My Craft Room

 These are pictures of my craft room. They show my yarn trees (2), & my heat press for my tee shirts. My sewing table & serger thread rack & some of my shelves + the little red cabinet that I keep my bobbins, needles etc. in. Everything is very crowded as the room, which used to be my DD, is only 10.5 x 10.5 feet. I manage to get almost everything I need in there. (When I make a vac cover I use my kitchen table to cut out the pattern.) You can see my SR SK860 mid gauge machine but my longbed machine is behind the yarn trees. I have to move them to get to it. Everything is crammed in. I don't think there is an inch of space that I haven't found a use for. 

I have had a couple of orders for longies, but the season is starting out slow. I did so well this summer I am hoping that winter will be as productive. I am working on an order for sweaters right now. I had an order come in today for a longies so will get that out ASAP. Also, another pair of shorties. 

This is Winnipher. She is about 7 now. She is my sponsored child & lives in the Dominican Republic. She is my 3rd sponsored child. The children age out of the program at about 18-19. She writes me several letters a year & I always write her back. She tells me about her likes & dislikes, & her family etc. 

Once they age out of the program you never know what happens to them. We are cautioned not to send our address to the children, but it would be wonderful if I were able to correspond with the girls that I sponsored when they were little. I know it sounds silly, but I worry about them after they age out. But, there is always another child to help. 

  

Winter is Around the Corner

Warm Hats

Here is a hat that I knitted on the 'Knifty Knitter Looms' for this winter. When I knit hats on the looms I always knit a brim for the hat. I just don't like the rolled hems. Putting a brim on the hat makes all the difference in how warm the hat is. I buy the chunky yarn, usually from 'Discount Yarns' as I like to buy lots of yarn all at once & they have reasonable shipping charges. When I am not sewing up covers for my store I am knitting the hats for gifts. These hats, knitted with a brim are the warmest hats you will ever have.

To knit a hat like this use chunky yarn with at least some wool content.  32 rows for the brim, then another 30 rows for the the hat. I always use machine washable wool as NO ONE likes to get a hat that needs to be hand washed. (found that out the hard way.) They wind up going into the machine & coming out a felted baby doll hat. 

Shelves

I did put up some shelves to store my machines when I am not using them. It holds my sewing machine, embroidery machine, serger, linker & my EC-1 controller. Also, the top shelves hold my wool care products for my covers & also some machine knitting products.  That little wooden thing on the top shelf with the pegs sticking out is my Pom Pom maker. I have 2 of them. 

Storing the machines vertically saves lots of room. My craft room is small so saving space this way is a big help in keeping the room organized. 

BTW:this used to be my DD room. That explains the pink walls. 

My Store

I am already getting orders for this winter. Longies & footies are what sells for this season. My summer was so busy this year I only managed to send 2 pair of mittens to A4A. Also, did minimal scrappies for the 'Friendship House'. I did get several of the lighter weight scrappies in the sport weight yarn. Right now I have orders for 4 sweaters, 2 longies, 1 shortie & 1 pullon. I sent out 2 orders this morning. This has been my best season since the recession hit 3 years ago. ;-)

A Little of This & That

Here is a GC sweater that I knitted up while working on my orders. It is a drop shoulder with a 'cut & sew' neck, & grafted neckband. The sleeves are half length. It is made from Trenzado & turned out very nice. I like my sweaters long so this is hip length to fit down over my waist. I like the half sleeves because they don't get in the way when I'm knitting on the machine. Perfect fit to wear with a pair of jeans with the cooler weather that we have here in the Pacific Northwest.

Terminology 

While reading another blog I was surprised to learn that MK terminology should be used exclusively for MK. I read this blog religiously & am impressed by the expertise of the blogger when it comes to MK. After thinking about it for a few minutes I realized that I use some HK & MK terminology interchangeably. The issue she had was that 'bind off' is for HK & 'cast off'  is for MK. I have seen 'bind off' used in MK pattern books as well as Manuals. I think that some terms can be used for either craft, like cast on etc. Do you use the terms for either craft??

Word Verification

I have turned off 'word verification' on my blog several weeks ago. So far it hasn't been a problem except for the first few weeks when I was getting all kinds of spam. I think for someone that gets lots more hits than I do it might be a problem tho.