I was so excited I could hardly stand it.

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

Last week, a very kind person sent me a note, saying that she had found a book on her shelf.  She knew that I would love it, and was sending it to me.

She also laughed about some of the rather strange projects in the book.

Needless to say, I was intrigued.

The title sounded vaguely familiar, so I googled it and discovered that it was uploaded on several websites.

Wow! I was about to own a copy! I could hardly wait until it arrived!

I have been peering into the mailbox each day in anticipation, and today, the mailbox contained this treasure!

To actually get to hold this 100 year old book in my hands was a thrill.

It amazes me that Mary McCormack wrote about spool knitting with 2 peg spool knitters 100 years ago.

I had never seen anyone doing this (yes, I had seen lucets, but not 2 peg spool knitters), and had, through a process of reduction, worked my way back to working with and designing and making 2 peg spool knitters over several years of trial and error.

I really love the speed of working with 2 peg spool knitters, as you can produce miles and miles of cord really quickly when zooming along on just 2 pegs.  (For some projects, you WANT miles and miles, really quickly).

When I flipped the book open, I saw what  I think the sender of the book had meant by

‘odd’ projects….

Um…. what the heck?  The book lists it as a ‘muffler’.

A ‘muffler’? Okay….  well it doesn’t look like any scarf I have ever seen… but things may have changed in 100 years.

you just never know…..

Anyhow…. it’s an utterly charming book and I am thrilled to have it in my collection. It’s a real treasure!

Post from: Hankering for Yarn

I have carried it around in bags, moved it from table to desk and back, taken it out, put it back, taken it out again, sighed, and put it back …. and  just haven’t been able to finish it.

Why, why why, I snivel? It’s a simple little cap!

Alright.

Yesterday, I read a note about March being crochet month. I even joined a Ravelry group in celebration of Crochet month!

I decided- this is it!

Crochet Month is here- I am gonna finish that cap in honor of Crochet Month! (actually ALL months are crochet month for me, but that’s just being pickie pickie)

This cap is for a friend. He shaves his head and gets cold, so he likes to wear neat little caps. BUT, he owns a bistro (where my husband’s jazz trio plays all the time), so the caps have to be light enough to not make him uncomfortable when he’s making magic in the hot hot kitchen.

I made him a cap a few months back and it was too heavy, so I said, ‘No problem…. I’ll whip you up a light weight one’.

He can’t tolerate wool and cotton gets too floppy really quickly (I crocheted elastic thread into one of the caps he loves so he can wear it again) so it’s synthetics for him.

I just wrote up a tute on how I split the yarn for his cap

I took out the unfinished cap and glared at it, demanding to know why it was being so reluctant to come together.

Tahdah! the answer presented itself!

It wanted a spool knitted edge!

I whipped out my trusty little spool knitter, and whipped up a cord. I used more of the Caron Shadows, but didn’t split it.

I spool knitted a 22 inch long cord on all 4 pegs, then sewed the ends together.

Then, the cap just flew along!

The only problem was, that I had started at the center of the crown of the cap, and adding the spool knitted cord was, pardon the pun, a corker!

I ended up making the most complicated manoevers to  join the spool knitting to the cap, that I could never write the pattern out.

My husband tried it on and we decided it was quite fetching on him, so I am in re-design mode now.

I am designing and working on  another one – going in the opposite direction from the first one.

I’ll be able to write out a vunderbar pattern for it.

Here’s the finished Version #1 of the Jazz Cap

This is Babette, my new model.

Isn’t she wonderful? I bought her in a hat shop last summer when Jim and I were buying sunhats.

The shop owner had bought out a millinery business that had been going for 50 or more years.

She had several of these lovely ladies languishing without hats, so I was thrilled to adopt her.

Please welcome Babette to her new life as a blogmodel.

And, now, it’s back to work on Jazz Cap #2….. more later……

(image source: photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay. Copyright, not to be used without permission)

Post from: Hankering for Yarn

One of the most common ‘FAQ’s’ that I receive is:

Q: What can I spool knit with kids? (or my 8 year old or 7 year old etc)

A: That depends on your child. When my daughter was tiny, she was more skillful at a lot of the needle arts than many adults.

So, you’ll need to look at different projects and then decide if your kidlet has the interest, manual dexterity, and attention span to take on some projects.

If they have trouble with a small spool knitter, find them a larger one.And, have fun with your spool knitting! and with your kidlet and their spool knitting!

Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

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I knew from the first moment that I started sketching the doll, that I wanted to use spoolknitting for the hair. Patty was born with curly red hair, so I wanted to celebrate that.

I wanted lots of spoolknitted cord, so I decided to use my Embellish knit spoolknitting machine.

I did a test swatch and decided that it was too stiff. I really wanted to use Caron’s Simply Soft in Mango, so I figured, what the heck…. I’d just split it and zip it up………

I am lucky enough to have 2 yarn winders. I bought the first one when I was 15 years old. I bought the other one second hand. It’s really handy having 2 of them!

I clamped them both to a little table, rolled the yarn and test swatch of spoolknitting into a ball:

When splitting yarn, I have found that it’s best to work in short lengths, with the ball secured with a darning needle.

That way, the ball can spin freely.

After I split the yarn (picky picky! when you have 3 dogs and a cat and indulge in a very fiberlicious lifestyle, the yarn picks up all kinds of little blubbitses that make the splitting process quite ~questionable~ as in what the heck was I thinking?)

Um……. it’s not a speedy process, but, I am pleased with the results:

It’s quite gratifying to whir up a heap of cord right off the yarn winder:

And the Patty Memory Comfort doll has her hair….

Her heart and wings will be spoolknitted, too….

On a larger spoolie………

later………

Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay (copyright)

Post from: Hankering for Yarn