Orange

The last photo is of some World of Wool blended tops I spun up as a trial of my new baby...

...

...

yep, I bought another wheel ☺



Here she is bonding with the existing herd. She's a Haldane Lewis, I got her from a very nice lady up the road, via the wonders of Ravelry. First double drive wheel, and the first non-Ashford. I loves her to bits already, except she's a bit bigger than I appreciated. I may need a bigger living room.

Oh and the beloved has christened her - Hamilton. (geddit?) Not maybe the most feminine of names, but I think it's stuck ☺

~♥~

Woolfest 2011

I went, I shopped, I drank a lot of coffee, missed my man and did a lot of driving - 650 miles (ouch)

Worth it? Naturally ☺ So what did I get? Well, some hand-dyed tops from Freyalyn and FSUK, silk brick from Oliver Twist, carding stuffs from Wingham, some yarn from Texere, an Andean plyer from the Mulberry Dyer, a spindle from IST, some tops from P&M Woolcraft (I think) a Kucha Kucha scarf kit and some books. Result.

When I can get some decent daylight I'll take some proper pictures.

Some musings on Woolfest
They really need a bigger venue. I was queuing on the A66 to get in, at 10.30 on Friday...and it was packed inside all morning, you couldn't get near some of the stands.
They also need more places to get a drink and something to eat. The café is very good but simply can't cope with weight of numbers. Their veggie lasagne was darn tasty mind, but they were two hours late with the sausage supper :(

There seemed to be a bit more weaving this year, but no pin looms (Hazel Rose type, shame cause I wanted one), and there seemed to be less hand-dyed yarn and crazy carding / art yarn stuff. I think this is more of a change of emphasis on the part of the organisers rather than a shift in customer taste. The focus seemed to be more on sustainability, pure British wool and natural dyes. Which is all good, but a bigger venue would allow for both camps...

ANYWAY. I wanted to tell you about the book I got - The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius.

If you have any interest in wool, sheep, other fibre animals, spinning, weaving, felting or breed history, you need this book ☺ You don't need to be a spinner to find it interesting and informative, though it might turn you into a devoted "from-raw-fleece" spinner! Although it is American (what gave it away??) it covers the British breeds in great detail and explains the differences (where they exist) between American and British varieties of the same breeds. Handily, for most breeds, it shows a lock, one or more spun samples, a knitted swatch and a "weavie" square. For some breeds it shows a colour range too, and has a general description of each type of fibre, e.g. longwools.

For particular favourite breeds they go into more detail. They even touch on the interesting, and not very well-known, fact about commercial "Shetland" yarns - the term only means the wool has all been SOURCED on the Isles, NOT that it is all from Shetland breed sheep. So in theory it can be a mixture of breeds. Not a lot of people know that, and funnily enough, the wool brokers don't make a major point of it ☺

There's some interesting thoughts in the book on Down type breeds, so I thought I'd share my limited experience ☺ I have a Shropshire fleece I'm working with at the moment, and I've also had Oxford Down and Texel, which is not strictly a Down breed but is damn close. I think they're underrated as spinners' fleeces. They have good elasticity and crimp, they wash up easily as they don't seem inclined to felt and they spin up nicely into a bouncy, passably hard-wearing yarn. The downside is finding a decent one - Down sheep are mainly meat breeds, so the shearing is often decidedly utilitarian - second cuts and disorganised shearing are the norm it would appear. They're also often filthy and marked with shepherd's paint. They don't hold onto the yuk as badly as a locky longwool, but they do seem to act like Velcro for bits of the landscape. However once you get it clean, they're easy to process with cards or a drum carder, but you might want to use Viking or mini-combs on one if it has a lot of second cuts. I've even English combed some Texel and it made a lovely, floofy, crimpy top with lots of bounce and airiness. Massive amount of waste though as you'd expect.

So in short, don't ignore the Down breeds! Just don't buy all the good ones before I get there ☺

And now I'll finish off with some more pictures from Woolfest:


Breakfast


Wensleydales


Teeny Ouessant sheep


Pitiful-looking alpacas


Some of the Clyde Coast Guild on tour


Innes trying out her new Mayan spinner


Spinning in the Travelodge bar

~♥~

Fleeeeeeeeeece again

The Oxford Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers were having their annual Fleece Fair at the weekend, so I loaded up the beloved as co-driver (poor man, he was very patient) and headed off into the wilds of Oxfordshire.

