Saturday, September 30, 2006

pegboards and lace

My hubby surprised me in August with this new pegboard he had made for me. Our friend Jim did a fantastic job. It was waiting for me when I arrived home from a family visit back east. We finally got around to hanging it up today, and I placed all my looms on it. The only loom that is not on it is my Penny dishcloth rake. Looks like I have a lot more room to fill it with more! It measures 5 1/2' x 4 1/2'. It's exciting to see my ideas for a loom room coming to pass. All I need is a looming table and some shelves for all my yarn that's everywhere at the moment.
When we moved our daughter to L.A. in July, I got to spend some time with my sister-in-law. She showed me old chests full of beautiful crocheted table cloths and doilies that were crocheted by her mother and grandmother. She said their hands moved incredibly fast when they crocheted. When she saw how much I loved the crocheted items, she gave me this beautiful purple doily. I found the perfect place for it, adorning my mother-in-law's photo from when she 17 years old. How appropriate that this gorgeous doily should be with its creator. My sister-in-law also sent me a wonderful birthday present. All this yummy Alpaca wool. It is incredibly soft. My daughter bought me the fine orange and purple Alpaca yarn. I just have to find projects for it all. Shouldn't be a problem!
This is the store the Alpaca yarn is from. I got to visit it when we were in Los Angeles. Boy, am I ever tempted to fill my empty corral with some yearling Alpacas!

Monday, September 25, 2006

looming update

Well, I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post. Life just gets busy, and unfortunately I don't have much time for looming these days and keeping up with this blog. I wish I didn't have to go to work so I could spend as much time as I can to loom, I love it that much. One of my friends liked the pawprint and 3 crosses dishcloths and asked if I was selling them. I'm not selling them, but I enjoyed making these two dishcloths for her on my new DA extra small gauge WonderLoom. I usually use the crochet cast off for the dishcloths, but this time I wanted to try the basic removal method I found on Isela's How To Video Link. I really like the neat edge you get with this method.
Pawprint Dishcloth

3 Crosses Dishcloth

I'm still working on this prayer shawl on my 5/8" regular gauge adjustable Markman Farm Loom. I'm using 60 pegs. Hopefully, I'll finish it before the holidays. It takes 3 skeins of yarn and I just started my 2nd skein. I'm using Homespun Prairie.