2 new uses for a swift

Over the years, I've found several uses for my swift other than winding yarn. It's great for

1. drying yarn off in a hurry - taking the ties out and spreading the skein a bit on the swift is really good, particularly if you can do this while clamping the swift to a table/chair/fence/whatever in the garden when it's sunny (for UK residents: no, not this summer. Obviously. This summer, recipe for a mouldy swift and wet yarn...)


2. measuring yarn (measure half-circumference of skein and double, place on swift, mark one leg of swift with something garish, wind slowly into a ball while counting rotations like mad)


3. drying light clothing... I don't have space for a clothes' horse, but when the rain comes down, I can put a blouse on the swift and it might dry quicker...


4. amusing small children (this is a ballwinder-and-swift-combo - they love winding the handle on the ballwinder and seeing what happens to the swift...)


5. amusing teenagers (no, really. Particularly male teenagers. They love the process of yarn-winding. I have no idea why, but a couple of years ago at Textiles in Focus at Cottenham the male teenagers working car-park duty used to bring their friends in to watch the swift work... It can't be the appeal of machines per se or they'd have been clustered round the sewing machines. The girls (other than the knitters, who saw the point) weren't that impressed; but then most teenage girls are Officially Not Impressed with Anything.)


6. amusing cats (cats are best for the amusement thing - their heads look as if they're going to fall off while they're watching, but for some reason they don't have the instincts small children and teenagers have to put their front paws into the moving machinery. I would say this makes them of superior intelligence, but my current cat would live on a diet of Sellotape, elastic bands and bubblewrap if I let her... It is good to live with another stationery fetishist though...)

However.

I have been doing lots of sorting out and tidying up over the last few weeks. I started so that I could physically fit 7 people, including myself, into the lower floor of my small house for a dyeing workshop without anyone having to stand or work outside (because, as everyone in the UK knows, doing either activity outside this summer means you will inevitably become extremely wet; and so it was on that particular day), and I just seemed to keep going...

Anyway; all the way through this process I've thought 'when I feel pleased with the downstairs I'll spin that really beautiful skein of fibre I bought from Fyberspates at Ally Pally last year'. And so it came to be that having reached a state this afternoon where I wasn't anxious about tidying up anything I could see at the time, I reached for the skein, dragged out my Louet S-10... and...

... at some point in the whole tidying-up thing, I think I must have dropped something on the wheel. That's my only explanation for the thing that we very-nearly-non-spinners call that bit of the flyer with the hooks on it being... loose. And, on closer examination, cracked, both sides of the circular plastic pin with the orifice (stop sniggering, you at the back) at the other end...

So I used needlework tools... one 12mm needle to prise the cracks more open still; some wood glue bought to glue ends back onto bamboo needles, a needle to push the wood glue into the cracks... and then I realised I needed a G-clamp. So, like a fool, I went off into my completely disorganised shed, in near darkness, to look for one. After a couple of minutes of ferreting around, sanity reasserted itself, and I suddenly realised that I had a perfectly good one sitting in the dining room, and it was called my swift... So I present you... Eduarda Hook-Arms...

So, by my accounting, that's non-yarn-winding use 7). Use 8), I think, is as an artists' model for zombie artists...

Which in turn reminds me of this, which made me laugh a lot when it came out.

Yes, I am still mainlining paracetamol and ibuprofen and blowing my nose every 10 minutes - why would you ask?

Hypoteneuse and medals tomorrow...

Closing ceremonies...

Pics of Mystic Meadow blocking - this is the whole thing - sort of upside down, in that the cast-off is nearest the camera...

An idea of the openness of the top part, which is mainly yarnovers...

And the more densely-stitched bottom section - looks like grasses...

This is near the cast-off edge. It's bizarre - the chart looks extremely geometric, but the final result is very fluid...

So, the details:

Pattern: Mystic Meadows Stole by Anna Dalvi
Yarn: Enchanté by Kaalund in Lavender
Needles: 3.5mm (US4) Addi lace circular
Finished size: 50cm (20") by 180cm (72").

I did finish the Hypoteneuse shawl (casting it off while the closing ceremonies were going on) which is now also blocked - photos of that tomorrow...

Have spent most of today battling something disgusting and sinusy, probably a result of the cold I had last week, and moving furniture - my CD and DVD storage had become somewhat disastrous and precarious as both had completely run out of space - so I've ordered another bookcase for upstairs, moved the upstairs bookcase downstairs and filled it with CDs, thrown away the existing DVD storage, moved the DVDs into the CD bookcase... Not sure I want all the CDs in the dining room in perpetuity, but it'll certainly do for the moment and there's a little bit of space for expansion, particularly in the DVD storage...

I also remembered that a very small relative has a 1st birthday this week so another bit of speed knitting to one of my favourite patterns is under way. No photos yet...

Blocking, and... not.

