Studio renovation -- a work-in-progress

Of the many things that occurred in 2009, none makes me more pleased than getting the green light from my husband (he's such an enabler!!) to design my own little space. Some call it a "craft room" while others say "the loom room" or even "the studio." I'm not fussy what it's called--I'm just happy to have my own little niche in the house.

However, getting this room to its current, albeit unfinished, state was no small task! We had used it as a storage room of unloved items, i.e. junk, most of which got donated, recycled or sold. Unfortunately, I had neglected to take a REAL before picture, but you still get the idea of how dark and unwelcoming this room was.

Note the dark, icky panelling, the drop ceiling with water stains, the green indoor/outdoor carpeting, and so forth. ((shudders)) This view is looking west...

Another view, but looking south.

A more distant shot looking west. Note the broken ceiling fan. I don't know how it really broke, but hubby just turned it on one day and one of the blades flew at me!! Then the others started coming off. Very scary!!

Our first attempt at priming the drop ceiling using KILZ primer, which was tinted to be somewhat closer to the ceiling color (which ended up not matching at all). The water stains were still visible after two coats, so we then switched to B-I-N primer and applied some to a stain that we could see. It covered it up quite nicely!! Note, most of the ceiling tiles in this picture have one coat of KILZ primer...the tile with the white spot (comes from the B-I-N primer after the KILZ primer had dried) and the one further behind have two coats.

One of the many water stains in the drop ceiling (which occurred AFTER the new gutters were installed!!). This one has been treated with one coat of B-I-N primer and made a dark brown stain white (this photo doesn't show this very well, but believe me, the stain is now WHITE!). After treating all the stained areas and allowing them to dry, we then primed the entire ceiling so that the paint would adhere evenly. Note: These primers are incredibly stinky! The room was well ventilated and we wore respirators to help protect us from the vapors--we still got headaches. We used a B-I-N primer that was shellac-based, and it worked so much better than the KILZ brand. We also used this product to prime the panelling prior to painting.

So here are some after shots of the studio....

This is the north-west corner of the room. My photos are certainly not the best, but perhaps you can tell that the ceiling is light blue in color and a flat paint, the walls a pale yellow (the color was called "Vanilla Milkshake" in a semi-gloss by Behr), and the trim a shiny black, which still needs another coat of paint. Although I love rich, jewel-tone colors, these colors remind me of the beach and is a nice change from the dark panelling.

Here is a shot of the ugly carpeting. Curious Mr. Kibbles was a friendly supervisor, but we jailed him while we painted and moved things around. We plan on replacing the carpeting with either bamboo or maple flooring in the spring.

This is the north wall with the AC unit, part of my stash, ironing board, and my Koala bear sewing center under the peach towel (lower right hand of the photo).

South wall with sewing, weaving and knitting notions.

This is my Schacht floor loom. It has 8 shafts, 10 treadles and a weaving width of ~ 45". As you can see, it's made out of cherry, has a high castle and a matching bench with saddlebags. I love this loom!!

One of my goals for the new year is to FINISH renovating this space. Paint touch-ups and new flooring will happen in the spring, but most importantly, I must ORGANIZE this space to become more efficient and to look beautiful. I've been brainstorming for ideas on how to organize my ever-growing stash, magazines, books and various supplies. Input in this area will be greatly appreciated!! I also need to come up with window coverings. No more mini-blinds for me, so I'll most likely make some curtains. So much to do, so little time to do it!

Until next time!!

What happened to 2009?

2009 has gone by so quickly--what did I do with most of my time? Naturally, there was knitting, but not much happened with the loom. How sad! On the good news, the storage room was converted into my craft room! This was no small feat! However, the remodeling process is not completely over. Another coat of paint on the trim and new flooring will have to wait until spring, but otherwise, it is a fully functional craft room/studio. Photos of the transformation process will be posted next time.

Let's play 325 pick-up!

Last week at my Wednesday night knitting class, a wonderful woman named Carol brought in her *finished* Cable Pairing sweater. It was lovely and looked all snuggly, but it made me feel guilty about DH's cable pairing cardigan, which had been stuffed, unceremoniously, in a Rubbermaid tote. Oh, Carol...why did you have to finish it? *sigh* So with guilty feelings in tow, out came the various pieces and I got to work.



