Hey, remember the sparkle handspun lincoln/merino/glitz shawl I started in October of 2006 on the triloom? Sure you do! That sucker is thisclose to finally being finished. I put it off for a long time because it got down to the pain in the butt last 20 or so nails there in the center of the tri-loom. I've got ten to go, then fringe to add before May 7th when I take the loom to it's new owner at Yarn School. I'm hoping the fiber will get back some of it's sproing in the wash. At least I know it's strong being stretched out like that for dang near 3 years. ugh.

Weaving Loom Madness!

Well, here are the scarves I made on my Cricket loom:


I really like how they turned out. The blue one is my handspun for the weft with a commercial yarn for the warp. The pink one is Wisdom Sonnet for both the warp and the weft. I like how the self striping yarn used as both warp and weft makes such a cool pattern just in plain old tabby weave. I'm going to have to mess with that some more :)

OK, so last week I got a call at the shop from a local lady with a 25in 4-shaft Schacht table loom to sell. The loom had been boxed up in her Mom's garage since shortly after it was purchased back in the 80's. It was in perfect condition and came with a giant bag of yarn, a couple of books, and some stick shuttles all for $300. Was I interested? I jumped on that!

Once I got finished gloating over my new baby I realized I now owned 6 looms. (!!!) LOL How did that happen?? Somebody would have to go, so I decided to sell my big triangle loom, the 15in Schacht Table Loom, and the 32in Kromski Rigid Heddle as soon as I finish the big shawl, the little birdseye twill scarf, and the Sheep To Shawl competition on May 16th. The triloom is going to a girl at Yarn School, the rigid heddle is going home with a friend of one of my sheep to shawl team members, and the table loom is going in the mail to a livejournal friend. I should be down to three looms (45in floor loom, 10in rigid heddle, & 25in table loom) by the end of May.

One good thing about buying fiber equipment is that it holds it's value really well and there are always people out there in market for used equipment so it's pretty easy to move it when you decide you don't need it anymore or you upgrade :)

Springtime!

Happy Easter!
What am I doing??

Weaving
I've been doing some scarf weaving (sorry, no pics of that yet) and planning of other weaving projects mostly.

Knitting
Mostly store sample things. I'm a little over half done with a leaf lace shawl in Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton, a little over half done with a no-pattern triangle shawl in Plymouth Kudo, and just started a Claudia Handpainted French Scarf Kit. It's all about the shawls lately. haha I'll post pictures when those are finished.

Crochet
Still sometimes working on that Babette Blanket. That thing is so boring...

Other Crafty Things
I just ordered a Yudu Screen Printing Machine. I've got all the supplies for traditional screen printing, but this thing is sort of a combination light table/exposure unit/dryer and the emulsion already on peel-away sheets looks super fast/easy/non-messy and very attractive to me since getting that stuff on there evenly without making a HUGE mess is the hard part of screen printing for me.
Here is a video showing how it works:



I'll post a review once mine gets here and I'll show you what I make with it :)