Simply Stitchy

  Hi all, I am having the best day ever! As a member of the local fiber arts group, I get to borrow equipment like spinning wheels, drum carders, and books.  Today, thanks to the group, I'm playing with an Addi Express knitting machine. Its a 22 needle machine that I thought would be perfect for socks. Oh boy was I surprised when I found out it can do so much more! Now, I have used a knitting machine before. It's an Inspiration and looks a lot more like a Sentro. Unfortunately, it was a charity shop find and doesn't really work that well.    (C) Olwen White Although I have had some success with it, most of the projects I tried ended up as knotty noodles and in the to-be-frogged pile. Nothing dents your productivity quicker than a gadget that doesn't work properly.  These two hats are the only decent items I have made on it: (C) Olwen White (C) Olwen White   Even so, I was constantly sorting out dropped stitches, skipped stitches, and general tension issues...

Hi all, Usually when I test drive a sewing machine to see if it works, I use random bits of left over fabric. For the Brother CS6000I, I decided to try it out on an actual project. (C) Olwen White   I've already featured this machine in a video on my YouTube Channel, Simply Stitchy When I first purchased the Brother CS6000I it really wasn't a happy bunny. The needle was hitting the needle plate and the machine didn't want to sew. It was covered in dust and debris, the case was dirty, and it had been sat forgotten in the back of a salvage yard's warehouse for eons.  Well, a few years anyway.  It was in desperate need of a spa day! You can see how I got on with fixing it in this video:    Spoiler alert - I got it working and thought it deserved more than some random fabric for its first sewing spree in ages.  Besides, I needed a new project bag for my knitting and crochet.  That's where the Minions come in. I'm a bit of a fan of Disney's Despicable Me Mi...

  (C) Olwen White   Hi all Last year I had a go at processing raw sheep fleece. By that I mean, unwashed fleece straight off the sheep’s back. Still pretty much intact, complete with bits of straw, grass, bramble, and other debris that sheep tend to roll in. So my first job was to pick out as much of that jumble of vegetation and manure as I could. By hand… and yes, it was as icky as it sounds! Step 1 - Washing and Drying the Fleece For my first fleece, I used warm water and some Woolite . You can use a special scouring soap like Unicorn Power Scour , but I didn’t have any. I would have used hot water, but as I was processing the fleece outside, I couldn’t get it any hotter than warm. The camping stove I was using couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of water needed to wash a fleece. Besides, if the water is too hot you can felt the fleece rather than clean it, so I figured warm would be safer. I mean wool is usually washed in cold water, right? So warm should be...