Score! Really nice selection of fleeces, mainly rare breeds and nearly all local-ish. I eventually settled on two fleeces, both from prizewinning flocks, a Cotswold and a Shropshire (which was actually from Shropshire, which is rather nice I thought.)

See?





The Shropshire (second pic) is a ram fleece (his name is Bradman apparently, probably a cricket fan) and is enormous, and the Cotswold isn't exactly compact either!

I'm washing the Shroppie as we speak, the washing machine is doing the dirty work on that one for me :-) but I've already sampled both a little bit:





I tried machine washing the Cotswold but it wasn't really satisfactory - it's general very clean apart from the tips, so I need to tease out the locks either before or during washing. It also tangled it a bit, so I think that's one for the washing-up bowls (sigh)

I made a dishcloth (hold on to your hat)



(worst phone photo ever)

and a crocheted wrap from a Lion Brand pattern:



These were entirely inspired by the stash toss - I have a ridiculous amount of random balls of cotton (and I hate working with most cottons) and a need for some dishcloths! I re-discovered the thrifted mohair / cotton blend that I recycled from a half-finished sweater that was stuffed in with a bag of yarn from a car boot sale. I overdyed it ages ago in blues and purples. I think it can go in the Xmas Gifting collection ☺ I'm getting a start on it now!

I finished the Iced cardigan, apart from buttons:



They'll get sewn on this week ready for...

WOOLFEST

Woohoo! Looking forward to it - I'm not looking forward to a weekend without the Mr, but I didn't really think it was fair to drag him all the way to Cumbria to look at yarn ☺

~♥~

WOOD Festival 2011

a.k.a "When Caroline went on her Holidays":



Quick recap - I was invited to run a Knitting Circle at the festival, and I offered to do a bit of spinning as well. In return, two free tickets. So I bought a new camping stove (Trangia 25, thanks for asking, it's very good), made some spindles, gathered up loads of needles and yarn, bought a new sleeping bag and then we Packed All The Things:



and off we trooped to a field in deepest Oxfordshire. The circle went well, especially on the Sunday, lots of takers (youngest I taught was six) including a couple of guys. Although the venue wasn't brilliantly planned for teaching, we improvised and I think everyone went away happy, clutching little squares of knitting :-)

The beloved was entirely awesome through the whole weekend, though I think his allowance of patience for hippies and folk music is probably used up for the year:



^ lots of hippies

although the Tilley hat helped immensely in retaining his equilibrium:



He even packed up the entire camp and shipped it back to the car single-handed while I was teaching (I still haven't got over that one), and manfully braved the pole-lathe:



Note I was standing well back at this point ;-)

All in all, it was good, definitely a different way of spending a weekend, although we got so little sleep on the Friday night (noisy and FREEZING) we sneaked off home on Saturday night and slept in a proper bed, after a proper shower! I think we're getting old :-D either that, or we need air mattresses and MORE BLANKETS next time. And earplugs...

~♥~

Fleeeeeeeeeece

I've been combing Hebrideans.

I may have overdone it a tad. Ouch. I didn't actually realise at first. I was sitting at work, turned to look at my calendar and thought, "god, my neck and shoulder is a bit stiff." I figured I'd slept badly - I've not been sleeping well these last few nights, it's either the weather or empty bed syndrome ;-) (yes things are going well, thanks for asking, am a very happy bunny) - and I only twigged when I got home and was combing the second batch. Yeah, the SECOND batch. Sometimes I am not the brightest light on the string.

So now, to have a wee break from swinging an English comb, I'm preparing the fleece ready for the combs. This means my lounge floor is covered in fleece. Yay me.

In other spinning news, I got some yak down, and I'm spinning it on the smaller of my Goldings. I'm shooting for a heavy laceweight / 3-ply (light fingering weight) single, approximately. So far it seems to be working, and is actually really nice to work with, even though it is a bit like trying to spin very soft dryer lint.




