Aren’t they lovely?   Ummmmm.

And what’s this?  My “goodie bag?”

I got seven balls of novelty yarns, a needle gauge, some sample corn yarn, a few buttons, and several knitting patterns.  Ah, I love it!  Nothing like a goodie bag!

So what I found out was that the Supersock Store has these sales twice a year.  So I decided I’m gonna test out these yarns to see if my boys like the quality.  I’ve started to knit up some of the yarn to see if I’ll be participating in the next 50% off sale with goodie bag.  This is the first pair of socks in the works.

Not sure how the boys are going to like the colors, but there she be.  I’m curious to see how well they hold up.

Now while I’m at it, here’s something else I worked on for Christmas gifts for my crafting buddies.

Here they are completed with the scissors paired up.

I actually didn’t know what I was doing when I was making them and just winged it as I went along.  Overall, I’m satisfied with how they came out.  Most of all, my crafting buddies seemed to enjoy them.    Here’s another view of the completed scissor cases.

Then my sister asked if I would help her out by making cookies for her staff.  She wanted me to make some ornaments to tie onto each bag of cookies.  Here’s what I came up with.

By this time my camera was starting to die on me.  I had to try a million shots to get something that wasn’t over-exposed looking.  This was the best I could get.  The tie cords I made were done on my spinning wheel.

Here’s what the cookies looked like all bagged up.

There were 20 bags all together of oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies.

My camera was acting up again, so this picture has a weird coloring.  But at least it captures the gist of what the completed cookie bags turned out like.  Oh!  While I’m sharing goodies, my friends from the Isle of Man sent me a really nice gift basket of fruit cake, pudding, and chocolates.  I thought these boxes of chocolates were so cute shaped into their IoM emblem–the three legs, which I was told meant that no matter which way they are thrown, they will stand.

Now those were yummy!  This picture is all that’s left of them. . .

Toodles for now!

Marlakins

The birthday cards were funny.  I particularly got a kick out of Brian’s, heheheh.

Since both Brian and my brother-in-law are bald, there tends to be bald jokes in our family. . .

Tee hee!

Before our outing, I was working on using up some of the yarn I spun.  Aside from little pouches, I found the yarn was also usable for little knit toys.

The pattern for this mouse is in a book called, Itty Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson.  It’s actually supposed to be a Christmas mouse, but I just used the colors I had on hand.  I also did a little bit of modification by adding a mouth, heheheh. By the time we went out for dinner, I had two mice made up.  They were busy reading the menu when I took this picture.

By the next day, I had three done.

Well, now I know I can probably spin sock yarn since I was able to use my white yarn that I spun together with left over sock yarn.  They appear to be the same gauge.  I’m currently working of spinning up a 3 ply.  I’ve already spun up three hanks, but I’ll save that for another post.

Oh, before I sign off, I should put in a plug for Real Food Daily.  They’re an organic vegetarian restaurant here in Los Angeles.  My boys always order their burrito supreme, and I tend to always order either the yin yang salad or their stir-it-up with buckwheat noodles.  That night I had the stir-it-up.

Ummm, tasty. . . Their cookies are also a nice way to top this off.

Okay, now that our September babies have celebrated, now to prepare for the October babies. . .

Marlakins

The above is the only picture I took that day, but as a point of interest, bison fiber/fleece/hair is normally brown.  The above fibers are obviously not brown.  Interestingly, although normally brown, Bison fiber takes dyes very well.  And also as a point of interest, these yarns were sooo soft!  Funny how when I look at bison, they look so rugged that I don’t think of how soft their fur is.

It turns out that Judith has quite a bit of knowledge regarding the bison.  She spoke to us about its history in America such as how they were so plentiful during the early days when Indians relied heavily on bison meat for their survival.  She talked about how bison were later shot and killed almost to the point of extinction by the newer settlers.  Bison were even shot from trains as a sort of way to wipe out the herds.  It was understood at the time that for every bison killed, an Indian was killed (Indians can’t last long without food).  This practice nearly wiped out the bison population.  It’s a sad history, but fortunately, the bison were not completely wiped out and are slowly making a come back.

Other points of interest regarding the bison is that they can move from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds. . . Oh. my!!!!  No wonder you don’t hear about bison milk, ha!  They’re strong and agile.  Yet, they are very protective of their own.  Judith mentioned that when a baby bison is born, the whole herd gathers around, and each on comes to muzzle the calf before it goes on it’s way.   How cute!  And also awesome.  There’s so many things from nature that I think God uses for us to learn and enjoy.  There must be something to that practice for us.

