The Craft Room Diary, Post #3

Yesterday I stayed home with my husband to work on the craft room. Some things take two pairs of hands. Here's what we accomplished:

Stripes!

More Stripes!

Part One of the Cubby Storage Unit!

Please ignore the blue painter's tape - that's not staying. The stripes are alternating blue, purple, yellow, and green, placed randomly throughout the room so it's not TOO white. It looks awesome. I cannot wait for the finished product!
The cubby storage unit has run into a bit of a snag, though. The wall is not even so some of the shelves need to be trimmed. Bear is working on that today.
Here's the question I have for you, dear readers: The cubby storage unit is made out of press board, sanded down. should I paint it, polyurethane it, or leave it as is? The boars on the left will be painted white (they are just to stabilize the shelves) so you won't see them all that much. The press board's kind of pretty, but maybe I shold paint it? What do you think?

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The Craft Room Diary, Post #2

So now that you've seen the fug that was my old craft room(above), let me show you what it looks like now. It is *so* much brighter already! It positively glows. Bear bought a new light fixture the same basic shape as the old one, but bright white and without the 70's style markings. He rotated the socket so that the bulbs shine in better directions, too. He found a lovely tan carpet with specks of pink, blue, green, and more for the floor (it will almost perfectly cover the ugly linoleum) - for only $35! He's primed the trim, put two coats of primer on the walls, and bought the wood for my storage unit. He even bought me three skeins of yarn to machine knit an area rug in front of the storage unit. His nail gun came yesterday, so I expect the storage unit to be on the wall before the weekend. I am hoping to paint the stripes on the wall tomorrow. More pics then!

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The Craft Room Diary, Post #1

My husband Bear is a remarkable man. I know this because instead of sitting on his butt watching tv this month (he's been temporarily laid off), he has decided to redecorate my craft room. Anything I want, everything I want, I'm going to get. The next several posts will focus on the changes being made in that room.

First, some background. My craft room is at the top of the stairs, next to our bedroom. The room is L-shaped and unusable as a bedroom because of this. It gets sun from both windows, so no matter what time of day, it is filled with beautiful light. This is a good thing, because the room has all of its original wood paneling intact, and the light fixture is a frosted glass square from the 1970's. The floor is linoleum that was designed to handle Bear's grandmother's winter gardening. The best feature of the room is the bright orange curtains, also circa 1970. I give you the Before:

Until now, this room has largely been storage for my yarn and spinning supplies. It hasn't been a space I can work in because it is so dark and unwieldy. The floor is cold on my feet, I have to have artificial light even with the sunshine because the paneling absorbs all the light and leaves none for me to work with. The chair and sewing table I had in their were the wrong size and awkward heights.

All of that is changing.

In Progress Pics tomorrow!

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Spindling

After much consideration, I've decided it is time to experiment with making my own drop spindles. I've looked at thousands of them. My husband is great at making wooden ones; I'd like to try making some stone ones. Many spindlecrafters use "found" materials instead of carving/cutting their own, and that's what I'm going to do. Here's what I've come up with:

50 mm stone donut beads



9" black wooden chopsticks

I am going to pick some cheap rubber grommets from Napa or Home Depot to attach everything together. I may or may not make my own hooks - first I will have to see what my usual cup hooks look like against the wood. If I do decide to make my own, I will buy some 18 gauge wire and bend them.

The most exciting part? I'm going to attempt to use a drill press to cut a notch in the stone. Wish me luck! I will post pictures when I make the attempt. Everything has been ordered, so it will probably be a week or two before I get the materials.

Has anyone else made spindles? How did that work for you?

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Spinning Sunday

After doing a few chores this morning so I wouldn't feel guilty, I spent much of the day knitting and spinning. I began by spinning some new fiber I received in the mail this week - 8 oz. of 100% merino Ashland Bay roving, colorway "primrose." I only spun about 0.4 oz, but it was enough to fall in love with this fiber. It's mostly blue with veins of turquoise, red, white and yellow in it. Here it is in roving form:

I'm using one of the spindles my husband made me (love him!). Here's the single I created today and wound off onto a paper towel tube to await plying:

And because they are cute, a few pics of Zedd and Briggs in the pet bed they got from Santa (Briggs is gray, Zedd is stripy). It should be mentioned here that the bed is a dog bed that barely fits Zedd; when they both get in, it's downright cramped:

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Project Bag and Update

In knitting, as in life, one should keep one's eyes peeled. Doing this netted me not one but TWO beautiful project bags!
I was at Dunkin Donuts, ordering my once-weekly breakfast of a bacon/egg/cheese sandwich (on a croissant) with hot coffee (skim milk, two splenda, caramel swirl), when I chanced to look to my left. There on a table was a bunch of clearance DD merchandise.

That's when I saw it.

There, amidst the cheesy donut-with-one-bite-missing ornaments and tacky holiday gift card tins, were two darling orange drawstring bags with silk snowflake liners. Hmmm, I thought. Those look like they would be perfect bags for my knitting. At the very least, they'd be better than the crappy plastic Hannaford bag I've been using. I reached out and flipped the price tag over. $4.99, down from $9.99. That's a pretty good deal, I said to myself. There was a piece of paper underneath the closest bag, so I pulled it out. "Buy one, get one FREE!!" it said. Well shit, it'd be stupid not to get two! So I did. Here they are:

Aren't they the cutest things? I was so happy with them that as soon as I got to school, I put my Plaited Cable Scarf in one. Here's the scarf in the bag:

And here's the scarf laid out (since I haven't shared pictures before now):

It's kind of hard to see the cables in this pic (sorry about that). As always, if you click the pics, you'll see them bigger.

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WIP & FO Update

Since New Year's Day, I have both completed an object and begun a new one. I love the space of time in between projects; the days where you can simultaneously enjoy the satisfaction of a new finished object while building anticipation of starting a new one. There are times I know exactly what my next project will be and other times when I search through my books and Ravelry, looking for something to catch my fancy. This time I knew that I wanted to knit a scarf for my friend Deedle's birthday, but hadn't found quite the right pattern. Last week while browsing Ravelry, the right pattern jumped out at me and I knew instantly that it was the right pattern for my beloved Deedles.

The finished object was quite the labor of love. I began it in July for my sister-in-law. It was a wrap to be worn with her wedding dress. She and my brother were traveling from Arizona to Maine for an outdoor October wedding, and I thought she'd need the wrap. Only I couldn't get it completed in time for the wedding. I didn't finish weaving in the ends until New Year's Eve, actually, about an hour before they arrived to ring in the new year. The pattern was Michaela, from Berroco; the yarn was shine worsted from Knit Picks in "hollyberry".

The color is most accurate in the third picture.

Tara loved the wrap, despite its being wholly useless now. I should probably mention that she is a fantastic sister-in-law, and I will keep her over my brother any day. :)

I do not have any in-progress pics of the new scarf to share, but I can tell you that it is the Plaited Cable Scarf and that I'm knitting it with Caron Simply Soft Eco in "greenfields." Here's a pic from the Ravelry Pattern Page to give you an idea:

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