How do they work? Well, like a flat bed knitter. 8-P Ok I will explain. Hooks sit in the slots in the cylinders. As you crank around, cams inside the machine lift up and push down the needles. When the needles are up, they pick up your yarn. Then as they go down, the new yarn slips through the existing stitch. You just crank around and around, and socks pour out the bottom! Heels and toes are made with ‘short rows’- you pull needles out of work to decrease and then put them back into work to increase. You can see it happening on the Legare.
I can make a pair of socks in an evening. That is if every thing goes well.
The biggest downfall? These machines will cost you. A lot. And then they keep eating sock yarn.
But you get stuff like this out of it.

Meet my new studio!

I think I can say I have all my equipment out. Not all of it is up and running. I haven’t put the CSM together and something is wrong with the weaving loom but I SO am not going to crawl under there right now.

I’m in the (walk out) basement. It’s completely finished. In fact I’m in some sort of bar/entertainment room. It has a wet bar (more on that) and is wired for sound. We don’t drink and are not big tv people so mama gets this room!

Lets start on the left of the picture and go around clockwise. The spinning wheel and CSM are right as you walk in. Then my sewing table with my machines. Window right there. A dresser of ‘scrapbooking supplies’- paper and stamps. Then a shelf that holds boxes mostly of etsy inventory. The shelf in the back left has smaller boxes for what I call notions. I should think of a better name for them. Uh, CSM bits, my new snap pliers, grommet press, jewelry bits, etc. On the back wall is my Triangle loom, I just got it hung up and am REALLY happy. In front of it is my cutting table of love and joy. On the right are bins of fabric, yarn and fiber. Then my bookshelf, and then the wet bar.

IT’S A DYE STUDIO. Electricity to run a crock pot. Running water. Counter space. Shelf space. WHOO! I love it. And I think that’s the one spot that’s gotten the most use.

And soon, I hope to show you what I’ve been up to!

Meanwhile, I am trying to find things to keep the kids learning and happy. They are at an age where they just want to try EVERYTHING but frequently aren’t adept enough to finish (and sometimes even start) a task. I try to find activities that are engaging, fun, educational, and don’t leave mom doing the bulk of the work. Or clean up.

The kids like books to write in. I think about books to make them. I’ve made some simple ‘stitch paper up the middle’ kinda books for them, which work pretty well. I found an origami kind of ‘caterpillar’ book which while being pretty well received wasn’t really well used.

I’ve seen paper bag books before, and while I like the basic idea, I get frustrated with them some times. There is a LOT of space not being used. After a bit of experimenting and looking around, I may have hit on something. It’s pretty much a pocket mod, made with a paper lunch bag, and stitched together. 8 two-sided pages of awesome. I posted a tutorial over on craftster, and rather than copy it all, head on over and take a look. You don’t even have to be a member.

Let’s start at the beginning. We we moved into this house, there was a room in the basement and some open space. The room was office for a while. I had parts of the open room. Early this year, we took out about half the wall between the open space and the office. (we as in we hired someone to do it!) The kids had a play room in the office, and I had the open space. The idea was that the kids could have a room to stay wrangled in, I could work, and we could all see each other. The wrangling part wasn’t always so successful.

Then with a new one joining us, Dad decided the kids needed a bigger space. Me and the kids traded places. This makes it sound so simple. All toys went upstairs, then a closet in the office got torn out, then the carpet went and was replaced by linoleum. Most of moms stuff moved in. (The loom, even while being small, is not able to fit.) Linoleum went into the rest of the open space. Then new desks for the kids AND dad. New chairs for the kids. Toys move back down.  While we were at it, we took out the old solar water heating system (which was so old, inefficient, and not even connected!) and moved the washer and drier down about 6 feet, opening up the open room even more!

I was quite sad to move into a smaller room, I did have to get rid of some stuff. But now I love it. I only have the stuff I am activly using. It’s pretty streamlined and useful. My husband is a brilliant man, all this was his idea!

I’ve take pictures. I posted them over at flikr, and rather than move every single pict over, I’m just going to point you over there. The pictures have notes on them!

T and K’s costumes were pretty simple. I made T’s dress in two pieces (front and back) and literally just laid her on the fabric and traced around her. It comes in a little too much at the waist, but it gets on. I made her a belt with some brown scrap I had laying around (not accurate, I know). I decided to make K jedi Luke instead of whiny Luke. All I made for him was a vest, the turtle neck and black pants were purchased at the thrift store.

hm, I have a picture of the kids in their costumes right after I finished them. I obvously haven’t uploaded it. Found it!

costumes finished!

Mom’s Padme outfit was a bit more difficult.

I decied to go with the brown outfit that she wears at the end of the move. It can actually be made a little warm and the shirt can be used later, and isn’t a hiding the belly outfit. I hit the Padawans Guide for help. There was a recommended pattern for the top, and I was able to find it. That was quite an adventure, BTW. It appears most pattern companies have pulled their maternity patterns. Um, why? Of course, we decided to move our basement around (and give mom a new studio) so there was a little worry about actually finding all the pieces and getting it all done. I managed to get it all together pretty quickly once the moving dust settled. I attached the sleeves to the outfit and tucked them under so I could pull them out later. I was planning on hitting the thrift store to find two belts to go across the chest but then a huge snow storm hit and we were stuck inside for two days. And so I improvised. That same brown that I made T’s belt from became my belt too! Sadly, my serger suffered in the move (Seriously? I picked you up and put you down. That was all. Why did you break?) so the belting didn’t get done as fast as I wanted to. It was ok, remember the snow? Wasn’t going anywhere….. The belting was all safety pinned so that it is removable after the fact. The collar was also added separately, and would have been easier with the serger too. The arm warmers were done before the serger break, gratefully, but I swear they kept shrinking. I ended up just using the brown maternity pants I own.

We never did get Dad into that Vader helmet, though.

How did we all look? FANTASTIC!

The kids were so excited to run around with lightsabers and tell everyone who they were. They got lots of compliments. People thought it was great. And my greatest compliment of the night came when I opened up the door for trick or treaters and a little guy yells “Nice Padme costume!”

A blend of white angora and colored firestar. Angora from when I raised rabbits, back when I was 13.

Frankenstein. I got the roving in a swap. I quite like it!

After the Storm. Fiber of the month club from ArtClub on Etsy. It’s still not speaking to me.

I also worked on some handspun projects.

I traded the roving from Whirlygig yarns. It was spun up thick and thin. Knit on the bias, which was fun.

Rainbow scarf. I got all the fibery bits from a ‘make yarn out of this’ swap on craftster. I have a hard time describing what I did, but the yarn was completely different from beginning  to end. I wanted to knit it up so that you could see the yarn shift, so I knit the scarf on the horizontal. It’s a REALLY LONG scarf, but I think it captured what I wanted!

And it wasn’t just handspun projects all the time. I knit some socks on the sock knitter. They are a hair big for me, so they may go to a new home soon.

Estes Park wool market!

I was flying solo this year. Me and the tiny people did pretty well. We walked, both kids in backpacks with leashes on them. Don’t harass me, it kept the kids safe. I ended up carrying Mr K aroud a bit.

We met up with Ellen of Wooly Wonders and showed her the dragons we had knit from her pattern. I figured after all the questions I had asked, the least I could do was show her them in real life!!

At one point the kids walked over to a wall of alpaca yarn and started touching skeins and looking at price tags.

I’m so proud of them!

They loved petting the alpacas, seeing the goats, and got to hug a sheep!

THEN!
It was the Renaissance Festival! The kids got new costumes. I had some green fabric in my stash that I thought would be perfect for them. Honestly, I think it’s silk, but that makes it even better for kiddo costumes- it wears well, washes well, looks awesome, and breathes well.

I tried making them hats and wings and failed at both, so I got them some when we got there. I was planing to get them muffin caps, but they LOVED these hats. That’s actually K’s kilt from last year, now that he’s wearing undies (AND USING THE POTTY!!) it still fits! I made T’s dress a few sizes too big so that we can use it for a few years. K’s gonna need a new shirt- his melon is almost to big to get into this shirt.

I didn’t take a pict, but I attached a pair of plastic horses to the front of the stroller (yes, brought the stroller, much easier!). I got so many laughs and compliments on that!

And finally…

I discovered I had a couple of albums in my possession that were worth over a hundred dollars, each. In fact, one was worth about 400. No joke. Ebay here I come. Just guess what I did with that money- guess!

I scoured ebay again until I found this gem!! It’s a legare 400. I bought it from a woman who had bought it refurbished about 3 years ago so it’s in good shape. I took it over to Hank and Candy, local crankers who do good work making sock machines happy. I’m getting the insides media blasted to get the rust off and make it AWESOME. I can’t wait to get it back.

I have lots and lots of pictures from all of these adventures over at my flikr. T is having a great time with the camera and documented my unpacking of the sock machine. What a big helper.

I saw a yarn that was a 2 ply- one ply was wool and one ply was silk. I was hit by a lighting bolt. I’ve got some purple BFL that I’ve been sitting on, wondering  just what to do with it. I’ve got some green silk hankies. I have inspiration. I will have yarn soon.