Judith also had some fun stories to tell including her dealings with how she got into spinning bison fleece, the people she’s met along the way, and the things they’ve said to her.  One such story is about how “real” cowboys knit.  She said, “Real cowboys get cold feet, so they all know how to knit socks even though you never see the Marlboro Man knit,”  ha ha!  One cowboy used her bison yarn to knit a pair of socks which accidentally went through the washer and dryer.  To his surprise, they came out beautifully, and didn’t shrink a bit.  Judith attributed this to how a well-prepared yarn should behave.  Basically, after spinning, wash the wool and beat it to an inch of it’s life, heheh.  (My paraphrase).  That way by the time the yarn is knit up into a garment, it’s done all it’s shrinking and reforming.  Wool fibers, like hair, have a memory.  When it’s washed, it wants to go back to it’s original shape.  So best to do that before the garment is knit up.  Makes sense, right?  I still have yet to test this out on my own, but she did have some garments as samples that seemed to prove her case.

Okay, I’m just about out of blogging time.  Must hit the road to visit Mom.  Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed Judith’s presence, as both teacher and lecturer.  Sweet woman (as evidenced by some of her stories and how I could see she treated all of us).  If Judith McKenzie comes back out to teach more classes, I sure hope to be able to join in again.

Marlakins

One of the fun things about taking these classes is seeing all the different wheels.  Here’s one shot showing some of the variety of wheels in the class.

And a few more with Judith standing to the left.

There were quite a few more types of wheels, but I didn’t want to miss out on Judith’s instructions, so I didn’t bother to take a pic of everyone else’s.  I did, however, take some pictures of Judith demonstrating how adjusting the scotch tension determines the gauge of yarn that will be spun.

She made it look soooo easy!  I had no idea that so many gauges of yarn could be spun on our wheels!    Here’s a pic of the different sizes Judith was able to make just by adjusting the scotch tension.  Amazing!

These are all two ply.  She showed us how to ply 3 and more, explained the differences–i.e. the 2 ply is good for weaving, while 3 or more ply is better for knitting.  See this class even helps me with choosing yarn for my knitting projects.  She also showed us how to make a few specialty yarns like boucles, and cabled plys.

Here’s a pic of Judith showing us one way to hand-comb fleece and prepare it for spinning.

Now I know there must be a name for the resultant strip of fleece Judith is pulling through here, but I don’t know what it’s called.  Roving, maybe?  All the roving I’ve seen is much thicker, but it is in a continuous strip like this, too.   Actually, this was a first for me to see this procedure.  Yeah, I must have missed out on a lot of demos.  I have hand carders, but it’s a bit different from this one mounted on the table.

She’s holding a small wooden disk with a hole in the center and pulling the combed fleece through the center.  As you can see, it’s coming through in 0ne long continuous strip.  Once she finished pulling all the fleece off the comb, she just wound it up and spun directly from it.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that not only were there different types of wheels at the class, there were also a bunch of different Lazy Kates.  Here’s one that someone made, which I thought was clever.

Every time I throw out toilet paper spools, I always think they must be useful for something else.  Well, here you go!  Ha!

As part of the class, Judith provided a variety of spinning fiber.  Now that was a treat!  Here’s a pic of the yarn I spun with the fibers provided in class.  This is in the process of winding off onto my niddy noddy.

And guess what else I learned?  I’m supposed to wash the yarn after it’s been spun to help relax the fibers.   It seems like people do this in different ways, but from my current understanding, it’s supposed to be done with hot water, then cold, then hot, then cold, then hot, then cold. . . After squeezing out all the water, hang dry.  This procedure is supposed to relax the fibers, and the resultant yarn should fluff out about a third in diameter.   Ah, now I feel more confident about making my own yarn and knitting it up into a garment.  I was always concerned that the yarn I spun would come out in a wongo tongo  sweater or something.  Something just didn’t seem right, but now knowing about plying and washing afterward, it makes much more sense.  And the yarn does look and feel better!  Here’s more of my test yarns, which was still not properly prepared, but getting closer!

Since these are only 2 ply, I’ll probably just use them in little projects like more pouches or something.  I’m currently working on making 3 ply with some wool and silk blend that I purchased “years” ago!  I dug it out of the closet, and thankfully, it’s still in good shape.  But I must say that learning more about yarns is making me want to pull out my loom and try to figure that one out.  I still need to make more room for it, tho, and that’s partly what’s holding me back from getting the loom out.  That might be next, tho!  I saw some of Judith’s weaving, and boy do I like woven things!  I’ll have to share some of the weaving stuff I saw in the Philippines on my latest trip there.  That’ll have to be another post, tho.  So basically, that was the gist of the class.  It lasted from 8:30AM to 5PM.  It’s amazing how fast time flies when you’re having fun! Judith did offer a colors class, but I wasn’t able to join that one.  But it’s probably better that I learn how to spin better before getting into the colors thing.  I hope Judith comes out again next year, tho.  I’ll be sure to join the colors class then.

