Bowl Full of Busy

 So where do I begin. I've been too busy having fun to sit down and get into the internet much. There's been lots of topaz prospecting (no luck), some teaching of knitting and lots of crafting. A little house renovation is going on too. Above is a used drum carder that I just bought and I'm splitting the cost of it with a friend. We will have joint custody, I will get to play with it in the winter,and GM will get to enjoy it all summer.  Pretty cool! (By the way it is used to prepare fibres for spinning).
 On the needles #1: I am working up a test sample of the Ebony Jewelwing Bag, a free Ravelry pattern offered by Mary Scott Huff. As usual, I am using up stash for this. After the lightest green I will move to a white band and then the soft yellow. I intend to use this pattern in a free workshop on Beginner Fair Isle techniques that I am teaching March 17th.
 Here's another view of the dragonfly pattern as I am working it up.
 On the needles #2: Imagine the colours a little warmer than they look here. This is going to be an afghan for the new sofa. There are four different yarns here. One of the dark brown ones is Texas Merino. It is so warm! This is a horizontal slip stitch pattern. I plan to frame the whole thing in some kind of chunky cable.
 On the needles #3: Boy this one is just hanging around... A pair of socks for BS. Good thing he has a healthy sock drawer right now.
 On the needles #4: using some scrap yarn I got for free last week, I am knitting up some yellow roses. I will adorn a hat or purse or neckline with them and then wear them to a fibre show in April. The show is the Yellow Rose Fibre Producers Fiesta in Seguin, April 20-22 of course.
 This Drexler china hutch has found a great new home in my spinning studio. It is holding all my spinning supplies. Unfortunately the drum carder won't fit in one of the cupboards. Drats!
 But look how well everything else fits! I have finished spinning up the teal yarn that you see at the top centre. I have some of it to wash and skein up though. And now I am spinning the merino/silk top that you see in the bottom right.
And into each day a little beauty must come. This ring I commissioned and just picked up the other day. It is solid silver with six blue green stones that I have been collecting for years. Sorry about the washed out colours, but trust me, it is really pretty. This mermaid's tail is really special to me.

So as you can see, I've been busy. And there's more new stuff to come. Stay tuned to this channel!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Medico Loom by Leclerc

Image
Here's the newest addition to my Painted Floor Studio. This is a Medico table loom, manufactured by Leclerc, a Canadian company. Research suggests this loom was manufactured for WWII veterans to use. As such it utilizes hand levers for changing the shed. But as you can clearly see in this picture, I have the floor stand which includes six treadles, essentially making it a floor loom.  The maximum weaving width is 22 inches. When I bought this loom last week it came with the blue and white warp on there already. I decided to just play with it, getting the hang of the levers and treadles. I figured out how the previous owner had the tie-ups done, and then "went with it."  Altogether I wound up with a piece of fabric about ten feet long. I will either cut it into bits and sew small bags out of it, or maybe use most of it for a scarf. In this photo you can see the four hand levers (silver) in the top right corner of the loom. In the top centre area of the loom...
Read more

What's old is new again

Image
Recently the talk of the Fiber Prep group on Ravelry is about "blending boards". It's like a drum carder, but without the drum. A flat surface covered in carding cloth. During the same week this was impressing many on Ravelry, hubby and I were in a thrift store where he spotted this! Naturally it had to come with me. (This model is not the same as what the current buzz is about.) So it is a heavy wooden box construction, with a separate handle that also has carding cloth on it. The manufacturer is Louet, a good name in spinning circles. A little vacuuming to clean out the remains from the previous owner and I was ready to roll. Here is the end on view, so you can see how the two sets of tines are proximal to one another. The batts in the back ground came off of an Ashford drum carder. And here is a view of the pegs on the handle which help to guide you in a straight path and you sweep away from yourself. In this image you can just see two wool locks ...
Read more

Ulla Cyrus Loom

Image
Get a look at what followed me home recently! I have gleefully adopted " Courage "  - my new addition to the family. WELCOME. The original owner of this loom was William Dyer, a famous weaver who lived in California and Washington State. He made very fine damasks with this loom.   A very large loom manufactured by Oxaback in Sweden. The model is called "Ulla Cyrus". It is a vertical countermarch with 16 shafts and 18 treadles. Plus it has the additional, optional unit draw and pattern shaft draw. Two different drawloom attachments. The weaving width is 63 inches.  I picked up this beauty in the north part of Texas, and the loom was already disassembled. This photo shows just a fraction of the gear. It was great fun to meet the current owner. Here we have returned home and both the box of the truck and the 5 x 12  landscape trailer are entirely filled with loom pieces. Completely. It is a lot of gear. And this is a glimpse at a small p...
Read more