Since I made the crazy curly necklace and the plastic crochet catastrophe, I have been trying out some other ideas with my stash of Scoubidou strings, with varying degrees of success.

I wanted the curve of the plastic tubes to follow the curve of the neck, (a bit like a feather colloar) instead of going every which way, so I had to put 2 threads through. The first one is easy enough, but the second one is a right bugger to do, and probably takes too long to make it a viable shop piece. I also trimmed it down a bit, which meant it lost a bit of its wildness. Maybe too much.

Was trying out a vertical piece, but to get the effect I want I need the tubes to lie flat. I’ve put two lines through some of it, and they really don’t want to. I’ll have to put at least three lines through and that’s a lot of accidentally stabbing myself. Too much work to be able to sell for a reasonable price, so I’ll probably scrap this one.

Scoubidou is soft and wants to curve, so how about some loops? Fishing line runs through them and the loops are closed and fixed with little silver crimp beads. Have some bigger crimps on order to just squish the tubes and get rid of the fishing line.

Here it is as modelled by a vase. The glass drops in the centre of each loop were intended to help weight it, but actually they move around all the time. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Trying out something a little more conventional, but it doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything new or interesting, or making the best use of the materials.

The Scoubidou tubes stilll want to go their own way, so you get a wibbly wobbly necklace.

Simplifying the loops by just using Scoubidou and crimps, no other beads.

I like the randomness. I think this necklace will sit slightly differently each time you put it on.

Tried out a couple of other ways of making loops. Crochet chain stitch with another colour woven through and took a couple of hours to relearn box knot. Congratulations, Zola. You’ve made some really ugly circles.

Current work in progress and essential tools – plasters for fixing holes in fingers not shown. Gone back to single-threaded design with smaller bits.

The finished items are in the shop.

All the little Scoubidou cut offs look like coloured vermicelli. I bet they’d look great cast in resin, but that’s a whole other load of kit and skills and I’m trying to use what I have for now.

There will be more Scoubidou antics (I still have some glow in the dark strings to play with), and pompomania, but I have to take a break to make some monkeys first.