Swiftly tilting planet

[Did anyone else out there devour Madeleine L’Engle books as a young person?]

Well, I had hoped to show you the Bobble Cardi by now. It is close, very close, and I took a photo of the blocked, mostly sewed version, but I forgot to transfer it from the memory card… I researched my set-in sleeves – great tutorial in Rowan 32 – but I still have a sleeveless work of art with lots of dangling ends…

So, in the mean time, I am going to talk about my swift!

Andrea has already beat me to it, but here goes. This all started when Susan mentioned that she had a ballwinder

and we all imagined the pile of skeins and hanks in our collection that hadn’t received attention.

We talked about trying to wind at a table at Fosters Market but in the end I borrowed the ballwinder and then passed it on to Andrea.

Only she didn’t have a swift. So I lent her mine,

which I didn’t know if it were antique or not. I finally got the story from my mom, who told me that she purchased them – one for her and one for me – in Massachusetts (there went my vision of the heirloom swift, handed down for generations, gently handled by my mother, my grandmother, and my great grandmother before her; that’s ok, I have a piece of jewelry like that instead)
and that they are antiques, perhaps 100 years old.

This one was gently mended by my father, who had to strategically place some wire to get the swift to a) stay together and b) turn.

But the swift comes apart. The table clamp and swift and little cup thingie (hey, that is the technical term) at the top are not secured. So, look what Andrea hand sewed for me!

A Swift Bag! The fabric is iridescent and slippery, and it has a gold cord. How cool is that! So neat, and I am sorry that I didn’t put photos up earlier. Thank goodness she had her camera at the SnB meeting, I have had to borrow her photos to post.

Got to get back in the game, my blog is languishing – not to mention my knitting…