Ginormous Knitting!

Been playing around with this today - 8 strands of various weight yarns on 20mm needles
It was a little awkward at first, especially for someone who knits Continental instead of English, but I got the hang of it, despite having two different brands of needles.
 Got a surprise just now, having received a bunch of needles from a friend who doesn't want them anymore, and yahoo -- another 20mm needle of the pointy variety which is much better for knitting in this size.. hmmm i wonder if i can get Addi Turbos in 25 mm circular? That would be one quick sweater!

Crazy busy summer it was!!

Spent the summer working full-time hours at the St. James Textile Museum in Dorchester, New Brunswick where I have been a volunteer for the past 8 years.

The museum is located in a de-commissioned church, built in 1884.
We are open from mid-June to mid-September, Tuesday to Sunday, 10-5
As a working museum, not only do we give guided tours of the collection, but we also spin and weave every day!

 

 

 

Here we are setting up a warp for rag rugs on a 300 year old 4 shaft loom

In addition to working full time hours at the museum, I also played the lead role of "Lotty Wilton" in a local theatrical production of "Enchanted April" 

Now you know WHY I hadn't made a post here all summer long! So without further delay, let me post you the link to the Nova Scotia Fiber Festival's blog http://nsfibre.blogspot.ca/ where I will be demonstrating some simple weaving on Wednesday morning at their headquarters, and also a vendor at the Zonta Fiber Arts Bazaar on Friday.

Here's one of my latest creations: silk/linen/alpaca/lambswool spiral-spun thick and thin -- positively indulging my inner goth ;-)

Etsy shop listings

Recently took a bunch of photos of my work, and have decided to try listing on Etsy again. I don't know about you, but I find Etsy another "needle in the haystack" method of marketing, and really don't know what works to increase sales. I've tried listing every day at the same time, promoting the listings on Facebook at various times of day and of course, the address of the shop is on all my hang tags...who knows what the secret is...But I digress...(who me? oh look, a crow!) so here's what you'll find listed in the shop now, with more to come:

On the Needles

The Freja mittens:

Here you see the charted pattern, and the fleece I spun for these mittens. It will be spun up for the second ball of natural. I used Landscape Dyes "Wild Raspberry" plus a bit of this, a bit of that to dye the other skein of natural. The knitting is progressing quite happily.

Sorry about the laundry basket in the photo. Mz Roo is sleeping in it, and I couldn't possibly move her, could I ;-)   (The best light on a grey wet day is directly under my chandelier.)

Now, Its a Kitty Hammock!

Chatting one day with someone we talked about how pets like to be in the middle of whatever we're doing ;-) I should have seen this coming..

Progress in the rug, as of today - now I'm thinking about how I'm going to do the starfish, and the beginning of the waves, the mermaid's tail, and working more medium brown sandy shades in the border background

This rug will have lots of texture as I am using upcycled wool strips and different types of handspun wool and novelty millspun yarns. Went looking for a medium blue wool skirt or pants to work into the water today but came home empty handed. :( Have to go for a doctor's appointment in Moncton this week, so perhaps I'll try the Frenchy's there then - maybe even peep into Fabricville's cheapie section and see if I can come up with  some sparkly blue shiny mystery fabric ;-)

The Mermaid Rug -- finally!

Been talking about doing this one for ages..donkey's ages.. well ok, maybe three years. Ever since I signed up as a vendor at the P.E.I. Seaglass Festival held at Wood Islands Lighthouse 3 years ago. It was around then I had discovered the unknown-to-me pleasure of rug hooking, and I decided I liked it.

Now like most things I get into, I get a craze on for them, where I have to look at everything connected to it, and work on such craft 'til the wee hours of the morning. Which is what I did when I hooked two hot mats on a lap frame. These hot mats were around 9" x 9" . Upon completion I decided I was going to take on the task of hooking a large area rug ;-) I was ready!

Talking to my longtime close friend, Acadian artist, Roch Bourque on the phone one afternoon, he says to me, guess what I got you at the auction? a rug-hooking frame -- cool, I says. Guess what I want to do? A really large rug. So I'm thinking this frame would be about the size of the usual "Cheticamp" type frames, the size you would hook a fair size door mat on...not that much bigger than a "tv dinner tray" as we called them in the 70's ;-) Well...  a few days later, Roch shows up with this huge, honking frame I am sure you could make a carpet for a small bedroom on! I think I was scared of it at first...

I continued to look at mermaids. lots of  images of mermaids ( I have plenty) -- I looked at lots of hand hooked mermaids, boats, clouds, seas, dolphins, whales to get an idea of how I should proceed.

I made Paint sketches on the computer, I did watercolour drawings, I did pencil crayon drawings.. This thing percolated for quite a while... until...2 days ago

Yes, that's duct tape keeping the edges from fraying. My 50 year old sewing machine was being a beast ;-) Mayhaps I should have threaded up one of my 100 year old treadle machines instead ;-) 

Yesterday, I hooked the sand dollar, and today I got started on the snail shell. I am thinking I may have to tone down that pink inside ....

New On The Wheel :)

Spinning some purple art yarn from a stash of batting and silk from before i hurt my back and also spinning some white in planning for knitting my precious girl these wonderful mittens: Freja Mittens

These were taken about a week ago when I found out spinning for more than 5 minutes didn't HURT anymore :) Here I am happily plying a center-pull single back onto itself for the Cape Spear Coverlet

If you go to Ravelry,  or Knit Wiki you can find the pattern