Afghan Beginnings

Recently I have been spending time in a health clinic waiting room. The perfect opportunity to begin a new fiber arts project. Since retiring I have found myself with a rather large stash of Plymouth Encore worsted weight yarn. I am an unabashed fiber snob, preferring natural fibers and hand spun yarns, but Encore is the perfect yarn for afghans. It knits and crochets up nicely, feels soft, is machine washable and wears like iron. I have been meaning to replace the current sofa afghan which was crocheted over 20 years ago, from nasty Red Heart yarn, and feels like it's made of plastic. Yes, it looks nice but it is not the least bit snuggly or warm. I confess I am not overly excited about my afghan project. Afghans can be tedious and cumbersome to create. Especially those made all in one piece and a single color. Boring! Being a child of the 60's I have always had a soft spot for granny square afghans. They remind me of stained glass or quilts and are the perfect project for using scraps of yarn. They also allow for creative expression because you get to use whatever colors you want in each square.

I recently stumbled upon this FREE pattern from Garn Studio's DROPS Design. Instead of the standard granny square motif, this one features a round center reminiscent of a wagon wheel. The pattern's featured yarn is variegated with long color repeats. I am mimicking that look by using 3 related colors per block. I am using a size H hook and each of my blocks is 5 1/2" square. I have 5 squares made and will need 60 or more for the afghan. I will also have to watch for a sale on Lion Brand Wool-Ease yarn (which is very similar to Encore) so I can purchase the black needed to crochet all the squares together.

I Can See The Light...

...at the end of the tunnel. It's a tiny light, but it's there. I'm about 3/4 of the way through organizing my fiber studio. I can now see most of the carpet. I estimate a week (maybe two) and I'll be finished. No easy task after 12 years of neglect. I am not allowing myself to play with any of my toys (looms, spinning wheels or sewing machines) until this mess is sorted out. Today's task? Organizing my spinning fibers. I already had them stacked up in totes, but they were all jumbled together. Today I am sorting them by fiber type, putting like items into a bin together, and labeling the bin. I have 12 plastic totes FULL of spinning fiber. And 2 of those totes are the giant, over sized kind. This is not even counting all the fleeces out in my garage. I never EVER have to buy fiber again. In fact my husband should shoot me if I try. If I live to be a hundred years old I doubt I'll spin this up. I have been selling off some of my fiber tools as I've unearthed them. I had 4 sets of hand cards, 3 swifts, 4 ball winders, 5 small hand looms (I kept 2), many duplicate weaving magazines, bobbins from spinning wheels I no longer even own, way too many lazy kates...you get the idea. Selling off those extra items has financed my latest obsession, vintage sewing machines. Out with the old toys and in with the new.

How Cold Is It?

It's so cold, even the baby spiders are cuddling up for warmth.

Today I resumed organizing my studio.

First I cleared this space along the back wall.

Then the husbeast and I lugged these two Ikea

Expidit shelves across the alley and up the stairs.

I promptly made a huge mess of them. I'm not going to show a picture until I get them nice and tidy. Reggie was helping me sort out my treasures when he stole this, one of the felted wool catnip "mice" I make.

I'll leave you with a photo of today's lunch. Ramen

with egg and chives from my urban homestead.

Yarn Tree In Bloom

My yarn tree has sprouted foliage. Now it doesn't look quite so pitiful. Most of this is 8/2 cotton, destined to become dishtowels. I have also ordered up a bit more, navy, dusty rose and pewter. I can see that I'll need to find a source for LOTS more white. With yarn prices going up this next month, I'm trying to get ahead of the game and stock up.

My fiber studio is still a chaotic mess. The husbeast has promised to help me bring some more shelving over, from the yarn shop, this Sunday. That should be a massive help. I've got so much stuff and no good place to store it.

My "Work In Progress" Noro Sweater

For the first time, in a very long time, I am excited about a sweater I am knitting. In the past I have had to knit with the goal of being able to sell that particular yarn or pattern. I found that very restrictive. Especially having to knit in absolute accordance with the pattern. But this project is all about me. And I like to improvise. My sweater will be quite different from the one shown in the pattern's photo. I have altered the stitch gauge, to make the sweater longer, and added more rows to make it wider. Here are the back and 2 front pieces. I love that it is knit vertically, as I am getting quite pudgy in my old age.

I did not have enough of the Noro Kureyon yarn to knit the sweater with long sleeves, and I like 3/4 sleeves, anyway. Since the sleeves were supposed to be knit from the cuff to the shoulder I had to reverse engineer them to be knit from the shoulder down. When I ran out of yarn, that would determine the length of my sleeves. The sleeves are knit horizontally and I was able to manipulate the stripe sequence in order to make the sleeves identical (spit splicing is our friend).

I have barely enough of the Noro yarn left to seam up the pieces. I will use the solid color yarn (at the top of the first picture) to knit the trim and button bands. I may also add a little bit of crochet to the edges. We'll see. I chose brass colored buttons that have a woven pattern, in honor of my new weaving adventures.