Marlakins

Fortunately, I had everything on the list.  The only thing I needed to do aside from get my butt to class on time was make sure that my wheel was in good working order.  I pulled it out and dusted it off.  It still had yarn on a couple bobbins, so I decided that I should get that yarn off, and at the same time practice some spinning to make sure I could do it still before the class came.  I decided to spin enough to make a 2 ply yarn.  And am I glad I did that!  First of all, I never really knew how to work my wheel properly.  So fiddling around with it forced me to learn how to change bobbins and start a fresh bobbin.  I also pulled out the Lazy Kate that came with the wheel when I bought it and figured out how it was supposed to be assembled.    When, I felt I had spun enough to make a two ply, I tested out my Lazy Kate for the first time.  So far so good!  I was actually learning something!  Here’s the yarn that I got off of the wheel from that exercise. While I was able to get these two hanks from the yarn I had sitting on the bobbins, I still had a little bit more, so wanted to spin more singles to get the rest of the yarn off.  I dug in my closet and found that I still had some yarn that I was spinning on my drop spindle.  I don’t even know how many years it was sitting in there.  But I decided why not ply it with the other white I had left on the bobbin?  Eh, so I did, and this is what came out. . . ha! Ah, yeah, you see why I wanted (needed) to take a proper spinning class? But being the pack rat that I am, I still didn’t want to waste this material, so I decided to try to knit it up and see if it would knit okay.  I made a test little piece, then decided that I could make little pouches out of it.  I was going to a gathering with some of my mom’s senior citizen friends and I had picked up little trinkets that I planned to give to the ladies.  I thought putting them in little pouches would be nice.  Here’s what they looked like in progress. And here’s a picture of the completed pouches.   I sewed little pieces of fabric for the portion with the drawstrings. I pretty much taught myself how to spin after only a few minutes in the store where I first bought my drop spindle.  So, I never felt very confident that I knew what I was doing.   I still wanted to learn, so when I saw the Popular Wheel Mechanics class taught by Judith McKenzie McCuin offered, I knew that was the class I needed.  And boy oh boy am I glad I took that class!  Judith is a wealth of information, and a lovely, lovely lady to boot!  What a knowledgeable woman, and a gentle soul!  I liked her very much, but I’ll talk more about that later.  Suffice it to say that I learned a LOT in her class (both what I should be doing, and what I’ve been doing wrong, wah) and am now raring to spin! If anyone is interested in spinning, check out anything by Judith McKenzie, you won’t be disappointed. Marlakins

The HiyaHiyas are only 9″ long, and the Balene II are only 11″ long from tip to tip (compared to my Addis which are anywhere from 40″ to 60″ long).  Hopefully now I can travel with the peace of mind that no one will take away my knitting needles!

Just for fun I gave it a little test drive.  Here’s what they look like while working on a pair of socks.

Feels kinda odd working on such small needles.  Although I’ve done plenty of circular knitting especially while making hats, the circle usually isn’t so tiny.  It gets the job done, tho, and I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

That’s about all for now.  Until next post, which will likely be from the Philippines.  Toodles!

Marlakins

The instructions inside included the pattern pieces that needed to be blown up 200%, but since I don’t have a copy machine at home that would do that, I just decided to make up my own pattern based on their instructions.  Being that I had never done this before, my pin cushion ended up being quite large, ha!  But I didn’t know that when I first got started.  Here’s what it looked like in progress.

I actually only followed the pattern idea, but the rest of the design was mine.  The pattern I used for the little crocheted flower on the top is from another book I have called Crochet Bouquet by Suzann Thompson.  This book includes very easy to read simple flower patterns.

This is what it looked like completed.

And here’s a side view of it.

Now, I knew when I saw these little pin cushion ideas that I would get addicted to them and have to make several before moving on.  I’m always amazed at how creative some people are, and love to look at all the stuff people share on the net.  I’ve gotten so much inspiration from other crafters on the net.  So, for my part, when I finish my projects, I will try to upload them to share as well.  Oh, and the next one will probably be smaller, too, heh.  Probably about 1/3 of the size, I think, would be better.

