Crafty Little Rat

  Phew – It’s only MONDAY in my week off work and already it’s been a busy one.   Saturday Morning we went to the local sewing machine shop and came out with this box! It’s not the model I thought I would get; but there was apparently problems with the one I wanted regarding the bobbin case. This one – no problems reported so happily on my way. Here’s what he looks like straight out of the box. I’m calling him Jaffa because of the orange colour and the fact it’s a Janome. I’m loving him so far. So much easier than my Dunelm sewing machine and it’s a joy to work with him. Far more modern than any machine I’ve used before; you don’t even need to use a foot pedal it can be just button controlled along with an automatic thread cutter that I love. Putting the bobbin in the bottom is so easy on this machine I just am so in love!   Testing out some stitches on two scrap pieces of material. It’s now hung up in the rat cage! The squares weren’t properly cut out as I didn’t have fabric

  There’s not a lot on the Needles at the moment I must say   I’m a bit further on by now – these pictures were taken on Sunday. I finished off the button bands and was knitting the collar here. I’ve now finished the collar; and I’ve removed the bind off from the front borders. Look how tight it is! I used JJSBO; which I’m still not thrilled at. It flares a little too much for my liking but better than a tight bind off. Friday evening I cast on something new; the yarn is SquashBottom Fibres; yarn spun and dyed by a Gloucestershire dyer. It’s a feather and fan lace pattern and will be a cowl when it’s done. 4 row repeat and easy to memorise so this has been my bus knitting this week. Someone is happy too because he bought a new bike to replace the one that was stolen the other week. It’s now tripple locked outside his place of work; fingers crossed that people won’t be so light fingered with this one. I’m off work next week and I’ve ordered a big parcel of craft supplies to