Getting Ready To Weave

Closing a business is just as much work as starting one. The first few weeks of the sale were very hectic. Things have slowed down now. We are at our usual slow pre-summer pace. We still have quite a bit of yarn left so it looks like I will be keeping the shop open for 3 or 4 more weeks. I am closing on June 21st, no matter what. We have switched over to our summer hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 11am until 4pm, which gives me a little more time to try to whip my home back into shape.

I haven't made any more progress on my studio. I did acquire another loom (photos to come in a later post). It is a Schacht Wolf Pup which I bought used for $250 (mine is the one on the left). It came with a 12 dpi reed. I have ordered 3 more reeds for it, 8, 10 & 15 dpi. I also ordered a Wolf Trap to hold my shuttles and such. It's a good thing I got such a deal on the loom because it's cost me an additional $200 for the reeds and trap. It's difficult to find those used. I ordered the above mentioned supplies from The Woolery, in Kentucky. They had all the items I needed, in stock, and offer free shipping. I love free shipping. Oh, I almost forgot, they also had a special on 8/2 bleached cotton so I added a cone of that to my order.

Speaking of yarn orders, I ordered up 10 cones of colorful 8/2 cotton from Georgia Yarn Company. Michael was running a special, through May 22nd. I bought 10 cones and got a free cone of natural colored 8/2 cotton. He was all out of white, which was why I ordered that through the Woolery. I want to have lots of colors to play with so I can weave dish towels.

And where am I going to store all these cones of yarn? I found this awesome yarn tree on Craigslist for $15. It will hold 32 cones. This is just what I need to help get my studio in order. Here is a picture of the yarn tree, in my living room, holding my current pitiful assortment of weaving yarns (which came free with my looms).

My "New to Me" Loom

12 years ago, before I began my career as a yarn shop owner, I had 2 floor looms. A large Herald Loom (given to me) and a smaller width floor loom that was handmade (purchased, along with a spinning wheel, from an estate sale). I never got a chance to weave on either of them. One thing led to another and I soon found myself working full-time. The looms sat in my garage until 5 years ago when we moved to our current residence. At that time my husband convinced me to sell them. He wasn't overjoyed at the prospect of moving two heavy looms, and I conceded that I would never have time to weave until I retired. Well, guess what? I'm retiring. And the first thing I did was look for a loom. I was searching for a folding loom because my fiber studio is located in the upper level of my home. But an opportunity presented itself and I took it. Here is the newest addition to my studio, a J-Made 4 harness, 6 treadle loom.

This is actually a table loom that is converted to a floor loom by adding the bottom stand and treadles. It doesn't fold but it does separate into 2 pieces. To bring it home we put the actual loom (top half) inside my husband's Subaru and bungeed the stand (bottom half) to his roof rack. The loom came with the cute little bench, some shuttles, weaving books and some awesome weaving magazines from the 1950's. I got it all for $175, which was an amazing deal. I purchased it from a longtime customer who inherited it when her mom passed away. The daughter has absolutely no interest in weaving and her husband really, really wanted it out of his garage. They were both thrilled to know it was going to a good home. And I am thrilled to have a nice little loom to learn on.

Books & Magazines Are Sorted

This was my task for the day. And I worked hard at it. I told the husbeast, as he was leaving for work, "You're going to be shocked when you see how much I get done." Now I'm wondering if he'll even notice the difference. But I do, and I suppose that's what counts. At least now I'll be able to find the books and magazines when I need them. They are all sorted by craft: knitting, spinning, weaving, machine knitting, dyeing, felting, crocheting, etc....Sadly, this isn't even ALL of my collection. Some of it is still in boxes. But this is the majority of it. These shelves are flanking either side of my huge work table. Next up? Clearing off the work table. Then, if I can get all my spinning fiber under control, I just may have a tidy studio.

Craftroom Makeover: Part One

I've made a bit of headway. I am replacing my old ugly shelves with the nice white Billy Bookcases from the yarn shop. These are much sturdier and are also nice looking. Here are my spinning, weaving and dyeing magazines, after being placed on the new shelves.

And a reminder of what that corner looked like, before.

And look what I found during my excavations. I was wondering where my natural dyestuffs and essential oils had gone.

Even I have no idea what all I have.

This is going to be like Christmas!

When Hobbies Attack...

...things can get ugly. The only reason I am revealing this deep dark shame is because I am on a mission to get this all organized. For the past 12 years I have had far more ambition than time. Much of this has never really been unpacked since our move, 5 years ago. No, the rest of my house does not look like this. But you often hear me joke that I need to get my craft room under control before they feature me on 'Hoarders'. Did you think I was joking?

What's in here? It might be easier to ask what isn't in here. Let's see, there are 3 spinning wheels, a table loom, a rigid heddle loom (with a floor stand), a wool picker, a drum carder, 2 knitting machines, a warping board, a couple of ball winders, at least on swift, a couple of yarn blockers, a wool winder with yardage meter, a sewing machine, 2 rug hooking frames, boxes of spinning fiber, boxes of fabric, boxes of wool for rug hooking, a stereo, many crates of albums, drop spindles, knitting needles, weaving supplies (boat shuttles, bobbin winder, etc...). Oh, and my indoor clothesline. All things that I could never part with. And now I want to jam a couple of looms into the mix. Something has to give. So I will attempt to sort this all out and get it organized. Stay tuned.