Spinning my way to Spain

While I was at home last weekend, I spent a few minutes spinning on my best friend Ruth's spinning wheel - it got me all fired up to get back onto my own. You may recall the purpular yarn I was spinning when I finally 'got' spinning.

Some bits of it were of it were very think, some of it was reaaal thick. I didn't want to add more weight to it, but as it was still a bit overspun in places I wanted to ply it. I decided to use some pink thread from my sewing box. Here it is in all its washed glory - all approximately 135 meters of it.

I was on a spinning roll. I spun a bit more onto a bobbin of white from Rocking out, then I spun a whole other bobbin while watching the final stage of the Tour de France today. They were quite good, for me, quite thin and mostly balanced. I plied as much as could fit onto my third and final bobbin. I still have some of the unplied singles left, so I think I'm going to spin more onto these , ply those together, then put the 2 skeins together in a dye. I'm thinking I'll dye them either red or a nice deep blue. Anyone got some good sources of dye? 

I came close to entirely finishing my socks during my time in Donegal last weekend. There's a random 5 rows of garter in the midst of the stockinette - such as will happen when knitting and drinking beers with your sister. What I didn't finish I did during the cycling the week. They're a little bit long along the foot, and for some reason this only got worse after blocking, even though I was really careful not to stretch them. The heel stitches don't really sit under my heel, and as they're pretty narrow I can't even gift them to a long footed man. I'm going to wear them around the house for a little while (they were always meant to be housesocks) and see how I get on. I have so much left from the luxurious skein I probably have enough for another pair anyway. A shorter pair.

Myself and my housemakts are off on holidays tomorrow, huzzah! We're back on Saturday, and I declare now that I shall squeeze in some craft betwixt then and Sunday evening. We're travelling light so the crochet hooks are staying at home.

Intermission

Hi cats. I'm going home for the weekend, so there'll be no update on Sunday. Now that Jim's scarf is done, I can get back to my second sock, last seen here. I've been doing a few rows here and there over the last few weeks, and just the other night I knit the heel flap. I then started to turn the heel while watching cycling, even though I knew I would mess it up by doing it when not giving t my full attention, and I did. But here's a picture of where I am now anyway - should get loads done this weekend, wee! Excited!

Skull so sweet

Good news - I finally found the charger to my camera again. While my photography skills are, well, basically 'point and click', I realize the pictures of late have been a bit dark and blurry. I prefer my little cybershot to my housemate's (ok, let's admit it, he's my boyfriend) fancy camera. I'd probably love his camera if I knew how to use it, but as I say, 'point and click'.
Hurrah for long stages of the Tour de France - I finished Jim's scarf! Ending up at somewhere around 68 inches, I hope he's happy with it. We'll see tomorrow.

I continued practice with my free motion (stippling) sewing foot. Yes, these are wonky, but that's why they call it practice. I was doing them free hand, with no line to follow. I think once I get the hang of it some cool things should be possible. 

One thing I thought would be cool to do with the stippling foot would be sugar skulls, with lots of different colors in the designs. I was practicing drawing some to get an idea of what I might do. I've never taken art or anything, as well as this I lack a natural aptitude, so I'm not very good at drawing. Nonetheless, the results were kind of cute, so I turned them into shrinky dinks! These little guys will have jump rings attached - new necklaces, hurrah. I used tippex on the black skull, which cracked during the 'cooking' process. Some of the flakes stuck to the face in the heat.

Have a great week everyone.

Stipple me this

I bought myself a present (for no good reason) this week - a stippling foot for my sewing machine. Normally, when you're using a sewing machine, the combination of the pressure of the foot above the material and the motion of the 'feed dogs' (basically little metal teeth) beneath the fabric pull the fabric along as you sew. This is why you can only really sewing forward, and also to go around curved corners it requires lots of stopping and starting and rearranging of material, before the machine pulls you along (at least that's the case for me, a relatively unskilled and definately untrained sewer). A stippler foot subjects no pressure above the material - it hops up and down along with the motion of the needle. When using a stippler foot, you'll either lower the feed dogs, if your machine does such things, or as is my case, cover the feed dogs with a 'darning' plate, which handily came provided with my machine. With nothing above or below the fabric pulling it along, it's all up to you where the material goes - backwards, forwards, crazy lines, curves, you name it. Such foots are utilised in free motion embroidery, quilting and the like. Obviously, this will take some getting used to. As the Tour de France started yesterday (as some of you may know, for reasons beyond my control I've found myself getting massively interested in cycling) my first attempts were appropriately themed. Sorry for the bad light - I was using my housemates camera and I was too afraid to touch the settings.

I started with the wheel on the left, and was turning the material as I sewed, as you would have to with a normal foot, completely forgetting that the whole point of buying the foot was to ease such difficulties. My second attempt was slightly better.

I'm looking forward to getting to grips with my stippler foot - or at least, I hope I'll get to grips with it. I'm having fun either way thus far.

