The Twelve Months of Smocked Christmas Ornaments (Jan.)

This year I am going to make one Smocked Christmas Ornament each month until December. I will use the same pattern for each ornament but challenge myself to make each ornament different by making variations in bead placement, fabric and thread choice, as well as using different final finishing techniques. The ornament pictured above is my first ornament for this series. The pattern is from SAGA and can be found here . When you get to the web site you will find the instructions on the right hand side by clicking on a photo of a pine bow with the words "Smock a Long instructions" printed on it, this is a pdf file and if you also follow their blog link, (listed on their site), you will find photos of each step.

I am a member of their Facebook group for the smock a long and I am amazed at how many different ways this one pattern was used to create beautiful Christmas tree ornaments, no two were alike and that is the inspiration behind this series of blog posts. So I hope that you will enjoy these posts and that someone out there reading them will also be inspired.

Thanks for reading and happy smocking!

Another Busy Year Over

Well I am really bad at this blogging stuff, at posting new material anyway. My last post was in Jan of this year and here it is Dec 31st  already so that is only 2 posts for this year including this one, that's horrible but I suppose thats why I don't have any readers either, LOL! This year has been a very busy one but I am not going to use being busy as an excuse for not posting because hey, lets face it, we are all busy right? I also won't use the excuse that I was living off the grid for 4 months of this year without internet service because in all honesty I still had occasional cell service and could have updated through the blogger app I have on my phone so that is why I just said I am really bad at this blogging stuff, LOL. I am also not going to promise to be better at posting in the new year because I have made that promise before and it didn't work so, I'm being honest here. You will either like the occasional read or your won't, either way is fine with me and up to you. So on with this post…..

In picking up where I left off I had a wonderful time at Notforgotten farm. I totally drove there in the wrong car, should have taken the truck. My Beemer z-4 didn't like the bumpy dirt road so I had to go really slow. When I got there I was greeted by the most enormous Great Pyrenees I have ever seen, he was nearly the size of my car and that is no lie and he was also the most friendly. I was very sad to hear of his passing a few short months later due to an illness but it was such an honor to meet this gentle giant. It was January so it was cold and when I went into the shop it was toasty warm by way of a small wood stove, very cozy and inviting. I went there to learn how to make a traditional hooked rug so I walked around the store for a bit till I found the right pattern. Choosing was very hard because the shop is filled with so many beautiful patterns. I wound up getting two actually, one was just a pattern printed on linen and the other was a kit with the wool already cut and ready to go so the only other thing I needed was the right hook so I picked up one of those too. I had a wonderful day sitting around the table having hot cocoa, making new crafting friends while learning a new craft, I'm "hooked" hee hee hee. Do to traveling this year I have not had a chance to get back there yet but I will soon.

This year I also learned how to smock and did some heirloom sewing in that process. I have made 4 ornaments and one smocked Bishop dress and matching bonnet. This of course also meant buying more equipment I didn't already have like a shaping board and smocking pleater but hay and artist can't have too many supplies right? I only have a few crafts left on my to learn list, it's kind of like a bucket list I guess. Left on the list is bobbin lace making, tatting, and weaving on a floor loom oh and stained glass window making, almost forgot about that one and its not unlike me to add more to this list as I cross off.

In other news our family has purchased some acreage in the Smoky Mountain foothills of TN, that is where the off the grid living comes in. Its raw land so there is a lot of work to do there. In our last trip there we did get power lines underground run all the way to the top, about a 1/2 mile, where the house site is going to be, that took a week because we did all the digging ourselves with the help of a rented track hoe, two actually, we quickly learned the first one was too small so we had to get a bigger one. We moved our 5th wheel camper to the top so it now has power that until then was running off a gas generator which meant frequent long drives into town to get gas. Because the current road is still a primitive one and too muddy to drive heavy trucks on without getting stuck we have to park the vehicles at the bottom and 4-wheel up to the top which makes it interesting for hauling the groceries back from the store. There isn't a clean spot on the 4-wheeler and I have been hit in the back of the head a few times with flying mud while driving it so I have to have a change of clothes, one for mud and one clean set for shopping in town. No water source yet, that is on the to do list for our next trip, getting a well dug and septic, up to this point we have been trucking in water using a tractor to get the water tank up to the top, making lots of memories there. We have discovered that we have coyotes and bear, also lots of wild turkey and dear. This year I am trying my hand at making my first Buck Skin from a deer Nate shot while we were there, I'm not going to show pics up to its current state cause it is pretty gross and messy and might turn some stomaches so I'll spare you all the gory details there. Also apparently it doesn't snow much there, just rains and that's why all the mud so Nate and I had a little fun one day having a mud ball fight, we were already muddy anyway and he threw first sooooo, sorry no pics of that.

