Livin' La Needle Loca

...can you believe it?! First up, a fter many modifications, lots of tinking and frogging, the Peekaboo mittens are finally done. Specs : Red Heart Simply Soft yarn in Gray (they are a lot more gray in real life) Needles : Size 5 circulars Made them slightly wider at the knuckles and longer above and below the opening to allow for larger hands The husband has finished the staining and will seal the doors today. Here's a peek at what things look like right now: (The walls are a creamy white. This picture makes them look pale yellow.) Once the doors are dry, we can start putting the room back in order. I continue to improve, but I'm still not "well." I plan on taking it easy this weekend and will try not to overdo things. I do want to finish the Christmas wall hanging and get back to my secret Christmas projects...first I have to find them in all this stuff! LOL! Have a good one!

...let's just say that I'll be glad when I'm well! I spent the majority of the day in bed, dozing. I didn't have enough energy to do anything until about 4pm. Then I reknit the tops of the Peekaboo mittens, again . That makes the fourth time I've knit the tops, but this time I got the right length. Then I started on the right thumb...and then I pulled it out. It was just too tight. So I am now picking up more stitches for the thumb and it's working much better. Of course, by this time I was wiped out, so I didn't finish. Our new windows are in and they look fabulous! The Husband is busy painting the walls and staining the doors (let's not even talk about paint fumes and being sick...). Until he's done, we'll be living in chaos. But, it is so worth it! I'm hoping we can get the house back in order this weekend. That's it for now. Back for Eye Candy Friday tomorrow...

...no update today. I'll try for tomorrow. Feel really icky...

..and so is the Splendor yarn. While it isn't as purple as I wanted, I like how it turned out. I used two Splendor singles and one purple single for this yarn. When I ran out of the purple single, I Navajo-plied the rest. Specs: Finished 11/24/2007 Yarn Wench BFL Wool roving (4.3 oz) in Splendor 2 and Falkland roving (2.0 oz) in Purple 2 Spun and plied on Lendrum Folding wheel Traditional 3-ply yarn, yield: 158.5 yds. Navajo-ply, yield: 50 yds. Weight: 12 WPI, Medium (Worsted) weight Here's the close-up of the traditional 3-ply yarn: Here's the close-up of the Navajo-ply yarn: On the knitting front, I worked on the Peekaboo mittens in the car on the way to and from the Christmas tree farm, watching TV, and on the trip to the airport yesterday to drop off the Daughter. I love that my husband prefers to drive on these trips; it gives me lots of craft time! Anyway, when I started working on these, they were still cuffs. I am past the finger opening and working on my way to t...

...after the Christmas tree farm. It was a gorgeous day and the company was wonderful, as always. I'm working away on the Daughter's mittens and hope to get some spinning in tomorrow. Mostly, I want to enjoy this short time with the Daughter before she goes back to Baltimore. Off to make a turkey sandwich for dinner...

...and I've got a bunch to do. Thank goodness the Husband is doing the airport run to pick up the Daughter! This morning, I put the turkey in its brine bath, made a Safeway run for breakfast, and a Target run for a new shirt. Then, I went to work. Yeah...that's where I am now, finishing up a project and taking care of a few things that won't hold until Monday. Every year I tell myself that I should take Wednesday off; every year I forget. Because I have no crafty pictures, you'll have to be happy with cats. :-) Here are the two girls watching me fly around this morning trying to get ready for work: Sombra, of course sat still for just one picture before she nosed the camera. I got wonderful shots of her nose, eyes, and ears while she checked out the camera. (You'd think she'd never seen one before.) Tica, on the other hand, could not be bothered to move—I took several pictures where she is in the exact same position, with the exact same look on her face (a...

...partly because I worked on Christmas projects that are secret, and partly because the you can't really see the progress I made. **SPOILER ALERT! If you belong to the Petals Collection club, there is a picture of the last installment at the bottom of this post** Saturday, I worked on the Christmas wall hanging. I took care of all the loose threads, added a hanging sleeve, and worked on the binding. I've got about 1/3 of the binding tacked down, so I still have quite a bit to do. I should be able to finish it over the holiday. I'm having trouble coming up with a suitable name for it, though. Nothing "punny" comes to mind, at least not that I haven't already used for something else. Sunday, I worked on the Daughter's Peekaboo mittens. I didn't get very far, but at least they are progressing. Tight now they don't look any different than a pair of socks as I'm still doing the cuffs. I spent a good part of the weekend doing Thanksgiving prep. I m...

This is a quick post because I have to work on a deliverable... I finished the Corrugator scarf. Here's Teddy modeling the finished item. It still needs a bath and some light blocking, but that won't take long. And to tide you over until I can do a longer post: some flowers and some Autumn leaves. Have a great weekend!