I clocked up two FOs on Ravelry today - go me. Neither is an Olympic project, but both have been "95%" projects for a while, which in my personal lexicon means "it's all over bar the shouting". In effect, the things need blocking, or buttons need to be found and sewn on, or labels need to be attached with washing instructions, that sort of stuff... And for some reason, keeping them at 95% on Ravelry motivates me more than having to move them every time I want to sit down and eat... I know, that worries me, too.

Today's projects, however.

First I present you Flutter: this is a MimKnits pattern by Miriam Felton, utterly beautiful and I thought it would go very well with businesswear. The original is a soysilk blend which lends weight; I was using a remnant of denim-blue Colourmart cashmere which I'd dyed into a semisolid purple, and I added the weight by using beads (#8 blue-plum raku beads from Beads Direct, to be precise; 2 tubes needed...)

It's gorgeous. I love the way she does the increases and I've loved wearing it today... Blocking -erm; nope. I gave it a good hot steamy iron instead...

Second up : my second Hemlock Ring Blanket. Just realised I've got in there 2 days before the anniversary of Brooklyn Tweed blogging it in the first place. Because this was for me, it's been lying around for ages while babies were born, Christmases and fairs came and went... so here we are. I used Classic Elite's Mackenzie Tweed. No links to the yarn because Texere had it on sale for a couple of months last year but it's discontinued. It's a wool and silk mix which looks like oatmeal; but as I'm a horribly lazy blocker, and had actually washed this whole thing in shampoo and put it through the spin-cycle three times before finally pinning it out, it's got softer and softer each time...

Blocking: yes, severely. The silk seems to have made sure I don't have the sort of rucheing I had with the last one... I just wish you could get Clover blocking pins easily here, the 2-pronged sort; they're amazing.

Having brought the blanket down in triumph this evening and laid it on the sofa... I've decided I don't like it there after all. Instead, I've moved it over to the chair by one of the bookcases, which has a strange bow-legged charm...

And because I've kept the downstairs tidy(ish) for a whole week, and I do like it like that, a gratuitous calm-and-tranquil house photo with some beautiful statice and everlasting flowers I bought today... I've actually printed this picture out and am going to put it on the boiler in the kitchen to remind me of how nice the place looks tidied up...

The easy bit done...

Sunday, 8:30 pm

The painting's done; and the furniture (barring the rest of the chairs, the spinning-wheel and skein-winder) is back in. And I really, really like the plain coloured walls at the moment. However, the point of losing the stripes was to make more of the stuff on the walls.


The sampler above the fireplace (to be found in detail here - I liked it so much I did it exactly as specified!) will stay. Other non-negotiable pieces are the piece of felt I made at Wingham 5 years ago on their big machine, which will go back where it was at the right of the door.


And this one, which has been languishing in a bag since it came back from an exhibition in Munich two Christmases ago: I spent 190 hours on this for my City and Guilds. That's destined to be the sole occupant of the wooden wall on the left (partly because pieces on that wall seem to hit the ground quite hard and with regular frequency when there are guests...)

Being able to put up this Christmas-present pastel from E-J was also a major reason for the redecoration.

But there are also these:

and a Nicholas Barnham winter-apple-tree which seems impossible to photograph... The painting was certainly the easier bit!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! I'd take a picture of the daffs I had in the garden yesterday, but their little yellow heads are all flat and snow-covered...

Sunday, 8:30 am




Second coat of yellow going on...

And - knitting!! Not the greatest of photos - beads don't show up too well in daylight... But here's the first end of the Flutter scarf with beads...

The reveal....

Yes, it's going to be yellow again... But without the stripes...

And as you can see, I've not done a lot today. The lurgy came up and hit me overnight, so having spent most of the night blowing my nose, hacking up green gunk and being generally completely unable to get warm enough, I did my library shift this morning and went back to bed at 1pm for a short nap. I woke up at 6 when the street light outside the bedroom window came on! Oops.

I'm intending to get the rest of this coat of emulsion on though - it'll need at least one more coat to cover the remnants of the stripes and the Polyfilla... I'm using a paint pad, which is quick but gives quite a thin coat.

Tomorrow, the reason for losing the stripes... Otherwise, it's a bit 'move along, nothing to see here...'

I may also get my Flutter scarf cast off - the first half, anyway. It's taken about an hour to cast off so far, because I'm beading every stitch using the crochet-hook method, and it increases to around 180 stitches towards the end... Probably utter insanity, but looking damn good, though, and the usual really easy-to-follow Mim pattern - written and charted directions. Photos when that half's done...

Almost invisible progress...

Friday, 10:30 am


Polyfilla in [note to self: Magic polyfilla in a tube is a stupid idea. Not so much the 'magic' bit, which turns the polyfilla from pink to white as it dries and lets you know it's ready for sanding, but the 'in a tube' bit. Which of course makes sure you don't get one of those nice little spatula things. Thank goodness for the City and Guilds hoarding habit - still had one in the printing/stamping box...]

