A Blog Post with Actual Knitting

Okay, well, yeah, this is a sunflower. I put black oil sunflower seeds in my birdfeeder and the birds missed ONE seed.

I was trying to put into words how to wind a netting shuttle, and it is danged hard to word unambiguously. I kept using words like diagonal and phrases like figure 8 and finally I just trashed the email and took photos. You can click on this photo for a bigger view.

This is a wooden shuttle with slightly open prongs, but I load my metal netting needles the same way. (I didn't use them for photos because the thread I load on them is thin, fine, and harder to see.)

Starting at the front, you wind along the side to the back, through the prongs to the front, then along the side again to the back.

This does a couple of things: first, it's good old figure-8 again, like winding an elbow skein or a 22-yard warp, so the thread can't mat down or tangle where it crosses itself.

Second, the thread bulks up along the sides of the shuttle instead of the front and back, and you can get more on there with less bulk. This is important because when you net, you are passing your shuttle through a small space.

You have to strike a balance between loading a small amount of thread (goes easily through the mesh but runs out, so you need to knot on more), and loading so much that it abrades or fuzzes from being forced through the existing meshes.

This is the knitting I've been doing.

For the WIP Wrestlemania on Ravelry, I signed up two projects: Christel, which I finished, and the dragon skin bag, which I didn't.

But I have been working on only dragon skin, stopping when I couldn't stand it any more. Now I am about 9 rows from finishing.

I need to work 9 more rows of diagonal rib, then I am going to fold the top section down and sew/graft it to the inside. Washing. Blocking. Then probably drawstrings - that part is still nebulous.

I am doing the happy Snoopy dance in my chair, though, because tomorrow -

Tomorrow I'm taking another knitting class with Galina Khmeleva at the Michigan Fiber Festival! Woo hoo!

And then on the weekend I'll be at the West Michigan Lace Group demo table again. H'ray! (That is, when I'm not out shopping.)