Linus!

Not only am I good at passing along the spinning bug for friends, I'm also excellent at finding yarn for my Mom's Project Linus group.  They (very, VERY unlike me) like to knit with acrylic.  Even ::shudder:: Lion Brand Homespun.  Friends have learned this and will often pass along their unwanted acrylic, whether it is leftovers from their stash or inherited stash yarn.

One such friend sent me an entire Tupperware full of it!

I do believe there's enough for two entire blankets made out of homespun, and at least two or three more of mixed Super Saver or Caron Simply Soft.

I can't wait to pass this along to Mom!

Auto Wheel Zone!

I seem to have a penchant for getting friends addicted to spinning.  It probably happens because of how much I like it, and that kind of enjoyment can be very contagious.

Lynn of Yarn Tree Studio is one such person to whom I have passed along the addiction.  Today, Jeff and I met a gentleman out in Hillsborough to exchange cash for wheel.  Unfortunately he'd not oiled the wood since he'd gotten it, and probably not oiled the moving parts in 14 of the 15 years since he'd bought the wheel.

Needless to say, it needed a bit of TLC.  It had rust on some of its metal parts, and some of the wood was a bit oil-stained due to him trying to remedy a squeak in the treadle.

So, off to Auto Wheel Zone!  (conveniently located at my house)

The rust was taken care of with some fine steel wool and elbow grease, followed by sewing machine oil.  That took care of the squeak and got the wheel back up to good working condition   The rest is better told in pictures.

The wheel, before

The wood is rough and dry, but some work with a cotton cloth, some soft steel wool and some lemon oil. . .

See the difference between the horizontal post and the wheel?  Dry, dry wood!

Aaaaahhhhhh, that's soooo much better.

A short test run indicates it is spinning beautifully.

A little copper wire and some round nose pliers. . .

It's all set and ready to spin!

 I know Lynn is going to love it!

NCRF

The North Carolina Renaissance Festival is a very very sad faire this year.  It's funny how one bad year plus a few bad decisions can snowball into something truly terrible. 

It used to boast hundreds of vendors.  I think we counted 8.

It used to be at a faire grounds where, while it sometimes had the feel of a flea market, there were paved roads, and an entire rodeo rink for the Joust.

Now. . .

Here's the joust

And the location of one of the more popular shows

And the pub

And pretty much the whole muddy fairegrounds, covered in a coat of straw.

Still.  Beer Fairy is still serving, and serving beer with a smile!

With a handsome mead ogre at her side.

The worst part is the catch-22 of no fun.  Rumors have gotten out about how un-fun the faire is, so nobody wants to go, so it sucks because nobody is there.  There are also a number of people boycotting the faire because of how past performers were not paid for their work.  This I completely understand, and I wrestled with working there again this year.  But we have some very good friends who invested money in having this beer tent, and I'm going to work my cute little tush off selling beer and mead for them!

It could be a lot more fun if certain people hadn't been screwed over last year, or if people just went ahead and came this year, despite the muddy conditions.  If the faire fails utterly then there is no chance of past and present acts being able to be paid for their hard work.  If nobody comes, then it will fail utterly. 

I'm in no way condoning the misdeeds of the management of the faire, but I do wish more people would come to support those of us who are at the faire.  So, for those who can, for those whose only reason for not coming is because they think it will suck, please do come to the faire.  I have comp tickets!  I have beer!  The people are what make the faire, and if you oppose supporting it directly, well, that's what the comp tickets are for!

Knitting Content!

Those of you who know me may recognize the shape of this shawl.  It's my second Danish Tie Shawl.  The blue one is still beautiful, but I had some fantastic brown marled handspun that was calling to be a bulky shawl.

Believe it or not, this shawl took me 16 days to complete, including weaving in ends and blocking.  I think if I'd done the weaving in and blocking as soon as the knitting and border were done, it would have been more like 12 days. 

With one project off the needles, of course I have to put a few more on.

Here are a couple of 8" squares made for a friend's baby blanket that my knitting group is doing together. 

And I came across a skein of brown Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool that called to be a nice warm scarf for Jeff.  

And that's what's on  and off the needles right now!

Power Tool Friday

After getting a very nice ArtFire sale, I decided to go ahead and invest some cash in supplies to make plenty more drop spindles.  I found a good woodworking store online and discovered that to buy the dowels pre-cut to 12" would be about $1.10 each.  However, buying 36" dowels, a pack of 100 was $22.00.  That's right.  $0.22 each, then cut into three pieces means these dowels are now about 7 cents.

Seriously? 

It costs a dollar to make a single cut?

Well. . . .

Here's what I think of that!

Plus Power Tool



Plus sexy eye protection

Equals

$300 worth of dowels for $22.


Hooray for power tools!  Now to assemble a hundred or so drop spindles!

Saturday Morning Serenity.

Baby Blanket

My friend Kathy is pregnant, and due soon with a baby boy.  Our knitting group has decided to knit squares in "boyish" colors, and then assemble them into one blanket.

I offered to knit a square with a bottle on it.

I did the right kind of bottle, didn't I?

Oh, if it helps, her husband is Russian

Artfire!

On a lark, and because frankly Etsy wasn't doing much for me, I created an Artfire account.

I didn't do much with it, just had some drop spindles available.

Lo and behold I had a sale!  I think I'll get to more drop spindles now, and maybe a couple of batts.  The buyer seemed to want to be ale to direct people to me in the future.

