Jester blanket

A fun and usable centre out reversible baby blanket with a knitted on edging. £3.00

knit on circular needles, this knit is shown in Cat.inna.hat creation's Wow, super aran!, in colourway Over the rainbow and Teal, and measures 43x33.5”/110x85cm

the wheel turns

My spinning wheel is an Ashford Traditional, an extended sub-loan from a home-ed contact, the second Traditional I have had the pleasure of borrowing.

Some "modifications" of the system have been made(nothing permanent, don't worry wheel owner!). I prefer to have a cotton thread on the scotch tension, rather than the plastic one. It wears out, but bees wax helps. The drive band is also now just cotton "thrums". These 2 system mods are really down to laziness, as I can't be bothered to find real replacements, I guess. Or on a more positive note, maybe it is "lateral thinking when faced with a problem". I am sure that is what my parents would have written on the LEA report, had this been 10 years ago!

Below are pictures of the parts The Man has produced for me.

I checked out some of the flyers available for Ashfords, and was, er, unimpressed at the price asked for them. A bit of math to work out the ratios I was after and only a small amount of begging, and He made me the above flyer. The drive cog is interchangable, and the arms of the flyer at a better angle than the one the Ashford comes with, so now there will be no "rubbing" before my yarn falls off the ends of the bobbin, from lack of space!

The last pic is the lazy kate that belongs with the Ashford, plus my hefty stash of new bobbins He created for me.

The ashford is a really easy wheel to learn on. I did get to try a couple of others before I was lent one, and it was the Ashford that really made it all "click". Now though I prefer an upright, as it helps me position myself more centrally to my work. When you spin for hours at a time you can get very lop-sided!

I am hoping that one day I will get a wheel made to all my specifications and style choices, but until the kitchen, conservatory, porch, attic conversion and brick shed are complete, I think I won't push it.

next craft room post will feature the sewing machine!

Cosy forever

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cosy forever

A small project that will last from Toddler-hood to Adolescence. Starting as leg warmers worn with the thumb flap buttoned as an interesting design feature, as you grow too big they then become warm warmers, or fingerless gloves when the the flap is unbuttoned! Great excuse to use some really good quality yarn that will last through childhood.
Alternatively just make for yourself as a versatile arm-thingy!

a free pattern!
shown above knit in Debbie bliss cashmerino aran

Snake wrist cardi

my first design, yippee!
pdf file costing £3.00, two sizes, 2-4, 4-6 years.












shown knit in babylonglegs radiance aran(purple one), and sublime yarns cashmere merino silk aran(green one).

woops, spring sprung!

So the camera hasn't come out in the craft room again yet, because I am struggling to get in there. the sunshine came out, and so did I. Into the garden, that is.
After only one afternoon of timing the children in the garden(making them stay out in the "fresh air". what a tyrant!), we have managed to fall back into a nice pattern of spending a couple of hours out there every afternoon, while they play in the chicken house, digging patch, or with the big ball, whilst I dream vegetables. I can tell when the soil is right for planting because the neighbourhood cat starts doing its business in the beds again.
Dug over last years beds and covered them with black plastic just before those really strong winds came....luckily I have a lot of bricks in the garden, so it only took one midnight garden visit to stop the plastic going halfway down the street. Now I just have to be patient and let the soil warm up so I can put in my beans and onion sets. horray!

this weeks tool of the week...

Goes to the drum carder! I honestly don't use it as much as I would like, but here are some shots of me and the Girl creating wonders with it.
First pic shows the batts I carded earlier and then dyed. got ready to spin them and noticed I had dyed the stripes the wrong way.... so we tore them up(in order) and threw them back through, in a colour sandwich.
When we where done doing my batts, the Girl got to do her own, with the floof off the feed drum, and some extras from my stash. She has the hand of using the noisy beast now, but has aquired some battle scars along the way. We go with a "two hands on the handle" rule, and she still enjoys it.

The two pics above are the spun up singles, and finished yarn. I plyed my "recycled sari" with babylonglegs silk/merino top, one in petrolhead colourway, the other a custom dye.

The top was very smooth to spin, very fine. It tends towards what meghan, at stitch it!! would call "nose hair". You can compare this to the drum carded stuff, which has the same ratios of wool to silk, and they use the same wool(sorry, forgot to check what that is though...). The top is a worsted preparation, and the drum carder does semi-worsted. I think the additional neps and noils are due to my technique, but I think I fell in love with them, they remind me of recycled sari yarn, the silk holding the dye so vividly. Just think of what it would be like with a smidge of angelina...

I inherited the drum carder from the Mans dad, who was a spinner too. It was playing on his wheel for a week that helped me "get" how to spin. He mainly used it for preparing raw and scoured fleece, and managed to get some relatively smooth yarns out of it. maybe someday I will get there too. think I will be being more ruthless with the mini-batt and the obvious neps at that stage, instead of worrying about "wasting" the fleece.
To stay on theme, next week will probably be the Wheel....

inside the lair...

It has been a while, so I thought I would share elements of my most treasured asset, my Craft room. This is where I get to plonk all my crafty junk and get a bit of space to think and work. Hopefully also looking at what I have in there and putting it on "show" will encourage me to get a bit tidier and maybe even get rid of or use some of the stuff I keep for "just in case", like toilet roll tubes, and old debit cards!!!

I am blessed to have a house which, at the moment, has a spare room for me to use in this way. it is about 10x20 foot (ish), and has poor storage at the moment, a good reflection on the whole house.

The door stays SHUT. The children do not enter without me, so I can leave pins and sewing machines and books open all over the place safely. down side is I am the only one who cleans it, or remembers to close/open windows/adjust the radiator. The postcard on the door helps get me in the "mood" for creating, a favorite quote of mine, from Goethe.

If we open the door and take a peek inside(which is enough for most people), you see the array of bags of knitting projects ready to grab, recycling system(paper, yarn, fabric and rubbish), yarn stash in it's mothproof tupperwares and the Passap knitting machine, which I have yet to master. the window sill has become a shelf for bottles full of buttons, and tins of knitting needles, so when I approach the house from the street I can see my haven and smile!

Inside the room(which I DID NOT decorate, by the way) you are assulted by stacks of banana boxes of fabric, plastic tubs of fleece, worktable, rocking chair, sewing machines everywhere and just stuff, I am sorry to say. It just barely fits two people working in there, but then you can't get around at all!

So, there is an overview of what it is like in my Craft room. I hope to update on the specifics in greater detail, as it can be interesting to see what makes a difference to people in the way they craft.