Anyway back to fiber stuff! The plans for our new property include a studio for me!!! Yay, I am so excited about this and so should you because that also means you can come and visit and bring your fiber crafts with you and there will be plenty of room! I may also start teaching some fiber classes, the possibilities are endless!!

View from where the house will be

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this post and that you all have a happy and healthy fibery new year!

New year, New craft

Every year I make a goal to learn a new craft and this year is no exception. Today I will be traveling to Not Forgotton Farm in Amherst, Va. I have been told that a group of ladies meets there on Saturdays to hook rugs. I have never been to this farm shop nor have I ever hooked a rug in the traditional manor. I did latch hook rugs as a kid but there is no real comparison between the two styles so I won't count that. Anyway, I am off to learn new things and meet new people so I hope your day will be just as fun filled as I anticipate mine will be.

In Dreams KAL Project (part 2)

I thought I would post an update on the In Dreams shawl I started and post a couple of pics. I really debated with myself wether or not to even post it because I have decided that it would be best to take out what I have done so far and start over, eekkk. I did make a couple of errors along the way that are not that noticeable so I thought I could keep going and it would turn out fine. However I have also missed one very crucial direction in the pattern that has been causing my stitch counts to be wrong every other row. So by restarting this project I will be more aware of all those oopsie spots I made and hopefully do it better the second time around. But I won't be restarting this project till after Christmas because the holidays are always so hectic for me in the first place and this project requires my full attention. So below are a couple of pics to show you where it is at the moment.

Ok I had trouble placing this pics side by side so the one on top here is of the whole thing so far. The one underneath shows the up close detail of the beads, you can notice that some of them are hiding behind my stitches. This was one of my mistakes that I thought I could fix during the blocking stage. I discovered I was placing the beads on wrong by knitting the stitch first then placing the bead when I should have placing the bead first then knitting the stitch. So this should work out much better when I re start this project in January of 2012 :)

In Dreams KAL Project (part 1)

The current project I am working on is a lace shawl entitled In Dreams. This is a mystery shawl Knit A Long (KAL), which means you don't know what the design looks like before you knit it, that's the mystery. There are clues given at timed intervals so the design is revealed as each clue is worked. The design is by Susan Pandorf of Sunflower Designs and was inspired by Galadriel's crown from the movie Lord of the Rings.

I decided to spin my own yarn for this project so the picture below is of the fiber I decided to use. This is a 50/50 blend of Merino/Silk, I love the way it shines.

This shawl is going to have a ton of beads, 5,000 I think is the right number so below are the beads I have chosen for it. I have the beads laying on top of the fiber to give you an idea of how they will go together.

I am using my Schacht double treadle wheel for this and below you can see the lace singles on the bobbin. I will be making a lace weight 2-ply yarn.

In this next picture I have placed a green sewing machine thread to the left of my spun single so you can get an idea of the size of the single.

This is the plied yarn drying on my homemade pvc niddy noddy for blocking, (setting the twist).

For those of you who read this who are not spinners, after spinning the yarn I wind it onto a niddy noddy and then wash it and set it out to dry. Before making a niddy noody from pvc I would wind it onto a wooden one to make a skein. I would then take the skein and wash it and would have to dry it under tension to set the twist. By making the pvc one I can skein it, wash it, and set it all on the niddy noddy in fewer steps.

I am currently half way through knitting the first clue and will post pictures after clue one is complete, in part 2 of this post.

My new Wheel

This is a Great Wheel that was given to me by a wonderful friend this week. This wheel has been in her family since the wheel was new. She gave it to me because, due to health issues she has to move to a one level home and won't have the room to keep it and she choose me because she knew I would love her and take good care of her forever.

She is in pretty good condition considering her age but is not currently is working order. She does show signs of being repaired throughout the years and I have a few pictures to show you what I mean.