Took me about a week to finish the right front panel and also add another two inches to the back. I had to frog a couple of times, but it wasn't too bad. See where the circular needle is at the right side of the left panel? That is the start of picking-up 325 stitches to make the banding for the cardigan. *Lord, help me!* Why did DH pick the cardigan instead of the pullover? *sigh*



Actually, the banding should start at the very bottom with the ribbing, but that was done with a smaller needle & I was too lazy to go look for it. Best to pick up while I can and I can always add those ribbing stitches later. How long does it take to pick-up 325 stitches? No idea! What you see is I've accomplished in that matter. I hope to finish the pick-up and possibly the banding over the weekend. We'll see!

I am getting a bit ahead of myself for I didn't tell you about the 3-needle bind off. Elinor taught me how to do this Wednesday and it was super easy!! I used it to join the shoulders of the front panels to the back.

Here's the right side of the work:



And the wrong side:



To do the bind off, all the stitches must be "live" ones, i.e. still on the needles. With right sides together, you line up the two sets of needles, making sure the ends are pointing in the same direction. Then with a third needle, you go into the first stitch as if to knit and then into the first stitch on the second needle, as if to knit. Pull them both off the needles and finish the knit stitch. Basically, you're knitting the two stitches together. Pictures would help, I know, but I didn't have it with me in class. I'm sure there's a video on YouTube that can show this better than my written description, but I just had to write about it. I *love* the 3-needle bind-off! :)

So cable work is not the only thing I've been working on, thank goodness! I've also have been busy with my first sock: Knitting Pure & Simple "beginners lightweight socks #216"



I would actually be farther along but I had to frog a couple of times. However, there is some good news with this frogging...seriously! I *finally* learned how to "unknit" or "reverse knit"--actually, I'm not certain what people usually call this.

When I make a mistake in my knitting, my usual course of action is to remove the needle from my knitting, pull the yarn, and then carefully stick the needle back into the loops. I did that for this project, but I had problems...since the needles are a size 2, the loops were far too small for me to effectively pick them up. I kept losing stitches and my knitting kept getting shorter and shorter.

I decided to pick-up all the stitches, regardless of what row they were on. As long as I had all 64 stitches on my needles at the end, I was happy. What to do, what to do? Looking at my work, I had stitches on my needles from at least 4 different rows. Pathetic! I didn't dare pull out a needle for fear of losing even more stitches.

At the first stitch, I saw the loop from the previous row was a bit loose. I stuck my needle in there and put that stitch to a new needle and pulled the yarn to get rid of my original stitch. It worked! I tried it with the next stitch. Success! I worked in this manner until all the stitches were correct and I could start knitting again!

Since I had new-found confidence in using double-pointed needles, I thought I would try to make Lijuan Jing's Swirl Shawl using the recommended yarn from Jojoland called Harmony.

I have nothing nice to say about this yarn, but maybe it's the pattern, or both!



The yarn looks pretty as a ball, but knitting with it--the darn stitches kept coming loose to the point where it was just ridiculous! Since there was no love here, it was time to let go.

I exchanged the unused Harmony for something better...four balls of Jo Sharp's Silkroad Aran Tweed in a colorway called "potpourri." DH wants a "man scarf" and this is the color he picked. I think it'll make a fine-looking "man scarf." :)



No idea what I'll do with the Harmony ball I couldn't trade-in. Guess it'll just sit in a tote for awhile, unused and *very* unloved, until I figure something out.

Sorry for the long post today. Lesson learned...don't neglect to post to your blog for longer than a week or so! Ah!

Forced color study via the Chevron scarf

Nothing ruins the joy of knitting a gift faster than being disappointed with the results. Case in point with the Chevron scarf I'm making for Jenny, who admired my first chevron scarf made with Blue Moon Fiber Arts wool in Farmhouse and Watermelon Tourmaline.

Like me, she liked the ways the bright colors changed from one shade to another. I offered to make her a scarf in the colorway of her choice.

























She chose Count Cluckula and Quiet Riot, which ended up looking like this...

What happened?

Each skein on its own look great, but together, there was no magic. It had to go!

Edited to add: Yes, I kept knitting this for several inches because, surely, it could not be *this* ugly...it *was* going to get better, right? Unfortunately, no.















Frogging action...what a mess!
And here I'm left with four rows of reverse stockinette in Count Cluckula.














Thankfully, I had a couple of skeins of a different colorway called Rolling Stone to try out a new blend with these other colors.













From left to right: Count Cluckula, Rolling Stone, and Quiet Riot.











Here is the combo of Rolling Stone and Quiet Riot.














And here is the combo of Rolling Stone and Count Cluckula


Now both samples are better than the original pairing, but not good enough. No magical interplay between the colors and something is...just...not...right.



