A new acquisition and a new book

I promised to give you a taste of my plans from Knitted Gifts. But before that I have exciting news. I bought a spinning wheel. It is a Majacraft Little Gem, a deliciously portable folding wheel.
You can see how small it is fully assembled below. Once folded, it fits into the silver bag in the background - the one that doubles as a tin foil hat to communicate with the aliens.

In celebration of the wheel, I have made plans to join a spinning guild and actually learn to spin. But first I had to find some tools to tighten up the crank arms under the treadles so it would spin properly. It seems to be a tad loose. You can see the lovely tool kit I found in the basement also in the background. It wasn't the set of allen wrenches that I was looking for but it had the right sized one in it so I was in luck.

Now on to Knitted Gifts. This is a very cool book, not because it contains one of my patterns but because it has patterns in it that I want to knit. This is a very rare occurrence. Usually I prefer to knit my own but this book made me sit up and say 'ooh! I want to make that' quite a number of times.

The first one that caught my eye are these ballet flats. Yes, they are intarsia but very little of it. I think they are gorgeous and I plan on making them some day.

This is also a neat pattern. It is a big cylinder with a draw string at one end. you can wear it many ways and it is a quick mindless knit. It will be just the thing to pick up and take on a trip.

But this is the most exciting thing in the book. Felted oven mitts that have a doubled section at the hand. You know why I love these? Because I can customize them for me. You see, I am a klutz of the first order. I have matching burn marks on both forearms just where the commercial oven mitts end. I reach in and grab something hot and before I know it, my forearm makes contact with the oven door, or the rack or something equally hot and I have a bad burn. Right now, I have a V-shaped scar on my right forearm from two separate burns.

So I can make MY mitts up to the elbow and then I don't have to worry about my forearms! Wait, you say, what about your upper arms? Hmm... maybe I will have to make them up to the armpit! But I can! I have lots of Lopi and other yarns that would be perfect for this.

Aren't they adorable? Another great travel knitting project that will get rid of leftovers. One can even double yarn and make them. Who wants to gift these away? I want them all for myself.

Over and out till next week and I promise I will post weekly. I meant to post last weekend but somehow the entire weekend vanished into a haze and I have no idea what I actually did. But I didn't post.