Spoolknitters Book

Some of you may have noticed the little picture
to the right of the blog page - this is my own
Spoolknitters book. A small fun project of mine - a
coffee table style book.

________________
==========

DAVE STANBROUGH

Dave Stanbrough of
Grizzly Mountain Arts

I confess, I have fallen in love with Dave ..........
and his spool knitters!
Don't get me wrong! ... Dave is happily married to
his soul-mate JoAnna ....... and I to my soul-mate Chris.
Dave and JoAnna together create beautiful
fiber art tools - tatting shuttles, crochet hooks,
lace bobbins, thread winders,
needle cases, niddy noddies, etc., as well as
incredibly beautiful jewelery
and baskets.

Dave's incredible woodwork and artistry is exquisite
when it comes to the spool knitter he creates.

Giving the spool a theme and adding to it with
its own matching tool, the care and attention to detail
to make sure that all features compliment each other overall
making a very pleasing result is Dave's special touch.
And it is so easy to see why they are so much in demand.

When I asked Dave if I could do a post about him and JoAnna
(JoAnna's profile to be brought to you in Part Two -
on my Crazyhaberdasher blog) , I was thrilled when they
accepted. Dave gave me a personal account of how
he came to this very creative time in his life.............

"......I joined the Navy at the age of 17 during the
Viet Nam War and became interested in the culture
of a sailor's shipboard life and the history that went
along with it, including the artform of scrimshaw.
The term "scrimshaw" is said to be derived from ole
English slang "scrimshanker" which means a
"waster of time" or in the case of a sailor on long
voyages "one having a lot of time on his hands to waste".
Sailors did NOT just do ink etchings of palm trees and
hula dancers on whales teeth! They actually spent many
hours making useful and intricate items to take home to
their wives and lovers that included yarn swifts,
needle cases, crochet hooks or knitting needles...... so
you might say that sailors have been involved in making
sewing notions and fiber tools for a long time."

"Since my Navy years in the late 1960's, I have mostly
piddled around with scratch and ink scrimshaw on
bone and deer/elk antler. When I retired from the US
Fish and Wildlife Service in 2002, JoAnna and I moved to
the Oregon Coast, rented a beach cottage and became
beachcombers and artists. I also started doing scrimshaw
art on the various ancient fossil mammoth and walrus ivory
that was legal to buy and sell, and import and export.
We joined the Yaquina Bay Artist Association and helped
staff the artists cooperative gallery located in Nye beach
and we also started doing the various art/craft show
venues during the tourist season."

"It was during an art show that a lady asked me if I could
make her an ivory tatting shuttle? She left me with one of her
plastic clover shuttles as a model. She was so thrilled with
her ivory shuttle she told me that I should start
offering them to collectors via Ebay auctions, which I did.
I expanded that to include wooden shuttles with ivory
and mother-of-pearl inlay and carvings. As my
customer base and contacts grew, I began receiving
requests to make other types of fiber art tools such as
lace bobbins, crochet hooks, needle cases, threadwinders,
lucets, etc. The list kept growing and spool knitters
was also added in the last year or so."

"After a couple of years on the rainy Pacific coast,
in 2004 we moved to the dry side of the
Cascade Mountains in central Oregon and had our
retirement home built near the base of the
Grizzly Mountain and took on the business name
of Grizzly Mountain Arts. We still travel back to
the coast to do art shows in May and November."

"I do not do mass production of any one thing. I simply make
what I feel like making and put it up for auction. I have been
invited to many fiber art siminars/conventions to sell items as
a tool vendor but I do not carry any inventory of fiber tool
items to sell. I simply make an item and sell it as fast as I
make it. I rotate the types of items I make .... doing shuttles
for a while, then hooks for a while and then bobbins,
spool knitters, etc. The number of items I make for
auction is slowly dropping as I agree to take on more and more
custom made items by order. I do not do custom made items
that sell for less than US$50.00. If I did, I would be
flooded with requests for US$5 bobbins and thread winders. I
have to be very selective about what commission work
I take on so that it does not dominate my creative time
and take away time from the other mix of art media
JoAnna and I do."

"In addition to the fiber art tools I make, JoAnna and I work
together in making ancient ivory jewelery, ceramic jewelery
and stitching pine needle baskets, which are decorated with
either ivory, ceramics or wood burn etchings (pyrography)."

Dave and JoAnna

"As you can see, the spool knitters are a small part of what
I do. I have found them very interesting to make and
their size does offer me a little more surface area to work
on with burn etching and inlay work or carvings. They are
similar to duck calls which I also turn on my
mini lathe and like the duck calls, they can be
decorated up in a number of ways. When I first
started looking at the spool knitters, I thought to
myself at that time "these look just like the bottom portion
of a duck call, only with knitting pins inset around
the hole where the reed call inserts". So basically,
to make a spool knitter, I turn a fancy duck call and
add the knitting pins."..................

Above - Dave's wood burn etchings.
Included among the woods and materials Dave
uses for his spool knitters are - cedar, maple,
olive wood, walnut, and tagua nut.

To see more of the Grizzly Mountain Arts
exquisite pieces click here -
Grizzly Mountain Arts
Etsy
Grizzly Mountain Arts Blogspot
Good Dirt Jewelery Etsy

I will be continuing with JoAnna's story in
Part Two
on my other blog - Crazyhaberdasher - soon
to be posted. I will let you know when.

********

I want to thank both Dave and JoAnna for
affording me their time and generosity
and help in enabling me to put this together.


********

New Post Soon ...... Dave Stanbrough!

Watch for the next post.......

