Spinneret

Sing Out Louise!

Forgive the allusion. Industrial hazard to be sure. But what’s a girl to do?

“Through the Loops!” gave the initial tease by showing off her square whorled spindle from Steve Paulsen of Spindlewood. And you may recall I’ve darkened Steve’s e-mail before this, resulting in a matching spindle and nostepinde of Mongolian Elm with Bubinga and Ebony accents on the nostepinde. Mercy. Nothing else wood would do.

I contacted Steve just as he was in the middle of a show selling every blessed spindle off of his racks. No panic mind you, but when you get a chance? Steve had some re-stocking to do when he got home and was able to finish this up for me as he was on his way out to ANOTHER show (He mentioned something about UP Michigan in the fall - just sayin's all). HIs work is really and truly masterful. He goes the extra mile to help you figure out what elements you’re looking for in a new magic wand. Steve refers to the spindles as “singing” as they whirl.

And so they do

Da da dah da

da dee da de

da da da DAH

da de da de

and a boom and a boom …

Ta Dah!

Oh, goodness, that's liberating.

What you're seeing is gleaming Ebony with snowy Ilex (Hollywood, aptly enough). At 26 g. this is a lot of power packed in to a small package. She spins and spins. That’s a merino/quviut blend on there, it’s what was on the drawing table.

In lieu of current knittting or spinning content I give you

Geography International

The Series.

The geography series has been an ongoing project. My LYS is very kind and ushers me out of the way of the other customers when I enter declaiming “Mississippi!” (more of that anon). But truly, they see me coming.

It started with Kalispell, Montana. What a copper mine looks like when you fly over it. Copper eyelash and turquoise. Surrounded by evergreen. And a shovel pin. A vow was made to return to Montana and I am missing an annual conference being staged in Bozeman this year. Bitter I am, twisted, and disappointed. Cruel, ‘tis.

I give you -

Kalispell, Montana.

Koigu Coverup Discovered

Packing up the studio this finally came to light. I had promised this picture before so living in cardboard for the time being has at least served this purpose. Behold, the previously documented Koigu afghan in it’s just cast off state as a gay pride cover up.

The friend modeling it is all of 5’1”. Unblocked it does not drape over her front to back, toes to heels, just toes to nape of her neck in back. But that is certainly enough. 27 skeins of koigu, some dyed “in the style of” to fill in the colorway gaps, 2,000 hours of fan and feather. The full work up on this is available here.

The Tide Comes In …

The tide goes out. This spider needs a kayak with an Mercury outboard, damnit.

There has been a bit of spinning, in between laps in the river. Some Alpaca/Angora/Cormo on the wheel (pictures soon, the camera is back from a successful chip replacement. The folks at Nikon were absolutely great. The 5 minutes to take and post the pictures is a little more elusive.) and some merino/quviut on the flying saucer when nothing will do but pacing and spinning.

It has been an overwhelming year so far, here at the Pink Pagoda. And a brief retrospective of projects to date serves to assure me that I have some amazing friends who all have my back. There will be some way to let them know how much I appreciate them.

For now it feels like the first day on the job at Gizah. Oh … deer - in the headlights.

Did I mention Hong Kong? I may have meant Paris.

Onward.