This calls for another order to Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I'm thinking a combo of Rolling Stone and Watermelon Tourmaline is worth a try. Maybe even Quiet Riot or Count Cluckula with one of the black Raven colors such as Pallas Athena or Tlingit. I only wish that the cost of each skein wasn't so high. It certainly puts a strain on the ol' budget. Oh, well!



On the good news side, knitting is going well on my first pair of socks! The pattern is a cuff down design and I have about three inches of the leg done. I've only shown the cuff here.

I've added a dime to show how small these size 2 needles are to my non-knitting friends. The colors are great and I love how soft the yarn is! I'm worried about turning the heel, so we'll see how that goes. Wish me luck!

Have you thanked an artisan today?

I love showing my support to local artisans in my hometown of Lawrence, KS, but sometimes one has to acquire items from afar. This doesn't mean shopping at the nearest box supercenter, but rather, to go on-line to the wonderful artisans that sell their goods through Etsy.

Case in point, I needed wanted desired some spiffy stitch markers since my plain ones were...well, just plain! I knew my LYS didn't have any since I was just there last Wednesday. What to do? Well, gotta check out Ravelry, of course!

I wanted to support an artisan that was active on Ravelry as well as provided a quality product. I found such a person by the name of Rhonda at FiberJewels on Etsy. I placed my order Friday, June 20th and received my order on Monday, June 23rd! I was thrilled at receiving my stitch markers so quickly as well as the quality in Rhonda's product. I'll definitely shop there again and highly recommend her store.

Here are my spiffy stitch markers:

Item # 1 is a set of stitch markers and letter stitch markers that work up to a size 8 needle. They even came with a cute metal tin. These will be PERFECT for knitting any design in Cat Bordhi's book, "New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One."


Item #2 is a knitting row counter and came with clear instructions on how to use it. I'm hoping this will help me with a certain cable sweater...

Here are items # 1 - 3. Item three are extra small stitch markers and came with two little bee markers. Very cute! Do check out FiberJewels for other items and better pictures. Rhonda even does custom work!

Other things going on...I finally finished "My so-called scarf." I haven't decided if I'm going to block it, but the knitting is finished and I'm happy with the results.



I have yet to measure the width and length of this scarf, but it is wider than the original pattern. Although I absolutely LOVE the colors of this scarf using Manos del Urugauy merino wool in the "wildflowers" colorway, this wool was a bit rough on my hands. I will, however, purchase yarn again from Jimmy Beans Wool, I would just think twice about Manos. Perhaps a good soak in some Eucalan is in order? If so, then blocking is in my future.

Work has begun on a new Chevron scarf from Joelle Hoverson's "Last-Minute Knitted Gifts." I do have an issue with this scarf in that it is NOT a last-minute project as promised by Hoverson's book! I am certainly not the only one with this opinion. It is, however, fun to knit, but just takes a lot longer than one would think. This scarf will be a gift to my step-daughter, Jenny, and she picked out the colorways, too: "Count Cluckula" and "Quiet Riot" from Blue Moon Fiber Arts

It always amazes me in how the colors change from skein to wound ball to knitted project, so here are some progression pictures:

Updates to Arabian Nights shawl, Cable-pairing sweater

Beads...I love them! Monofilament thread...the bane of my project! After threading 5000 beads, you would think that the worst of my problems with this project would be over. Oh, no! One has to make room for knitting with this project, so gathering new yarn from the ball and sliding the beads over every now and then is in order. This is not a big deal with the exception of the monofilament thread! Ugh! The issue & huge headache maker was tangling...and lots of it!

I could only slide so many beads over at a time, about five to six inches worth, to prevent the wool from forming a little knot, but nothing I did could prevent the blasted monofilament thread from tangling and getting caught & wound up with other beads. The solution? Cut the blasted thread out!

Now the fun begins....

After a couple of rows of knitting without beads, row 3 introduces the beads as little loops to the project. It was pretty simple and no tangles so far!




Here's a close-up of the bead loops.



And another close-up so that I can try to be fancy with my camera. Nope, didn't work, but I had to try!



I don't know how many beads Row 3 has, but each loop has 20 beads, so feel free to count the loops and let me know. :)



I like the light colored beads with the dark yarn. It really pops out at you, well, it does me.



Now with all this bead work going on, you would think that I would just continue knitting away. Well, I'm afraid my age is catching up with me. I had to purchase a new floor lamp just to do this project. I bought one of those Ott lamps from Office Depot, which is supposed to mimic the sunlight. I can't really say that it does or not, but it does provide a lot more light than my beloved reading lamp.

