For those wondering where to get the Mother Marion kick spindle (aka Little Meggie) that you're seeing on eBay, look no further. Jan Ford of Heavenly Handspinning is your woman!
Jan now has her Web site up and running, where you can see her entire line of spinning wheels, Little Meggie, drop spindles and more. The prices for all of these items are very reasonable. You can contact her by email through her site regarding any questions or purchases. She is also on eBay under thefords4him and Etsy.com under ford4him.
I own Little Meggie and Gratia. You can see my post about Gratia here, and my review on Little Meggie here.
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Yarn and Patterns (patterns free unless indicated)
Mild-mannered wife, mother and tech writer who carries the secret identity of Kneedle Junkie, a prolific knit and crochet freak. Weapons at disposal include knitting looms, needles, crochet hooks, embroidery hoops, punch needles, hairpin loom, drop spindles, spinning wheel, niddy-noddy, various violated woolen animals, and several storage bins of yarn.
Stitch Diva recently posted a free crochet pattern by Jennifer Hansen called the Statement Necklace. I'd been looking for something to go with the dress I'm wearing to my daughter's high school graduation and this was perfect.
In the pattern Jennifer suggested trying seashells instead of the flat marbles. So I picked up some Patons Silk Bamboo yarn in Sapphire and found a bag of shells at Big Lots that had some pretties in it.
Here's how the necklace came out:
I found the pattern really easy to do. It took me about half a day to assemble all told. The shells were a little tricky to work around, but still fun.
Because of the shell's irregular shapes, I had to use some glue on the backs of each piece. I chose Aleene's Jewel-It, which I had also used to put the googly-eyes on my friends' kids' fish hats a while back. So far it's holding well. I'll put a little more on tomorrow to make sure it holds together while traveling.
Cross your fingers and let's hope it makes the trip... if not I have another crochet necklace I made from a Berroco pattern last year I think I can use as a backup.
I put together another sweater for my son on the USM. He picked out the color, it's Caron's One Pound in Sunflower. I added a stripe of Red Heart Kids in Crayon Multi:
I'm happier with how this one came out. I had a better idea in regard to the size, especially as I wanted to make it a little larger so it will fit him in the fall and winter. Next time I should be able to get the ribbing down better too - the woman who sold me my USM was able to find the instruction/pattern booklet and get that to me so now I'm able to go over the techniques at my own pace rather than having to skip back and forth through the DVD.