Warning: Cuteness Ahead

My Sister-in-law, Amanda, is a fantastic photographer.

Seriously!  Go look at her Facebook Page!  (boy I hope she has some permissions open on her FB page.  If not you'll just have to trust me that she's a fantastic photographer!)

Anyway, me being the fiber artist I am, and she being the photography artist she is, he kindly bought me a pattern for a cute little giraffe hat for her to use as a prop in her photography.

It was a fun crochet, yellow cotton and cashmere accents.  The same cashmere as I'd made into a hat for my niece Ally.  The only part that wasn't fun was the finishing parts, and being all picky about actually having the horns and ears symmetrical. 

The ball of roving I used to prop it open makes it look a little wonky, but it does lay out evenly.

Mailing this off to her on Monday!  These may well end up in my Etsy shop, since the pattern did come with permission to sell.  Anyone interested?

WIP Saturday!

Had I posted WIP Wednesday, it would have looked just like last week, but with more done.  I'm on the last repeat of Citron, and ready to do the final ruffle.  It's been a nice, mindless knit, but frankly I'm tired of purling.  I think the 520 stitches that make up the final ruffle/ruche will be done in garter stitch instead of stockinette.  I don't think that slight texture difference will harm the appearance of the shawl, and in fact, it may be an interesting twist on it. 

What I have been working on, however, is this:
My friend Elizabeth offloaded some of her SABLE stash of spinning materials, and I'm paying it forward.

Take this for example

 

 Beautiful, isn't is?  But this color

 Frankly makes me look ill.  As gorgeous as it is. 

 So what to do, but spin it up,

Ply it

And pass it along!

I can't wait to give this to a friend :-D

Another installment of. . .

WIP Wednesday!

With the vest done, I wanted to have something a little less complicated to work on, and what's less complicated than good old Stockinette Stitch?

It's the Citron Shawl from Knitty, done in Malabrigo Lace.  It's so nice to work with.  Soft Smooth Merino wool. 



I'm also working on spinning up yarn for a friend.  Elizabeth brought in a ton of gorgeous roving, and handed the entire bag to me!  I was floored, and saw one that was specifically perfect for Diana, so am paying it forward!

Fabulous Friday!

I actually got the package on Wednesday, but wanted to wait to share the goodies with friends. . .

The box was full and heavy!

 

Cuppy Cakes and other stitch markers!

Beautiful Glass Beads!

 

Glass orifice hooks!

Some were immediately turned into gifts :-)

Plus wool, straws, and glass craft stuff!

This is what all those fabrics turned in to.  Many have already been or will be given as gifts, but either way, I'm ecstatic about this trade!

If you like the stitch markers, buttons, or orifice hooks, look up Glastonbury Glassworks!


The other fabulous thing was that my birthday yarn vest is completed!  In 42 days, to be precise.

It's lovely, and fits perfectly :-)

Slightly Late, but. . .

WIP Wednesday has been postponed because I am so very nearly done with my Celtic Lattice sweater.   I can almost taste it. . . and snorgle it. . .

I will also have a picture-laden post about how all of the fabrics that I got 5 years ago have been transformed into something WONDERFUL!

Cutting up perfectly good knitting

This week in WIP Wednesday!

Steeking

Scary but fun.  It goes like this:

You knit (and knit, and knit) planning ahead for things like arms and necks and torso openings. 

One yarn in each hand so that you end up with a beautiful tube like this.

In some places, instead of a pretty pattern you just knit with one after the other, making a sort of checkerboard pattern

Then you use your sewing machine and run stitching down either side of the center of that checkerboard.

And then. . .

You cut!!!!!

ahhhhhhhhh!!!

no, actually it's going really well

See how it's not unravelling?   If you look closely you can see black thread where I stitched down the steek. 

When done, you have knitting that looks like something vaguely resembling a vest that you can then pick up stitches around to finish the edges. 

More to come, as the edges are knit! 

Man, I need to clean my craft room.

New year, Better Blogger

New year, New Layout, New goals. 

Like the new layout?  Apparently in my bad blogging times Blogger came up with all sorts of new tools for making a blog look cool.

My goal is to blog at least once a week.  If nothing else than to keep up with knitting (and other) projects I'm working on.  I do like the slightly cliched WIP Wednesday, so let's start with that. 

The most awesome Jackie of Feathers for Pleasure has been cleanin out her Mom's attic, and keeps coming across spinning stuff.  She came by with a bag full of comercially prepped wool that I'm guessing is Corriedale.  So I dyed some of it in a gradient and made a Tappan Zee

It's about 99% done, all blocked and the ends woven in, I'm just searching for the perfect buttons.

I also finally finished Jeff's absolutely gorgeous hand processed hand spun sweater!

Man does it look good on him!

This is how I spent my past Sunday, with more of the commercially prepped corriedale, a cup of coffee and my favorite spinning wheel.

After our friend Phil had blinged it out!

I haven't yet decided what the brown wool will turn in to, but I will certainly have a lot of it.  I'm currently filling the 7th bobbin.  While Ashford bobbins aren't the biggest, at the thinness I'm spinning, there should be somewhere around 200 yards on each bobbin.  I'm planning on a 2-ply, so it should be a sweater's worth of yarn!

Ooh, maybe I'll ply it with the reddish roving I got from SAFF.  Stretch it just a little more, and have a gradiented yarn like I made the Tappan Zee out of. . . hmmmmmmm.

How's that for blogging?