My review for the Pretty Little Pin Cushion book about a 7.  I felt that the instructions could have been better as well as the designs.  I think a person who doesn’t have much sewing and/or embroidery experience might have more trouble with this book.  Also, some of the pin cushion designs involve knit and crochet, but doesn’t give the instructions for those patterns, just the shapes of how the pattern pieces should look like.  I know how to knit and crochet, so can pretty much figure them out.  But for someone who doesn’t, I don’t see how they would be able to make those patterns.  However, I still liked the book because it gave me ideas.  It was fun to try and quick as well.  I’ve found that there are  a lot more free patterns online employing so many different techniques that I’m itchin’ to try them out!  Can’t wait!  Too bad there’s only 24 hours in a day. . .

Marlakins

It’s called “Grapevine Wreath with Floral” by Donna Dewberry.  The completed stitched size should be 14″x11″.  Here’s how far I got about a week ago.

Here’s how far I am on it today.

And did I say that it’s hard to just work on one project at a time?  Well, I started on something this Sunday.  This might end up as a small bathroom curtain if it turns out decent.  I’m thinking of adding beads on the bottom.

The pink ball, I’m thinking of using to make another curtain for my back door.  Not sure yet.  I’ll have to work up a swatch to see if I like how it drapes.

Another project that has been hanging around here for “years” is this cross stitch mermaid by Mirabilia.  I LOVE her designs!  I’ve finished all the cross stitching, but just need to add the beads now.  I’ve got the beads off to the side.

Uh, yeah, got lots of wrinkles. . . hope it irons out okay once I’m done.

And as if I don’t have enough projects to work on, I picked up a few more patterns that I found too irresistible to pass up.  I’ve long admired P Buckley Moss, and couldn’t pass up a few of her cross stitch patterns.

Then my girlfriend found out that I love Mirabilia patterns and she picked up several patterns for me that I just adore!!!  I told her a few of them that I liked, and had no idea she would pick them up for me!  Oye. . .

I thought I already had a craft stash big enough to last me my lifetime.  However, somehow my stash keeps growing!  I’m trying to get a grip, but it’s hard being that I’m such a craft addict. . . Well, at least I’m keeping my hands busy and staying out of trouble.  And the icing on the cake is that I’ve been able to indulge in these things hardly ever giving a thought to my once obsessive occupation of trying to heal my aplastic anemia.  Life has been good.  God is great.

I’m off to the Theodore Payne Foundation to hunt for some drought resistant plants.  Happy 6th of July everyone!

Marlakins

Today I was able to make a quick trip down to the Huntington Library in San Marino.  I really love that place, so it was a shame that I was only able to spend a couple hours there.  Usually whenever I go there I have to visit their cactus garden (they have the best collection that I know of here), but today I didn’t have time.  Instead I bee-lined it to the herb garden because they were having a special exhibit which featured natural dyes for yarns.  Oh yeah!  But first. . . I had to wend my way through their rose garden.

The only other rose garden that I know of that is comparable to this one is the one Brian and I visited during our trip to London.  I forget the name right now, but I sure took a lot of pictures there!  Maybe some time I’ll upload some of my rose shots.

So not far from here was my intended destination–the herb garden.  Towards the back perimeter they had tables and charts set up with dying information, including some samples and a small demonstration.

This woman was very nice and helpful (actually all the women there were!)   Not only did she give me lots of information, but I learned something that really made me happy–one doesn’t have to use mordants to dye yarns!  Woo hoo!   Mordants have been one of the things that have kept me from taking the dying plunge.  I didn’t want to use any toxic chemicals, and now learning that I don’t even need to use a mordant and that I can use herbs right from my garden or even kitchen I can feel another hobby coming on.   Granted, using a mordant is supposed to help the colors hold fast and fix more brightly, but I’m not that picky.  Here’s a chart with samples this woman had on display that her son made back in 1977.  The colors, while faded a bit, still held well enough for my taste.

There were also other fiber addicts there demonstrating their talents like this woman spinning yarn.

Another woman was sorting through some fleece.  Again, I was able to learn more information about fleece from her, which is good to know since I still have my fleece to work on that I got from my trip to the Isle of Man.

There were also women working on different types of looms.  This is a small rectangular loom by which one can make small woven pieces to sew together.

Apparently there are quite a few different shapes used for weaving.  I was shown one that I’ve never seen before–a triangular loom.

I do have a more complicated loom that Brian bought me years ago, which I have still never used. . .  I guess I just look at all that threading that needs to be done before weaving, and I just can’t seem to get myself to do it.  Or maybe it’s really that I’ve been too lazy to figure it all out.  But when I saw this knitter’s loom, it looked very simple and something that might be a good starting point for me.

