Saturday, January 14, 2012

Flax

I've been having an adventure with a new spindle and flax fibers. The flax is probably from the beginning of the 1900's

Flax
My supersweet husband made this spindle for me, the "legs" are detachable to change the weight of the spindle.

Spindle

Spindle
It took awhile to figure out how to spin the flax, it acts very differently to wool.  With a lot of help from Knitty, and especially the towel trick I've stardet to get the hang of it!  This is the evenings results.

Spinning flax



Sunday, January 1, 2012

Stitchmarkers

Spent an hour the other night making stitchmarkers with beads and cord.



They are very simple to make:

Carefully melt the end of the cord with a lighter, quickly form the end of the cord to a tapered end with wet fingers.
Place all the beads for one stitch marker on the cord:  ----oOooOo--------------

Make a knot on one end:  ----oOooOo----------&  
melt the end of the cord after the knot to a small ball of nylon.

Cut  the cord to the lenght you want, remember that the middle knot and the end knot will "eat" some of the cord length.

Make a knot on the other end:   &-------oOooOo----------&
melt the end like you did with the first knot.

Now divide the beads to two sides:   &oOo--------------------oOo&

Fold the cord in half and make a knot for the loop: