It’s Nice to Have Friends

 A friend of mine who just happens to own my favorite soap shop in Tucson, gave me this beautiful saguaro cactus soap for my newly remodeled bathroom.  It looks wonderful in the handmade soap dish that I bought there a while ago.  

This is not a paid advertisement.  This is a personal request that you just might consider supporting a small business owned by a woman.  I have been buying my soap at Tracy’s shop for years. Did I mention that Tracy makes the soap herself? In my humble opinion, supporting small businesses in the community has a positive effect on the entire community.  

Tracy does put together awesome gift baskets and bags.  With Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduations coming up this would be your chance to get a great gift and help support the local Tucson economy.  

Artemesia is located at 6538 East Tanque Road, Tucson Arizona, across the street from Trail Dust Town. In the same plaza as my favorite Local Yarn Shop, Grandmas Spinning Wheel, which is also a woman owned shop. 

If you can not make it to the store in person you may use the website Artemesia There is a large selection of soaps, bath salts, lotions and scrubs for both men and women.  If you have dry skin most soaps have moisturizers in them.  

Going Batty

 This afternoon I carded over a dozen batts form bits and pieces of fiber. Some were just the leftovers from other spinning projects. Some were samples of various fibers. The only things that they will now have in common are they are one of a kind batts and once they are spun up they will be going into handwoven scarfs for the children’s clothing bank in the Flowing Wells School District here in Tucson.  

I am very thankful that Vicky from Grandma’s Spinning Wheel in Tucson was able to get me new drive bands for my Louet Victoria even though they were not in the catalog.  Vicky is simply amazing.  My Victoria is 2 years old and this will be the first drive band replacement.  Just remember when your drive band starts to get loose it’s time to replace them.  

Here is a very small sample of the mini batts. I think that this is box 2 or 3.  I used my Ashford Art Drum Carder.  Vicky carries those too and can ship to your house.   Another few days of carding and I will move on to spinning these.  The bits and pieces that are not relevant to any color way will go into a box to be carded later.  I will empty the last of 3 laundry baskets tomorrow. By the way a laundry basket can hold a lot of fiber.  This is a very small part of my deep cleaning projects. Make it useful or dump it.  

The 3rd Time Was The Charm

 Let me start off by saying that I was having a very bad dyslexic day.   So starting a new pattern was not my best idea ever.  The words and numbers were jumping all around the page.   Somehow my mind translated “Size 9/5.5mm” into Size 11. Don’t ask, I would not be able to explain it.  So I started with U.S. size 11 and the knitting did not match the picture.  So I went down to U.S. size 10, but luckily I moved my pink marking tape over that one line, totally by accident.  I was able to save the second cast on and just replace the needle tips.  Luckily I was using my LYKKE interchangeable knitting needles.  

Because I was having such a hard day with numbers, I put a stitch marker after evert 10 cast on stitches until I got the right amount of stitches   I highly recommend this when adding more the 25 stitches to a project   

So now the next row is 5.   I love the pattern “Hermosa Tee” by Grace Akhrem.  The yarn I am using is Alumco in color 10 by Araucania Yarns. If your local yarn shop does not carry this yarn you can always use my favorite local yarn shop, Grandma’s Spinning Wheel. They have a new on line store too.  

My progress so far.  

P.S. I would like to make a personal recommendation to pattern designers and yarn companies with the fore knowledge that every Millimeter on the pattern page counts. By adding just two spaces you could make a pattern so much easier to read. For example instead of 9/5.5mm, try 9 / 5.5mm. You can see the correct knitting needle size right away. I know that this is a decades old industry standard most likely set up when print pages were set by typesetters.  Now that most everything is done electronically this should be very easy to accomplish.  This is my 2 cents worth on the subject.  Thank You for listening.  Have a wonderful day.  

Spinning and More

 I spent the morning clearing off my bobbins so I could start spinning for Spin Together on Grandma’s Spinning Wheel Team.  I fell a little, oh who I am I kidding, I fell way behind because of hand surgery on Tuesday morning.  These are the skeins that I took off. I will not be able to wash them until the stitches come out and my hand heals a little more.  

After my nap I started spinning for Spin Together.  I managed to spin a few mini batts before my hand got tired.  I really like how the almost yarn looks.  I will be weaving scarfs and shawls, then post them on my Handmade by Sheri Facebook page and Instagram.  I am still in recovery mode so things are moving very slowly around here. 

It’s All About The Tink

Sometimes when designing a new pattern way outside the stitches per inch on a different size knitting needle things can go terribly wrong very quickly.   I am using U.S. size 10 knitting needles on a fingering weight yarn.  I knew my first guesstimate was off so I doubled the amount of stitches that I cast on.  It looked pretty good until tonight. Let’s just sat after knitting 12 rows I know I am way off.  Not wanting to do the math involved tonight it will wait for tomorrow.  Then I will begin again.  I will also have it finished by the Birthday Celebration at Grandmas Spinning Wheel here in Tucson.  Yes, I will be on hand to help you select the perfect yarn for you.

In other news Debra showed me her latest knitting project. She took my Count1-2-3-4 shawl pattern and cast on 81 stitches for a narrower shawl.  Even better she is knitting it in 100% silk yarn in a sports weight.  The drape on the shawl is fantastic.  If you have some spare silk yarn in a sports weight give it a try and post the picture on  Raverly.  P.S. the pattern is on Raverly or your local yarn store.

The Next Challenge

My next Spinning and knitting challenge is to take these 2 tubs of lace and fingering weight yarns and reaping them to make a worsted weight yarn for charity hat and scarf knitting, and scarf weaving. There was a phase in my knitting where I actually thought I could find the perfect time to knit lace work.  After adding bits of lace to some projects I found that lace knitting was not fun and not for me.   To compound the problem well meaning friends gave me a lot of wool to knit with.  I just don’t knit with those weights of yarn.  

So the first part of the challenge will be to sort the yarn between super wash and non super wash wool.  The super wash wool will be plyed to make charity hats and scarfs.  The non super wash will be plyed to make woven scarfs.  The reason for this is that when a scarf is woven and washed there is a certain amount of shrinkage that goes along with the finishing process.  So I don’t have to worry that it will shrink. The shrinkage would be a major problem with hand knit hats and scarfs.  

The first photo is how the yarn will look like after it is replyed the second picture is the first stage of the challenge. Once this is finished I will move to odd balls of dk weight yarns. If you are a spinner and want to learn how to do this and just happen to live or visit the Tucson area just call Grandmas Spinning Wheel to schedule a class. I can schedule a class with anywhere from 1 to 5 students.  If your spinning group or guild would like to learn just contact me.   It is a great stash buster.  I even make art yarns with plying.

Projects 68 to 74

Here are the next 7 finished projects.  All are hand spun yarn. 4 are art yarn. All are going to Grandmas Spinning Wheel in Tucson on Friday. They are all one of a kind skeins of yarn. They will be in the hand spun yarn by local Tucson Fiber Artists section of the shop. All will be priced $34.00 or less.

Last Square

I started knitting the last square of Teri’s blanket today. You know the one I started when she was a L1. You have all probably heard the story of how she picked 10 skeins of yarn and we both thought that it would be enough for a queen sized blanket.  Boy were we ever off in our calculations.   It turned out that 1 skein made 3 blocks. So I had enough yarn for 2 rows of blocks.

Then there was a frantic search for enough yarn to finish the blanket.  I think I will have enough yarn leftover to knit a sweater for me.  But I am digressing.  At Thursday’s knitting group at Grandmas Spinning Wheel we have an aggregate knowledge base approaching 200 years.  It’s a great place to discuss the merits of various finishing techniques.  So the plan is to chrochet the boarder. Yes, I will be bracing my left hand for this.  Not to weave in all the ends in one sitting.  Do the final trimming after the first wash.  Try to figure out how to fit it in my carry on luggage.

