Knitting Nancy
This old Knitting Nancy spool knitter was at an antique store, waiting to come home with me. The tag said Made in England. She's worn out but still usable, assuming I keep her safe from the cats.
Category: Vintage
An update from the home office
I actually did organize my office… and then it got messy again… and then it was so hot I didn't want to weave… But now it's a lovely 75 degrees and I was inspired to tidy it up. I bought an shelf organizer thing from Target and have found it a good place to store yarn and supplies. It's a little bit cluttered but I don't mind in the least. I like having my chicken pincushion, all my Weave-Its, and yarn handy. Speaking of yarn, that's all of it, with two of the square bins also about half-full. I've never purchased yarn for yarn's sake–I tend to buy it for projects and use it up. The bins are full of small amounts left over. Any full skein was purchased for a project that never materialized. Now that I have a loom, though, I think a little differently, and I can see myself purchasing ahead of time.
I found a goldmine of discarded library books on weaving and needlework. There were nearly 30 of them! Happy me! I particularly enjoy the older weaving books like The Joy of Handweaving, Your Rugs, and Weaving Tricks. I found myself with not one, but two copies of Visual Instructional Macrame by Joan Michaels Paque. I did get a little enthusiastic in grabbing up these old books.
Also new-to-me the past few weeks, a homemade rake loom. It's a really lovely loom with close-to-small gauge pegs. The pegs are places in a staggered pattern that I haven't quite figured out. It's missing a few pegs but I think it will do nicely as a dishcloth loom. I also snagged a $1 deal, an EZEE knitter, used for fine panel knitting, with an unfinished project on it.
Weave-It rug loom video
The Weave-It Rug Loom is one of my favorite little looms. Awhile back, I was lucky enough to find this one at an antique store along with a plastic 4" Weave-It. The Rug Loom is a little bigger at 5" square and it has fewer pegs, but you wrap it exactly the same as the smaller loom. It was meant for using bulky, or a "rug" weight of yarn, and most of the patterns I've seen from the old booklets are for afghans or stuffed toys.
I like my Weave-It Rug Loom so much that I had to make a video. Hope you enjoy it!
Pillow Man
It started out as Lazy Dog, the cute, floppy Weave-It dog featured on the Eloomanator's blog. But, since I didn't have the 4"x6" loom, and I didn't feel like studying the pattern, and my yarn was all wrong, I simply made six 5" Weave-It Rug Loom squares out of Wool-Ease and stitched them together. Of course, it didn't look anything like a dog… but it was, well, something.
We call him Pillow Man. His head is crooked, his arm and legs are rolled and stitched on at weird angles. Pillow Man is always sleepy and ready for a nap. So now, I wonder, will there ever be a Pillow Woman?