With the darkness of this delicate, laceweight yarn, I found it difficult to knit without the added light. Add beads on top of that, plus a pesky & curious cat, and that just adds up to disaster!

Now I WILL have to change the original pattern a bit. Evidently there was a yardage mistake in the kits for MD/AN and you can read more about it over at Sunflower Designs. I'm pretty sure I have 1900 yards of Kim's wool because there was a handy little "business card" describing the wool and how much there was. Unless the card is wrong, and I have no reason to believe that it is, I only have to shorten my shawl a little bit. It should still block out to 83" long, which is still quite generous!

Work continues on "My so-called scarf," and I hope to finish it by tomorrow or the day after. After knitting with the laceweight yarn, I'm thankful for the bulky yarn of this scarf and how mindless the knitting is. I'll post new pictures when it's complete. I promise!

Since the scarf project is nearing an end, what to do next? Well...I'm feeling pretty embarrassed about my lackadaisical attitude toward Cathy Zimmerman's Cable Pairing sweater/cardigan that I started last fall and abandoned in December. I guess hubby will have to get his gift THIS Christmas. :) We'll see! It may be Christmas 2009 at this rate!



Here's what I've got so far: back, a left front panel, a partial right panel, and a partial start of a sleeve. Pathetic, I know. I did, however, start work on the right panel last night with the help of my Wednesday night knitting leader, Elinor. Thankfully, she was able to figure out which row, out of the 24 pattern repeat, I was on.

Now I know myself pretty well, at least I think I do, and I'm sure that the 24 pattern repeat will bug me after awhile. Because of this, I also decided to start the search for a new project tonight! What?!? YES! And yarn to go with it! ha ha!

My new project will be my first knitted pair of socks. I'm excited! :)

The Beginner's Lightweight Socks # 216 pattern is by Diane Soucy from Knitting Pure & Simple. The yarn I selected was Claudia's hand painted yarns in the Purple Earth color way and is 100% merino wool (175 yards/50grams). The colors are fantastic and I can't wait to see how they look knitted!



















Now don't get overly excited about seeing new pics of this project any time soon. I don't plan on starting this until next Wednesday. It is my first pair of socks and I'll need all the help and encouragement I can get from my knitting class to give me the confidence that I can knit these socks well. I'm just thankful that I'm only using size 2 needles and not those über small ones of size zero! I don't think my eyes would forgive me!

Arabian Nights

I had hoped to start on this project months ago, but life has a way of changing plans in unexpected ways. However, last night I was able to start on the beading process for the Arabian Nights stole.

Here's the scoop for this lovely stole:

The pattern comes from Susan Pandorf of Sunflower Designs;
A talented fiber artist named Kim Kaslow of The Woolen Rabbit made the beautiful yarn;
Beads, 5000 of them!!! from Foxden Designs;
Beadspinner from beadspinner.net.

Here are some shots of the lovely merino wool. The photos do NOT do them justice!



Here are 5000 strung beads on the yarn. I carried a strand of monofilament thread with the yarn for extra strength...just in case. Did I mention it has 5000 beads?



Now I shouldn't bellyache too much about the 5000 beads. Granted, I was nervous about the process as I had never done it before. However, the bead spinner was awesome! I just dumped in a couple of tubes worth of seed beads into the spinner and used one of their needles to string the beads.

These needles have a large eye at one end, so I threaded my yarn and monofilament though it and then flattened the eye with a pair of pliers. I did not knot the end because I was afraid that the beads would have a hard time going through that.




With threaded needle in hand, I dipped it into the bowl of the spinner and spun it. With little fiddling, I found the best position for the beads to "grow" onto the needle. It was fun to watch. I tried both having the needle straight and also bending it into a somewhat "J" shape. For me, the J shape wins because I was able to hold the needle at the far end where the flattened eye was and the beads filled the entire needle.

Then I would push the beads off the needle and onto the yarn/monofilament combo. After awhile, I would have to pull more yarn from the ball as well as monofilament from the spool to make room for more beads. The process was pretty easy and relaxing as I watched movies while beading.



I was also tempted to start another new project over the weekend, as if the Arabian Nights stole wouldn't keep me busy enough as is. However, a package from Yarnzilla
arrived Saturday with two skeins of Malabrigo wool in the colorway "Frank Ochre." Talk about fast delivery...3 days!

Who can resist the softness of such wool? It is heavenly! Here's Mr. Kibbles with his inspection. My plan is to use this wool goodness for the "Shifting Sands" scarf pattern. One can never have too many project lined up!