I rediscovered my shawl-knitting mojo, so I took the Hap shawl to work and I'm working on it at lunchtimes. Only downside is it's so big now that one row takes me the whole of lunch :-)

I actually kind of have startitis at the minute. I'm fighting it off reasonably well, but I might end up caving in. We'll see - I'm trying to clear up some of the WIPs so I can get my needles back...I need to look and see what sizes I'm short of so I can stock up at Woolfest. I really want to make something with my handspun (I'm ignoring the Iced cardi just now, it's still in Sleeve Hell) but I don't know what. I'm spending a fair chunk of knitting time browsing Rav and going "Ooh, shiny!" at things. *sigh*

In fact, I've been feeling really tired and lazy all week. I think I haven't acclimatised to the increased temperature yet - it's been over 20°C here and my arms are already brown :-) Other than a little light cooking, some laundry and a bit of gardening, I feel like I haven't done anything all week. I've been doing longer days too - the Bank Holidays and Royal Wedding nonsense means unpaid time off, which means this blogger trying to squeeze in a few extra hours to make up a little bit.

I need to get my backside into gear for the festival too - I sort of have a plan, but it's rather fluid just now. I have a feeling my spindle supplier might flake, and having the wheel there might be rather awkward. I'm fairly happy on the "teaching knitting" bit, but some samples need making and I need to write up some instructions. I also need to try and sell something while I'm there to cover my costs.

And that's about it, I'm off to my bed!

~♥~

Well that was the year that was

Well 2010 is nearly done. Can't say I'm going to miss it too much, especially the first half. The second half was okay. I'm hoping the improvement will carry on into the shiny new year :-)

So, a quick roundup of 2010, lets see how far I've come (ha) and what happened through one of the more stressful years of my life :-/

In January I was on the dole, having been made redundant for the second time in my life. That was weird, and hard when you're the only person paying the bills and putting food on the table. It lasted until April. I also had the chimney fire, and had no heating until May. In the coldest winter for god-knows-how-many years. I got really good at chopping logs.

In February I split up with the other half. That was hard. Really hard. It took a long time to recover from that, and a lot of soul-searching and general suckage.

March I had to give notice on my little cottage. That was just a mighty kick in the teeth - no work = no money = no house. Fortunately my ass was saved a few weeks later. I did however forecast Seb Vettel as a future F1 World Champion :-)

In April I got a new job, at the shipyard in Govan. It was good, the money was hugely welcome and I got to climb up an aircraft carrier. I also visited my first major fibre festival, Wonderwool. Around now things started to slowly look up.

The next few months were pretty quiet. I focused on earning some money, chilling out about a lot of stuff, a lot of crafting, a little decluttering and watching motorsport and cricket. In August I went to the PicKnit in Glasgow with Casey and Jess, which was so cool.

In 2010 I also took part in the Ravelympics, scoring seven medals, and did the Tour de Fleece which was pretty neat too.

In October I got word of the new job, and in November got made an offer AND moved house. I moved over 400 miles, from rural Ayrshire to the Royal County of Berkshire, and started a job which I hope will last a good long time. I still don't really know my way around very well, but I'm planning, as spring approaches, to get out and about a bit more and get a feel for the lie of the land. It seems really pretty here, there's a great big forest to explore, lots of archaeology to go and see, a canal, some promising towns to visit and London is only a short train journey away too. My house is warm and cosy, if a bit on the small side. I'm struggling to find a place for everything, so I've been decluttering and generally getting used to a smaller space. My poor living room is stuffed with furniture :-) I may have to despatch my old horrible armchairs to the tip and either move in the smaller ones I ganked from my Mum (which I was going to put in the "garden room" - an icebox in winter and, I imagine, a sauna in summer) or get a couple from IKEA. The carder and combs don't have a home yet, and might have to be kept in their boxes except when I'm using them, which is a shame but you know, it could be a lot worse :-)

So all in all, I'm looking forward to a new year. I've pretty much had the new start already, moving down here, so now it's just a case of building on that.

Enough of this frivolity, I have some fibre content for you.



I've been doing some thread crochet. I finally found some colourful crochet cotton while I was in Stoke. Dunno what it will all be yet, but I'm quite enjoying it. 1.25mm hook, hoars. Fear the doily. I should add, the last piece (in white) isn't my work, I acquired it in a bag of crochet cottons from a car boot sale. Pretty ain't it?

While I was up in Stoke, I took lots of knitting (naturally):



Sweater in Scottish Tweed chunky, no pattern. I ripped back about four inches when I realised the waist shaping I'd done was total arse, but I'm now back on track. I think.

I knitted a sock!



