Laffing Horse Crafts

As you may have read earlier, we’re planning a broom-makers get together in April at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, AR. The response has been much larger than I had ever imagined! To streamline things, I’ve put together an information packet and a registration form. You can download it here:

MS Word .DOC File

or

Acrobat Reader .PDF File

If I missed something or you have an additional question, please feel free to email me.

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A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away (OK, so it was the Renaissance Festival in Colorado some 7 years ago) an elderly lady visited our shop and fondled the yarn and said, wistfully, “I used to love yarn and knitting, but I have arthritis now and it hurts to grip the needles for any length of time.”

That sounded like a challenge to me!

“M’lady,” says I. “Wouldst thou like to knit once again? I believe I canst make needles that wouldst alleviate the painful aggravation thou art feeling.”

Well, it was something like that.

She responded in the positive and I bade her return on the week.

During the days that followed, I read up on as much online literature and research as I could regarding ergonomic this and stress relieving that. The solution was actually quite simple once one knew the right questions to ask: Why did gripping the needles hurt? Because, in order to keep them from rolling about in ones fingers, one had to hold them tight. What would prevent that AND allow the yarn to slide up the needles? I say AND so loudly because one of the solutions for crocheters is to use oversize rubber grips – obviously not a solution, when the yarn needs to slide. The solution: Square Knitting Needles!

She tried ‘em, she like ‘em, she bought lots of ‘em and yarns, too. I still hear from her every once in a while…

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I normally use glass beads on the ends of my afghan crochet hooks. I carefully pick out the bead that I think goes with the texture and tone and grain of the wood. The beads are either hand-crafted by Sage and Tom Holland or carefully selected from my collection.

This time, having finished a move, I could not find my bead stash. I had to fall back to my lathe and turn some pretty beads to top the sticks.

I’ve had some fun lately, though, turning captive rings or jingle rings as seen in my regular crochet hooks, and I didn’t want to give it up. I also knew I could not turn a regular captive ring in such a small space and a large space would make the sticks look odd.

Introducing the sliding ring. It’s smaller, tighter and does not slide up and down, but spins around.

Here’s some pictures…

Size 10, 20-inch long custom knitting needles for Susan. They’re birch with cherry tops.

And a size L 14-inch long crochet hook for Sarah. It’s oak with a walnut topper.

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