Elfy's Doll a Week 2021

[Alliecat]

What the heck is a lochid? Not even Google could help me.
Anyway, fresh fruit in the sun sounds lovely. That's a lot of fruit for four little dolls

[Elfy]

What the heck is a lochid?  Not even Google could help me.
Anyway, fresh fruit in the sun sounds lovely.  That's a lot of fruit for four little dolls

I spelled it wrong. The correct spelling is loquat, also known as a Japanese plum. They’re little yellow things with soft flesh and large pits. They’re nice and easy to eat, unfortunately the birds love them, too, especially the lorikeets. They’ll strip a tree in a day if you’re not quick.

[dargosmydaddy]

They look appropriately doll sized!

[Elfy]

They are, and they're mostly pit anyway. The pits are these ball shaped things. They come out totally clean of pulp.

[Alliecat]

Ah, I see. I would love to be able to try exotic fruits… Sadly when we get anything close to tropical at our grocery store it is far from ripe.

[Elfy]

I had dragonfruit when we went to Port Douglas a few years back. We even had a dragonfruit ice cream up there.

[Elfy]

I was a bit slack and missed doing a pic last week, so I've done 2 for this week.

Book club 

A group of our dolls have a book club of which Felicity is president. She wants to read The Viscount Who Loved Me, part of the Bridgerton series this month. However Yari has proposed Jay Kristoff's Japanese influenced fantasy; Stormdancer. Yari's argument for this consists of 'Japanese steampunk!'. Samire (who is actually a Kitsune, also the totem of Stormdancer's main character) has the deciding vote.

Swifting

Some elanation is required here. Yarn generally comes in skeins like what Becky is holding. It has to be unwound out of these into balls to make it easy to knit with. It can be done by hand, but it's a really tedious labour intensive process and it takes ages. There's a contraption like the one Becky is standing behind called a swift. It makes the process take minutes, even for a large skein. Being Pullip sized Becky has to get Lejays to 'swift' the wool for her. She's gone one skein on the swift and is holding the next one that she wants wound for her to use.

[davidd]

That tangle of sticks is actually a device that does something technical? That's pretty cool! Must take some skill to get something like that to work!

I vote for Japanese Steampunk!

[Lejays17]

Samire is leaning towards the Japanese Steampunk, but Felicity has Opinions about what is a suitaable book to read

davidd - there a few different types of swift, this particular one is called an "umbrella swift", as it looks a bit like an umbrella if you didn't have the fabric over the ribs when it's opened up like this.
It's reduced the time it took me (us) to wind a skein from maybe an hour, to about 5 minutes. You can't see in the photo here, but there's a hand-crank ball winder on the other end of the table. So what I do is put the skein of yarn (what Becky is holding), around the ribs of the swift, and then put one of the ends into the ball-winder. The swift rotates as I crank the ball-winder, and it makes a "cake" of yarn.

[Alliecat]

That's a serious knitter's workshop there!
Dumb question from person who doesn't knit: why do they put yarn in skeins & not balls to start with? Is it easier to pack & ship, or ...?
I think I have seen or heard of swifts but don't recall ever seeing one in use. There are some videos on Youtube -- just had a google & watched one. Cool Once again, the forum is educational!

I see the girls are tackling Mt. Toberead? I think we can guess which one they'll pick.

[Elfy]

That's a serious knitter's workshop there!
Dumb question from person who doesn't knit: why do they put yarn in skeins & not balls to start with?  Is it easier to pack & ship, or ...?  
I think I have seen or heard of swifts but don't recall ever seeing one in use.  There are some videos on Youtube -- just had a google & watched one

I see the girls are tackling Mt. Toberead?  I think we can guess which one they'll pick.

Actually Stormdancer is part of Mt Toberead’s smaller sibling Mt Hasbeenread. I’m currently awaiting the arrival of the sequels, it’s the opener of a trilogy. Although Lejays hasn’t read it yet, but she does want to on my enthusiastic recommendation.

[dargosmydaddy]

I think my grandmother (who was a knitter) owned a swift, but I didn't remember this (and had no idea what it was called) until I saw that picture! It's a very distinctive-looking thing!

[Elfy]

I'd never heard of them before Lejays took up knitting, but they're a marvelous time saver.

[Elfy]

Theo is attempting to drag his friend Tristan in the modern era, and he's not going without a fight. Today he tried to introduce him to a different type of horsepower.

Vespa 

Theo: Now lean forward over the handlebars

Tristan: I'd really much rather ride a horse.

[davidd]

What an excellent shot, with marvelous textures and colors and fun subjects!