A friend of mine has just started exploring the delights of working with a knitting machine.
I hopped up and down,
pointing at this totally
awesome book that I
bought more than 15 years ago.
Luckily,
Hand Manipulated Stitches
for Machine Knitters
by Susan Guagliumi,
published by Taunton Press,
in 1990, is still available.
This book is stuffed full of
useful ways of maximizing
the creative possibilities of working with knitting machines.
It’s one of those ‘foundation’ books that you just have to have if you are going to be using the knitting machine as a tool in your fiber arts.
I am soooooooooo glad that it is still in print, and I hope that …read more

Lately, I keep having wonderful dreams about weaving, weaving, weaving.
LOL! I just realized that this kind of gives me a new sense of the term: ‘Dream Weaver’…..
Anyhow, after all the great weaving dreams, the call of  my Saori loom is just not to be ignored.
Saori weaving is all about listening to inner promptings and setting aside critical voices.
The point of Saori weaving is to focus on the creative process, which is dear to my heart.
So, in that mindset, I gave myself permission to just follow whatever interesting thoughts came up with this weaving, and to see where it lead me.
I …read more

The neatest sequence of events unfolded recently….
My dear son-in-law knows that I have been questing for a square Lily Speed-o-weave loom for ages.
He IM’ed me, saying: Hey…. there’s one on eBay……
I went and looked. Kewl!
But, the vendor wouldn’t ship it to Canada
So, I emailed the pic to my wonderful sister-in-law. She works close to the world’s best second hand store. She has found all kinds of nifty things there, and says most everything goes through that store at sometime or another…..
She popped over to the shop, sent me an email, and said:
They only have a hexagonal one.
I emailed …read more

Well, last night, I got all fed up with trying to figure out some of the ‘alternate flight plans’ of the strange little instruction booklet that came with one of my really old Lily Speed-o-weave looms.
So, today, I decided to give myself carte blanche on the second side of the hemp bag that I am working on.
It was exhilarating! After all, I am covering most of the mesh with spoolknitted figures and buttons and other bits and pieces….. so it was time to get playful!
and I did…….

Permission to be playful.
I gave it to myself, and here’s a permission slip for …read more

Last summer,  I made a bag to carry projects and stuff for the workshops that I taught at the Knit and Crochet show
So, I posted this:
Anyhow, I am making this wild and wonderful bag. It started out with a pair of painted wooden handles that I made a few years back.
you can see them by clicking
handles
I thought that rainbow hemp cord would be wonderful on my vintage Lily Speed-o-weave loom. I was right…. it’s great to work with. (click on the handles link to get the address for the hemp site).
And………
then, I thought……… OH! I should get …read more

My previous posting was about finding missing parts for Lily Speed-o-weave looms.
I just wanted to add one more thing……..
and that is, that you can make more than table mats with them.
I made this shawl from silk I spun myself, using the Lily Speed-o-weave loom and crochet……

Hmmmmmmm I think my daughter borrowed it…….

that happens…….
Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyrightwww.crone-findlay.com 

I have a fondness for the old metal Lily Speed-o-weave looms. They’re kind of weird, but they’re very appealing….

I have 2 of the hexagonal ones, and would love to find a square/rectangular one.
Anyhow, today, I glanced over at a placemat that I had made on the Lily Speed-o-weave loom, and was taken by how much the pattern looks like the ‘tumbling blocks’ quilting pattern. I took a picture of it:

but it’s hard to get the camera to see it the way my eye does…..
oh well….. c’est la vie.
I get a lot of emails from people, saying …read more