Livin' La Needle Loca

...because I've been stingy the last few weeks! First up, a petunia: and another one: A view into our back yard and the wall of tomato plants: ...and some ripening tomatoes: And now for the fibery portion of this post! The Loopy Ewe had some new sock yarn for sale this week and I just had to get some. It arrived in today's mail. This is from Schoppel Wolle (Skakel) and it's Flying Saucer yarn (#2113 - Vision in Pink), designed for knitting two socks at a time. Right up my alley! I love that it's on a spool rather than in a skein. No winding! I think I may have found a home for the Reflection Shawl in its current glorious colors. (Yay!) It's not for sure yet, but I'll let you know. And this also arrived today...the Rockin' Sock Club installment for July (behind the spoiler picture): Love, love, love the STR club color, but not so much the color of the extra Sock Candy yarn. We all got different colors of the Sock Candy, so I'm g...

...I'm at a project standstill at the moment.  Since finishing the Reflection shawl and the spinning for Tour de Fleece, I have been unable to decide what I should do next. I'm going to hold off on knitting any more shawls for now, but there are several sock patterns that I'm interested in. I just need to stash-dive for the yarn. Hmmmm...can't really do that at night because I need daylight to evaluate the colors. Then I have the in-progress hexagon socks. I'm trying to decide whether to finish them in the current yarn or use what I have as a swatch and start the "real" pair in a color that is not quite as busy. The colors aren't bad, I'd just prefer something more subtle. I have a beautiful  Merino-silk in shades of blue on the wheel. Gorgeous as it is, it is not calling my name right now. I could warp the loom for my next project, if I knew what that was! Trying to quilt during the week doesn't work. I'm usually too tired to ...

...we had an end-of-the-Tour Spin-In yesterday. Great company, great food, and lots of spinning. Thanks for hosting, Spinnity! I spun the singles for this yarn on Saturday and plied them at Spin-In. The corriedale top is from Judy's Novelty Wool in the Lake Tahoe colorway. and the close-up: Specs: Started 7/24 Finished 7/25 Corriedale top (4oz) from Judy's Novelty Wool 130+ yards, Navajo-plied WPI TDB, somewhere between worsted and bulky I'm not washing this one until after I've woven it into something. I finished 4 yarns for this tour, one of which has been a WIP since 2007. I'm quite pleased with my output, especially considering how much I had to do at work. Here's a collage of my Tour de Fleece accomplishments: One other thing I managed to do this weekend was block the Reflection Shawl. Even after blocking, this shawlette is simply too small for me—it's more of a triangular scarf. I have to admit that it does look very nice blocked. ...

...too much work + not enough brain power leftover at the end of the day, with a side of  Comcast Internet flakiness  = no blogs for a week. Yeah, I'm glad that week's over! So, Tour de Fleece got put on the back burner for a few days. Before work took over my brain, I managed to finish another yarn. Here is Beach Foam: and the close up: Specs: Started 7/15/10 Finished 7/20/10 3 batts from Liza Souza in Beach Foam, 3.2 oz (90% Superfine Merino, 8% Tencel, 2% Firestar); 228.9 yards, Navajo-plied; 15 WPI I also finished knitting the Reflection Shawl (I still need to block it): Specs: Finished knitting on 7/21; Pattern by Ruth Greenwald; Yarn from Loopy Ewe Sock Club, Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester Sock yarn in Daffodil Needles: 4 US Modifications: added 3 more rows: 1 row = *K2 YO* K2; 2 rows = knit all stitches But that's pretty much it. I haven't been able to even think about starting something else until today. I'd like to do a bit more ...

...I finished the purple merino-silk yarn. and the close-up: Specs: Started: 7/2007 (Tour de Fleece); Finished: 7/15/10; Merino-silk top from Angora Cottage; 362.9 yards, Navajo-ply; 16 WPI I'm very happy to get this one done...it's been hanging around far too long! Up this weekend: more spinning a Tour de Fleece continues. I have a few errands to run, but pretty much I plan on spending my time on crafts and relaxing, Next week is going to be a long one, so I want to start off being rested. Have a good weekend!    

