Crochet Crazy

the blog

Crochet-Crazy (the blog)...

Here are the crochet ravings of me, the projects I do, and items related to the site. I apologise Im not a great blogger, I have good intentions but get easily side tracked, especially by my crochet hook.

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New goodies

Posted By on October 10, 2015

So. To go with my proper loom I kinda had to face that some things had to change. Namely I now needed a warping board. Having tried to get a cheaper one. Damn shipping costs. I manned up and bought a set of reeds for my loom to make a complete set. A fringe maker to make fringes – you can use plastic hair twirling devices but these are solid and reliable. Plus of course. A warping board. This lot actually cost more than my loom did! 

Only thing I may need in the future is the +4 kit which turns my loom from 4 shafts to 8. This would allow fancy double weave cloth which would be many shades of neat

  
Not much for 370 quid is it? A picture frame with posts. 4 crocodile clips that spin in a row and 4 grills (reeds to the spinning community) FYI they are 6, 8, 12 and 16 ends per inch reeds. It came with a 10. 

Spinning the hard way

Posted By on August 23, 2015

Much as I had played with a spindle at the start, I have always really used a spinning wheel. So, I decided that doing it the hard way was required. To appreciate the ease of doing it with a wheel.  Here is what I made
  

OMG happy face

Posted By on July 23, 2015

someone has found a hank of my fave english garden thing!

Im really pleased.. Yay!

  

Last of the georgeous wool! 

Posted By on July 21, 2015

You have all read by now just how much i have loved spinning the english country garden colourway from wildcraft. I tried to buy more, i did manage to get 2 more, meaning i should have 12 skeins as i had to do half braids, but, thats it. Im done, im out, i have no more..  Sniff.

  
This looks to be 168.33 yards or 153.924 meters of yarn

I apologise for the following crappy photo, bad light source, or more im in the way of it, the dog butt, the whole works.. But here are my 12 skeins. I love the colour varience, from yellows to blues to pinks in the range

  

More georgeous wool

Posted By on July 15, 2015

i will almost without a doubt say this again at some point. I love this stuff. Over the weekend and the early days of this week, ive made two more hanks of this

   
Above is 200 yds of yarn


Above is 196.66 yards wo, while thats 3 yards over 200 ish.. Thats a difference of 1.5% thats pretty consistent to me!
 

Second spinolution bobbin

Posted By on July 11, 2015

firstly, i need to say i think i talked absolute crap when i measured the yards on the first bobbin.

I made 4 groups of 40 wraps, and one of 33.5, which is 193.5 wraps, each wrap is supposed to be 2 yards, so thats 387

How did i get to 793? Well i think i doubled some bits twice, such as counted the groups of 40 as 80s and then still doubled it

I am actually disapointed, i had thought the yarn was about a dk weight.  Clearly not. 

Anyway.. Today sees me finishing a second  bobbin.  Its taken me all week mind.
   
    
   
So, this bobbins worth is over 10oz. Its 315g

It was 13×20 wraps plus 12.25 so thats 273.25, wraps at 2yds so thats 546.5 yds

Over 10oz! Thats a lot of yarn

My new wheel. Spinolution mach III

Posted By on June 28, 2015

last year i saw the spinolution wheel, and i was very interested by it, the whole magnetic flyer thing, by the fact it has brakes and so on. That and not everyone and his dog has one. Sadly the uk dealer on contact said they didnt have one for me to try. However, i waited, but this wheel was haunting me.
Earlier this year i wrote to the uk dealers to be told, they didnt stock wheels any more. One word. Arse. So annoyed. I checked out the spinolution ravelry group, it seemed there was no one in the uk prepared to let me come try theirs either. Saying that, only one person reponded with having one, just bought it back from the states, but it needed a drive band, but i could try it when it got here. Anyway about 3 months passed, i reminded them, nothing.

Spinolution at some point launched something that made it very difficult to not do

 

So, basically anything you could need, at $470 off

Although, im still asking wtf you do with a 32oz bobbin.

I ordered it through a lovely lady. Spinolution were quick to ship and i watched its progress getting to me like a hawk. Uk customs as always was the biggest issue. It took forever it felt like to make it to the point where it got to the uk postal service, who then had to send me a bill, i paid it, then finally it was out for delivery friday.