This is from Wendy's book, Socks from the Toe Up, and it's the basic slipped stitch heel version. The yarn is what I dyed at the workshop Ange and I did with Lilith. Merino cashmere baby. Second one is on the needles and well up the foot already. Not washed yet, and my first attempt at working on two circs which I LOVE.

I bought a little bit of yarn:



Regia Hand-dyed Effect in a lovely peacock colour which I can't get to photograph properly.

I also swatched for an Epic Project:



This will become Jules' Sweater. Fifty-three inch chest, not including ease. I'm not saying any more, I'm just going to go and sob quietly in a corner for a while.

I've been spinning:



Mohair / BFL, also dyed by me at Lilith's. I'm spinning it into a soft single, then I'm going to knit myself a wrap in it. Hopefully. If there's enough. Hmmm.

Finally, in a nod to my former life as a potter (sigh) I treated myself to this:



Moorland Pottery, it's one of their Stokie range. It actually says on it:
"Ay up ow at oraight"
which won't make any sense at all unless you're from Stoke-on-Trent. I love it and want most of them. They need to start making tea and coffee jars to match. It's just a shame it's not bone china, which I actually prefer for mugs. I intend to take this to work and confuse the life out of my Southern colleagues.

Well that's it for 2010. It's quarter to eight at night, I've had no dinner yet (oops) so I'd best go fix myself something and settle in for a quiet evening on eBay looking for curtains. As it's new year I might treat myself to a wee dram of Laphroaig as well.

Happy New Year xxx

~♥~

It's All Parcels, All The Time

My poor postman should get some kind of award. I will have to get him a Christmas present this year I think :-) Well, him and the regular couriers...

So. First up.

Combs.





Awesome. I love them already. They're from Wingham, made by them to the classic Peter Teal design. I've used them on some BFL and some Hebridean, with very pleasing results:



The Heb I rough-combed, just a couple of passes then pulled off the sliver, whereas the BFL I planked the sliver then re-combed it. It really wants another pass for a true worsted prep, but I'm not that particular at the moment ;-) I am SO pleased with these combs, I can hardly tell you. They even managed to rip into a nasty, tangly bit of Heb and produce something smooth and spinnable and lovely. Recommended. Yes, they're expensive (you ever seen Teal combs for sale?) but they are beautifully made and finished.

I got a new phone! I've finally ventured into smartphone territory, with an HTC Desire (I refuse to go down the Apple black hole) Very pleased with it so far, I'm still exploring all the goodies and clever stuffs. I think it may well be brighter than me. Deepest joy so far is having Google Maps at my fingertips.

I did some tailspinning. Good fun, but SLOOOOW. I think I will do some more then make myself a crazypants sheepy scarf-thing.


Locks waiting for spinning


The finished article

I finally finished the Saori blanket, and it's been pressed into immediate service on my bed! I've been waiting to find the inspiration to sew it together...



Really pleased with it. It's light, warm and very tactile. I need to do some more - I want to make a skirt. Yeah. Wish me luck with that.

Speaking of skirts, I've been on an eBay kick this week and managed to score a GORGEOUS Per Una layered skirt for less than £5, which gave me an enormous happy :-)
And it fits. Yay me!

I've also had a squishy parcel of yarn for another KAL, a gorgeous pair of boots (I will take a picture and shows you) and have orders coming for new slippers, bits for the phone, and replacement earpads for my headphones - I think I have corrosive earholes :-)

I've been making more weavie squares too:



which might become a shawl. Maybe. We'll see.

In other news, I've been watching cricket a lot. Champions League Twenty20, to be exact. Oh cricket, how I love thee, let me count the ways...I'm very out-of-touch with the cricketing world, and have been for a few years now. Ever since Sky Sports got most of it, and I had to be at work all week rather than glued to the sofa at 10.55 on a Thursday, waiting for Richie Benaud's dulcet "Good morning everybody". However I still love cricket, in all forms. It's such a civilised game. I was first introduced to the game by my granddad, who had played in his youth. He called me into the lounge one Saturday and said "You need to watch this. History in the making." He sat me down, and as we watched, he explained the rules and I was hooked. I can even tell you which game. England v India at Lord's, 1990, when Graham Gooch made 333 and 123, still a record for the most runs scored in a single Test match. We spent many happy Saturdays boring the rest of the family to death, Granddad shouting at the batsmen, the umpire, the bowlers, fielders and occasionally the commentators as well. I even skived a day off from school to go with Granddad to watch the Minor Counties play Australia at Stone, one of my best memories. We had a fantastic day, I met Allan Border, David Boon, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, got all their autographs and watched Border and Boon hefting sixes over the wall of the ground into Lichfield Road :-) It's one thing I miss in Scotland. You can't go out on a Sunday and pass village greens hosting local matches. It's a shame, as it is a fine way to spend a sunny Sunday, sitting under a tree on a boundary somewhere, with a picnic, watching a nice game of cricket.

