Playing catch up and a Drum carder

I have some FOs to report; the Monkey socks are done and I'm very happy with them. The Regia yarn is superb to work with and feels soft.


After a bit of a time out, the Simply Spring crochet top is finished too. I had to decide how to finish the neck edge and the bottom edge. the pattern has you work just one row of dc (UK terminology), but I needed a bit more depth to prevent the neckline gaping and to stop the lower edge from flaring out. In the end I worked several rounds of dc, ch1 where the dc goes into the ch space on the previous round. After washing and blocking, I'm pleased with the fit of it. Now we just need some warm weather. For a change I've finished something in advance of needing it. This won't be the case for the Cabled Spiral because by the time I finish that, it will be too warm to wear it.


I finally finished the Wendy Happy scarf and used my new hair braider gizmo to twist the fringes. It certainly saves some wear on the fingers. 36.8cm in the heddle, 35.2cm wide after finishing and 1.8m long excluding fringe.


I need to wear glasses for reading and I hang them round my neck with a made by me kumihimo cord so I don't lose them, and one of the rubber ends gave way a couple of weeks ago, so I dusted off the marudai and made a couple of new cords. I ended up using the one at the bottom, attaching it to some new rubber ends. Job done!

I've saved the best for last - I have a drum carder now. My hubby decided that he would like to build one for me quite a while ago. He is not a well man, so this has really given him something to work towards, doing a little at a time. He enjoys precision metal work, so the majority of the structure is metal with a minimum of wood! I've christened it, and it works great.



I have two doffer rods and a small carder for cleaning the cloth. The gap between the drums can be adjusted and the infeed tray can be raised and lowered. It has high quality sealed bearings and will outlast me I think.

A couple of progress pics

On the loom:
4 ply cotton at 12.5 dpi, with simple pick up stick patterning.