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Wednesday April 4, 2007
Gyring and gimbling
George came home from work with a fantastic gift for me. He had dropped in on his parents, and his Father has made me a Niddy Noddy. Isn't it great?
I am simply delighted, but now I really must spin something!
Today was a really fun day - the Niddy Noddy making it perfick, of course. I went on an urgent trip to John Lewis to try and find a remnant of curtain fabric for the French cottage dormer window - it is being replaced and having repainted the bedroom walls, I thought I would try and make a better job of the curtains. In the end I came away with a remnant to cover my kitchen chairs and a lot of wool (!). No curtain fabric, though.
The first yarn is Rowan 4ply cotton to make a Kaffe Fassett design for me from the latest Rowan book. It is called "Marble" and I am so smitten with it I am even prepared to knit 4ply double (which I hate) - it is an essential part of the design to do so as it provides the lovely effect of the marbles used in the children's game. The second lot of yarn is Rowan Summer Tweed to make "Tobias", which I hope will be ready for George's birthday on October; I am not planning to start to right away, as I was not able to get one of the colours - and I have Furrow to complete first!
I completed Fliss's dishcloths ready for the New Kitchen, which is due for completion in May. The yarn is again courtesy of Alison in the US, and her Mother, who ferried it over the Atlantic for me. The dishcloth patterns are from the left "Mason and Dixon Ann", "Little Houses", and "Alex" (available on-line at Knitting Pattern Central).
Finally, I have been fiddling around with a little project, which might
be considered to be more than somewhat eccentric, but amused me nonetheless.
I bought an "odd job lot" of knitting needles on eBay [George:
"Good grief, don't you have enough?!"] - but when the seller
said "odd" I failed to realise that she meant every single one
of them was odd - that is, not a pair. One of them actually matches a
really old Aero one already in my possession (which is weirdly fortunate),
but the others don't. Some I just put in the needle case as I find extra
needles are often useful for projects; others are sitting around while
I decide their fates.
Two of them are old Milward's needles, UK size 5s, with matching ends,
but of different lengths. They are plastic. I thought about it for a while,
and decided I would make them the same length. I have had Milward needles
spontaneously lose their ends, so I carefully twiddled the end of the
longer one until it turned freely, and carefully prized it off. I then
took care to see how much extra I should leave to set into the needle
end, and sawed it off to match the other needle. It is my plan to secure
the end back on with glue, but it does "pop" back on pretty
securely even without glue.
Success!
I have a pair of needles...
...to go with the other million or so in my possession...! In my defence,
I mostly have very long needles, because as a student when I bought them,
I always went for longer ones in that they would be long enough for any
project, and I could not afford one in every length.
Brillig.
Posted by Christina at 8:37 PM. Category: Spinning, Dying, Weaving
Comments
I'm impressed - I'm sure no one in my family would have any idea what a Niddy Noddy was - even if shown one. Dishcloths look nice, hope they are appreciated.
Posted by: Alison on April 14, 2007 4:51 PM