Howzat?

♥

My neighbours think I'm weird

I can't imagine why.



Hebridean dries on the line. Machine washed! Who knew?

As promised, the Artemis handspun:



It is IMPOSSIBLE to photograph properly.

The Texel singles:



and the batts and resulting yarn (a blend of Texel and Balwen):





Again, very hard to photograph.

Use your imagination.

Right, remember I was waiting on some Viking combs?
Well I'm not any more. Bit of an epic breakdown in communications, I cancelled the order and got in touch with Wingham Wool Work, purveyors of the Peter Teal-style English wool combs. There's a month wait, the website says. So I dropped them a wee email, and got back the fateful reply "Oh, we've one set in stock!"

My credit card nearly got singed, I got it out of my purse so damn fast.

MINE MINE MINE GIMME WANT NOW!!!1!1!!!1!

So they're on their way. I think it is fate. These are what I wanted originally, but the price defeated me somewhat. However, when I bought Genevieve the Ashford Joy, I had originally budgeted for a SpinOlution Mach II. Buying Genevieve instead meant I had enough for the proper combs. happydance

I learned Andean plying! Sandy showed us how to do it at the last Spin Saturday at Gourock - thanks Sandy! I even bodged myself a tool, as Kevin Rhodes is out of stock and Michael Williams doesn't seem to read his emails very often (and I HATE using the phone) the tool is better than your hand for a lot of singles, especially if you prefer having circulation in your fingers.

Here is my version:



Elegant, huh? Polystyrene and a knitting needle. Works a treat. I like Andean plying. Originally it was only used for the leftover singles, but I've been using it on the whole lot. It means the whole skein is plied the same in one go, rather than having a mini-leftover-lonely-skein at the end, and I can control the singles better it seems. Of course it means you don't have to carry a kate around with you too. It also means I'm not forever taking the flyer off Genevieve, which I prefer. All but one skein I've managed to fit on the standard Joy bobbin.

In other news I have been cooking:



sadly not home-grown, but Sainsbury's special offer :-)

and I am dreading next week. Monday there are "major" roadworks on the M8, and then on Thursday the Pope is coming for a visit. As I'm not a Catholic (though I can play one on TV, seven years of Catholic school you know) I won't be attending the Mass in the park (I hope it doesn't rain), but I would like to be able to get to work...Maybe the boss will let me work from home that day. They're going as far as closing a lane of the M77 to use as a bus park. Wow. It's going to be bedlam.

♥

Random on a Thursday

As it's now Friday and I forgot to post this last night, it's even more random ☺ especially as it's now all temporally confused as I've added things this morning. Heh.

I had (yet another) epiphany this week. I’m good at these. This one struck me whilst driving to work. Okay, not quite the road to Damascus, but near enough *grin* I was miserable about going to work. I didn’t want to get up and go out and be bored for 10 hours then come home and have dinner and go to bed. So I smacked myself firmly round the back of the head, and informed myself that a) I have no choice if I want to eat; b) being miserable about it MAKES IT WORSE and it feels like the days last an eternity; and c) I simply CANNOT do All The Things I want to, but if I go about with a more positive attitude I tend to get a lot more done.

Well duh. So now I’m trying to be more positive and what have you and trying not to worry myself about my little anxiety issues(ironic, huh) and allergy weirdness (my sinuses SERIOUSLY dislike air conditioning but they’re just going to have to deal with it) and that insect bite on my hip? That I’ve had for like, two months? That is still going ITCHITCHITCH? It really isn’t Lyme disease. Seriously, brain, it isn’t. It’s an itchy insect bite that you’ve been going SCRATCHSCRATCH at for weeks so it’s no wonder it’s not better yet.

