A FO and, Gasp! A Floor Loom!!

Hello me dears! Welcome to Fibre Arts Friday! Today I have a FO (finished object) to share and... wait for it... a floor loom!! Yay!!! well, it will be a floor loom once I figure out how to assemble it!

The final countdown has began for our big trip - Around The World in 40 Days, as I write this there are 15 days 5 hours 48 minutes... I will try to keep a travel blog while on the trip to keep you updated. As for now, I am beginning to panic: there are still presents to be made, packing to be commenced, and all sorts of arrangement to be organised... ... and I can't seem to get into gear, eek!!

OK, the FO... this is a throw for my friend Elaine whom we will be seeing on our trip when we stop in Seattle. She picked the yarn herself as it goes with the decor in her house.

Tunisian crochet is most suited for entrelac, the process is much simpler than the knitted ones. As you only work with one square at a time you don't even need a real Tunisian hook, any crochet hook with a straight shaft should do the trick. The pattern is Sunset Ruana from Interweave Crochet Winter 2009.  I love this pattern for blankets or throws, I already used this pattern for a baby blanket in two different yarns which also turned out very nice. For this throw I added two rounds of crochet for the border with my handspun, I was going to do a bigger border but I didn't have enough yarn.

Now, what would you do if you see a floor loom for sale for only $180? You grab it quick of course! I couldn't believe my eyes when a listing popped up on my local "buy sell swap" page for a floor loom with bench, the interest was phenomenal but I was the lucky one, oh yeah :D 

The trouble is it has been dismantled for storage, and the lady who was selling it for her aunt had no idea what the make or model it was. Still, it was too good an opportunity to miss...

It's in my garage at the moment while I search for more information and, hopefully, an assembling manual. I posted the photo on Ravelry and some weavers recon it's a Toika Liisa loom judging by the side frame, so I sent an email to Toika to confirm. A lady from my spinning group who is also an avid weaver offered to help me put it together, so did Rachael (Sparrow). With any luck we could have this baby set up before my holiday, fingers crossed!

The question is: where do I put it? ... a sensible person would have asked this question before the purchase, obviously that wasn't me...

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

Yarn Giblets!!

I don't know about you but I prefer to knit or crochet from a centre pull ball, and if I'm hand winding a skein I always wind it into a centre pull ball. With commercial yarn however, it's a different matter. Only on a few occasions I was able to find the end in the middle easily, for the rest of the time more often than not it's a tag of war. Like this one:

I tried and tried to find the end without any success, so I pulled on the inner most centre and out it popped - the yarn giblets! It took me a good forty minutes to sort it out, and when I did I started a project that will turn into a throw/blanket for my friend Elaine. She sent me the yarn and said that she would like something to go over the sofa. The pattern is the Sunset Ruana in the Winter 2009 edition of Interweave Crochet, my progress so far..

This is a Tunisian crochet project, but because each square is only small you can get away with a normal hook. I love the way the colour shifts. This is a "in car" project so it may take some time to complete, but I'm not seeing Elaine until next January so all should be good.

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!