Melincot Facebook page up

Place for quick showing something in progress is ready. I invite you to follow: https://www.facebook.com/MelincotLaceAndKnits/

Just a quick reminder - new web site for this blog is https://melincot.wordpress.com/

Melincot Lace and Knits

Moving away from blogspot

So, finally Blogspot is no longer enough for me. Seems like some Wordpress options better suit my current needs (though some things are too complicated there...).

Trying to migrate and hope to hear from all of you who were reading my posts there: https://melincot.wordpress.com/

And Facebook page is on the way, hope it will be up in a few days (or maybe hours, but let's say 'days' for now :)) I understood that lots of times I want to share just a small progress of my work in progress, when writing blog post is not efficient and has no value in itself as post. So I just don't share anything for long periods of time. Will try this another way and we'll see if it works better.

Addi Lace "sticky" needles

Learned something new about lace needles, hope this will be useful for others. I love Addi needles and ordered another pair of "Addi Lace" recently. When they arrived, they looked exactly as my old pair of "Addi Lace", but I almost couldn't move cotton crochet thread I'm using at the moment from them. I'm a tight knitter, but never had such difficulty. After a bit of research this is what I've found out.

At the moment there are two kinds of Addi lace needles: one called "Addi Lace" and is made from unfinished brass ("yellow/gold needles"), another - "Addi Rocket" and has something called Turbo finish ("silver needles"). If you want thread to slip easily - you need "Addi Rocket". If you are using slippery thread and need something to hold it at least a bit - you need "Addi Lace".

So I needed "Addi Rocket" instead of "Addi Lace"... But - I have an old pair of "golden" Addi Lace and I have no problem using them! Having nothing to lose I made an experiment with my new pair - took some simple white toothpaste and polished my new needles with cotton cloth. Just the way we were cleaning silver items long time ago. Tried knitting after that: well, all my problems are gone, no trouble sliding thread.

Kitty Litter. Finished!

So finally this one is finished, going to start some other "century project". Definetely not a cross-stitch this time.

373 hours total.

Don't know whether I'll frame it. It seems using canvas included in the kit was not the smartest idea - it slants left no matter what I do...

Ninetta by Herbert Niebling

Beginning of something new. "Ninetta" by Herbert Niebling.

At the moment I can't say I love the result. It looks too little lacy. But Niebling designs just can't be too little lacy, so I hope this will change when blocked.

Need  6 of those for complete set. They should be used as placemats for a coffee table (thank's for someone from Facebook group for this term; we call them "doilies" in Lithuania no matter how we intend to use them).


56 rows of 82 total. Should measure ~25 cm when completed.
Thread: OnLine Häkelgarn 20
Needles: Addi 1.75

Merino variegated sweater

After long long break I've started remembering machine knitting. Not much to remember when I've machine knitted so little, but still - some.

Used:
- Silver Reed SK 840;
- ONline Linie 97, Starwool Lace color (merino extrafein superwash), 102 color;
- 4 balls of yarn, 50 g / 380 m each;
- tension 7 on knitter needle bed for main knitting (matches 3.5 mm needles in my handknitting tension);
- ribber - 2.1 tension on both knitter and  ribber beds (not perfect, but haven't found better combination yet).

The yarn is very soft and I'll be able to wear it even with my hyper sensitivity to wool. I hoped I'd be able to wash it using my washing machine together with other items. Seems this will not be possible at least for a while - water when washing looked like this:

 Seems no-one is good with fixing red an blue colour nowadays :(

Pearl Butterfly completed

That's all, now to frame it.
Am I happy with it? Well, mostly.
Will goldwork be something I'll do in future? I think - no. This is not "my kind" of craft. It was interesting to try, but nothing more than that.

27 hours total.

Work done this weekend:

1. Antennae, made from this kind of thread.

2. Thorax from very soft thread (well, you know, soft metal):

 3. Twists around beaded lines. I was bored... Cutting metal thread to 0.5 cm pieces and applying them was not so fun. Mostly because the pattern was not so perfectly spaced as I'd like it to be. This thread is rather easy to damage and it was a challenge to fit it in some much too narrow spaces. Guess I don't like lessons where you don't know what's coming next: just no chances to correct something as you progress (simply because you don't know what and how will be done next).
Finally achieved something that I'll be happy with when this will be framed.

4. Glitter on wings made from the same thread as thorax. Lots of tiny cutting and applying again. What an I say? If you don't like beaded embroidery, probably you won't like this either. It's almost the same, but in addition here you have to cut your "beads" to correct size before applying them.

5. Flower on wings from 6 mm beads and such thread:

The thread is similar to that used for twists around beaded lines. Similar but softer and even more sensitive to over tensioning or other kind of mistakes.