All brits will tell you that its a standing joke that anything going through royal mail with fragile on it, meant frankly they drop kicked it, ran over it or whatever the hell they did with it, it had a hard time. My dad once sent a lathe head in a ply wood box he built for it, out of half inch ply wood. They smashed the box.. Seriously elephants could stand on that box.. But they managed to break it, despite the big red fragile stickers on.

It seems usps is the same.

I did fear it would be damaged. Not too surprisingly

 

 

First inspection, it looks fine, what a relief

So, i put it together. Despite no actual instructions and the youtube video shows a prototype, and while it was simple enough, i had no washers like she did. I also put the smaller flyer on and the whole head thing could move more than enough. I tried a quick test peddle but it moved too much and made noise. Was very puzzled as woman in video had two screws whick locked it in place. I had nothing obvious. Thankfully i thought to look at the other head, it had a big twisty screw knob at the base which would be right so i took that and fixed the head on securely.

 

I just started spinning my first bit of fibre when a friend persuaded me that i had to go out. But i made this really short bit of yarn

 

So, anyway. Filled my first 8oz bobbin today

 

Looks very sloppy as i found it hard to load evenly because the take up is a bit weird. Most wheels give you your yarn back, this almost wont, no matter what tension the take ups on. But it also doesnt suck it in quite the same way, so if you end up feeding it a long chunk, it yarn tends to flap and jump off the flyer pins… And move where its loading onto the bobbin. Hence there are loose bits, big cross over bits in this

I finished the single lunchtime today.

 

 I wound it into a centre pull ball and then plied it back onto the same bobbin.
I then used their skein winder to make it into a skein. I found i couldnt use the peddles to turn the skein winder it was too stiff. Even with the bobbin on their lazy kate, the skein winder needs a perfect line up ortherwise of course the yarn jumps off the winder. However.


My 8 3/4 oz bobbin, thats 250g of yarn. Measuring 793 yards.

I love my new wheel. However there were down points

  1. No instructions on how to put it together.
  2. Only one head holding on screw knob between two heads
  3. The take up is odd, it feels like somone holding your yarn who will only take your new yarn not give it back, but when it takes it it doesnt suck it up quick like most wheels so it can jump the flyer pins
  4. The skein winder creates too much drag and any tiny resistance such as the bobbin on the lazy kate, you cant peddle. But you can use the smaller prongs as a winding handle.
  5. Getting yarn off the skein winder is hard as it has no give in it

 

As promised

Posted By on June 28, 2015

firstly i said this enough in enough places.. Ie, i would get a better picture of my first decent batch of yarn and which I sold.

  

I cant help but feel a bit sad i sold it, even though i actually cant stand the colour purple.

The weekend

Posted By on June 21, 2015

Well, the weekend is over. Shame really. Im one of these people who gets to sunday pm and has just about relaxed and gotten into the weekend idea only just in time for it to be over.

So, I wanted to share a bit more about my Seriously nice yarn and More seriously nice yarn as ive now completed the third braid, and am starting on the last! Nooo! Im really liking this stuff.. 

You saw in an earlier post that the yarn comes in a braid

well, this can leave it really compacted, so i floof it up

 

On the left you see one half i floofed, the right is the half yet to go

 

The foofing makes it mich easier to spin.  You will just have to believe me on that.  Anyway, heres braid 3 added to the ones done so far

   

This braid the first half had a lot less green in it than the second, but i dont care, i love this stuff! 
    

Knitcrate

Posted By on June 15, 2015

theres is a company who will send you yarn in the post, there are many choices.

You can have the newbie package which comes with vidoes on how to knit

The dyeing package, where you are sent yarn blanks and taught how to dye stuff..

You can have the standard package, which sends you a few skeins of good quality yarn,

The indie package which has funky died yarns

Both the last two come with also some patterns for it, and a “thing” this can be all sorts of things such as ive had a nice bag to put a project in, food,( the tyoe that does travel, so sweets, tea bags etc), a digital row counter..

Its reslly nice to come home to this bright red jiffy bag of surprises.

  

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