Keeping Busy

This being made redundant thing means I got to spend time working from home. As I have nothing much to do, work-wise, I've been busy round the house.

I've been cleaning out the range and fitting it with some new seals:





(this is what the inside of one of the lids looks like after a couple of weeks - eeewww)

Which resulted in managing to hit a decent temperature for the first time this winter (firing it on coal helps too...) -



I've been doing a little DIY - a loose doorknob meant a quick fix with Araldite and a G-clamp. Inelegant, but effective.



I've been doing some crazy weaving:



using up some of the stash mountain and trying out a mixture of fibres. I'm going to put this through the washer once it's finished, and hopefully there will be some uneven felting and shrinkage.

I've been sorting through some of my patterns and vintage magazines:



and re-organising my shelves.



I started playing with the inkle loom I won on eBay:



It's rather good fun. I can see me getting some use out of this. I have Helene Bress' excellent book on inkles to give me lots of ideas.

I have finished the Craft Fairs for the year, and made a grand total of £47. Wow. IF I had a day job, I don't think I'd be giving it up anytime soon. Oh well, good experience. :-)

I finished the hat and scarf commission - I've not a photo of the finished hat yet, but it is the Watchcap pattern by Elizabeth Zimmermann, worked in doubled Manos del Uruguay. I used the yarn single in warp and weft for weaving the scarf, 5dpi (I think!)





I finished my Noro legwarmers - stripes of Kureyon and Blossom.



I finally finished off my top-down Raglan a couple of weeks back:



and yes, I finished trimming the ends after this shot was taken!

I was lazy and ordered in from Tesco -



whose home delivery service, by the way, knocks Asda into a cocked hat on level of service and sensible use of carrier bags. Way to go Tesco!

Finally it was Yuletide Night in the village, and I may have bought some yarn:



Well, I have to have something to keep me entertained whilst I'm sat around posting my CV on the internet and praying for a miracle ;-)

~*~

Stuff and an Oops

I'm still here :-) and it is still Crazytown in more ways than one. The beloved's father has been in hospital, so we have had all that going on, and he's now coming out the day before the beloved is supposed to come up here for a few days. Sigh. Hopefully all will pan out okay and the father-sort-of-in-law will manage at home again. So there's that.

Work has been crazy, and not all in a good way. Let's just say Odd Things are occuring. Also colleague was sent to another office to cover for a fortnight and it has been INSANE ever since. Meh. Me no likey very much. I'm writing this while waiting for databases to copy to India. Over a very slooooooow connection. Happy days.

I dropped my mobile phone (cell for you Americans) down the toilet today. Well done me. It fell out of my back pocket - I felt it go and then there was a splash...at least the toilet was clean. Eeeewwwww. I fished it out in double-quick time, it's still working but somewhat erratically. I've got it drying in front of a fan heater as we speak. Oops.

Yarny Things
I bought some linen warp yarn from Texere, as I realised that all the lovely cones of stuff I have acquired are useless for warps - they're not strong enough. I scored 10/1nm Connemara linen for £9 a cone. I hadn't quite realised just how fine 10/1 is though - 10,000m / kg. That is fine. Like fishing line. It works out about 50wpi. Gulp. However, doubled it's about right in a 12.5dpi heddle. I'm playing with some just now and it is a BUGGER to deal with and maintain tension. (The warping peg flying off Did Not Help.) However I like it, and I have about 27,000m of it to use up (3 cones - that's not a typo!) I wonder if I could knit it as well? I have won an inkle loom on eBay, so if it ever arrives it might be good for that too as you need a good strong yarn. Might make good weft as well. Pondering.

Next, I have been commissioned to make some Christmas presents by a friend! AAARGH! Actually, not so bad but I'm working with a very chunky yarn and was planning on weaving a scarf and knitting a hat. I'm beginning to think knitting the scarf might be a better option. I've sampled the scarf and, well, I will show it to my friend and see what he thinks. I'm not 100% convinced myself. Hmmm. So I've got that to chew on.

I sold some stuff at the Craft Fair!!! Woohoo! A wee felted bag and a crazy scarf, of course two things that I totally thought would NOT sell. Shows how much I know, huh? So now I could do with making some more stuff as it is the big fair at the end of the month and I'd really like a "cushion" of extra stock.