DAVE STANBROUGH

of

GRIZZLY MOUNTAIN ARTS

_________________
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Noreen Crone-Findlay

NOREEN CRONE-FINDLAY

.... THE QUEEN OF SPOOL KNITTING

Noreen's boundless enthusiasm, her capability and
knowledge in so many fields of yarncraft and
crafts, writing and publishing books,
internet connections, her crafting of
wooden needlework tools and
spool knitters, beautiful
artwork and painting, and her extreme talent
in producing so many lovely patterns,
never ceases to amaze me!
She is down-to-earth and has a great sense of
humour - always looking on the bright side of life,
and is always approachable. If you have a
question/problem regarding
spool knitting (or any of the yarncrafts),
Noreen is the one to ask.

Here is more about Noreen ............
...."Noreen is passionate about the fiber arts. She is an
author, professional blogger, designer, doll maker,
jewelry maker and carver of handmade fabulous and
fanciful needlework tools. She takes the greatest of
delight in opening doorways to creativity for her
readers and workshop participants. Noreen can not,
however, dance, so don't ask her. Noreen is married to the
most wonderful guy on the planet, composer and jazz musician,
Jim Findlay. They are blessed by being friends with
their daughter and her husband, and their son and
his wife. They have lots of cats and many dogs in
their extended family."...............

Because Noreen's talents are numerous,
I think it would practically take a
whole book to talk about all of them.
As this is a blog about Spool Knitters and
spool knitting, I want to focus
on that side of things.

Below are
Noreen's two newly published books -
Rosie Recycle Dolls and Spooligarumi
which would be of particular interest
to fellow spool knitters.

(image shown with kind permission by Noreen)

Rosie Recycle Dolls is available to purchase
in book form - click here.
Mary-Beth Temple of Getting Loopy
recently spoke with Noreen in an interview
about her Rosie Recycle Dolls book and a little
about herself - listen here.

(image shown with kind permission by Noreen)

Spooligarumi is available in
PDF form - click here.

I have the great fortune of owning some of Noreen's
magnificent one-of-a-kind spool knitters.

Noreen did a series on one of her favourite authors -
Jane Austen. Both Noreen and myself love this
era and I was so thrilled when Noreen created them
for sale. Above and below are four of the
series.


Noreen will also create spool knitters by request -
below being my special spool knitter.
You will also see in the foreground a fabulous
one-of-a-kind crochet hook, one of many by Noreen.



Below are some more of my collection of
spool knitters by Noreen and another of her
books - Spool Knitting Treasures (2002).
Click here to order.


In the column to the right of my blog page are links to -
her website (you will also
find many individual patterns here for spool
knitting), her two blogs,
her spool knitter group on Yahoo,
and her tutorials on how to spool knit. She also has a
group on Ravelry - Cool Spool.
I am also proud to have her as a member in my own Spool
Knitter group on Flickr.





UPDATE 2011
Sad to say that Noreen no longer
makes spool knitters for sale.
Also, Noreen asked if I would take
over her Yahoo Group for a
while, and I am very honoured
to do so and have now for
over a year.





*******************

New Post Coming Soon!

Noreen Crone-Findlay

Spool Knitting Artiste Extraordinaire!

Stay tuned for a little about Noreen
- new post soon!


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Catalogs

Many vintage catalogs

carry a great deal of information
for collectors of toys.
Dating the toy, of course, is one
important fact, as well as, the
look of the toy and the packaging/box,
all the contents contained in the box,
very often the maker's name can
be found, and also what other
similar sets were offered.
Such is the case with the last
piece of information.

I was able to discover two
more knitting sets that were
available to children in the 1930's.

The W. Bingham Co. offered a
Tricky Knit and a Loom Weave
Knitting Outfit.


This little soldier above is also found in
the Toykraft Knitting Spool Set from
1936.




Above is the Loom Weave
Knitting Outfit with its knitting spool
and other knitting requirements.
(Click picture for larger image)

Surprisingly, on looking for some
information on the W. Bingham Co.,
we discover that it was mainly a hardware
company! For more information - see here.

~~~~~~

Kentoys Product

Magic Knitting Machine

Made by Kentoys Ltd, Hong Kong


It is such a shame that these knitting
machine toys are no longer being made.
I was fortunate recently to find these
two old stock toys - so there could be more
still around hiding in some dark box in the
back of an old toy shop.
There is no date at all to be found on
the toy, the package, or with the
directions.

However, there was a patent applied for and this
can be found on the internet.
The inventor of this particular knitting machine is
a Mr. Wai Kwok Wu of Hong Kong.
The date of the patent is Aug. 21, 2001.
Below are just two of the pages in the application -



There are eight characters in the series - Grandmother, Lady,
Little Girl, Little Boy, Duck, Chicken, Bird, and (I think it is.....a)
Squirrel? (click to enlarge photo)
Added March 15th - I have now found out that the "Squirrel"
is an Owl.


The above Little Girl is the model in the
Patent's illustrations.

Early in 2008 I did a post on plastic knitters.
I introduced these Nitta Crittas by Moose Enterprises
Pty Ltd, a Melbourne company but
the toy is Made in China and they are
Carly Cow, Doris Duck, Penny Pig
and Fran Frog.
No date again so I cannot say if these were
earlier or later than the Kentoys' model.





These appear to be as rare as hen's teeth
much like the Magic Knitting Machine.
If, by chance, anyone reading this has any or
knows where I might find any of these little
machines, both the Kentoys Magic Knitting
Machines and the Nitta Crittas,
I would dearly love to hear
from you. I am very keen to find more
of these!

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