Textileophile

 Last I left you, I'd been Super excited about my new cross stitch project.  I'm still really enthused and have worked on it every day since then.  One of my friends said this looked a bit like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. It's not the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, and if you'd like to guess what it is, Rorschach cross-stitch is one of my favorite games ever. And speaking of Alice in Wonderland, I've still been working on my double knit scarf every day.  I got to a point where I realized I ought to check my gauge.  I mean, the scarf itself is not really that modifiable as far as length.  And as I suspected, my row gauge is pretty far off.  It's about 85% of it's intended length at this point.  In the end it'll be a good foot too short.  Which isn't great.  But, being the creative nerd that I am, I think I'm just going to add motifs from the book.  And here's the first planned addition:    I didn't want...

I am sure I have a very low bar set for miracles, but I checked the tracking on that cross-stitch fabric I ordered a few weeks ago today and it said it had been delivered!  It had been stuck in pre-shipment for days and as far as I knew never was received by the post office.  But lo and behold, my Aida was here in the mailbox in time for Christmas! And I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon stitching.  Woohoo! It wasn't a Christmas gift or anything, I'm just supremely impatient! XD I'll keep you  apprised of the stitching process.  It's another long haul, but at least it's not linen. -- In other news, I've been gift knitting these days.  Oh, not for Christmas, the time for that is long past.  I have a sweater going for Zac that I started back in the summer.  I thought I'd get a handle on it and have it done for him this year. I daresay it's not going to happen.    On the other hand, that's 9 whole inches of the back of a sweater....

 I don't know about you, but sometimes my finishes snowball.  I'll finish one thing and before I know it in a week I have several!  It's exciting! It gives me permission to start something new, or more commonly to look at some of my more languishing projects and see about getting them there, too. Last time I talked about my spinning WIPs, and one caught my eye, the magenta targhee singles I was working on with several drop spindles.  After I posted I picked them back up and within two days I was finished!   I wound them off onto a niddy noddy and finished it like usual.  A quick soak and hanging.    It's in three (well, actually four, the large one has ends tied together) skeins because I spindled it in 4 parts.  Joining in the knitting will just be a matter of split splicing. I don't have accurate yardage info, it's probably a light fingering overall, but it really bloomed in the blocking and I don't trust the yardage I originally counted....

 I remember vividly throughout my early knitting career saying I'll never do that: "I'll never knit socks," "I'll never be able to do X," "I'll never knit this pattern again" "I'll never spin"(...) And anyone who knows me knows that if I make one of those statements it's almost like an informal bet with myself.  And I don't usually intend to lose, but... Sometimes I think it has to do with timing and confidence more than desire.  Sometimes even saying the thing puts the challenge out there, and if you know me you know I love a good challenge. And this post is about spinning, so you can now surmise that at one point I said to myself, I'll never learn to spin. And here we are. (a random 100 gram skein of yarn I spun on my wheel out of palworth/silk) I am a spinner.  Through and through.  I learned by drop spindle in 2015, got my wheel the next year, and have been spinning ever since.  I love the meditative nature of ...

 Hey there! I finally got my teeny tiny beading needle so I could finish the teeny tiny beading on my linen lady cross stitch! :D Look at that, framed and everything! While I'm here, I wanted to show off some previous cross stitches I've done! This one was finished last year, I've hung it in my bedroom, where I can admire her.  She was stitched on 16 count Aida using a Dimensions kit.  I had a difficult time at one point, you can't tell, but her head is actually one stitch too narrow.  I got a bit carried away doing the half stitching of the background and got a bit off track. You'd literally never know unless I told you. And I just did.  Jokes on me. XD This one was a quick one I did earlier this year.  It's from a pattern on Etsy and it's an homage to one of my favorite shows, "What We Do In The Shadows." Great show! Here is a dragon I finished several more years back, he was my first beaded cross stitch pattern.  I put him on my shelf and he gua...

 I don't know about you, but I love Christmas! It's my favorite holiday! I love gifts, I love baking, I love singing, I love mint chocolate everything, I love everything about it! Exclamation! And I love knitting things for people I love.  Last year I made sweaters for the boys:   The last two were technically hand-me downs, the arms were too small for Zac.  Perfect for my brother though! Hazel was not left out, she has several sweaters that she never wears, and gobs of socks.  I think I made her socks instead. Do I have a picture? I do not. This year I decided to go little more low-key and just make the kids socks.  The ones on the left are for Toby.  They are toe-up with a contrasting heel, because I only had a 50 gram ball.  I didn't worry about matching, but I did worry about making sure they were big enough. The ones on the right are  Hazel's and I've talked about them before.  They were knit top down, with a heel flap and gusset....

 So, I'm here to talk about a project that I was really excited about when I started it.  It's double knitting, which is a fun technique for me, it's nerdy, which I love, and it's relatively endless.  Which, admittedly, is a double edged sword. I usually knit/craft relatively monogamously.  I might take a break from something, cast on a few new things, but usually I'm hyper focused on finishing whatever it is that I'm working on.  I am not one to spend a bit of time doing one thing, switch things up and do something else.  It's just not really how my mind works, it's not how inspiration usually strikes. Therein lies the rub about the double knit thing.  Double knitting is a technique where you are essentially stranding in a 1x1 rib.  You are left with a fabric that is reversible (the colors are reversed on the back) and very stretchy.  It's a neat way to put pictures and motifs in knitting without having to worry about the reverse side with a...