Spinning Gold and Indigo

Picked up these beauties at the local thrift store.  Linen and rayon, according to the core.  Seems very strong, and will make a good warp on the loom someday.  There are 3 or 4 more of the neutral.  Reminds me of senne twine, but not as course.    Thanks to Karla S. for spotting this little stash at St Vinny's.

Caught the morning light on the basket for the photo.

The first one is the hardest ...

Last weekend, I worked all afternoon on stitching and stabilizing the applique flowers for the Morningstar Quilt.  From picking appropriate thread colors, to choosing a path around the objects, to 

The week before, I fused all the flower applique pieces to some black interfacing, and then cut around all the edges.  This helped to stabilize the pieces before I stitched the edges down.  Prior to that, they were glued (with a common school glue glue stick, like kids use) and fragile.

After some trial and error, I discovered that the tangarine / orange thread looked the nicest on the reds and purples  golds and oranges in the flowers.

I also learned that I needed to sew off the ends of the flower points.   If I tried to stop and pivot at those points, the point pulled up through the foot, and got crumbled up.  If I sewed off the edge, it stayed flat.  I was using the free-motion foot, but perhaps I could have chosen the foot with only a hole for the needle to pass through?

The non-stick oven sheet was very helpful for allowing the piece to slide around under the needle, and not get hung up in the uneven sewing table,

I also got one of the triangle pieces worked up, with all the vines and flowers glued / fused in place.   I cut some steam-a-seam into strips and pieced it around all those curves for the vines.     I still need to stitch it down.  Still thinking about what to use for stabilizer?  I want this to puff up a little like Trapunto, so maybe a piece of batting?  Or perhaps I should save that for the quilting stage?  Only 3 more triangles and 4 larger square corner pieces to go ...

There are so many things you need to know to make a quilt like this -- things that are not explained in the pattern.  Good thing I've been quilting for the last 15 years, and learned a lot of techniques through the years.  It all helps!

All that work -- and somewhere along the way, one of the smaller flowers got lost.  Can't find it anywhere --  Do I make a new one, and backtrack to do the threadwork again, or do I just wait it out, and see if it re-appears?

All that work today, and it feel like I didn't really get anything done.  I was sewing all afternoon, but don't feel like I have anything to show for it.  That's how I've felt the whole time working on these applique pieces.  This is the bottleneck stage of the project.  The putsy stuff.

Fascination with Circular Knitting Machines

Since last summer, I've been fascinated with circular knitting machines -- the mechanical kind. The really nice ones (and even the vintage / antique ones) are unbelievably expensive at around $1800 - $2000. Whoah! You can buy a lot of socks for that price!

Why am I so fascinated?  Look at how fast you can knit a pair of socks ...

Watch this 8-1/2 Minute Sock video, and you'll catch the bug, too.  Just the thought ob being able to knit an entire sock in just 8 minutes is incredible!




Here's another one - Sock Knitting Machine Demonstration -- easy enough for a kid to do for a school project!




Really interesting lecture, and it truly did feel like a college lecture ...  She starts off with a book review of The Enchantress of Numbers, historical fiction about Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron.  She is considered one of the mothers of modern computing and programming.  I just love hearing about women's history like this ...  Women who made a way when there was no way for them.

Fascinating history of these little machines, and their evolution.  Interesting to hear why there are so few of them out there today -- Turns out is has to do with WWI (There were lots of them as women were asked to make socks for soldiers in WWI to help prevent trench foot.  They were still popular during The Great Depression as a way for women to make a little extra money.  By the time WWII came around, many of them were being recalled for the metal.  They were melted down for the war effort.

Finally, she talks Jamie Mayfield of the Erlbacher Knitting Machine Company, where they make these little beauties to order.  Yes, they are still available, but very expensive ($1800 a pop).  


Yay for Yarn's You Tube playlist for using the Addi Circular Knitting Machine



I watched one of her videos and thought "Yes, I could do this."  They look good, and they look quick.  She's a good teacher, and explains things very well.   And the price of an Addi circular knitting machine is much more affordable than the classic old timey ones.  More like$100 vs. $2000!

I'm hoping to get one of these little Addi Express Professional Knitting Machines  for Christmas this year.  We'll see ...  My husband was just as fascinated watching the old-timey mechanical knitting machines work.  It is mesmerizing, and so cool to have a whole row done in 5 seconds.

Gramma Pickles used to have knitting machines, on which she would make sweaters for all of us.  I still have a few of her sweaters.   I made sure to put one of her sweaters on display at her funeral last fall--One that she was often photographed wearing.    ;-)

"She's Doing It, Mr Noodle!" - Loom Knitting

When I was a kid and in 4-H, or learning with Gramma Pickles, I never did learn to knit.  Never got past the stage of unreasonably tight stitches, and finally gave it up in favor of crocheting and other pursuits.  Now that I've got this stash of yarn that I've spun myself over the years, I want to use it -- simple things like hats, fingerless mitts, or maybe even socks.  But a lot of the crochet patterns for fingerless mitts and socks look "funny," and so I've decided to finally bite the bullet and learn how to knit ...

Last year, I purchased access to a beginning knitting class at Craftsy, but never made the time to watch the video classes.  Still can't quite get over the hump of fear about using knitting needles and failing again--even after all these years and the gazillion other things I can do instead.

Enter the knitting loom.  It's called a loom, so right away I'm pretty sure I can work with it!  Last year, I bought a couple of these cheap looms to get started.  Only a minor investment if it doesn't work out.




This morning, I watched this video, and followed along -- except I did not do the color changes.  Pretty simple really.  And I am absolutely amazed at how nice my loom knit mitt is shaping up!  I was bracing myself for ugly, loose and gaping stitches, or too tight ...  But no!  It looks professionally done -- so far!    And for a first try, I am amazed at how well this is turning out.    I'll post pictures of the finished product.


Here's a look down the center of the hole, as the fabric grows down into the hole.    This is actually the right side up when using the knitting loom.  The pegs should be up.

I am using the following :

Boye - Small Round Loom with 24 pegs
Yarn : Yarn Bee Andes Alpaca Pearl (80% acrylic and 20% alpaca)

None More Black : Dyed Woolen Yarns

I got together with my friend Lynda last week to help her warp her big loom for making rugs.  While I was there, we also dyed a couple skeins of carpet warp wool with her jet black Jacquard acid dye.  She's got the "real" acid dyes and I knew we'd get consistent results with her powder.

The photo above is a cake of the Jacquard jet black yarn dyed with Lynda (on the left) and the Wilton's (broken) Black (right) that I dyed in the crock pot a few weeks ago.



It just doesn't seem right to call both of these black, but that's what I was going for.  I'll definitely do more of the "broken" black with Wilton's cake dye, as I do like the effect. 

If you've ever seen mocumentary film Spinal Tap, you'll recognize the title quote "None more black," where the band was looking at their new album cover - completely black, devoid of any color whatsoever.  "How much more black could it be?  The answer is 'None more black.'"