As I mentioned, the Tour de France started yesterday, huzzah! I foresee getting quite a bit of knitting done as I catch up with the action in the evenings. Jim's scarf is at about 50 inches right now, and I'm going to count anything over 60 inches a bonus - I'm bored, and working with two strands of DK weight held together begins to hurt my fingers after a while. My style of knitting uses my fingers to wrap the yarn, and I hate feeling them being splayed out. The picture is from this morning, when I was at 46 inches.

Now for some old school Skuld crafts - chopping up big t shirts, yeah! Check out how much excess there is on this man's shirt compared to the top I used as a size reference.

After the usual sew up the sides, cut off the sleeves and collar treatment, I made use of this extra material to sew some extra onto one shoulder strap to make it an asymmetrical tie top.

I'm not sure what I was doing here....my 'photographer' was making me laugh.

Have a great week everyone.

A return to form

I felt creative today! I've been wearing the hair clip I made in Tiresome several times since, and felt motivated to make some more in different colors, given my fondness for coordination. I ripped apart some zips for this effort and was feeling quite pleased with myself, until I ruined it with poor glue gun control. I'll wear it nonetheless. Who says perfect is always best?

I kicked it old school with a manual needle and thread next, and persuaded this stretchy lace ribbon to form a rosette. I held my gun steady as I attached the center piece this time.

Getting back to electronica, I then experimented with making rosettes using my sewing machine. The method I used above - doing wide running stitches before pulling the thread tight, forcing the ribbon to curve in on itself, didn't work as well with the machine. It did to some extent, but only for an inch or two from each edge. So then I tried the method I used with the zip - continually stopping and folding the material underneath, as I stitched. The effect is different, but not bad. I used turquoise thread only because I couldn't be bothered to change the thread in the machine, but it looks ok with the red rosette. This is a pin/brooch, instead of a hair clip.

I had some fabric pinwheels lying around since this post, and I think small ones lend themselves quite well to hair clips. Eventually I will get around to making some more in different color combinations.

Does anyone out there have good ideas for black shrinky dink? This shrinkable plastic has featured on my blog quite a bit, but typically the white and frosted versions, which you can draw on. I have a few sheets of black left over - you can't draw on it, and I find it quite hard to cut the stuff very smoothly or accurately with either scissors or a blade. As I try to curve gracefully around a corner, I find it tends to 'crack' and break along some random line. Very irritating. I'd love if I could do some really big piece - like a big bat necklace made by shrinking down an A4 size cut out - but in my experience big pieces have a tendency of folding in on themselves and getting stuck in the oven. Any ideas? I was messing around with it earlier in the week, cutting out circles and squares, punching holes in them, with the idea of using them as spacers in necklaces. Like below.

Have a lovely week everyone.

Cleaning up with craft

I was extremely irked earlier this week to find myself with no clean facecloths. I made quite a few of them before Christmas, but as gifts, and have 3 to call my own. While breaking the world record for the most people knitting in one place, I bought a lot of cotton from one of the sellers there - I always buy cotton if it's going cheap. I used it to make the bunny last week, and this week I used this pattern to make some shell stitch squares, adding an extra row of single crochet around the end to make it look neater. The clumps of double crochet give it a pleasing texture - handy for scrubbing off pale foundation and dark eyeshadow.

Some sock progress. My stitches feel looser to me than on the previous cuff - strange.

To everyone in Galway, enjoy and embrace Bike week!

Bunday.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a beautiful sunny day. I daydreamed about being out riding my bike while in actuality I was in the lab. I hoped for similar sunshine today, but alas, it has been grey and drizzly since first light. While watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (I was nearly disowned when a certain someone found out I hadn't seen it. To avoid further argument, we downloaded and watched it immediately), I finished this little guy. Someone who I know semi-well (kind of less than a full friend but more than a friend of a friend) had a baby not so long ago. Apparently they don't have a lot of toys bought yet (which makes sense really, as a newborn wouldn't really notice such things), so I thought it might be nice if they had a handmade one around for when the little one starts grabbing and putting things in her mouth. Made of baby friendly cotton, here she between the inviting thighs of my Miffy.

I used this pattern by Lion Brand Yarn, found on (where else) Ravelry.I made the tail but didn't attach is as I thought it looked a bit out of proportion. I chose to embroider closed eyes as I thought when the kid was cuddled up with it, it would be sweet if they were both asleep. I like making amigurumi as they're so cute, as well as relatively quick and quite impressive (to non-yarncrafters) but they do necessitate attaching lots of little bits and pieces - arms, legs etc - which is a bore. Though qith a good film on tv and a cold drink in your glass, it's not so bad.

A final shot with my other craft of the week - I've cast on the second sock. Watch this space for progress.

Have a great week everyone. I'm planning to finish my laboratory work this week - wish me luck.