While Mom is Away, the Dog Shall Play…

My mom has been neglecting me. She’s been way toooo busy making fibery things and stressing about the in-law visit and having to take something for a pot luck Christmas dinner when we’ll be staying in a hotel for two nights. I’m kind of mad at her for not paying me the attention I deserve, so I broke into her shopping cart system and marked all those tags and wrappers for your hand knits and hand spun or hand dyed yarns she slaved over a couple of weeks ago down by 50%!

I figure in a week I’ll be over it and a lot of her fibery things she is making have to be completed by then to either be mailed to the owners of my friend, Gaston, in Minnesota or so the in-laws don’t see what she is making. So, things will only be marked down through next Monday. And, hopefully I’ll be able to report that she’s too busy to blog because she’s thowing all of my favorite toys for me to fetch!

So, go check out the damage I did!

Pictures, Pictures, Presents, and Presentation

I’m a firm believer in the addage that it’s the thought that counts, only I take that a step further and believe that the presentation of a gift plays a large role in the perception of that gift by the recipient as well. I love to package things uniquely, but I also like to present the items in their package in an attractive and professional looking manner. I feel by so doing that the items I put so much time and effort into such as knitting a pair of socks, spinning a skein of yarn, or hand dyeing yarn or fiber will recieve that much more respect and appreciation from the gift recipient. Plus, it gives you a place to give them important information such as fiber content and care instructions! This is the reason that all of my sock patterns come with a free sock wrapper.

Knitting, spinning, and dyeing are top items on my list of enjoyed activites. However, I cannot restrict myself to only those activities all the time - of course. I also enjoy photography, digital photo editing, and design. So, it was only natural to combine all of these into one project.

Yesterday marked the release of a variety of tags and wrappers for anything from hand knit socks, shawls, sweaters, scarves, mittens and gloves, to hand spun or hand dyed yarn. All the current offerings feature my own photography, in some cases altered some and in other cases altered drastically. The tags are great for larger items and once printed can be punched and strung with coordiating yarn or pretty ribbons and attached in a variety of ways. The wrappers are great for those small projects like socks, mittens, gloves, or even the skinny scarves that are popular. The designs can all be customized with your name or a logo if you wish, or you can order one-of-a-kind labels for you or your business!

I have got more designs in the works that will be added early next week. Mostly they include more tags and wrappers for hand spun yarn and more of the mandala-based round tags.

Organizational Orgy!

DH worked all weekend. Not full days, but he had to drive all the way to the south end of Loveland and back everyday and that left me with some time to myself each day.

Late last week my wheel started clicking some so I stopped spinning on Thursday afternoon and tried to find the proper screwdriver bit at my local hardware store but didn’t have any luck. So, Saturday morning I did a hardware store hop working my way farther and farther from home until I found it (at Target rather than a hardware store - go figure). While doing this I also made some purchases to aid my organization of my fibers and other related spinning accoutrements as well as a few things I was missing to make my own tensioned lazy kate.

The best purchase I think was that of a lined willow laundry basket…

This basket holds a good bit of fiber, my niddy noddys, the documentation for my wheel (at least for now), the oil for the hinges etc., the storage rods (I’m awaiting a replacement base as the one right now was damaged in the shipping), my extra bobbins (1 have 5 so far, as they sent an extra one for being slow on sending my documentation and extra parts) etc. This is not holding all of my fiber (though there isn’t a ton that isn’t in the basket at the moment and I could probably squeeze it al in). But, it keeps the important things at hand, as it sits on the platform for the rear futon of our studio seating in the A/V room in the basement. I sit at that end of the futon to spin, so it’s all right there.

Oh, and Amanda has mentioned coming across a tip somewhere to keep a binder clip handy to cip your fiber to the orfice on the Majacraft wheels. I had been doing that, but finding the surface area on those clips to be a bit small for actually making a good grasp of the fiber. So, I picked up some mini clamps from the hardware section of target. That is what is clipped on the edge of the basket.

