Sooza's Knitting Stuff

Every year spring seems to bring with it a strong urge to start some redecorating, to sort out old stuff and to rearrange some furniture. And maybe finally getting around to painting the darned staircase and get rid of the ugly terracotta color the previous owners had in the bedroom. This year things got even worse since my sister moved to Berlin and she needed furniture for this gorgeous little apartment she'd found in a nice, green quarter of town. Of course that meant numerous trips to Ikea. What a hardship ;o) And we all know how trips to Ikea end up. You buy way more stuff than you intended to. But that's half of the fun, isn't it?

Well, this time my sister's move finally got me to call the painter and within a week they showed up and fixed up the staircase and the bedroom. It's all nice and white now. The perfect canvas to put on some decoration myself. Can't wait for the wall tattoos to get here to brighten up the bedroom and the first floor hallway. Next big project is the carpet. The carpet itself is neutral enough and looks still okay to me. But the previous owners put these really ugly stair mats and a matching runner on the first floor hallway. Unfortunately they are glued tightly to the steps. The runner was easy enough to throw out. I'm glad it's finally gone. Stair mats are next on the agenda. The wooden staircase is really nice bit probably forever ruined by the carpet glue :-/ Nothing short of grinding them down would help, I'm afraid. I've made my peace with this though since the mats make the stairs safer to navigate anyway. I think I'll get some nice, natural colored sisal mats so the glue remains won't matter.

Now the freshly painted hallway looked kinda bland and it totally deserved some nice furniture, too. This little side table from Ikea was just too cute to resist. The mirror is a new addition, too and they both go really well together. Talk about Ikea style. But I really don't mind. It looks cute and bright and bit romantic. Not much of a decorator here anyway. Yes, I love my crafts and fiber hobbies but somehow decorating is not my thing. Too much work and I'd rather sit and knit – or spin – some more :-)

I've been lusting after one of those special support spindles made by Bristlecone over at ArtFibre. He calls them Glindles – a composition of 'glass' and 'spindle', I suppose. I asked for a custom spindle with a glass bead that's got some magenta or pink in there. Obviously the posed quite the challenge for Chris. He said this wasn't something he could achieve easily in this kind of lamp-work. But he managed to come up with a bead that shows a pearlescent magenta sheen. It's quite pretty. And the Bird's Eye Maple shaft is really handsome, too.

The spindle came carefully and lovingly packed in a organza bag with a little fiber snack and all wrapped up in pretty pink and magenta tissue paper. Doing business with Chris has been a total pleasure. I love discovering all those craftsmen and craftswomen and talking back and forth about some custom work and what can or can't be done. It's always such an interesting experience.

How does the Glindle spin, you ask? Very nice! It weighs about 35 grams which is in the range I'm used to in support spindles. But it still spins slightly different because the glass bead gives it a distinctively lower center of gravity. It spins quickly but still very long. So it's not only pretty to look at but also good to work with. A very attractive combination.