Ooops, guess I lied . . .

Okay, I guess I lied a bit about being off for a week. I found out Robin is going to join me on the Mystery Shawl Along 3 project. She's going to be knitting her shawl with KnitPicks Shadow in Sunset. I'm doing mine in the same yarn, color Lost Lake. They should look beautiful. Alright, that's it for a week. Honest.

Off for a week or so

Hi, there will be no posts until after January 29th as I am interviewing for a job in SC.

After the interview, I am heading over to visit Robin and her hubby in their new home. See, she does too exist, honest! I'm hoping she will have projects for me to take pics of, other than her house!

Happy fibering!

Box

The title says it all. I made a box this weekend using that book I picked up in California, Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Boxes. I'm in love with my sewing machine. Oh and the boxes were fun too! Check out the little box I made. It's the introductory 4" box.


I originally made outside of the box with the flower fabric, but it was too difficult to see the lid. So, my solution was to reverse the box, turning it inside out. I like the contrast better with the green fabric. You may recognize the fabric from the purse I made before Christmas.

My plan is to make a large rectangular box that will hold my drop spindles. I can't seem to find a vase that is wide enough, yet tall enough for my collection of drop spindles. My plan is to make a tall rectangular box, fill it with rice (with some bay leaves to keep out bugs), and then insert my drop spindles in a row. I'm not sure if this will work or not, but I thought I would try it out. It can't hurt anything. Worse case scenario . . . I get a lovely rectangular box without a lid.

What did I learn? Well, I purchased some Peltex double sided interfacing (by Pellon). One side is ready to fuse (paperless and is rough) and the other has a thin layer of plastic film on it that you peel off after fusing the first side to your fabric. Well, I fused my fabric to the rough side per the directions of the company (using wool setting). I must have left it on too long because I couldn't get the plastic film off the other side. Sigh, I had to peel it off using a seam ripper and some ingenuity. This was for the box itself. I learned my lesson and the second time (lid) I used less heat and didn't leave the heat on long enough. When I fused the second piece of fabric to the unit, I used full strength heat and redid the first side. This worked out well.

What else did I learn? I learned my new sewing machine rocks! I was just giddy as I was stitching along a beautiful satin stitch edge. Wow, talk about an upgrade. My old machine would have been having fits and threads tangled below the feed dogs. Phew, what a relief. Especially as it is an expensive machine.

On the spinning wheel? I have some more Targhee I am working on, same colorway as the previous pictures, so I won't show that. I am also working on some black Wenslydale and that is just boring to look at. I've got a project I'm working on with the guild. We are doing a fiber challenge. I think I've mentioned it before, but I finally started spinning the black fiber up for the project I have in mind. I have to do some dyeing and some measuring, but I hope it will go well.

Oh yeah, on the needles we have a half sock and some edging done on my Mystery Shawl Along 2. I also joined the Mystery Shawl Along 3 that will start in February I believe. I ordered some KnitPicks Shadow merino yarn in Lost Lake. Should be dark, but beautiful.

Okay, that's it for me. Happy fibering!

Old and New Things

I've been working on a few things this past week and weekend. First, some old things. I finished spinning up two balls of some Targhee roving I purchased from a friend a while back on my Majacraft Rose. I made some fingerless gloves from the first batch and decided I had to have a scarf and hat to match, and maybe I will even make some fingered gloves. We'll see on that last part.

I had a very productive week last week on the spinning wheel. I wrapped up those 2 balls, which total around 4 ounces and filled my bobbin to the edge, but not above the edge. I thought I would have problems plying all of those singles back onto a bobbin. In fact, I was so worried, I queried Robin about her bobbin capacity and if I could fit all that fiber back on. My plan was to Navajo ply the singles back onto themselves, one of my favorite methods of keeping the color in a yarn. However, usually if I fill an Ashford bobbin this full, I can't get it all back on the bobbin.

Imagine my pleasant surprise when Robin was right! All that fiber fit back on and I plied faster because it only took one treadle to ply each loop rather than the 3-6 it took on my Ashford. Love all the ratios this wheel has. And what does the yarn look like? Well, not such a great shot here as we have had very little sunlight and when there is sunlight I am at work.



Now, I just have 6 more balls to spin up and I get to knit with the yarn. Whee!

What about the new? Well, I have outgrown my sewing machine, a Viking Husky 170, non-computerized basic machine. It's been great up until when I worked on those spinning bags for Robin and my friend Joy. Wow, did I have a hard time keeping the stitches even on the nylon mesh, even with a walking foot (even feed foot). I also was wishing my machine had a blanket stitch and ultimately I wanted an embroidery machine like my mom has. Remember the sheep on my spinning bag? That was so cool to watch as it was being sewn. I wanted to be able to do that.

While in CA, I asked my mother and SIL all kinds of questions about their machines and the embroidery machine my mom owns. The conclusion was that I needed a better machine, especially after sewing on my mom's Pfaff that has even feed (IDT) technology built into the machine, no extra walking foot to attach. The new machine would be better, but probably not an embroidery machine at this point.

So, this weekend I went out to a Viking/Pfaff dealer, Sew Unique Sewing Center and did some research. I was looking at a few machines, none of which did embroidery, a Pfaff 2056 and a Viking Quilt Designer II. I ruled out the Viking pretty quickly and was disappointed about the Pfaff's lettering capabilities. Not embroidery enough for me.

But then, the saleswoman shows me a Pfaff 2124, the lower end embroidery machine and BAM! I found my sewing machine or so I thought. I left the store thinking what I could do with this machine and calling my parents for advice since they had gone through the search process with my mom not too long ago. We'll skip a long drive over to another Pfaff sewing machine dealer, which didn't have any of the machines I was looking at nor could the person answer my questions. But at the end of this drive, my parents ring me back. Ends up they were looking the machines up on Pfaff's website and couldn't recall which number I was looking at. They had mistakenly looked at the model above the one I was looking at, the Pfaff 2134. My mom oohs when she sees it has the ability to do endless hoop, which she wishes her machine could do -- great for quilt borders and whatnot.

Hmm, something to ponder. I call the first place and ask if they have that model in stock and on the floor so I can check it out. They did, so off I go across town again. I think if we traced my path this past Saturday, it would be a very zigzagged path with several craft shop stops along the way, including a yarn store to pick up a pattern for my mom (I have the Sirdar pattern mom!). Okay, so what did I finally end up buying? What I think is my dream machine, able to quilt, able to embroider, able to leap tall buildings? Ooops, wrong dream machine. I bought the Pfaff 2134 and here's a taste of its embroidery capabilities (any mistakes are my fault -- wrong thread).



I'm off for an owner's lesson tomorrow and to buy some things for it. More money is budgeted for my crafts than food I think at times!

I'm done for the night. Happy fibering!