Knitting socks is one of life’s great pleasures.  Handmade socks are just luscious, and they….well….. um….  knock the socks off of any kind of store bought sock.
Lately, I have taken to adding a touch of whimsy to my sock knitting.
Now, I add tatted flowers to the top edges of my handknitted sockies.
I posted the pattern for tatted sock toppers a few weeks back:
Tatted Flower pattern
For awhile now, several of my friends have been asking me to please make a video about tatting.
I was kind of chicken to do that, because I hold my hands in an unconventional way in tatting.
I …read more

All week, I have been scrambling to get the various components made for a bag, using the Lily Speed-o-Weave Loom, spool knitters and vintage flower looms.
Why do cats always need to sit on freshly warped looms?
I worked with 2 looms set to their smallest dimension. (And was supervised well and truly by Ms Kitty)
You choose the size that you want the Lily Speed-O-Weave loom to be by matching up the holes on the sides and bolting them together.
I used Lily Sugar’n Cream in Black and White to make the front and back of the bag, and to spool knit the …read more

Here’s a really neat way to make a 2 color cord that won’t stretch.  Because this spiffy cord doesn’t stretch much, it is the perfect candidate for things like handles  or some decorative edgings.
How do you make this excellent cord? With the humble little 4 peg spool knitter – a tool that is under appreciated in it’s capacity for creating oh so nifty components for your needlework and yarnie happiness.
Spool knitting with 2 colors of yarn in the crossover sequence that I show in the video results in a cord that has 4 lines of color running the length of …read more

In the introductory video to ‘How to work with the Lily Speed-O-Weave Loom’, I showed a variety of things that you can make with the wonderful, funky old vintage Lily Speed-O-Weave looms.
I also showed how to wrap the 3 layers of yarn onto the loom.
In the second video, I am explaining how to do the stitching that locks the layers of wrapped yarn together to create the mesh like, knotted fabric.
I will be doing more videos explaining other aspects of working with the
Lily Speed-O-Weave loom.
I’ll get those posted this week.
And, I will also be working on a booklet detailing the …read more

The Lily Speed-O-Weave is a wonderful vintage loom that is no longer produced. Luckily, they still show up in garage and yard sales, second hand stores and on eBay.
I am in the process of making a series of ‘how to work with the Lily Speed-O-Weave’ loom video tutorials.
The first one is an introduction, showing how to wrap the loom with the warp strand layers.
The yarn in the video is Lily Sugar’n Cream in Black and Lily Sugar’n Cream in white. I hold 2 strands of yarn together as one strand throughout the whole project.
In the video, I  wrap the pegs …read more

Crocheted pocket dolls are wonderful gifts. They are quick and easy to make, and because they are small, they are wonderfully portable.
Crocheted Pocket Dolls are excellent as comfort dolls.
If you have a friend or family member who is in need of comfort or a little extra love, why not crochet a  little pocket doll for them?
Add wings and it’s an angel….
I am going to share my design for a super simple crocheted pocket doll that you can make as plain as you would like, or you can embellish and make it as wild as you can imagine.
You can stitch a …read more

The ‘Baseball Stitch’ or ‘V’ stitch is one of the most useful stitches, ever.
You can use it to join virtually any kind of fabric: Knitted, crocheted,
woven, felted, whatever….
I have received a lot of requests from people, asking me to make a video of how the baseball stitch is done. I decided that the time had come to finally make the video tute.
Yesterday, I was alone in the studio, so didn’t have a willing extra pair of hands to hold the camera while I stitched away.
I decided that I needed a stand to hold the camera, so I went looking around …read more