving a kind of dew drop effect, but they crowd the middle, overly obscuring the middle stone.

The "back" side (see right) is the first side I worked on. I think the bead placement is sometimes sub-optimal. On the "front" side (see left), I made sure to sew the beads higher up on the cords so that they couldn't roll under and hide. I also pulled the cords very tight which ended up covering more of the centre bead with cord, after all that time I spent looking for a knot with a nice big centre hole to showcase the beads.

Even so, I'm pleased with the results (it's certainly a successful proof of concept work). Now it just needs a tassel and it's done.

Here's a progress shot of black version with the centre bead in place. Pretty, no? 8)

No way to tell if grey or black will go better with those hexagonal beads but to do it. Plus, if I give one away then I can keep the other one. That or give it away for the next thing...

In any case, this is a progress shot. I've already started to put knots together with beads and I'm liking the grey, but the little beads should maybe be bigger. We'll see how it looks when it's done.

I finally successfully tied and tightened the type 2 hexagonal stellar knot. It's nice but the centre hole is not as big as I'd hoped. So, it's back to the standard stellar knot with fewer overlaps, methinks.

So, my one month blogiversary give away tassel is incomplete and late for which I apologize, but then you are late too. Despite Google Analytics telling me that there are about 100 of you who have visited the site more than 100 times (which is interesting because there's only about 60 blog postings), no one left a comment on the original blogiversary posting, so were it done I would have had to keep it in any case.

Were y'all waiting to see the finished product to see if it was worth your while? Are there comment posting problems that I am unaware of? If that's the case tell me.

So, let's push it back a month. Post a comment to the original blogiversary, posting which is still sticky to be top of the blog, and you'll be entered to win both the tassel and set of materials used for making the tassel. Sound good? 8)

As previously mentioned, I decided to tie the hexagonal type 2 stellar knot with my nice and graphic shoelace in hopes of gaining insight as to what exactly was going wrong. As you can see from the picture to the left, I didn't succeed in tying the knot any better with the shoelace, but I did gain insight:
1) the type 2 is created by a process similar to extra overlapping in a standard flower knot

With those nice hexagonal beads, I wanted to frame them with a hexagonal knot. It didn't need to be particularly stable as I'd be reinforcing the central area with thread (and more beads), so likely I'd be taking a hexagonal knot and reduce the amount of overlapping an favour of a bigger centre hole, the better to display the framed bead rather than hide it. Looking through Lydia Chen's third book, I decided on the "Type 2 Compound Constellation Knot" which unlike your basic hexagonal stellar knot (which is uouu) has a structural loop path of uuouo. At this point I've tied it about 6-7 times and each time it looks... funny. As usual with a new polygonal knot, it's the last interlacing pass on the back side that's tricky.