Engineering Improvements & Butterfly Doily

Still happy with my home-made swift and how much quicker I can now wind my HDTs, I did make a small improvement to the design though.

I wanted my swift to come apart so it wouldn't take too much space and I could store it away easily.  So I wanted the two blades to stay as two parts and I had just pinned them together when in use.  Today, I used my swift again and thought I could improve...  I added some pieces of cardboard so that the top blade can now slot down into the bottom blade.

I'm happy now.

Works well and stores away neatly.

And an update on the butterfly doily.  Inspired by Fox's perseverance with her own large project, I am now working on row 14 which is lots of small split rings so it's a bit slow-going.  The doily now measures 19 inches across (or 48cm).  There are 4 more rows left after this one.  I only work on this project here and there, not continuously,  so it may be a while yet before it is finished!

The next round is also lots of small split rings and the doily is now so large that it does take a long time to go all the way around!  And it's starting to frill at the edges again so it will need a bit of pressing soon.  I have to admit that I don't like tatting designs that require a lot of coaxing into place like that!  The long chains are troublesome because they need to be flattened into a sharper arch than would be naturally achieved.  Not one I'm going to want to be washing too often - too much work to iron it flat again afterwards!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Thread Winder & Other Things

Look what I just received in the post this morning!

Gorgeous, gorgeous!!

I had been trying (really hard) to be good and not order any more HDT for a while and instead go through my stash... but then I made the mistake of checking out what Jess! was up to...

Fatal.

How could I resist those lovely colours?  From the top is Carnival, Taffilicious and Wildberries.

Anyway, this leads me on to the topic of this blogpost.  I love HDT but... I hate unwinding skeins!  I often chase a family member to ask if they'll hold the skein while I wind or otherwise, rig up some pins on a cushion, or around the arms of a chair or whatever I can think up at the time.  But I'd had enough.   So my brain started whirring and I thought I could make something...  (feeling thrifty and not wanting to spend money).

So here it is:

A bit Heath Robinsonish...

but works a treat!

Would you like to see it in action?

You may laugh, but I wound all my skeins in a fraction of the time it usually takes me.  All that was needed was a tin (a full one for the weight), some cardboard, 4 screws, a pencil and a glue gun.

Then I thought I'd show you the socks I'm currently knitting.  It's the first time I've tried this:  they are knitted both at the same time, from the toe up, on ONE circular needle.  Great idea, as I have suffered from the single sock syndrome in the past so that way, you don't get one abandoned sock (... you may get two, but that's another story).

And lastly, I just wanted to mention that Etsy now has made an instant download feature available to its sellers which is a great thing.  I know that Yarnplayer recently said she had moved her patterns to Craftsy because of that.  I guess Etsy were listening.  I think it's still at the trial stage but I'm in the process of updating my own pattern listings.  It means as soon as you complete payment, the pattern is immediately available for download and remains available to the buyer in their account afterwards.

Best wishes,

Frivole