50th Military Anniversary Scrapbook

This is a change from the ordinary knitting posts. Two years ago I made a scrapbook for my Dad to celebrate his military career. I'm very proud of this keepsake and while in Fredericton last weekend (at Dad's) I took photos of all the pages for my records. Here is a taste of what the book is like. The rest can be found on my Flickr site.

My new arrival

I would like to introduce you to Juliet, my new Ashford Single Drive Traveller spinning wheel.



She has a castle wheel type which makes her semi portable and can spin almost anything. I purchased her on Tuesday at London-Wul and as of last night I had spun a 1/4 lb bag of blue/green polworth and I plied a spindle full of it as well. Pics to come soon of the skein, but trust me, it's a beautiful thing.

Spinning frenzy

I spent a glorious afternoon learning the traditional art of spinning! Heidi at London-Wul offered a Learn to Spin class this afternoon and a few of us brave souls attended. I say brave because it is very addictive. Once you try it you are hooked, or at least I am!


I tried 4 spinning wheels during my 'training', all of which I must say were very nice. I tried out 3 Ashfords: Traveller, Traditional and Joy; and 1 Louet: Victoria.

There are a few main differences I took note of between them. The Joy and the Victoria and really portable. They can actually be put into carrying bags so they are great for the travelling spinner (but so are drop spindles). The Traveller and the Victoria were both double treadle (2 foot pedals) and the Traditional and the Joy were both single (but can be adapted to have 2). I preferred the double treadle as I found it easier to get the wheel going at a constant pace. I'm sure with practice I would master the single treadle, but as a beginner the double was easier for me. They all had a scotch tension and I noticed on the Ashford website that the also can come with either a single or double drive, but the ones I used were all single.
At the end of the day after trying out all 4 wheels I was really wanting to take one home and the winner by a nose was the Ashford Traveller, followed by the Traditional at a close second. I spun easily on the Traveller, I liked the double treadle and it is a bit more portable than the Traditional. The Traditional has very nice astectically pleasing lines to it (it was Troy's favorite visually) but the Traveller is also very cute.

So the question remains... when will I buy it?

Non-Garter Stitch non-Einstein KAL project completed

Last Sunday was the end of the London-Wul Einstein KAL and we all showed up with some finished and some not so finished projects. Mine of course was not the Einstein coat but was the Garter Stitch jacket from Fleece Artist, which I made using a stockinette stitch pattern.



This is a gift for my Mom and it fits her quite nicely.

I bought a beautiful shawl pin to go with it, which is also from Fleece Artist purchased at LW. Mom's birthday is this coming Saturday so she doesn't have the sweater yet, but I couldn't resist getting her to try it on last weekend when she was up visiting.

I got a ton of knitting done on the weekend. Checkout the completed projects in the side bar under On the Needles... plus I created two new patterns for socks that I'm knitting up now. I didn't mind be snowed in yesterday one bit.