Fireside Sock Knitting

By Leigh

Theresa recently cleaned out her library and I was the happy recipient of Knit Socks! 15 Cool Patterns For Toasty Feet by Betsy Lee McCarthy. I love wearing handknit socks, I love knitting them, and I love collecting sock pattern books.

Obviously I am happy to add this to my own library and of course I set about trying to decide which pattern to knit first. My initial idea was to use one of the patterns with these yarns ...

... from this post, I'm A Sucker For Sock Yarn.

I found a pattern I liked and knitted a swatch. Unfortunately my gauge was too large but I don't have any sock needles smaller than US2's. Well, I do, but they are bamboo which I've broken because, well, I'm not sure why except that I knit with a lot of tension in my hands as well as my gauge! Ordinarily I would just recalculate the pattern but I don't feel like going through the mental gymnastics for that at this point. I decided to save that pattern and those yarns until I can get some double pointed 1's. Instead, I looked for a pattern with the gauge I'd knitted and this is the one I ended up with....

Fortunately this pattern was also on my "must knit" list. The stitch pattern was easy to memorize and it is very pleasant and relaxing to knit by the fire at the end of the day.

If feels good to be knitting again.

Posted 29 November 2009 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

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My $6.93 Shuttle

By Leigh

I was browsing a thrift shop this morning and found this...

Of course I bought it! (Click pic for a little bigger). It cost me a total of $6.93 including tax and is in excellent shape. I know absolutely zilch about end-feed shuttles, so I need your help! Did I just buy a pretty ornament for my studio? Or can I actually weave with it? It has no identifying markings, but stamped on the bottom are these: SH (or 5H) 852 on one side, and M 3394-37 on the other. It's 16.5 inches long. I'm assuming it's an industrial shuttle (???)

Help?

© 23 November 2009 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

Shams And Rags

By Leigh

I finished my quilted pillow shams!

They aren't perfect, but I think they look well enough with the comforter.

I've also been cutting rag strips for the matching rag rug.

If you recall, this is going to be a summer & winter polychrome rag rug. This means that I will use a S & W threading, but will throw two different colored pattern shots between tabby shots. The whole thing is straightforward enough that I don't need to make a full drawdown for it. The threading will be a 2-block (4-shaft) summer and winter.

My sett will be 16 epi, and I want the squares to be the same size as those in the shams, 4 inches. That means each square will have 64 ends. With a threading unit of 4 ends, each block will be 16 units. I haven't calculated the width yet, probably four feet, for which I would need about 12 blocks and 768 ends. Length needs to be about 6 feet, which will probably require miles of rags!

Treadling will alternate two colors per block, following the same sequence as my pillow shams:

Pattern shot - blue
Pattern shot - green
Tabby a
Pattern shot - blue
Pattern shot - green
Tabby b
Repeat for four inches

Pattern shot - green
Pattern shot - brown
Tabby a
Pattern shot - green
Pattern shot - brown
Tabby b
Repeat for four inches

Pattern shot - brown
Pattern shot - blue
Tabby a
Pattern shot - brown
Pattern shot - blue
Tabby b
Repeat for four inches

Repeat

Rag cutting is rather slow going, I admit, but I can't get to my loom anyway, until we get the dining room floor down (which is next on the indoor project list). I started out measuring the width of the rags, but quickly abandoned that in preference to the eyeball method. It's faster and it will be close enough!

To be continued ........ one of these days.

© 12 November 2009 at http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com

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Summer & Winter: Polychrome Rug 1
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