Friday, 12:30 pm


Polyfilla sanded, all the walls and the floor sanded and washed. Lunch time!

Friday, 8:30 pm

And at that point, progress gets incremental... You can't tell from this photo, but the ceiling has had two coats, and the side wall has gone from the yellow of the stripes to the cream of the background... I had a guest for dinner last night, so no more progress was made between 8:30 pm and this morning; I'm blogging from the library on my Saturday morning volunteer shift...

With any luck, this afternoon there'll be some actual visible progress...

First progress pic

Friday, 8:30 am

Room cleared and swept, furniture out (apart from the table - which will move halfway into the kitchen); fasteners removed from doors... Alll looking very grubby and cobwebby...

The weekend project

I'd like to think this was putting up pics of the very wonderful KTog 5th birthday get-together on Wednesday night - and I'll get to that on the KTog blog this weekend too - but there are a lot of pictures to crop strategically...

But no, it's finally getting round to painting the dining room. To this effect, if you've not got completely cheesed off with the irregularity and non-knitting-content of this blog over the last few months, please cheer me along. I'm intending to take a pic every 12 hours over the weekend; at 8:30am and 8:30pm; and to blog on progress once a day...

So here's the first shot - as I walked through the door this evening at 8:30pm.

Thursday, 8:30pm



Most of the pictures are down, but that's about it. There's still a very large pile of yarn on the table, and on the floor... You will note the resentful feline apparition by the door at the left. This door is not often closed and is generally wedged open. It took approximately 20 seconds - the time taken to slam the door quite hard to get it to shut, walk through two not-very-big rooms, turn round and aim a camera - for Amelia/Bug to shoot through the cat-flap from the garden at the sound of the door, notice the Problem and start doing the distraught-cat-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-closed-door thing. You'd think she'd been locked away for weeks... But she's a creature of infinite curiosity and extreme patience... always a bad combination...

More tomorrow... if the lurgy that's been stalking me for a week or so doesn't get me first, anyway...

Tomorrow - sugar soap! and Polyfilla! (and does anyone know how to glue stray flaps of ceiling paper back down/up again?)

Bodging

The last couple of days, I've been fixing little minor niggling things around the house that would irritate me even more when I've even less time... And other things which have gone awry during the week. And am thankful that my not-particularly-frilly girlhood included instruction in the right use of screwdrivers, Superglue and which sort of fuse a lamp-plug needs*. Thanks, Dad.

The pretty thing on the right? a pen. Certainly mightier than the sword; as long as you aren't sitting in the dark with your muse, waiting for some chap to sort out the light-bulbs for you...

*and, since I posted this, the art of cassette-tape splicing has also come in handy...

A bit of a sort out

Thanks to a very kind friend (thanks, Suzanne!) I made it to the glories of Dunelm Mill at Huntingdon this morning. They didn't have quite what Suzanne was wanting, but they did have a lot of other interesting things - her girls are going to love their PVC ice-cream-pattern aprons when they're done - and when we eventually found it (having given up), the chest of drawers on their website looked as good close-up as it did on the site. After an unnecessary amount of to-ing and fro-ing, we got it into the car and brought it home... I am a bit of a fan of the FLYLady, although you really wouldn't guess it from the normal state of my house; but I do like her dictum that you can do anything for 15 minutes. I went for 15 minutes on that, and 15 minutes on finishing up something urgent... and it seemed to work - here are the stages starting from 0 minutes...

And because this sort of thing always fascinates me; the things in the drawers...

1: the ballwinder, underneath that is a spindle. When I find my yardage-measuring-thing, I'll put that in there as well...

2: a purple box (thanks, Jan!) containing my smaller DPNs and a small number of circular needles which haven't made it to the Big Purple Circular Case, which is squished underneath it (thanks, Nina!)

3: the next half dozen sock projects

4: skein of laceweight (Cherry Tree Hill in Fall Foliage) I can't bear to consign to the lace box in the loft; three balls of DK weight self-patterning - maybe a Baby Surprise Jacket?

5: the current Guilt-Inducing WIP bag, and a bag of oddments of sock yarn...

6: the next two blankets. The Hemlock Ring Blanket hit me hard...

7: St Brigid. She will be finished this winter. She will, she will...

Anyway I'm really pleased with it; and it was as a result of a bit of a windfall (thanks, parents!)

The question Not To Ask around here at the moment, though, is 'what happened to all that crap you took out of that corner'? Because I'm going out to knit at the Lamb with EJ (who is living rather than blogging at the moment), and I still have a very belated birthday present to sew up, and I've only got an hour, and I'm not listening, anyway!!

The aim with the chest though is to finish up the WIPs which are out in the living room in baskets, and start on the ones in the chest, and gradually getting to store WIPs in the chest. Bwaahahahaahahahaha, I hear you cry. But I have an ulterior motive for this. Have for some time. I just can't tell you.