Still waiting for this database...at least my tea is cooking at the same time as it is Knit Night.

What else? Ah yes, Mum's Xmas pressie is coming on - toe-up socks in one of Lilith's (Old Maiden Aunt) yarns. I'll take a piccy when the first one is done. Dad wants a hat so I need to get on with that.

And now my tea is ready so time to go :-)

~*~

Success

It works.

The knitting machine works.

Last used 1969...and it WORKS.

A little rough-and-ready, a little rough in places and a bit cranky (aren't we all sigh)but it knits.

That is what I call well-engineered.


Craft Fairs
Okay, I have been asked by Ange to join her for the remaining craft fairs before Xmas. Which is the 14th Nov and 5th Dec at Troon.

Which is great, except it is the West Kilbride Christmas Craft fair in between - 28th & 29th November.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

I need to warp the loom and get crocheting, pronto...

~*~

Crazytown

Welcome to Crazytown :-) Pull up a chair, you'll have to move some yarn, and possibly a cat, help yourself to a chocolate biscuit while I put the kettle on. This might take a wee while.

I'm slowly drowning in a sea of yarn, books and equipment. Yes. it was that time again - the Visit Down South. This time, I got to stay with the beloved for a couple of days, which was lovely and we went to car boot sales (why are there no car boots in Western Scotland? I think we should be told) and washed my car and had birthday cake and lots of great food and admired the garden and also bought yarn. So all good there.

I then toddled over to the Parental Units and got more good food and Sorting Out was achieved. Well, I say sorting out. It was more a case of discovering that the corner where all my Stuff was has been taken over by Other People's Stuff. There is a suspicious box of railway books in there, and an old television. Neither have anything whatsoever to do with me.

It turns out that Mum has been rescuing things from Granny's house, before my uncle's pyromaniac urges take over and he starts burning books to fire the heating. Bless him, he is a man of many talents and charm, but he does not have the hoarding instinct that runs so strong in every other part of the family. So, instead of a gentle meander through my paperbacks, in search of the rest of my Terry Pratchett books, I came home with this lot:



That is a pile, bum-high, of mainly books, only about 20% of which are actually mine. (the bag on the right is full of coned yarn! Yay me) The rest is a selection from Granny's ginormous collection of cookery and gardening books. Let me explain a little. Years ago, my grandparents had a quite serious fire at the house, which did a lot of damage and wiped out a lot of their belongings, books included. (The ones that remain smell decidedly odd.) When the insurance came through, Granny was keen to replace her reference books, which she did in some style. Some were second-hand, or from library sales, the rest were new. There is a ruddy mountain of the things, and I, as you know, am a sucker for gardening books. It appears I also have a severe blind spot where cookery books are concerned too. In short, I'll not be short of a recipe or 500 over the coming years :-)

I came back with something else too. Mum has been threatening me with this for the last year, and I'd swerved it up until now. Finally, Dad got involved, fished it out of the garage and opened the Big Green Box.



Yes folks, it's a knitting machine. A Singer, dating from 1967. My mum bought it brand new for £55 16s 9d. That was expensive.
We always thought the instructions had gone, which had put us off as no-one had the faintest idea how to make it go (even Mum has forgotten.) However, when Dad opened up the case, he discovered the original manual, all the tools, all the extras and the original receipt. Well, I could hardly say "no" at that point, could I? It was either me or the tip, and that seemed a shame. I was thinking "eBay!" at first, but when I had a good look at it and the handbook, my curiosity got the better of me. I'm keeping it :-) I shall be spending a good chunk of the weekend servicing and cleaning it, and seeing if it needs any serious work doing. I'm determined to get it working now - I loves me a technical challenge, and I've definitely got one here...

Craft Fair
Nearly forgot!

EPIC fail on the selling front. We didn't shift a THING. Got some interest and some nice comments, and had a nice day keeping Ange company and having a super-quick tour round Troon, but NO SALES. Meh. Hopefully I'll be doing the next one too which is November so peeps will be thinking Christmas. I hope.

Here is our stand - I think it looks pretty darn good:



Another New Addition to the Family
A picture says a thousand words, so:



Yep, I bought a loom...

And now Firefox is being a muppet with Adobe so I shall have to sign off and beat it with a big stick.

~*~