In this photo if you look carefully at the two spokes you can see the one on the left, as compared to the one on the right, looks hand carved. Of the ten spokes on the wheel three of them are like the one on the left. I found something similar on the legs.

Above you can see the leg on the left has decorative turning and the one on the right does not. This leg on the right looks hand carved like the replacement spokes and I am guessing the repairs to all the wood were done by the same person. I could find no identifying markings as to identify the maker of this wheel. The next repair I found is in the following picture.

What you're looking at above is the bottom of the large wheel, it appears as though the wheel had split at some point and was repaired with these three thin sheets of metal that were riveted to the wood to keep the wood from splitting further. What I have noticed about this repair is that even though the metal is very thin it has added weight to this section of the wheel and it will move the wheel around until these metal sheets are on the bottom. So the wheel is now off balance.

This next photo shows why the wheel isn't in working order.

The peg sticking up on the top left hand side is called a maiden, there is supposed to be two of these and in between the two maiden is supposed to be a spindle, without these parts the wheel won't work. Another interesting thing you can see in this photo is hanging from the maiden by a string that has been tied at the top, it looks like a miniature base ball bat and I honestly have no idea what this would have been used for. It doesn't look as though any part of this wheel has been banged on by a little bat such as pegs being tapped into place so this is a mystery to me. Perhaps someone reading this might know what it is and what it is for and mention it in the comments.

I would like to get this wheel in working order again if at all possible. I do have a few messages out to people who do wood turning and I am just waiting for replies now so I will post any progress reports as I get them. Thanks for reading and if anyone out there has information that might help with getting this beauty working again please leave a comment.

Wow, where does the time go. I suppose during my long hiatus from the blogging sphere I have lost readers I previously might have had. Well, I guess that's ok and I'll just have to deal with it but hay, I blog mainly for myself anyway as a way to journal my crafting activities. I have been crafting, just not blogging. Sometimes the necessities in life take up a little more time than one expects and takes away from the things one really loves to do, as is in my case. At any rate, here is what I'm doing now, I won't go into all the things that have been keeping me from blogging like, finding facebook (spend way too much time there), my handspun yarn business, homeschooling, wait, I said I wouldn't go there, so where was I.... oh yeah what I'm doing now.

Over on the Ravelry site I joined a Lord of the Rings Mystery Shawl KAL (Knit-A-Long) and I am having a lot of fun with that. Here is what I have done so far without giving to much away, I don't want to spoil the mystery for those who might not be as far along.

Clue number one came out on February 12th, By the way it is not to late to sign up for this project and you can find all the details you need here

This particular shawl is only one in a Lord of the Rings series so if your a LOTR fan like me you might want to check this out.

This project is called the Evenstar, the pendant worn by Arwen Evenstar in the movie played by Liv Tyler.

I have spun up a light lace weight yarn from a 50/50 blend of Mulberry silk/Merino for this project, the silk gives off a beautiful shine that I think will be perfect for this shawl.

I have also knit up the swatch but I didn't use the good yarn for the swatch, I used crochet thread instead.
I had a couple of reasons for doing this. This swatch was my 4th attempt to get it right so I didn't want to mess up the good yarn. Also the crochet thread is the same WPI as my handspun so it would work for obtaining the gauge. I will be using size 4 needles instead of the size 3 prescribed. I also wanted to play around with bead placement to see if I even wanted beads. My real camera is not working so I had to use my camera phone and it doesn't get close enough for you see the beads in this picture but they are there, trust me.

The flower on the bottom has 4 beads, one in the center of each flower section, (don't like this at all). The two flowers on the upper right and left each have one single bead right in the center where a hole is but I placed these beads on different stitches to see what the difference would be and here is what I found.

The one on the left- I placed the bead in the 4th increase stitch on the pearl side prior to purling the stitch, now the bead wound up on the purl side so I had to push it through the hole in order for it to be on the front but the bead is directly in the center of the hole.

The one on the right-I placed the bead on the 5th increase stitch on the purl side prior the purling the stitch and the bead wound up on the front side not the purl side, however it is not perfectly centered and has a rightward slant which I don't like.

I have not yet decided if I like any beads at all at this point but I hope that if anyone else out there is doing this KAL that wanted to place beads that this post is somewhat helpful to you.

Cheers