It has arrived!

I got the phone call last week and could hardly wait to pick it up. I was a little surprised at how small the box was, and I kept on asking Pam from Pam's Woolly Shoppe, "Are you sure everything is in here?" So in honour of Amy Singer from Knitty.com I wanted to document what it looks like when getting a wheel. Amy blogged when she received her Ashford Joy, and I loved seeing her pictures.

How it's packed, and the information booklet that is included.

It was neat getting a picture of the person who packed it up in the factory from New Zealand. She did a very good job. Everything in its place.

I chose the unfinished wood versus the lacquered finish on the wheel. The lacquered finish was $100 more and Pam said for a $100 you can save by finishing it yourself. So I took her advise, but a forewarning....it's taken me about a week to get it stained and urethaned. So I've had to bide my time waiting...tick tock tick tock.....no spinning , and I've got some corriedale roving just staring at me, waiting to be practised on.

This is just about finished. It's been fun thinking how I wanted to make it my own. So I decided to stain the legs red, as well as the maid uprights, and maiden bar supports.
*Update* This is now Thurs.Aug.2.
Everything is now thoroughly cured, and as soon as my DH comes home after work we'll be putting it together...more pictures to come.

Still working on the wristwarmers. Hopefully this August long weekend coming up we'll be heading out to the farm, and maybe I'll have the time to finish off a couple of projects that have been sitting in the wings while this wheel's been getting all the attention.

Just a note of amusement.....I was reading Posh Yarns blog, and she has an interesting take on Educating Public Sentiment Aug. 1 post..... I love the sarcasm....Go Posh Go!!

I feel like I'm repeating myself with these projects, but here goes.....I'm in the middle of the Victorian wrist warmers called Mrs. Beeton from Knitty.com (Winter 2005). I've been looking forward to working on this pattern because it has the potential to use up a lot of my leftover yarn stash.

Anyway I wanted to post about the joining of the two bell edgings. Apparently it's similar to the three-needle bind off, but instead you'll be knitting the stitches off both needles which will carry on to be the wrist part.












Well I've never done a three needle bind off, but I got the general meaning of what was needed to be done. I had to take a picture of it though......it's kind of a schmahzle*(new word) ;) There's six freakin dpn being used at this point. It sure is pretty though with the mohair and the beads. The pattern keeps my interest going, but I thought maybe it might be intimidating for some. It's slow going with the joining, but once that's over a pair of these warmers could easily be knit up in an evening.

Another batch of lilies that have opened up.....I wanted to also say how happy we are with our camera bought this past May. (I've been going snap happy with the garden this year.) It's a Nikon D80 SLR, and we would recommend it to anyone looking for a new camera.