This evening I was doing the mommy multi task thing.  Finishing cleaning of the craft room.  Washing more eyrpy laundry.   Taking care of the eyrpy boy. Getting my final 5k step for the day. Giving Eric his medicine.  Plus near constant suctioning of Eric to keep the gunk out of his lungs.  Now I am just waiting for Eric to fall asleep.  I think I will leave the tv on all night so that I can sleep.

A Great Day

I have a very serious request from my east coast friends, please take your freezing weather back. Last night was our first hard freeze of the winter. Yes, we do get hard freezes in Tucson.  We have at least 2 more days with lows in the 20's and highs in the 50's. It is a little, ok a lot too cold for me. I know it is still December, but I am ready for spring and summer. Not to be picky thought I would like it between 80 and 110f.  The only positive I can think about for the cold, at least I get to show off my knitting for a month or 2 a year.  

Every thing that John and I could move out of the living room has been moved. Tomorrow we are in for round 2 of carpet cleaning.  We are also cleaning the tile and grout at the back of the house, then having it sealed.  I took the time to do another round of deep cleaning.  The living room as not been so empty since the kids used it for a playroom oh,so last century.  

On a really high note, we picked up the van from the auto body shop today.  John and I are so happy.  Eric does not seem to care one way or the other as long as he gets to hang out with his friends.  I also went to Grandmas Spinning Wheel to wind my yarn for the "Deadwood Cowl" by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark, with Dream in Color yarn.  Now it is time kick back and to knit.  

A Day Off

I like Thursday's , because it is my day off.  I took a slow approach to today.  After John and Eric left, I took a nap. John and I then looked at cabinet inserts and granite.  Then there was lunch at at Loving Spoonfuls on Campbell avenue, a Tucson favorite of mine.  They have some of the best vegan food in town. The owner Peggy also has her first cookbook that just got published, I am quite sure if you went in to buy a copy, she would sign it for you.  It is a nice book with wonderful pictures /recipes and would make a great gift.  John and my sister Karen joined me for lunch.  

Then it was off to spin at Grandmas Spinning Wheel. I managed to spin 3 skeins of art yarn today.  They have been washed and are drying in the garage. Karen had never been to the Thursday spinning group and had a good time, although she did unravel the blanket she was working on.  On the bright side she get to use the yarn again. 

Yesterday the air conditioning compressor and motor blew out on the van. John did manage to get the parts ordered and they will fix it tomorrow.  It's a four hour job, grumble, grumble.  I think this is good since John said Eric was not a fan of 440 air conditioning.  440 is when you roll down all 4 windows and go 40 mph to cool the car. I am glad that I was not driving to see the pouty face that Eric was making.  Then when he got home he had to sit under the fan to cool off.  

Look for new listings this weekend in my Etsy shop. I have to make room for all the kitchen stuff and could use the space.  If you have a special order in mind please let me know.  

Grandmas Summer Shawl

This is the first of 2  of my brand new patterns that were released yesterday. The name was chosen by Vicky the owner of Grandmas Spinning Wheel here in Tucson. By a remarkable coincidence You can get this pattern and yarn exclusively at Grandmas Spinning Wheel here in Tucson. Stop buy to get the pattern and yarn. Join the group at the knitting table and start your project. Depending on when you stop by you just might find me knitting or spinning.

Grandmas Spinning Wheel
6455 East Tanque Verde
Tucson AZ 85715
(520) 290-3738

You can also find Grandmas Spinning Wheel on line.

The pattern is an advanced beginner one skein wonder. The yarn is Calbuco by Araucania.  Perfect for the slight chill in the air on summer evenings, with a very nice drape.  It is done in garter stitch. The only skills needed to knit this shawl are the ability to do yarn overs, knit into the front and back of the same stitch, and purl.