Moar Randomz:

Facebook. Why? I mean, really? It’s awful. I could go on forever. I do not want to see your stupid “omg poor kiddy needz an operation WONT U THINK OF THE CHILDRENNZZZZ give us all your fucking money NAOW” all over my wall. Bleh.

Hyperbole and a Half is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen for a very long time. This post about horror movies is so me it’s unreal. Nice to know I’m not alone ☺

It was so foggy this morning it looked like November. Hmmm. Winter is coming. Need to knit faster.

You know, first thing this morning I had so many things to write down. Now I can’t remember half of them. Typical.

Bruce Dickinson rocks HARD.

Dating. I’m starting to think that I’m really not that bothered you know. After all, as things are at the moment, if I want to spend all weekend spinning, eat fishfinger and cheese butties, walk round the house half-naked or in sweatpants with a rag round my head to keep my hair up, listen to very odd music or sit half the night playing Solitaire on the PC…NO ONE CARES.

I found that if you mix Texel and Balwen fleece on the drumcarder you get a surprisingly awesome batt. By varying the percentages, you can grade the colours. That was an exciting evening at my house.

Formula 1 – I miss it. Hurry up with the holidays already.

I want to KNIT ALL THE THINGS. So I’m not casting on ANYTHING new until I’ve either finished something, or know exactly what ONE thing I need to knit straight away or I will OMG DIE. So far, nothing’s winning that contest.

Music – Following a thread on LSG, I’m delving into some new-to-me music at the moment. So far, Fever Ray, Lykke Li, Neutral Milk Hotel and Seasick Steve are going on the playlist. Also it reminded me of the deep love I have for Tom Waits, Tindersticks, Smashing Pumpkins and Björk. Also, we7.com. Full of win ☺ Lots of free music to stream, very reasonable downloads and it’s part-owned by Peter Gabriel. The radio feature is pretty neat too. Okay, there are ads, but you just ignore those.

We’re starting up a Guild! The Clyde Coast Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. I am very excited. The plan is to have meetings split between Gourock, Dunoon and West Kilbride, which means everyone should have chance to attend and we all get to see a bit of the area. The idea got mooted at the last spin Saturday and it seems to have legs. We’re all very keen anyway!

My Viking wool combs STILL haven’t arrived. I wish P&M Woolcraft would extract digit.

One of my colleagues finished today – he brought pies and bridies in for us, but I’m resisting after having looked at the innards of a bridie last time we had them. Bluuuuurgh. It’s a miracle I’m not dead. Really. So he gave me his chocolate biscuits instead ☺ Yum.

I loves my new wheel. We’re still getting used to each other but we’re making good progress. I struggled somewhat with fancy coiled-yarn plying as the flywheel wants to go the opposite way when I stop treadling. However by the end of the yarn I was starting to get in the way of it. The resulting yarn I fear will suck badly, but that's not the wheel's fault ☺

I really want to knit a Season 12 Doctor Who scarf.
All 14 feet of it.
Shoot me now. Maybe I could weave it...

~*~

Congratulations are in order, I think...

...we have a new addition to the family!



Meet Genevieve, Caroline's little sister!

More later perhaps, we're busy bonding.

~*~

Botanical Knitting

We went here:



and saw this:



and these: (Look! Casey! and Jess is hiding behind her parasol)



and these: (I really need a wide-angle lens, huh?)



and there was cake:



and this:



and an awesome day was had by all.

Spinning
The ArtemisArtemis fibre is all spun up, and I'm working my way through a batt I carded myself to match. About half a bobbin to go, then plying will commence.

I sampled the Texel, my God it is SPRINGY. I left it as a single, I'm going to try knitting it up shortly and see what it does. Did I mention it was springy? I've started scouring the rest, it is a BIG fleece so it's going to take a while. I did manage to finish scouring the Balwen, and I drumcarded some of it and spun it up on Sunday. It is not exactly soft...but I have a plan. Sort of.

Knitting
Here's the finished Travelling Woman shawlette:



and the pegged rug:



Latest progress on the granny squares: (actually they're sewn together now, and I changed the layout slightly, but you sort of get the idea)



and my latest addiction, a Weavette-style pin loom:



I've knocked another WIP off the list as well. The top I was knitting in banana silk just wasn't working. The yarn is HORRIBLE to knit, and it is heavy. So I'm ripping it out and I might weave with it instead.

In other news, there isn't any :-)