Oh yeah, now that I could see myself dabbling in.  This particular loom is called the knitter’s loom by Ashford.  The woman explained to me that Japanese kimonos were originally made in strips 14″ wide and then sewn together, thus explaining some of their striped patterns.  I could see trying this!  Look like fun to me, and yes, I have plenty of scrap yarns to test it all out, too.

By this time I had already spent about 1 1/2 hours here, and still wanted to visit the Chinese garden Matty told me he wanted to see.   So off we zoomed back through the garden.

This path lead down to the Japanese garden first.

Then we veered off to the Chinese garden.

And another shot.

Gorgeous!  I really love the Huntington Library gardens!  I could easily spend the whole day there, but alas I didn’t have time.  So not long after strolling through this garden, we had to head back without even a peek at the library museum, bookstore, or cactus garden, wah. . . maybe next time.  I thank God that there are some really creative and talented people out there who can create such beautiful, peaceful environments, not to mention the amazing variety of nature that God has given us to tend and cultivate.

Marlakins

I’m one of those people who likes to do two things at one time especially crafting because I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting all my time crafting.  So, I generally read and craft/knit at the same time.  Well, there has been a lot to read recently, so I’ve been cross stitching like crazy.  Plus I’ll add that it’s all my friend’s fault because she got me back into cross stitching, and now I’m hooked again.  I think she and I are going for broke cross stitching Christmas things.   Between the two of us we have lots of patterns to work from, but could we settle for that?  Sadly, no,  and just recently we received our shipment of new patterns to work on, ha, ha!  She called me late one night to share a link on cross stitch kits, and so we went online shopping.   Here’s what I’ve done so far using our old patterns.

Yep, being the rug rat that I am, I’m still using up old supplies that my friend and I bought years ago hence the “wrinkled aida cloth,” heheh.  I’m hoping they iron out okay. . .  I did try to put a few of them together to see what they would look like stuffed.  They’re the ones in the clear plastic bag.  It’s kinda hard to see them well in the above pic, so here’s a closer look at some.

And while I’m at it, I also finally got to work up some of the organic Peruvian cotton my sister and her hubby gifted to me a couple Christmases ago. . . Here are the lovely skeins.

Oh wait!  I have to back up a bit to tell my story. . .   A few weeks ago I was diving in my yarn stash hunting for my next project.  I found some yarn and a lace book that I had purchase a year prior.  Yes, a “year” prior.  I decided I was in the mood to learn how to do this lace pattern in this book.  So I wound up the yarn.  Then, the following morning I tried to knit.  For some reason I was having the hardest time.  Things were not going well.  I knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back, I don’t know how many times!  Then I decided that maybe the yarn wasn’t right for the size needles and such.  So I dove back into my stash and found another very old skein that looked like it would be suitable.  So back again, I knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back, knit, ripped back. . . Oye!  Something was wrong!  I looked over the pattern and counted, and lo and behold, the cast on instructions were wrong!  Grrr.  Just looking at their graph, instead of 49, I should cast on 52.  So back I went knitting and when I got to the fourth row when things went wrong again. . .   I thought, I must have knit something wrong again, so back again ripping it down to the start.  Knit it again, and again, and again.  Finally I decided maybe there’s a list online for errata on this book.  Sure enough there was errata, but not for this pattern.  Hmmm.  But I “know” there’s a mistake because I had just found the cast on was the wrong number.  So I looked on Amazon for reviews on this book, and what did I find?  A few comments stating that this book was “rife with errors!”  Argh!  I just went blind trying to work that thing up!  Okay, so now my ego has been battered that maybe I can’t really knit after all.  I dug around trying to find lace patterns that I liked, but nothing was working up to my liking.  Here’s a sample of “some” of the things I tried working up and then abandoned.

Yes, there was more than this.  But while straightening out my pattern folder, I came across a pattern from Lace Style by Pam Allen and Ann Bud.  It was a cute little shrug that had open work.  Hmm, I thought, I just may have the right yarn for that.  And so I pulled out my Peruvian cotton.  Once I started to work it up, I felt that this pattern and yarn were going to work.  Here’s what it looked like in the process.

Ah, yes!  This would be perfect for California weather.  And with the big loose knitting it worked up really fast.  I was done in no time.  Here’s the completed shrug.

I will vouch for this organic Peruvian cotton yarn.  It drapes well, and it’s very soft.  I think it only took three skeins, so I still have about 7 skeins left to work up another project, woo hoo!   I will also vouch for Pam Allen and Ann Bud patterns because this is the second pattern of theirs that I’ve worked up that worked beautifully.  Good instructions!  Which is much appreciated by hopelessly addicted knitters like me.

Marlakins