Studio Workplay

This is a picture of my studio space that I share with a metalsmith/jeweller and a glass artist. I have my printing press, my silk screens and my knitting machines all vying for space and time. (I also have a sign up from my birthday party, but the happy birthday bit has fallen down along with the balloons and streamers).

I am making progress in my knitting, I took my first finished piece in last tuesday for the guild meeting, it's a scarf made from a thick ply variegated cotton that a friend gave me after realising she'd never finish her project. So this is getting sent to her this week. I started off doing every needle, and tried to do lace work, but the ply was too thick, so it didn't really like doing it, and then I went to every second needle for the majority of the scarf, coming back to make it even at the other end. So it's kind of got a ribbed body almost, and then more structured ends. I've told her she can pass it on if she wants!

This is what I've been doing with my sample pieces - making little pouches with them.

From top left: plain mohair -- terrible to work with, I'm handing over all my mohair/angora/fuzzy stuff to my hand knitting neighbour, it's really frustrating to put through the machine, you have to freeze it before hand, and then dislodge the tangled fibres every two passes, it takes a looooooong time to do anything with it. (The piece of kaki knitting on the machine in the photo above took a crazy amount of time, I was lace making with mohair, will have the finished piece of that up sooner or later)

:sock yarn (3 or 4 ply) 80% wool, 20% nylon, really fast to work with, playing with my cam lever. I also dyed this at an open day at the spinners and weavers guild in Hobart in january.

:working with a tuck stitch pattern (I can read the diagrams - yay!) and using a really nice 80%bamboo 20% wool 4/5ply (can't quite remember) it has a lovely sheen and a nice weight to it.

:stripes! the red is the bamboo mix, the black is a nubbly cotton. When I get two carriages, I'll be able to do stripes without knots, which will be fabulous.

: another tuck stitch pattern in the bamboo mix. The lilac one is the only one that I didn't sew wrong sides together and turn out, and I think it sits the best, so will probably redo the lime one to make it the same way.

I'm happy to have made something useful out of my samples, I've used one for carrying jewelry when travelling, they are good because they can be folded in half, I'm thinking of using one as a wallet..... got to figure it out.

I'm working on other things with the pieces, I just need to resolve them before putting up photos.

I'm also doing some lino cutting at the moment, just very slowly...