...our Internet connection is back. Yay! While we have cable Internet at home, by the time I get home, I'm pretty tired of looking at a computer screen. So I left a few things out of Monday's post just do I could actually post something. Besides doing my crafty stuff, I decided to get a few things that we needed for Thanksgiving. It's at my house this year, so I get to cook all my favorite things. The Daughter will arrive on Wednesday and will be able to help me out. There will only be five of us for dinner, but some other family may drop by for dessert. I made my annual trek to Williams-Sonoma in Los Gatos. I used their Apple and Spices brining mix last year and just loved it. I wanted to get that again, plus their turkey gravy base. Now I can make an OK gravy, but adding some of the gravy base to it really adds that extra oompf. While I was there, I picked up a jar of their Pecan Pumpkin Butter; now I just need to figure out what to use it in! One thing about going to W...

...our Internet connection at work has been down since Friday morning. The only connection I can get is a very weak WiFi that keeps dropping me. I can barely get email checked, much less blog. I hope it gets fixed soon! Anyway, I finished the machine quilting and sewing for the Christmas wall hanging. Here is it waiting for me to hand sew the binding to the back of the quilt, take care of the loose threads, and label it. I'm very happy with the way it's turning out. I also finished spinning the Splendor roving. I spun about 2 ounces of purple Falkland to use as the third ply. It looks a little red in the picture, but it is purple... I'm getting close to the end of the Corrugator scarf, too. Maybe I'll finish it this week! Yay! I love getting things done!

...I finished the Poppy socks yesterday! Yay!! And they fit beautifully, see: (The color is more "true" in the first picture.) Specs: Yarn and pattern from the Petals Collection sock club by Sundara Yarn Color and pattern name: Poppy Needles: two circular in size 3mm; started with Knit Picks and ended with HiyaHiya Finished: 11/8/2007 Now that I'm done with these socks, I'm working on the Corrugator scarf while I figure out which Christmas present is next in the queue. Up this weekend: finish the Christmas wall hanging and work on presents! Oh, and enjoy a little Autumn sky action, like this: Have a good one!

...to being done with the Poppy socks. Since I don't want to post another in-progress picture for these socks (I want to show you finished socks!), here's a picture of another flower that the Husband has planted. This is another nemesia (the blue flowers in Friday's post were also nemesia), this time in yellow and cream. I like how these little flowers grow in clusters; there's something very appealing about them. Anyway, I hope to have finished socks for Eye Candy Friday!

...I had a wonderfully productive weekend. Although I didn't actually finish anything, I made excellent progress on three fronts. First off, the quilting. I found a border fabric at The Granary . I was looking for a green that went with the other green border I already had. I knew I couldn't find the same fabric because it was one from my stash plus it was from the 2005 Hoffman collection. I found a nice batik with gold metallic swirly things that went perfectly with the top. I added the new green border and finished it off with another cream and gold border. I have already made the binding our of the same fabric as the red border. I think It will look really good! The top is the exact width of the background fabric so I didn't have to piece the the back at all. I pin-basted it on Sunday and started the machine quilting. I've finished all the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting and have quilted the borders around the center squares. I'll finish this quilt up next weekend. ...

...the Husband is busy getting the garden ready for winter, pulling up the dead plants and planting some new flowers. Here are the last of the tomatoes for this year: He has planted a bunch of calendulas for me and is faithfully dead-heading them and putting the petals aside to dry for my soap. I used to buy my dried calendulas at Whole Foods, but they are not carrying them anymore. The other brand that I can buy locally is just not as nice. I know I can buy them online, but why bother when I can get them at home! I'm still chugging away on the Poppy socks. One reason they are taking so long is that my hands get very tired and cramped up after a few rows. I finally decided that it was the needles: these circulars have too short a needle. Yesterday I went to Full Thread Ahead at lunch time. After looking at their selection, there was only one brand that had the 3.0mm size in stock and had a longer needle: I bought two HiyaHiya circulars and swapped over to them. My hands are mu...

...because it's now November ! (Can you believe it?!) Finished (pictures in my Flickr projects set): Summer of Love Lace socks in the Flower Power yarn from Blue Moon 's Rockin' Sock club Yarn Wench 100% Falkland top (4.1oz) in October Sky Spun and plied on Lendrum Folding wheel Yield : 330.6 yards; 2-ply yarn Weight : 13 WPI, Between Sport and Medium (Worsted) weight In progress: Knitting Montego Bay wrap in Walking on the Wild Tide yarn, using Montego Bay scarf pattern from Interweave Knits Summer issue . Spinning 4+ oz of Yarn Wench 100% Falkland wool top in Josie; 1.5 spindles-full so far Spinning 4 oz of Angora Cottage 70% Merino and 30% Silk roving in purple Started: Knitting the Corrugator scarf in Blue Moon by Spunky Eclectic (my own handspun yarn!) Poppy socks from Sundara's Petals Collection Spinning 4.3 oz of Yarn Wench BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) in Splendor Variation 2; first bobbin Spinning 2 Chasing Rainbows rovings together in the Heather colorway...