A few more firsts

Copper necklace with amethyst pendant

With school out for the holidays, I’ve been both more and less busy, if that makes any sense at all! Everyone gets to sleep in now, but I’m finally able to

spend a little more time in the things I want to do, as opposed to what I have to do. So I’ve been trying to finish off Aneira’s throw blanket, which now only awaits a border that I’m trying to figure out how to do, since I’d like the border to be Tunisian crochet. I had fun learning how to do that. I mostly finished the necklace I was working on for my jewelry class. The pendant is completely done, the chain nearly so. The chain was made using Viking wire knitting, then pulled through a drawplate several times to both compress and lengthen it. That was awesome. And I also got to use my nostepinne for the first time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to wind up a ball of my homespun yarn. I frogged Bryony’s throw blanket, because I didn’t like how it was going, and used the nostepinne to wind up all of the frogged yarn. I think I made a passable yarn ball with it.

I mentioned the homespun yarn. Disaster. The yarn kept breaking on the spindle, and I had enough yardage on the spindle to make a mini skein, so I figured I’d take it off and wind it up. It got so fouled up on the hook at the top of the shaft, then the twist kept coming out of the yarn, and it became such

Frogged yarn on nostepinne

a mess the more I tried to fix it that I eventually wound up having to cut the whole mess into pieces in order to free up the spindle. As you might imagine, “thrilled” and “success” are not words I would use anywhere concerning this fiasco. I’ll be trying again though!!!

I still haven’t completed the stained glass box I was making for class, but that is slated to be finished soon as well. Since hubby allowed me to buy the grinder, I’ve got everything I need to continue doing stained glass at home.

Obviously, my studio is going to have to be re-organized again. With all the tools and supplies from my classes returning home, I need places to put them. I’ll be nagging hubby about shelves once the woodshop is done!

Nostepinne and yarn ball

 

Swatches of Tunisian crochet. Top: crossed stitch, bottom: basic stitch

 

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School time!

After nineteen attempts, this is the only one that was semi-successful!

I know I haven’t done much in the way of posting lately. Life has a way of becoming very busy very quickly!

Since the weaving class was cancelled, I enrolled in a stained glass course to replace it, as well as the jewelry making course. I am compelled to admit that I am enjoying the few hours a week that I am away from screaming children and barking dogs. The classes themselves, well…

I love the stained glass course. It isn’t something that I’m likely to continue on my own, but I do like it. There is too much carpet in my house to consider glasswork here, not to mention a toddler who is into absolutely everything, fearless, and adventurous. Glass and toddler = trip to emergency room. Not a good combination. So that’s a school thing, period.

The teacher is a very concise person. She gives you the information you need and no more than that. She’s encouraging and she’s helpful. She had us cutting glass on the very first day. It’s fun, once you get past the terror of breaking glass on purpose!

The jewelry class I’m reserving judgment on.  The information the teacher gives us there is unquestionably necessary, but she’s rather dry. She also has a very quiet voice, and when the more advanced students start using tools and machinery, it’s very hard to hear the lectures. And there is actually a lot more lecture than doing, it seems, but now we’re working on our first projects.While I’m looking forward to the end result, I can’t say the course is very much fun to me, and I expected to enjoy the jewelry class more than the stained glass. Oddly enough, things are exactly the opposite.

I’m still really upset about the weaving class being cancelled. The class description had said it was going to focus on building a loom, and I was really looking forward to that, especially as hubby and I are talking about the idea of his building inkle, triangle, and peg looms. He loves woodwork, and he’s very good at it.

Our roommate has gone back to New York. Let’s just say that a twenty-year-old friendship has died, and her leave-taking was not voluntary. None of us adjusted well to the new way of life, and the stress level has gone down considerably since we are down to just our family in the house again. I am glossing over the entire ordeal, as I don’t really want to get into much detail or be very negative. Suffice it to say, the situation was very ugly in the end.

On the fiber side, I haven’t done much there either since school started, but I did manage to make a very pretty, flat Kumihimo braid, and an attempt at Scandinavian sprang. I can’t say that it came out perfectly, and it took me nineteen tries to come up with an imperfect result. One imperfect result. But it was fun to try. I don’t know if it’s a technique I’ll continue with, but it was interesting. I’ve also tried

16 strand flat Kumihimo braid

naalbinding and been fairly unsuccessful there!

I still haven’t named my marudai or my second Cricket loom. As a matter of fact, I haven’t named my card weaving surfboard either. Very remiss of me. On the other hand, no names have really jumped out at me to use yet. Maybe Jiminy for the Cricket? Lol.

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