Saturday, July 3, 2010

wheels


wheels
Originally uploaded by spindledreams
Today I brought home my very first Antique wheel. I have a feeling my beautiful Grace will not the last one I buy. Grace is a Great Wheel or Walking Wheel. She is actually a fairly big one with a 46 inch wheel. As you can see in this photo just the wheel dwarfs my big 30 inch Jensen Ashley. I can't wait to get a side by side photo of them both in working order.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Cast On Mania!

Ravelympics are behind us and now comes some total craziness. This month in the Village is Cast on Mania. We will try to cast on at least one project every single day of the month. Believe it or not it is harder then it sounds.

Smile I worked really hard for the Ravelympics and even earned some medals :) I am thrilled since during the last Ravelympics I did not manage to finish a single thing.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Wedding Shawl


Papay detail 1
Originally uploaded by spindledreams
Well as always I seem to have made a few changes to the pattern picked for the Wedding shawl for Sami. I was having problems with the Sampler Stole and when I saw the beautiful Papay shawl by Liz Lovick I fell in love.

I have finished the first set of patterns and started the second set. This shawl is supposed to be very large and judging from what I have done it will be a nice big beautiful shawl.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Karma

About 3 years ago when my best friend found the light of her life I promised her a shawl to wear at her wedding. Knowing she is allergic to almost all animal fibers I immediately went searching for the perfect yarn. We discovered she could wear silk :) so off I went to ColourMart UK and I found this wonderful pale silver silk in a fine yarn that would be perfect for the elegant Shetland lace shawl I had in mind.

Life intervened, the silk got misplaced and when I went to order more it was a heavier yarn. One problem after another caused the lovely Unst Shawl to be sidelined and we used another pattern that she also loved. With the help of other friends this pattern was done and blocked in time for her to wear it at her wedding. :)

Fast forward to now. I find both skeins of the fine pale silver grey silk and discover a new friend loves this silk and its color. Then during a talk about trading her the silk she mentions she wants to learn to knit lace and make a shawl for her wedding from it. Smile you can guess what I said. YES! The fine pale silver is fulfilling it destiny of becoming a Shetland lace shawl. If all goes as planned Sami will walk down the aisle wearing a hand knit silk Sampler Stole designed by Hazel Carter and published in the book A Gathering of Lace. Smile this link leads to one that Eunny Jang knit and as you can see it is beautiful.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Mojo


Mojo
Originally uploaded by spindledreams
Mo recently gave us a real scare. He would yelp and start to turn to the right, was unresponsive to us until touched. At 13 years old we know that every day is now really borrowed time but the thought of losing him is still very hard to bear.

When my friend Margaret brought him to us as a present he would fit in my hands with his skin dripping through my fingers. I can still remember vividly how he look like a little puddle of shadow when he slept in a corner. He chose my husband as his person and no matter how bad he felt being with Toli was the thing that mattered most.

We have almost lost him before. When he swallowed a wasp and had an allergic reaction to at sting in his throat, when he wondered out a gate left carelessly open by a meter reader, and when he was first diagnosed with FSF, but those were nothing like our feelings this time. Probably because we are now acutely aware of how precious each day with him is.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Celebrations and Challenges


ready for the challange 2
Originally uploaded by spindledreams
Today is the hardest day for the Tour de France riders. They have two tall mountains to climb but it is also a sort of hump day that signals the end of the tour is nearing. After today there are only four more days of riding.

In the Tour de Fleece we are supposed to challenge our selves today. My increased effort will be attempting to spin cotton my my tahkli. I of course had to make it a real challenge by picking the shortest staple cotton in my stash. The fiber Peruvian colored cotton in the Mauve color.

Here in Cheyenne today is Cheyenne Day. The fun starts with the free pancake breakfast downtown. In the past he base has had an open house in many of its historic buildings, the Guard base will have an open house and a static display of all kinds of aircraft will be there for viewing. In the afternoon the Thunderbirds will put on an aerial show. And of course it all ends with a big concert and rodeo at Frontier Days. This year it will be Rodney Atkins performing. Yep this is a big annual event centered around the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo which is still going stronger then ever after more then 110 years. If you are into western this is the place to be the last full week of July. Grin I call it a Cowboy Carnival as for almost two full weeks everyone is a cowboy or cowgirl. ;-)

Saturday, July 18, 2009

have you ever heard of a tahkli?


tahkli
Originally uploaded by spindledreams
It is a small fast supported spindle used to spin cotton and other short stapled fibers. I have a large one that I have never been able to make work right. Then I saw these coin tahkli on sale. The are made and sold by Spinnerdude on Etsy and figured I could afford another spindle I can't spin. Then I found the funds for his kit and figured what the heck lets make it 2 cheap spindles you can't spin, 4 oz camel down and a DVD that might help. (Yeah right dorothy who are you kidding you really just wanted the camel down ;-))
Grin surprise I can spin his little coin Tahkli and even bigger surprise I am having a blast with them. But man I did not realize how much 4 oz of camel down was! Oh that DVD it is not as bad as he makes it out to be and yes it did help.