Sunday, April 18, 2010

TUSAL for April

It's new moon time again (plus a few days) and that means it's time to post my progress in Dragon My Needle's Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long. This month, instead of embroidery floss and a cheerful kitty I present cotton yarn and a sour puss. (Really, Bob, I'm sorry about that incident earlier in the day.)

The needles I usually work with are about 1 1/4 inches long. I like the petites since you can stitch longer without reloading.

The needle I've been working with lately, though, is 5 inches long. Some difference, huh?

A friend's late mama was a crafty woman and he let me go through her stash and take what I wanted. One of the items was an old Weave-It loom. I had never used one before but it looked like something fun to try. This loom was first invented in the early 1930's by Donald Simonds but this one is probably from the 1950's - around the time she would have been starting married life. [Note: The more modern (circa 1998) Weavette loom was produced by Licia Comforti's Buxton Brook store after she bought rights to manufacture it. There's an article in the March/April 2010 Piecework magazine featuring Weave-It work.] The box contained the 4"x4" loom and instruction sheet but did not have a weaving needle. The LNS had a 5 inch weaving needle that seems to work fine, though a 6 inch one would be better.

I purchase several balls of Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn for weaving. It works well and had a good hand when completed. The 120 yard balls are good for 13 squares and a bit left over. I used the leftovers to make a multicolored square. Looks nice but I didn't enjoy tying off the ends to change colors. Oh, well. Got'sta take the bad with the good. I'm half way through the second ball (the third one is pink) and realize that it will take a few more balls to make the afghan I'm shooting for. I'll post pictures when I've got something to show for it.

Oh, and one other thing about these little squares: they make a lovely 9 count even weave fabric. I see embroidering (or at least cross-stitching) on these in the future!