A temporary change in direction.

Although I've been spinning a little and getting things ready to sew and knitting my main focus has been on furniture and redecorating.
I've got some woodworking to do on my 8-shaft loom as well, the bit the reed fits in doesn't fit it, I need to make it wider by 2mm so once my current project is finished in the garage I'll be taking the beater out in order to attack it with a chisel.

What I've been working on of late though is a piece of furniture that was going to end up as firewood if I hadn't taken it on.  A friend was clearing out his office and had a 1970's Post Office locker.  I've been paint stripping (well, varnish stripping), sanding, replacing the backing board and varnishing.  Not finished yet, but the first coat of varnish is on and it looks much, much better!

On left is how it looked when it arrived, 2 layers of varnish, the second done really really badly.  On right is how it looks after 1 coat of the water based varnish, it's not perfect but then you can't really get all the old stuff off even with sanding etc.

Once this is done and the loom then I have another assignment which is to redo youngest's room.  At the moment it's butter on 3 walls and denim on 1 which would look great if it wasn't for the wallpaper stripping he did in 2 areas a few years back.  I now need to strip the remaining wallpaper, fill holes, prime and then do topcoat.  We're lucky in some ways, I have the primer already and our neighbours had some leftover greyed/blue paint that they've given to us which should look really good in there.
This is the right time of year to get it done and I wasn't feeling up to it last summer.

I've done some cutting out too, drafted a pattern for undies and the trial pair are cut out, but I can't sew them yet.  Ellie (my overlocker) is in the shop as her cutting blade started chewing and when I replaced it the new one was just as bad, the old one has nicks in it but the new one is fine, obviously it needs some adjustment.  She's not been serviced for 10 years though so it was time anyway.   I'll show you the undies when they turn into more than just flat cut-outs, and no, I won't be modelling them!

For spinning I've just received my final Ambassadorial spin for Heavenly Wools and I've started spinning it fine.

Speargrass on the left and Blackberry on the right.  I'll be plying them together

Speargrass about halfway through I'm spinning this fine.

I've also done some knitting.  Finished those socks I showed you last time, knitted the first sock in my next travel pair, made a soft toy and started back on my very old shawl project.

See, finished!  2.5 years after starting but I'm looking forward to winter (almost) so I can wear them.

This sock is actually finished, but I can't find a finished photo, the pattern is Jaywalker and the yarn is Opal Harmonie which is discontinued.

And this is Cooper, aka Copper Moose (pattern is Squooshy Moose on Ravelry), the yarn is Skeinz Heritage Kid Mohair.