Wednesday, August 24, 2011


A New Fiber Tool & Project Progress

My dear husband is right.  Craigslist can be a dangerous, addictive site.  He has been perusing the site often and found several items, of interest to him, which he thinks were good deals.  I, too, enjoy checking the site out.  Arts and Crafts is my favorite category, of course. 

Last month, I saw a spinning wheel, but hesitated to contact the seller.  I lost out on the opportunity of buying it.  Pat told me not to hesitate next time if I see something I liked. 

This past Sunday found me glancing at the listings for looms and wheels.  There was one ad in particular that caught my eye.  We contacted the seller and the item was still available.  So, we hopped in the car, and drove to Milton, MA.

I'm now the happy owner of a Toika Leena table loom with stand.  It's 4 harness, has string heddles, is intact, and just needed to be cleaned up.  Since the harnesses were not properly attached, I need to do a bit of research to set it up correctly. 


My Mystic Midsummer Wreath Shawl has seen a bit of love in between my Mystery Sock by Jen Hansen.  I had to re-start the sock after I tried on the leg portion.  It would have been too tight to fit over my heel/instep.  Now, I'm knitting the larger size and it fits well after trying this one on.

The August Project Stash Buster fiber is spinning along.  I've got about 2 ounces left to spin and can then start the plying.  This coming Saturday is the monthly spin in at RI Handspun, and I plan to work on that while there.  If I have time, I want to spin some of my natural colored fiber before starting the September fiber.

With a tropical storm or hurricane arriving in my area on Sunday, I need to finish clearing the yard and batten down the hatches, so I will say good bye for now.  If you are in the line of the storm, please stay safe. If you are told to evacuate, please do so.  It's not worth losing a life to stay in your home if it's too dangerous.  Hugs and prayers for everyone's safekeeping.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A Busy Fiber Filled Month

I finally took pictures of the rest of my knitting and spinning items which were part of The Knit Girllls 5K Stash Dash 2011.  Besides the Evenstar Shawl, the re-constructed Dragon Scale Shawl, and Flutter-By Socks, I knit a sweater for my soon to arrive little cousin.  I'll talk more about that after I send it to his mommy and he's born.  I will say it came out cute.  I did send a picture of the yarn and buttons to my cousin to make sure she liked them, so I can post that here.   I was concerned about the little bit of pink, but she was fine with it since the yarn is mostly gold, orange, and a bit of purple.  The lion buttons match perfectly. Everyone I asked said the yarn is fine for a boy.


The rest of my Stash Dash was spinning.  The previously mentioned "Carnival Glass", "Honey Cinnamon", "Lavander Vanilla" Alpaca, and DyakCraft a/k/a Grafton Fibers "May 2009" club batt all counted toward the yardage.Also spun up were 8 ounces each of Crown Mountain Corridale in "Ishkur" and "Mea Culpa" and "Jezebelle" from CJKopec.  My total yardage was 6287.5 !! 

All the spinning also counted toward my Spin Your Stash Equinox total.  My goal was to spin 5 pounds from Spring to Autumn Equinox.  I'm currently at 81.5 ounces and have 8 ounces in process on my Sonata which will be added soon. Four ounces of that counts for my August Project Stash Buster.  I need to get busy and get that spun since I only have 15 days left in the month.

Here's a mosaic of my Stash Dash items.  I've included a picture of the current August fiber as well since it was started during SD, even though I didn't count the yardage in the total.  I've got about a half bobbin full. 

My current knitting is another shawl.  I finally cast on and started my Mystic Midsummer Wreath Shawl by Anna Dalvi.  There is a skein of yarn waiting woefully on my desk with it's needles.  It's for a pair of socks from a Mystery Sock KAL.  Clue 3 will be out soon and I haven't even started yet.  I keep saying I'm starting but just haven't found the time.  Bad, bad, bad on my part.  Here's a picture of the yarn I'm using for the MMW Shawl.  It's the same yarn and color the designer used.  I just fell in love with it and decided to do the same one: