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June 19, 2006

A Spoolie cord edge for a Lily Speed-0-Weave tablemat, and the table to put it on....

June 18, 2006

A Spoolie Edging for a  Speed-0-Weave Loom  Placemat
by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)

I love working with vintage small looms.

The Lily Speed-0-Weave is an oddball loom that I quite like.
I twigged  that a really good way of making the edging
for placemats is to spoolknit a cord
 in one of the colors from the placemat........

Spool a cord that is long enough to go around the edge of the placemat.....

Stitch the cord to the placemat, going through every stitch on all pegs.
Also stitch through every space between the pegs.

It works great....


But be sure to stitch through each space along the edge, 
once while the tablemat is still on the loom,
and again, after you lift the mat off the loom.

(If you have a Lily Speed-0-Weave Loom and need a little help warping up,
 I wrote a tutorial about it and put it on my website,
 www.crone-findlay.com)

The yarn in the mat in the pictures is
Lion Brand Suede in Eggplant and Fuschia and Lion Cotton in Lime.

My husband, Jim, and I made  the little table that the placemat is on.......
When our son and his girlfriend moved into their new apartment,
we gave them our kitchen table.

We decided that we needed a smaller table.......
so we built this one.

Years ago, we had tossed out the munched up tabletop from an old dinette table,
but luckily,
clever Jim saved the legs.
We had decided that 27 inches in diameter was the perfect dimension for our new table,
and amazingly enough, there was a 27 in square chunk of thick plywood in the garage.
Our son had been given an old desk that was a total clunker, so he had taken it apart.

Jim's Dad had given us some veneer, years before........
and, once again, synchronicity: There was exactly the right amount for the table.

We got a huge kick out of figuring out
that we didn't actually NEED 4 legs for the table,
and had a LOT of fun building it.

The underside is covered with our penciled in 'geometry'
as we worked out the placement on the legs.

And, I can NEVER resist burning on a fresh expanse of wood......
 so.....

I worked out the 'triskele' arrangement of our initials,
with pictures of dogs, cats, and horses,
 the swans that fly over in the spring
 and the geese that raise their families on our pond.
Even our guinea pig made it onto the top of our table.......
and bees and stars and butterflies and flowers........
I guess you could say,
it's
'us'.

What a fine place to sip a cup of tea and think about our next project.
Hope you are enjoying your projects!
hugs all round,
Noreen
www.crone-findlay.com



Posted by Noreen at 01:22 AM | Comments (5)

June 06, 2006

Wishing Windows

June 6, 2006

Last week, I had a wonderful dream.
In the dream, we were  in the garden,
and we were surrounded by laughing children and dogs bouncing around,
and our daughter and her husband  and our son and his wife
and their children
(none of which have been conceived at this point!)

(This didn't stop me from buying a bassinette at a garage sale last weekend.
After all, the babies are obviously on their way, so a bassinette is a good thing.
right?
Great way to store yarn, too....)

(for that matter, they aren't even married yet,
 they are all in the preliminary stages leading up to that
...... don't ask about the tartan that my son would love me to weave for a kilt...... eek...)
[Can you make tartan on a spoolknitter?]

Anyhow, the dream of the laughing children,
and frolicing dogs and great gusts of laughter and pleasure in one another's company,
has been a profoundly healing dream for me.

We've been through a really rough winter.
My Dad died just before Christmas, but my Mom is doing really well, in spite of her challenges....
Alas, Jim's Mum's health is rapidly declining (we're her 'Parents' now)
and now, Jim's sister, Patty, has lung cancer.
A few prayers sent in her direction would be most appreciated!

So,
having a dream about an upcoming happy time was really wonderful!

It was like looking through a  lovely window, seeing a place and time of delight.

I thought about it,
and decided that I needed to make

'wishing windows'.

Iittle windows that could be hung in a window, on a wall, or in a tree......
and whenever you look through them,
they change your perspective.......
and remind you of happy times,
and remind you
that, no matter what suffering you are experiencing now,
happy times are ahead!

Here's how I made them.
How else? with spoolknitting, of course!

It seemed to me that 3 inches wide by 5 inches tall would be the perfect size.
I wanted an old fashioned looking window,
so this is what I drew:

I figured that wire coat hangers are ubiquitous, so they would be a good choice to use to make the framework of the window.

BIG CAUTIONARY NOTE HERE:
When you work with wire, you MUST wear protective eyewear. I once cut my eye when an unruly piece of wire snapped up and sliced my eyeball. I am so grateful that I wasn't blinded! I wore an eyepatch for weeks and weeks. It wasn't fun. Don't do that!

Take a coat hanger and with pliers or wire cutters, cut off the  hook and twisted part.

File the cut ends

Straighten out the hanger, and measure it.
Most of the ones I have been working with are about 36 inches long when straightened.

Now, draw your window pattern
and with eye protection stylishly and prudently in place,
start bending the wire to the shape of the window.
Think about this as a way of drawing with the wire.
I came up with several variations on the wishing window:


Get out your 4 peg spoolie and 2 cones of Lion Brand Lame' metallic thread,
and spool a cord that is at least 36 inches long



Take the end of the spoolie cord
and slip it onto the twisted wire as if you were fitting a very long stocking on it.

keep slipping the spoolie cord along:

Until the entire wire is covered.

Now, tie around the corners to start wrestling the window into shape
and stitch the layers of spoolie cord together:

and make a hanging loop at the top so you can hang it up

and start making wishes!

I found several different ways of bending the wire to change the inside 'panes' of the window:

which looks like this when done:

I stitched in a small prism to make rainbows.....

and  with this one, I made the 'panes' of the upper window out of an  8 inch length of spoolie cord:

and it looks like this:

Just perfect for dreaming and wishing!
May your sweetest dreams
and dearest wishes
all come true.....
Be well everyone!
hugs all round
Noreen
www.crone-findlay.com



Posted by Noreen at 03:53 PM | Comments (11)