Here is one clip in use…

It’s there on the far left of the photo, slightly cut off. What’s on the bobbin is more Bountiful EPWM grab bag fiber. This time though, I’m going through three orange/gold groupings and blending them into each other slightly and I think I’ll be trying my hand at Navajo plying on it. If you have any favorite references in books or at websties for Navajo plying, please send them my way!

Lastly, but certainly not least, the new Knitty is up! I personally like a couple of the men’s patterns, but I’m thinking DH won’t like them. But, I might have to make Caryn’s Baseball for my dad at some point as I know he would wear it and it would be fun with the cables down the arms but not too demanding. I’m going to have to make one or two Satchels too I think. That one DH might appreciate and I know I would as I can’t seem to ever have too many bags

Pity Party is Over!

Okay, so not really, but I’m going to try to pretend that I do not have terrible, awful cabin fever and an itch to get the heck out of dodge. But, alas, I have 18 days, well really 19 days until I leave for my two weeks in Minnesota where it will also be hot but also humid, but I will have my own window AC unit and a bed to myself so I’ll get the best 2 weeks of sleep since last June when I was last there…

It’s time for pictures, isn’t it?

On the right is my third hank, which was previously picture on the bobbin earlier in the week. I finally took it off and set the twist. It still is slightly over twisted, but not as much as the previous two. This hank is 45 yds and 1.3 oz of fiber which once again is a wool blend with angelina from the Bountiful grab bag of multiple colors.

On the left is the medium grade wool blend. It is a 3 oz hank and 82 yds of 2-ply. It’s probably a heavy worsted on average. The yardage isn’t enough for a decent branching out so I’m open to project suggestions for it if anyone has some ideas…

This is my homemade $3 PVC Niddy Noddy in it’s 1.5 yd configuration. There are directions for making them in several spots on the net - try here or here.

Some notes:

• Some directions did not take into account the extra length caused by the T-connectors and wrapping around the 1/2 inch arms when saying what length center piece to cut.
• For a 1 m niddy noddy , I needed a 6 inch center piece.
• For a 1.5 m niddy noddy, I needed a 10.5 inch center piece.
• For a 2 m niddy noddy, I needed a 15 inch center piece.
• To some it up with an equation (sorry, being a meteorologist for so long has me liking concreate numerical formulas for things) - C/4 - 3 inches = L, where C is the final circumference of the hank you want to make and L is the length of the center portion of the niddy noddy. This equation is for 1/2 inch PVC pipe only and may vary slightly depending upon how tightly you seat the Ts onto the center sections.
• One of the best ways to remove the ugly printing on the pipe so you have a nice looking niddy noddy is to sand it off. They make a PVC pipe clearner, but it is expensive and smelly and quite likely somewhat caustic. Sand first with a medium fine sand paper and finish with some fine steel wool for a nice satin smooth finish.
• If you have a commercial clothing steamer and plan to use it on your yarn to set the twist, pre drill a 3/16 inch hole in the top of one of the T connectors and screw in a 7/8 inch cup hook into the top. Then you can hang the niddy noddy from your steamer’s mast and steam the yarn without burning yourself. Or, if you wet set wool on it you can hang it from a shower curtain hook in the bathroom etc.
• The caps make the niddy noddy look really nice, but are just thick enough to get in the way of removing the yarn. If you have the means to make a nice smooth and very straight cut, do so and look for plugs that go inside of the pipe instead of the caps that go on the oustide. In my case, we just cut with a hack saw and didn’t get the most straight of cups so the caps are the best option and I am able to easily remove one to make removing the yarn easier.

So, there you have it! Tomorrow I’ll announce the new contest…

Great Sock Packaging…

I thought I’d share this fun little tip to all those sock knitters out there… At the larger home improvement warehouses you can buy unused paint cans in the small and standard sizes. Well, a pair of men’s socks fit perfectly into the smaller paint cans. So, in the photo above is the pair of pine socks I knit for Christmas for my Dad. It’s a great way to dress up a gift that isn’t always met with lots of excitement. Plus, the paper will hold up for at least a couple seasons of gifting as well and the can will still be good and can be covered again and again!