A Little of This and A Little of That, 1 of 2

Wow! Where has the time gone. I've been busy at work, and then the expected change in my work schedule occurred, starting this week, which has thrown me off schedule here at home. As the title indicates, I've been busy with a number of things since my last post. Unfortunately, tatting hasn't been one of them. I did pull out my tie, and tatted a few more four ring squares. It hasn't changed enough yet for me to post a new photo. Don't worry, I will be tatting again soon. I am planning on going to my parents house early next week. I have to work Easter weekend  (so does my dad) so this is the best we can do. Tatting will probably be the only thing I can easily take with me and work on. A few of you have asked about how my spinning is coming along. Well, let me show you.

I received the new spindle on Tuesday. Of course, I had to start playing with it that evening (new toy and all). One problem though, I couldn't remember how. The spindle I bought is also a top whorl, and the one I made was a bottom whorl. Relearning how to spindle spin wasn't very difficult to do. As is turns out, I have an invaluable resource now that I didn't have years ago when I first learned spinning. YouTube. A few videos later, here was the result:

Not too bad. Could be better, but I'm not complaining. I made several small balls of yarn yesterday afternoon. I plied them in the evening. Here is the result of that experiment:

And a better look here:

Again, not too bad. It is uneven, and thicker than I'd like, but I'll get better. I've been wishing after I started spinning that I had purchased some undyed roving to practice with. Unlike some of you, I hate practicing with the pretty stuff (thread, yarn, roving). I've also decided that I'll have to find a project or two to use the yarn. No point making the yarn if I won't use it. In case you're wondering the skein of yarn above contains about 25 feet of two ply yarn, equivalent to a bulky weight or so. I have two skeins of approximately the same size, plus enough roving left for another single strand of yarn.

As it turns out the spindle I bought is pretty small. So I either have to make lots of short lengths of yarn, get my yarn thinner, or buy/make a larger spindle. Browsing though Etsy, I noticed a lot of the wooden spindles, not all but a fair number, were simply wooden toy wheels attached to a dowel with a hook on one end. I figured that since I'd be in the area today that I could pick up what I needed from Michaels. Unfortunately, they didn't have any wooden toy wheels larger than one inch in diameter. I needed a 3-4 four inch wide wheel. Oh well, I'll keep it in mind and keep using the one I have. Probably a good idea to practice with the smaller one anyway. As always, I'll keep you guys updated.

That's about it for now. I've been working on my chainmaille shirt, and have the front section about three quarters done. I'm going to start on the back section probably tomorrow. I did some other chainmaille as well, but I'll post about it in a couple days. Till next time.

Windmills Doily and some Wool Roving

I finally got the Windmills done. Well, done for now. I'm still deciding if I will make it into an oval shape yet. Anyway, since I only had two motifs left to finish after the last post, I figured I'd have it done sooner. However, I didn't feel like working on it until Sunday. I ended up making some cheese on Sunday. I bought some proper cheese cultures, a new mold, and some cheese colouring (which I forgot to add!) and decided that Sunday was cheese making day. Though some tatting was done too.

I'm sure you probably want to see the doily by now. So without any further ado, here it is:

For anyone who recently came across my blog (and for others who may have forgot) here are a few stats about the doily. I am using Mary Konior's Windmills motif from her book Tatting With Visual Patterns, an awesome book, and one that is readily available from many online tatting stores (don't go to Amazon or eBay, and others for the book unless you want an out of print hardcover version). I am using DMC Cordonnet thread in size 20 in white. Right now the doily measures 15 inches (38.1 cm) when measured across the diagonal. This is the largest tatted piece I have made to date. I am also ashamed to admit that I have become rather attached to the doily. I had wanted to give it to my mom as a gift of some kind when it is done, but now I don't want to part with it. Is that bad? I think I will have to make another doily for my mom. Same pattern (I love this pattern!) but using the size 10 DMC Cebelia I have. We'll see. The new one could be for me.

About a week and a half ago, I felt compelled to buy some wool roving from Etsy seller slimchicken. Here it is:

This one is called "Jewel Colonial".

And this one is called "Northern Lights Colonial". Probably 6-7 years ago, I gave spindle spinning a try with less than stellar results. Well, I guess it depends on your point of view; the resulting yarn was uneven and lumpy. I know you can buy novelty yarns that look like that, but it wasn't what I wanted. I'm not sure where my spindle is anymore. I made it at my parent's house since my dad has the woodworking tools to cut out the wooden disks. I ordered another one from a different Etsy seller. It was pretty inexpensive, and much prettier than the one I made. I'll provide updates once I find the time to do some spinning.

That's about it for now. I'm probably going to go ahead and order the rings required to make a chainmaille shirt next week. I've been looking through instructions for the past few days, and feel confident that I can make this. I'll provide updates for this project as well. Unless I change my mind. But that probably won't happen. Till next time.