I'm here - just happily busy. I can't show you the wonderful things I am working on just yet - soon, soon.
However, I can show you some other things that have been keeping me out of trouble:
meet my spinning wheel - thanks to the extreme enabler (aka grannyg) I am now the owner of an Ashford Traveller?? not sure, but she's cute!I have always sworn that I would never take up spinning - my excuses ranged from "I do not have the space in my studio for the wheel and the whole extra world of fibre stash" to " I don't have the headspace for spinning" and "Flash will have me committed"-I'm glad to admit that I was wrong, there is plenty of space both in my studio and my head, and Flash likes the wheel's engineering simplicity - though I worry that if he had his way it would be lowered...with mags.
Here, dear readers is my first yarn, yes I plied it, yes I know that I do not know what I am doing, yes it looks like catsick (go on, ask me how I know) but it is mine all mine.
I can make yarn.
Gauge/ tension is an eternal source of stress/tension for me, I write patterns which can be used with different yarns, I have favourites but I do not owe any yarn companies any favours, so I make a number of suggestions and expect my customers to use any suitable yarn that takes their fancy, unfortunately the permutations are infinite, 4 ply can range from 22-30 sts per 10cm, but this little gadget is here to help me - it is a WPI gauge - Ravelry uses WrapsPerInch as well as other yarn descriptions and I feel that it is a useful addition, all you really need is a ruler, wrap the yarn around the ruler - not too tight, not too loose - you want the wraps to sit comfortably next to one another, then just count the wraps in one inch.
Unfortunately it is not a metric measurement, but we can all jump between imperial and metric can't we! I bought my little gauge from Karatstix who also sells cute little needle gauges and tension gauges. I'm happy to have another tool in my arsenal to help knitters get good results from my patterns.
Victoria is in the process of being graded
and test knitters have been roped in to help. I've moved on to playing with cables...oh you will love them, and I must tell you about the Christmas challenge I have set myself...many many socks, many socks...
2 comments:
I can not, no will not believe it. I remember when you noticed a photo of a spinning wheel in one of my posts and said 'what Ailsa, to the dark side goeth you?' or something like that.
My wheel now serves only as photographic backdrop to lace knitting. But, still, every now and then, I get a hankering to master the gentle art of spinning yarn. I don't appear to have any natural flair though, it's quite a humbling experience. (I even keep it secret from the blog!)
I look forward to seeing more catsick, and then less catsick as your spinning improves.
Miss your company - should have seen more of you when you were in Sydney. Ain't it always the way? A
Another one joins the dark side.
Post a Comment