I have been working on Christmas projects with the leather work and have made some things. Trying not to leave things to the last moment this year. A tad reluctant to put them up incase my family see them but I don't think any of them actually look at my blog so I will put up some pictures. I know a good friend looks on here sometimes so I won't put hers up. The little penny purse was actually just a gift of the moment and has already been given ready for her starting full time school in first grade.
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| penny purse front |
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| penny purse back |
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| coffee coasters |
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| female bracelet |
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| keyring and my birthday present of a Barry King maul in the background |
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| This is a men's wristband/bracelet. This was taken before I put the snaps on. |
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| This was a joint effort between my husband and me for a belt for him. The antique look is deliberate. |
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| more of the belt |
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| and more. |
We built another workbench in the workshop so that we could both work on the leather stuff. We were trying to work off one bench before and were tripping over each other.
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| this is my new workbench which backs onto the original one |
Also, I did some maintenance on my knitting machines yesterday. I cleaned the one I had set up and then took it down. It was the Singer 700 I bought last year. It had been left standing for a long time by the previous owner and when I got it I had to change out most of the needles as they wouldn't flick properly. Not even after soaking in mineral spirits for days on end. I also had to replace the plastic things at the ends of the rail. I gave it a good cleaning and testing. It works like a charm. I made several items on it. It just needs a new sponge bar as I had borrowed the one from my original machine to test it. I won't buy one until I am ready to either sell it or use it again.
I cleaned my SRP 60 ribber which had been set up with the Singer 700.
I then got out my other 700, the Studio and set it up and cleaned it. She was always my favourite and I call her Betsy. The other one is Betsy's sister. What can I say, I am an old lady and have some idiosyncrasies!
I paired the Studio with the SRP 60 and they work perfectly together.
The SRP50 ribber is boxed up, I cleaned it before I put it away last year.
So now I have the Studio 700 and SRP 60 ribber set up and working well together and a Singer 700 and and SRP 50 ribber to either sell or retain as backups.
The SRP 50 never really worked well with Betsy. I now think I didn't have it connected properly. I think the things I were using to attach them were not the correct ones as the beds were too close together. One day I will try again with the SRP50.........but not today. I have a good working set up so why spoil it? My posts of a couple of years ago tell only too well of the struggles I was having with ribbing!
I have to assemble the Knitsmart 3 in 1 hobby bulky machine I bought a couple of years ago and test it out again. It was cleaned and oiled before I put it away. I only tried a couple of trial pieces on it. I didn't have anywhere to set it up and leave it. I did reorganise my knitting space last year so I could attach it to the back of the desk where I have the other one set up but have never got round to doing it. I have a lot of double knitting wool I could use on it. My poor husband still hasn't got anything I have made yet.
I still haven't used the garter bar yet. The little sweater I was making for my youngest granddaughter was going to be way too big so I unravelled it and haven't restarted it yet. I was going to use it on that.
I did finish the little tank top for my youngest grandson. So each of the two little ones got a tank top and if I can find it I will add a photo of them wearing them.
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| grandson's tanktops |
So that is my update. I haven't been blogging very much lately so it's a long post I'm afraid. Will try and post more regularly in the future.