Acquisitions/Collection Curation

I acquired quite a bit this week!

• DMC Coton Perle size 8 (5 colours) for weaving, e.g. shoelaces (more on that later).
• Lojan Tablets (2.5”) 3 x 10 (ideal for using on inklette loom and easier on the hands than the larger Schacht ones I have).
• Coats Mercer Crochet 20 thread*
• Yeoman Yarns Cannele 4 yarn*
• Unknown Mercerised Cotton weight Cotton (7 colours)*

*partially used balls and cones from a friend

Knitting

Accessories

Although I did have an urge to knit a 4th chicken, I resisted and picked up a WIP. On the 11th August 2024 I had both Singing Stones mittens to the thumb gusset start point. They then went into hibernation for almost 6 months. This week I finished one of the mittens.

Link to Ravelry for a photo of finished 1st mitten.  (I’m trying to save space by only showing FOs now.)

Socks

I’ve cast on a pair of socks for my husband but I’ve just done one cuff so far.

Spinning

This week I spun Day 14 of my advent.  It has a very dry toothy feel. 

I also plied a single I spun almost a year ago!  It was World of Wool Candytuft merino, silk and flax blend that hurt my fingers to spin. I wound it on my handy Andy and plied it from there so I didn’t have to run it through my fingers again. 

Weaving

Inkle loom – Tablet weaving

I’m such a numpty! I thought I’d make some shoelaces, so I measured one of mine, added some length for the waste ends and wound it on my inklette loom. About half way through weaving I realised I should have doubled the length as I’d need two shoelaces!

The grey is rather silvery so perhaps this is going to be better suited as a lanyard instead anyway. I have some other colours I can also try.

(If tablet weaving isn’t your thing you can skip the next paragraph.)

The pattern was Flat shoelace 1 on TwistedThreads.org.  This is my first time trying fishing swivels. Attaching them was easy. Getting the built up twist out was much harder. In fact with this fine but sturdy yarn it was almost impossible. I ended up having to remove each card (with its threads) from the loom and then let the swivels do their thing and then put them all back on the loom. This project only used 7 cards so that wasn’t a problem, so this has been a good lesson that this yarn probably isn’t going to be ideal for projects that are not twist neutral. I’m going to purchase some smaller swivels to see if that helps.

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Other News

It’s been quite a crafty week, so not much other news.  My  MIL is now able to get out of her hospital bed for short periods so is going in the right direction. 

Our Guild had a talk about the history of Johnstons of Elgin, the famous cashmere (and wool) company.  It sounds like a tour is going to be worth doing so hopefully I’ll be able to do that at some point.

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This is a Year of Projects post.  Officially the Group is in its 14th year, but this is my 7th year participating.  If you would like to find more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, as you’d be very welcome to join us. 

Year 14 list.