I decided to move my cardigan knitting project to be a car waiting project. When school is going, I regularly carve out an hour of my day to yarn works while waiting for pick up. It is a time that I am uninterrupted by tasks that cause me to get up and move away from the knitting, such as letting animals outside, or getting distracted by another craft. I enjoy listening to an audio book and work away. That is all this cardigan needs, is some regular focused time. I might get it done before spring.
Photo description: Cardigan draped over the steering wheel showing the back panel with variegated yarn pooling in small areas of yellow and blue. Reminds me of looking at the sky in spring through tree branches.
I saw a picture on Pinterest of a tatted bracelet that I recognized most of the elements used for construction. I’m having trouble interpreting written tatting instructions, but a picture is almost as good as a chart, and much easier for me to follow. I loaded up my tatting shuttle with #10 cotton, left it attached to the ball, and started with the ring part of the clasp. It took me a few hours to complete, and I carried it around in my purse for a while to work on when I was waiting. The bracelet is worked with the same series of a closed loop and a chain on both sides, and each connection used a picot.
Photo description: Tatted bracelet made of closed loops and chains with three picots. The clasp is made with a ring on one side and a cluster of closed rings on the other side.
I did have to join in more bobbin yarn, but the ends were easy to weave in with a needle. I joined the last chain to the opposite side with a square knot and wove in the ends. To block it, I soaked it in a solution of white glue and water, to give it some stiffness and protect it from staining. I need to experiment with the ratio of glue to water. The bracelet turned out stiff and itchy, and didn’t resist a tea stain when tea accidentally spilled across the counter.
Photo description: Blocking the bracelet on wax paper after soaking in a white glue and water solution.
The clasp works reasonably well, although it takes a different set of hands to close.
Photo description: Bracelet clasp shown closed with the loop cluster pulled through the opposite loop.Photo description: Finished bracelet on my daughter’s wrist.
I need to work on the tension of my knots, the consistency of picot size, and the consistency of the closed loop size. I may try another bracelet to get the basics down. The tatted lace is sturdier than crocheted lace, but the counting slows me down, and I need a different way to hold the shuttle so it doesn’t hurt my thumb. So, not my favorite craft, but could be useful in a future project on a small scale.
There are many ways of doing most things. Finding what works best for you is usually a series of trials and errors. I have been knitting with fingering weight yarn the same way I knit with thicker yarn, but have been having trouble keeping even tension because the thinner yarn slips through my fingers more. I tried wrapping it three times around my pinkie, but it had more tendency to bind. I recently tried a new finger wrapping method, going clockwise around my pinkie, the counterclockwise around my ring finger. Bingo. I have more control of the yarn without binding or excessive yarn drop.
Photo description: In process knitting photo showing the working yarn wrapped around the fingers of my left hand.Photo description: view of yarn wrapping from the top of my hand.
This little change helped increase my knitting speed as well as reduced frustration with what seemed to be uncooperative yarn.
I follow an Inkle band weaving group on Facebook that is under new administration, who are trying to clean up the site and get it back to Inkle weaving (and not a repository for spam). They asked for submissions for a new banner image, and my rainbow tablet weave won by popular vote!
Photo description: Private Inkle Band Weaving group on FB with my rainbow band as the banner image.
They said they would change the image frequently, which is also good. I’m excited that mine was the first picked!
This band went on to become the strap for my ukulele.
I pulled out my spinning wheel and realized that it has been a long time since I spun with it. Thor the cat has never seen it in action and he is nine months old. Hm. He was quite fascinated with the process, and after this photo had to be told to knock it off as he went for the wheel and the yarn.
Photo description: Gray tabby looking at a vintage wooden Befra Willy Spinning wheel, specifically at the yarn coming from the orifice.
Critters and Craft 