Livin' La Needle Loca

OK, I'm officially tired of reorganizing my sewing room. I got a lot accomplished, but I'm ready to move on to other things - there's a turtle quilt to finish, stitching to work on, and my pair of Jaywalker socks to knit. Here are a few pictures of the almost reorganized sewing room. From the door My sewing machine on a Quilter's Dream cabinet, armoire in the front of it, & a small cabinet that holds boxes of tools (quilting, knitting, & needlework) plus my finished needle rolls, fobs, & Pine Mtn pillows in the blue fabric cube. Quilt wall The Turtle quilt (ready to be quilted), the ironing station, & some finished projects hanging on the door. (A prepped needlepoint canvas hangs above.) Armoire storage Canvas storage totes on top (needlework kits & projects); yarn, batting, quilt tops, & cross stitch fabrics inside. Quilt binding and fabric strips for a couple of quilts hanging on the left. The poodle scarf on the right is my very first stitchi...

After all of the descriptions about what I bought, I decided it needed a few pictures! (I'm not including the books in here because there are very good pictures already on the web. ) Here's all the fuzzy stuff (and the spindle) that I bought at Stitches: The merino-silk roving is to die for...it's so soft, you just want to dive right in it! Here's a picture of my Maggie spindle all by itself: ...and a picture of the baby hat in progress and the yarn for the booties that I will make to go with it: A word about the hat: I'm using a wonderful Lorna's Laces Angel yarn - part angora and part lambswool - it's VERY soft! This is the first time I have ever knit with angora and found that the yarn was breaking a lot. I don't know if it is me or whether the yarn itself has a problem. Long story short, I wasn't happy with the tension and ended up frogging half of what I had done. I think I'm back on track now and I really do love the way this hat feels. It...

...can't have too many of them!! I got a lot accomplished and still managed to get some rest. I am close to "done" on reorganizing my sewing room - it took most of the weekend, but it was worth it. I bought a few more of the canvas storage boxes and a couple of clear plastic boxes from the Container Store on Saturday. I am happy to report that all of the boxes are full, marked, and placed in their designated spots! I now have a FLOOR (read: room to roll my chair!), a top to the ironing board, and a top to my sewing table. I still need to Sort the linen fabrics that are currently in two drawers, but at least it is all inside of the drawers and the drawers can close! File all of the loose fibers that are temporarily in a photo box (not lying all over the place!) Sort (purge) and file about an 1-worth of free cross-stitch and knitting patterns Next, I need to reorganize my office, but it's a much smaller job. LOL! On Sunday, I went back to Stitches West. I kept thinkin...

I took a couple of hours off this morning to go to Stitches West. Last year was the first year I'd ever heard of it and I had to stand in this HUGE line for 45 minutes (on a Saturday) to buy my ticket. This year, I bought my ticket online and went on Friday, thinking that I'd bypass the big line and get in sooner. Well, not quite. I got there at 10:15 and the line for the pre-purchased tickets was very long (and, of course, the line to buy tickets was short!). On top of that, if you bought your tickets there, you could go right in. If you had an online ticket, you had to have your ticket scanned, hence the long line. Hmpf! So basically. I could have gotten in sooner if I bought my ticket there--totally the opposite of last year! Double hmpf! Something is not quite right with this setup! Anyway, once I was in, I had a grand time looking at everything! I actually didn't buy much yarn, but I did get some Blue Moon Socks-that-Rock yarn in Mesa and Lagoon. I also broke down and...

It's done, it's done, it's DONE!! I finished the second Tish needlepoint with the white background! See: I've been calling her "Woman with Pots 2" because I couldn't find the stitch guide that listed the real name. Now that I have found it, I can call her by her official name: "Santa Fe Series #2" (nope, that's not an improvement). I also finished knitting the teal scarf, but there won't be a picture of that until I figure out how to photograph a scarf without having me in the picture. LOL! Now I can concentrate on knitting my socks. I'm going to look through my newly-organized queue of stitching projects and find another UFO to finish. My plan is to knit in the evenings and stitch during lunch times. The stitching will go slowly, but at least I'm stitching again!

This weekend, I did not accomplish much on actual projects, but I did rediscover some of my stash! For several months, I have been unhappy with the state of my sewing room. It's in the smallest bedroom in the house. While I should be thrilled that I have an entire bedroom for it, it's still a small space and keeping it organized when there is so much stash (LOL!) is a challenge. About a month ago, I moved all of my cross-stitch charts into a new 5 drawer filing cabinet in our bedroom office. That freed up some floor space in the sewing room where the charts used to be stacked in plastic boxes. I still had a lot of projects that were kits or that I had kitted up in preparation for stitching. I had fiber, yarn, and quilting fabric spilling out of drawers and bins, stacked on my sewing table, and crammed into the armoire. It was out of control! This weekend I went to the Container Store and bought four small canvas tote boxes. They are now full of cross stitch kits and are stacke...

...at least the knitting part! LOL! I still have to add the fringe. The scarf is about 75 inches long (taller than me by 12 inches), so it probably doesn't need fringe. However, when I started it, I was in the beginning stages of learning to knit and was still following pattern instructions to the letter. The pattern told me to cut the fringe pieces before casting on, and that's what I did. Rather than waste this cut-up yarn, I'll go ahead and add the fringe. (Yes, my Virgo is showing!) On to the next scarf!

I'm working away on my two scarves, trying to finish up. I'm almost done with the aqua one. Here's a picture (it's really hard to take a picture of a scarf in progress...) I have about another 6 inches to go before I run out of yarn. I decided to finish up another needlepoint UFO before moving onto a cross stitch project. Here's what it looks like now (gee, another one with a while background!): So, I'm about halfway done with the background. Once this one's done, I can frame it and hang it with another picture in the series.

This weekend I decided that I wanted to start another pair of socks as my new project and finish up a couple of smaller projects that I had started quite a while ago. Since I needed the yarn to start a new pair of socks, I had to go shopping! I've been meaning to check out this newer yarn store in San Jose, Commuknity , but had just never gotten around to it. So, Saturday off I went to visit the store. Wow, it's huge! It has lots of open space, comfy couches, a large workroom, and the staff is very friendly and helpful. And, of course, it has very nice selection of yarns!! I found some Trekking XXL yarn that I have been reading about in other blogs - Communknity had just received their shipment and had lots of colors to choose from. After a small amount of agonzing (should I buy only one skein or should I buy two so I can have the next project ready to go? What colors should I buy!?), I bought one skein of "purples" and one of "blues." I also bought Cat B...

What I finished in January: Kokopelli needlepoint (see " Happy Dance... ") Knitted black and silver shawl in Paton's Glitterallic yarn (straight knit stitch on size 15 needles) Winter Foursome cross stitch pillow (by Pine Mountain ) 2nd sock in my first pair of knitted socks! I used Regia yarn in the "Passion" colorway and I used the basic sock pattern from Cat Bordi's " Socks Soar on Two Circulars" book. The striping doesn't match, but who cares?! I finished them and they are warm ! My next challenge will be to pick my next project. Should I start another pair of socks? (Can't have too many socks!) Or should I pick up one of my cross stitch UFOs? Decisions, decisions!