Dusting off the shuttles!

I got a sudden urge to dust off the tatting shuttles and do a little tatting, especially since while knitting a pair of mits I poked one of the double pointed needles (2.75mm) through my left forefinger leaving it a little tender to knit with. But tatting has a whole different movement. I'm pretty happy with my latest work :)

The pattern is from an old pattern book I have of tatted edgings and such put out by Paragon. Mostly complex doilies with too many frills and bits for me but this was a lovely simple styled corner and really quite surprisingly simple and fast! I finished all four corners in about 3 days and that was by no means constant work either!

This is what they'll look like when I finially put them on anything. That could be another story altogether. I'm a shocker for finishing something and then leaving it without completing its essential purpose.
A case in point is the two edgings I had completed at least two years ago and then put away without putting the edges on to anything. I remedied that last weekend! Finally got out some material I had, hand edged the squares and then handsewed the edging on. Finally! All finished!!!

They look really pretty too. Such a shame it took me so long to finish them totally. Ah well. My fingers finally healed and I can start knitting again so putting down the shuttle for a little while but probably not as long as last time. Just keep it nearby...for when ever I poke a needle through my finger again
Keep happy :)

Cross Stitch Design

I spent all yesterday making up a cross stitch design for a poem I love from The Lord of the Rings". By now I know it off by heart! It's the peom written by Bilbo Baggins about Aragorn and how he is the King of Gondor.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring:
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

It took all day and it's only now I realize it will be quite a large cross stitch to execute. Because I'm so mathmatically challenged the actual effort involved to plot this out without graph paper at home (had to make up some from the internet) was pretty funny. Each line and the decorative border and break have been worked out on paint with a graph I got my son to rig up for me which I then printed and cut out and stuck down on the HUGE graph sheet I joined together from 6 sheets of graph paper. Now all I need is the courage to actually do it!

I might have to wait a while before I have the strength....
Ah well, enjoy :)

Wool Room Refit!

My Wool Room has been getting out of hand lately and I really wanted to fix it, while realizing at the same time I probably need to get rid of some of the yarn I've collected (Ack! No! Horrors!!) So when I was in town last I bought 6 flat pack 4 and 3 shelf bookshelves and 4 fold-out boxes and here is what I accomplished!

It looks so much better and there's still so much more storage around the room. It's like having my own little wool shop :) I am very proud of myself, the three boxes there with the red bag on it are wool I am GETTING RID OF!! Yes, absolutely true!! Only problem is I'll have to wait until Friday when I go to Albany and their Op-Shops because if I drop it off at Walpole's Op-Shop I'll be tempted to buy them back! Once they're in Albany I wont be able to get back again for at least a week and by that time they will all be long gone!
I'm a very sad OCD-like individual. I like just going in there and looking at everything. Sigh....

Happy Knitting :)

And now, for something a little different!

But not a walk in the black forest!(sorry, allusion to an episode of The Goodies!)
I wanted to get rid of some of the acrylic yarn I'd bought to make my Cobblestone Jumper, of which I still have something like 7 100g balls left! And the pattern for a cat bed or Snuggly caught my attention. It was really easy too. Whipped it up relatively quickly, added the wadding to the rim, sewed her up and hey presto! 2 Balls down and a cute nook for the cats!

But there are things I would change if I did it again. Cast on more stitches would definitely be top of my list. Although I doubled the yarn I was using I forgot to go up a couple of needle sizes so although it's nicely compact it's not really very big. Case in point:

This is Tippy, my senior cat. He's actually pretty diminutive for a cat and he just fits in it. But at least he seems to like it and it was a very quick knit. Probably no more than a couple of days and I think it only took that long because of the large gauge yarn and the smaller than necessary needles made the knitting a bit stiff. But it's cute and That's all that matters!

Happy Knitting :)