My daughter, Chloe Findlay-Harder,  has been organizing some things in her studio.
Bless her heart,
she gave me a couple more
of the fab wire baskets
that she made a few years ago.
Here’s one of the
new ones,
sitting on the
shelf that lives
on my knitting machine
table.
When I was
busy admiring
the new baskets,
I realized how  much
I love using baskets
for organizing studio
stuff, and that I have
baskets by the dozens.
(There’s another one of
Chloe’s baskets in this
pic, too)
So, I started taking
photos of some of
the baskets in
my studio,
and before long
I had taken
almost 50 photos….
I won’t bore you
with photos of
all the studio
baskets, but
there are a few
baskets that are
dear to my heart…..
The blue wicker …read more

Vintage Magic Looms are a sweet little tool, and I love them.
But, the boxes have a baffling oxymoron-
a photo of a crocheted granny square,
which could lead people to assume
that the Magic loom produces
crocheted granny squares.
They don’t.
But you can make wonderful squares
with Magic Looms, and then
combine those squares
to make other charming things.
Like this
tiny bog coat
that I made with
four little squares
from the 2 inch
Magic Loom.
Here’s the link
to that tutorial:
Bog Coat on the Magic Loom
The coat in the photo is about 3 inches tall, but, you could make a full size Bog coat for yourself with the Magic Looms.
I’ve made a video tutorial …read more

A couple of days ago, I posted about a sanity saver tool that I use all the time in my life as a designer.
Here’s another of my
most favorite tools
of the designer and author’s trade.
What is it?
A spreadsheet.
Why is a spreadsheet
such a big deal?
Believe me…
it’s truly one of
my favorite tools for a lot of reasons!
This is the spreadsheet from my latest book: The Woven Bag (the link is to Amazon, but it’s not one of the payback links…. it’s just the only link that I can find to the book at this point…. )
Anyhow…. when I am creating a book, …read more

When you are a yarn lover, chances are good that you’ll fall in love with gadgets and devices that allow you to make, manipulate, and play with yarn in lots of fun ways.
Yesterday, I posted about a wonderful box of goodies that one of my friends (who is also a fiber artist) sent me- with a set of Magic Looms in it.
As well as the Magic Looms,
she sent me a set of
flower looms,
which made me
so happy.
I know, I am easily
amused…. but these
are such charming
little looms-
The booklets say
that they were sold in 1970.
They feel a touch brittle, and, given that I …read more

The post office loves it when we  decide to de-clutter.
We find treasures that we send to our friends- so the friends are happy, and the post office is sooooooo happy because Friend B then mails a treasure on to Friend C, to keep the de-cluttering going.
And, oh yes,Friend B has to send a little thank you back to Friend A.  Yes… the post office loves it when we de-clutter.
One of my friends(Friend A)
started a cycle of
making the Post Office
and me (Friend B)
very happy.
We were talking about
small looms and
flower looms.
She had noticed that I blogged about my broken  much loved flower …read more

One of the pleasures of painting with yarn and a crochet hook is to explore the subtleties of blending colors by combining yarns with threads.
Oops…
this yarn isn’t
crocheted, it’s
spool knitted.
I spun it from
a variegated roving,
but found the color breaks
to be too sharp.
So, I plied it with a thin
slubby strand of brown silk thread.
This toned down the color breaks and made the yarn more visually cohesive.
This golden
yarn was just a little
bit flat looking.
Combining it with a
strand of very thin
variegated thread gives
it depth and more
life- it’s a far more interesting
fabric than when the gold
yarn is used on it’s own.
I crocheted these two
Shadow Scarves
using  …read more

Since the beginning of time, people have made baskets.
They are useful,
and can be embellished
in endless ways
to make them one of a kind.
There are a million ways to make a basket.
One of the most fun
ways of making
baskets is to spool knit them.
To make a
spool knitted
basket,
you’ll need to
spool knit a heap
of cord.
Luckily, this is a
very pleasant and
contemplative task.
Make a couple
of yards each of
2 contrasting colors.
I like to use my 2 peg
Cordelia spool knitters
as they are so speedy
when I’m spooling up lots of cord.
Making a basket
is much easier if
you have a mold
to shape it over.
So, for this basket,
I used an empty
olive oil tin.
Trace …read more

After I posted about upcycling paper streamers by spinning them into paper yarn, my friend, Susan, told me about a really neat book:
Paper Yarn:
24 Creative Projects
to make
using a variety
of techniques
by Uta Donath,
Eva Hauck,
Petra Hoffman
and Claudia Huboi,
published by
St Martin’s Griffin.
I had no idea that there are so many paper yarns available on the marketplace! I REALLY need to find explore this more!
The projects are made using a wide variety of techniques:  weaving, crochet, knitting, sewing, wrapping, kumihimo, braiding and decoupage.
I love the shoulder bag that uses woven bands in combination with felt. Yum.
And, the box with woven sections and interspersed with …read more

The other evening, I watched  a great little video on Ruth MacGregor’s website : Spinning video
A few years ago, I was given
a very dirty Shetland fleece.
I  washed the fleece right after it was given to me,
and then re-washed it a few months ago.
Now, that’s effort…
washing the fleece is my
least favorite part of
the fleece to yarn progression.
The fleece  has been idling away under the desk in the studio.
Watching Ms MacGregor’s video made my fingers itch to get spinning again. So, today, I got out the fleece, and my carding combs,
and started picking, fluffing, and carding.
Eventually, I
had a lovely spin.
And, then a …read more

How odd.
Even though the weather absolutely gorgeous today, I felt out of synch with the beauty of the day.
Today was a day of melancholy for me.
Perhaps it’s because it’s close to the anniversary of the death of one of my husband’s sisters.
Perhaps it’s because the other sisters have been here visiting and now they’ve gone  home and I miss them.
Perhaps it’s because the project that I have been wrestling with for days is refusing to set itself to rights and is a disappointment.
Perhaps it’s because I always feel sad when I cut down the glorious hollyhocks and sunflowers and put …read more