Monday, February 24, 2014

Meet Della

Saturday, my dad and I drove down to Delaware to pick up a wheel, and my birthday present from my parents (more about that after my birthday next week). My mom saw a craigslist ad for some looms and a spinning wheel. I saw the wheel and had to have it.
It's an older louet, she has some minor damage, but it's going to be easy to fix her up, some glue and sanding and a wee bit of elbow grease and she'll be good as new.
This is as we were leaving the house. "We're GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!!!!!" My dad was super thrilled, as you can tell. (and he's wearing a hat I made him for his birthday years ago, knitting win!)

In one morning, I was in pa, maryland, and Delaware. pretty cool, I think!
Here she is, isn't Della so pretty?

My other wheel, is a Kromski sonota named Ella, so now I have two wheels!!! Ella, and Della (after Delaware)

This is the damage, it's nothing major, totally fixable.

close up


It's a really lovely spinner, that's some Brown sheep studio fiber on the bobbin, I'm getting the hang of the wheel. That might become the weft in a small rug I would weave for the wheel, how neat would that be?


Now, are you ready to hear how much I paid for her? Are you sitting down? Are you? ok, $50!!! I know, I can't believe it. The bobbins alone are worth more then that.


Also, my parents surprised me with an early birthday gift, an inkle loom, and a unicorn lucet loom (you can see it on the ottoman behind the bobbin)! This is the night after I got it, it was really fun to use the inkle loom, I already have another project on it, straps to replace ones that got ruined on one of my favorite tote bags, a smallish black one with the entire Nevermore on it.


So yeah, I fell really bad in the weaving rabbit hole. I want to WEAVE ALL THE THINGS now.
Watson says peek a boo!


And Asta says "Pay attention to me! ME I'm SO CUTE!!!"

Thursday, February 20, 2014

A scarf/shawl thing, a cowl, and a hat walk into a bar

MORE knitted things! Two of these I knit before I shattered my leg into a million and 6 pieces, but didn't take a photo or block them. First up, a cowl!

This was a mkal cowl, and it was super fun and interesting to make. I love everything about it, the yarn is perfect for spring/fall, it's so pretty, and stripes! I had a blast making this.


I had a sorta kinda plan with the stripes, and on the rav page here, I kept details of much each clue took (but not for the last one, for some reason)

Next up, Thunder and Lightning

When I saw this the day it was published, I needed it. It was interesting, looked different, and my brain just kept shouting NNEEED NEED NEED. I popped off to my local yarn shop, got two skeins of jezebel (really nice yarn, btw) and knit like the wind. I wanted colours like a thunderstorm. For about two weeks before, I was thinking about doing a yellow and blue something, and bam! this pops up



The last bit? the long blue bit? Is a soul sucking bit. It seems to take forever. Which doesn't make sense since the rows are getting shorter. But after wondering if I actually did find a black hole, I finished it.

Blocking was weird, I don't have any lace blocking wires, so I just pinned the whole thing out. I did cut the yarn, instead of carrying it on the long scarf part. No matter what I did, you could see the blue behind the yellow. It meant a lot of ends, but it was better then going crazy trying to carry up the yarn.

And now! A hat! My first finished thing this year.

this skein has been kicking around my to use soon basket of wool for a while, and it was freezing, what with the polar vortex and turning into a ktbsicle, and all, so I whipped this hat out in a few days.
I also churned out three jayne hats, two hats that I designed (pattern coming soon!), and a shawl. And I spun some fiber up!
I took this a week or so ago, it was so pink, I had never seen a sunrise that amazing before. Isn't it so lovely? Taken from my porch