I knit, I frog, I knit again…

Silk hankie mittens…

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Toni

Size 4 needles, figure 8 cast on, 16 stitches. Too wide – the silk isn’t stretchy.

2nd try – size 3 needles. Figure 8 cast on, wrap 12 times. Increase to 20 stitches.

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I? Have awesome friends…

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Toni

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So, the loom…

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Toni

Here it is, with a scarf in progress:

No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the treadles & lamms to work their magic (but at least I know what they are now!), so I decided to just use the levers on top and PUT A WARP ON IT RIGHT NOW! I just couldn’t wait any longer…

I decided on a chenille scarf, thinking that the chenille yarn is much thicker than the dishcloth cotton, I have a ton, and it would be a good learning experience, without feeling like I’m wasting a ton of money.

First, I needed a 3-1/2 yard warp, but I skipped the part in the instructions about the second cut, so I ended up with a 7 yard warp. Yikes – that’s looooong. Put it on, and it turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 yards, since I had to keep trimming. Plenty for my needs, but much waste.

I don’t have a small shuttle, just 2 rug shuttles which are at least twice as long as the scarf is wide, so I wound yarn on my little bobbin & started weaving with it.

I LOVE IT!

Damn, I was really hoping this wouldn’t turn out to be another hobby I enjoy, but once the warp is on, a plain weave is really mindless and soothing. Fast, too.

I think there’s about 18 inches done so far, and despite the mistakes, I can definitely see myself wearing this:

See the squiggle up on the left? And kind of a round spot on the lower right? Well, the round spot is a ditch of sorts, which I discovered is from not having the warp tight enough. I undid the warp, straightened and re-tied it, and now it’s nice and tight and even. The squiggle is where I stopped & restarted with the warp done properly.

I’m just going to continue on until it’s long enough to be a proper scarf, then hope that the washing machine will work its magic and make the chenille have a velvety finish. If it’s wearable, fine. If not, I will consider it part of the learning experience.

In the meantime, I finally got Deb Chandler’s Learning to Weave, and it is an EXCELLENT resource! Now I know all the things I did wrong the first time, and I’m looking forward to putting the next warp on.

Weave on!

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Adventures in Weaving

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Toni

A couple of weeks ago, Ilene & Linda offered a loom they were no longer using, and I jumped at the offer.

What a great loom! It’s a Lillistina 4 harness countermarche counterbalance (I think) loom. It came partially disassembled, so I’ve been trying to find any information I can about setting it up. I did find a pdf to assemble it, with a couple of sentences about tying it up.

??? Was it going to run away???

I’m a knitter, a spinner, and I used to crochet lace, but weaving is a whole new world. I must have read the instructions a thousand times, but I just couldn’t make sense of it.

Then, today, TA-DAH! Lightbulb moment.

I found a weaving blog – Eva Stossel’s – and a section on how to read her weaving drafts (charts, for the knitters out there). Suddenly, it made sense!

I found a pattern on the Leclerc website for a (I hope) simple dishtowel pattern, and I used Eva’s explanation to follow the instructions on how to tie up the treadles. Of course, I’m at work & nowhere near the loom, and I can’t wait to get home! This weekend, I want to give the loom a good polish with Woodbeams – my warping board should arrive Monday, then I’m ready to start weaving!

Woooooot!

Here’s a link to the pdf of the Full Lillstina Catalog and the assembly instructions, if anyone is looking for them!

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Boomer has a hard life…

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Toni

This used to be my chair…

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Waiting for Moosie…

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Toni

So, I’ve been obsessively refreshing the USPS Delivery Confirmation page for Moosie…it said “Out for Delivery” at 9:15 this morning. It STILL says “out for delivery”, and it’s 5pm.
I hope it’s there when I get home-the wait is killing me!

UPDATE: IT’S HERE! It was home when I arrived – apparently I was the only one in the house eagerly anticipating the arrival…imagine that.

And it’s more beautiful than I had imagined:

It ended up 30 grams (1.06 ounces) finished.

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Reclaiming the space…

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Toni

We now have a separate guest room and sewing room upstairs! Although, I think “sewing” narrows it down too much – it’s a sewing, quilting, knitting and spinning room:

Fiber table for combing, with bag o’fleece and quilt frames to the right and left:

Knitting bins, and ball/swift winding table to the right:

Bigger view of the table, with swift, ball winder, bobbin winder & yardage counter:

Sewing corner:

It’s so nice to have everything accessible – now, when I want to wind a ball of yarn, I don’t have to dig out the swift & winder, and look for a place to set them up!

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Raspberries!

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Toni

I picked these this morning – it’s the second batch, but I didn’t take pictures of the first, since they weren’t around long enough…

Delicious!

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Moosie!

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Toni

Woohoo! Just got to pick my top 4 choices for a Moosie spindle!* They were all so beautiful, it was hard to choose, but I managed

Sent my order in quickly, and I should find out next week which one is coming to live with me. I can’t wait to see it! My name went on the waiting list back in January 2010, so it’s been quite the wait!

*Moosie spindles are made from naturally shed moose antlers.

UPDATE: I got my first choice! 21 grams, 2″ whorl, Ivory color, narrow, green spot, and nibbles! I left the choice of shaft up to Sheila, and she picked out Tulipwood to bring out the warm tones … I can’t wait to see it!

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Wheel experiment…

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Toni

I am a creature of habit – when I find that something works, I just continue doing it the same way, because, hey! – it works. But sometimes, the urge to try something new hits, and I just know I can’t continue living another moment until I try it.

Last night I was knitting along on my Juneberry Triangle shawl, when I remembered a skein of handspun I had done last year. The spinning turned out ok, but the plying? Not so much. It was very underplied, which means that for most of the skein, you could see both singles of yarn were separated from each other.

I thought this would be a good project to test the Irish tension feature on my Matchless, since this option has a quick take-up, and many people recommend it for plying. I grabbed the skein and draped it around the ottoman in the living room (yes, I do like to live dangerously) and grabbed the manual to see how to set the wheel up for Irish tension.

Well. The book covers Double-drive and Scotch tension, but not Irish, so I went to YouTube, where there’s a great video on how to set up your wheel for all 3 options. The setup is exactly the same as for Scotch, but the drive band goes on the bobbin, and the brake band is very loose on the whorl.

This is now my favorite method for plying – the process was VERY fast, and despite the fact that I had the skein around the ottoman, I managed to do the whole skein with no tangling.

I don’t have a photo of the skein as it looked originally, but here it is now:

This fiber is Ashland Bay Colonial Wool in the Multi Mahogany colorway. No idea of the weight of the skein, but it ended up 211 yards of approximately worsted weight.