Twists and Turns

Long after the finish I am finally writing about my "Twists and Turns" shawl by Stephen West. It was a mystery knit-a-long, and there was considerable pressure during the knitting to not give out any "spoilers" to those still knitting.

The knitting of this shawl took all of October -- and I do mean ALL. Clues came out once a week for 4 weeks. I knit for at least a couple of hours every single day for an entire month, but managed to keep up.

I LOVE it!

Well --- at least from an artistic point of view I love it. I love the colours and the very eye catching contrasts of it. I love that it is knit entirely in yarn that I spun myself. I loved knitting it, and the challenge of making a few changes to the pattern. I even love how it looks when worn.

What I don't love about it has nothing to do with the pattern itself or my knitting of it.

 

What don't I love?

Well, it turns out that as much as I do love the challenge of knitting shawls, and even the finished shawls, I just am not much of a shawl wearer.

I like my clothing to be fuss free, and I find a shawl to be the exact opposite. 

It seems that no matter how I drape a shawl I am constantly fussing and fiddling with it. If I get it "just right" it doesn't stay there long. 

It's exasperating! Fuss, fuss, fuss ---

fiddle, fiddle, fuss 'n' struggle.

I think I'll admire shawls from a distance now and stick to something more wearable. A cowl that looks like a shawl perhaps? Far more wearable!

Rolled Tight In Boro

I was given a nice set of ergonomic crochet hooks for Christmas, but they needed a safe home so I set about making a custom roll to store them in.

 

I wove the Inkle band tie that holds the roll closed quite some time ago. It's nice that it finally has a use. 

The inner part of the roll has numerous slots that are custom sized to hold the varying handle widths on my crochet hook collection. Each slot in the roll has the size written on it so that it's easier to find what I want and also easier to put the hooks away when I'm finished. 

Unfortunately after the slots were all labelled and sewn I found an errant hook stuck in an abandoned project. That hook must now reside, out of order, in an unlabeled space that I had at the end of the roll. 

I've had  a roll of printed fabric labels that read: "Marlene Randall ORIGINAL" for decades now. I believe they were purchased nearly 40 years ago and this may be the very first time I've used one.

I'm very happy with this project and I hope that it will get decades of use and perhaps one day become an heirloom.

The outer cover of the roll was a very labor intense project!

It is boro style patchwork and the entire surface is completely covered in running stitches travelling in all different directions. 

 

That type of stitching is very characteristic of this style of patchwork.

Nifty Bobbin Winder

Now that I have a loom in more than one room in my house, winding a bobbin for a loom in the weaving room meant walking to the living room where the Saori CH60 loom with its onboard bobbin winder resides. Not a long walk, but inconvenient when working on a project behind closed doors (puppy requirement!). The Saori loom is often draped in a dust cover too, making access even less convenient when I'm working on a different loom. Enter this nifty gadget.

This is a "bobbin speed winder insert" for my electric screwdriver. I purchased it from the Woolery during a 50% off sale.

It makes quick work of winding a shuttle bobbin and if you already own an electric drill or screwdriver it is a far less expensive option than buying an actual bobbin winder, especially an electric one!

Shipping and the US to Canadian exchange rate made it more expensive, of course, but still cheaper than the "real" bobbin winders --- which I also would have had to pay shipping and exchange rates on.

Persian Tiles Blanket

The epic "Persian Tiles Blanket" afghan project is finally complete, and as much as I enjoyed making it I am glad to be moving on to other projects. 

This was months of work! I started it on September 7th and worked on it for a couple of hours nearly every day (minus the entire month of October when I was busy with Stephen West's "Twists and Turns Shawl") and I was finally able to get it finished today, January 10th.

Not being able to get my hands on the "Eastern Jewels" yarn kit, and wanting a larger afghan anyway, I made up my own colourway using what colours I could coordinate in "Hobbii Amigo" yarn.

I chose to finish the afghan with the "Persian Tiles Extension" border by Tracy Fear.

The border pattern is quite vague about stitch counts, and I made a rectangular afghan rather than a square, so I found my corners didn't line up quite the way they were supposed to and I worked them out as best I could.

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