Shuttles

I love to look at everyone's shuttles, so I decided to share a picture of some of my toys. These are my nicer old shuttles, collected over many years. Some I have had for 15 + years, others were gifts, and some were ebay purchases. Ebay can be a dangerous thing, haha. The larger bone crochet hooks came from my grandmother's sewing box, it screws together in the middle, not sure why. The small hook has a chain with a picot gauge, from Rosita. You ebayers know Rosita, it's fun and I love it, but I'm not so sure it's authentic antique. One of the shell shuttles has a small metal pick at the end for joins, it can be turned back into the shuttle, it's quite different. The four silver shuttles are all Websters, nice to tat with, mmmm. Above the silver shuttles are two made of wood, they are carved from one piece, so the ends are open, and the top one has an ebony inset. Only one is plastic, celluloid, or whatever, it's in the center and looks to be leaves. This came from an antique store and I carried it in purse or pocket for years not knowing I should be taking better care of it, well loved and well used. Ooops my picture is fuzzy when enlarged, I should take a better one.

More Socks

Snow has been on the ground now for several weeks, so much snow it is in mounds everywhere and ice that it is hard to get the car up and out of the garage without bumping the van top on the garage door. A good case of cabin fever is the result. Stuck inside, I've done a set of socks in record time, for me that is. These are in a cotton wool mix, lana grossa, much softer than sockotta. The stitch is a lacey ribbing, simple and fun. I don't like to do socks in a complicated pattern, they are the knitting I like to drag around to chat and knit events. A complicated pattern makes for either not chatting, or to much unknitting later. These are a gift to my youngest, Jeannette, who will be 22 next week. She likes to wear dress pants, gray or black, wide at the bottom, with pin stripes, these should go well with her neutral colored wardrobe.

wool mitts

My poor hand spun hand knitted mitts have been badly abused this week in the Ohio snow, shoveling, they are all dirty now. They are spun from a fleece artist 50 gms of wool silk blend, Sooo Sooooft and yummmy! I worried and worried that there would not be enough yarn for two mitts and look I had enough for a headband also. I need to keep better track of how many yards in the hand spun yarn and LABEL it before I put the ball away. The pattern should also be marked how much yarn needed, use smaller needles next time or a few fewer stitches. They sure are nice and warm though, ahhhhhh.

Side note, this cable was a nice easy fun pattern, one row of cable, three rows straight . Why can I never figure out if I've knit two or three rows?, duh 1, 2, 3, cable. I can count to three really, I just can't remember if I'm at row 2 or 3.

I feel so silly. I don't do this with tatting, 1 &, 2 &, 3 & uuhhh 2&, 3 no 4 &.

whewwwww

Dang, it was sure hard to get into my blog today, they made upgrade to the new blogger. Hope there aren't too many changes to learn, I'm in the mood for keep it simple this week. Life seems too complicated, don't want the blog thing to be another brain drain. My drain today was to figure out how to load the pictures from my new cell phone to my computer and now to the blog. OK here goes. WooHoo My brain is so proud of itself, hehe. These gauntlets are knitted in wool, silk and are my first beaded knitting. Jeannette made fun of them as I was knitting #1 and before I could finish #2 she had claimed them as hers. They do look better on her long thin young wrists. They suit her style.

Motif 13

A one pass butterfly. How much do I hate to hide ends, so much I've redone this butterfly pattern so it can be tatted in one pass and only two ends to hide. The original was a guild member's estate sale find, so I have no idea who was the original designer. If no one objects? I can share my retake of this pattern for the calendar project. The lovely rainbow thread was a secret santa gift from Hope, thanks Hopie. It has no label but it looks to be a fancy quilting thread, isn't it great.

Now I will always remember what Georgia said to me, that the variegated threads are fun but the design element of the tatting gets lost in the colors. So tatting in variegated threads rarely wins awards. I'm not interested in winning but what a shame to lose the design effect. So this thread will be reserved for fabulous edgings, bookmarks, butterflies, hearts, flowers, many fun things and my doilies and larger pieces will be done in a thread that has less personality.

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!!!!