...still way busier than I want to be. At least I'm taking a coupe of days off! I have managed to spin every day of Tour de Fleece, including Monday's rest day. I'm making up for the light spinning days while I was at Mom's. I finished the Sea Scape yarn: and the close-up: Specs: Started 7/4 Finished 7/12 Merino-Tencel top (4oz) from Abstract Fibers 236.4 yards, Navajo ply 14 WPI I started Navajo-plying the Purple Merino-silk: I am almost finished plying bobbin #1 and will then move on to the second (and last) bobbin. That's pretty  much all I've been working on...my brain is too tired by the end of the day to even think about knitting! Oh, and a big shout-out to my nephew Zac: Happy 18th Birthday!! (Wow, have the years flown...)  

...no Internet connection at Mom's and all the wireless networks in the neighborhood were secure. It's just to big a pain to do a blog post from the iPhone, so I just didn't bother! We had a good time celebrating Mom's birthday. She decided to celebrate with 2 cakes and 3 kinds of ice cream... we all pretty much OD'd on sugar! One cake was lemon with white chocolate curls on top and the other was a carrot cake. Both cakes had almond-meringue crusts (!?) on the bottom, making them way sweeter and crunchy than any cake I've ever had. Frankly, I don't see the need for the crust...they really didn't add anything to the cakes.  I took pictures of the cakes, but they are on my computer at home. I'll post them when I get a chance. Here is one picture from the trip: This was Saturday. The clouds started building up in the afternoon and my nightfall, it was completely overcast. During the night there were thunderstorms. This was my first trip by mys...

...still way busier than I want to be! Tour de Fleece update: So far I've managed to spin every day. Yay! Last night I finished the first bobbin of the Sea Scape yarn and started the second bobbin. No picture today because it pretty much looks like the last one. The Reflection Shawl is taking a short time-out. I have unraveled back to the row with the dropped stitch. Now I'm trying to psych myself up to tink back one row to get to my starting point. I think I managed to make the error on the next to the last RS row in the pattern section, which is good news. I might get this thing finished this month... I continued to work on the Hexagon socks. I have finished the first "ring" of hexagons and started casting on a hexagon for the second ring. Here's what it looks like so far: Yes, they are bright! While they are a little busy, the color changes really help to see where to pick up the stitches. If I finish this pair, I'll have to find some one who doesn...

...finally! Finished: 6/3, Rusty Dahlia socks [ Ravelry ] Started: 6/5 Natural Dyes batts from Yarn Wench (spinning)  [ Ravelry ] 6/12 Teal quilt 6/19 Blue Hosta Merino-Bamboo-Tussah top (spinning0 [ Ravelry ] Worked on: Reflection Shawl (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Flower Power quilt, basted and began machine quilting  Jungle Songs quilt, pieced backing Angora Cottage 70% Merino and 30% Silk 4 oz.roving in purple (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Works In Progress, did not work on: Sea Foam Wrap (knitting) [ Ravelry ] UFOs: Chasing Rainbows Heather--one Merino-Bombyx (2 oz) and one Merino wool (2 oz) (spinning) Dogosaurus Rex sweater (knitting) [ Ravelry } Happy Pumpkin Scissor Fob by Shepherd's Bush (cross stitch) Hopi by Susan Portra (needlepoint) Peacock Majesty by Just Nan (cross stitch) Stranded Hearts socks (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Violet Needle Roll (cross stitch) Wisteria Angora-Merino top from Tactile (spinning) [ Ravelry ]

... I'm at work, waiting for a compile to finish.  While I wait, I'll give you a little report. First off, the sock classes on Saturday were fabulous. In the first class,  I learned a new cast-on and a new bind-off, and I think I finally understand the wrap-and-turn thingy for short rows. It's still not my favorite thing to knit, but it doesn't seem  as daunting. The second class was learning how to knit the hexagon socks on the cover of Think Outside the Sox . These little hexagons are addicting! The classes were limited to 12 people, which is a nice size class. On the Tour de Fleece front, I took my spindle with me on Saturday and spun a little between classes: On Sunday, I plied the Blue Hosta yarn: and the close-up: Specs: Started 6/19/10; Finished 7/4/10; Merino Bamboo Tussah top from Miss Babs; 138 yards, two ply; WPI TBD (worsted, I think) Then I started a Merino-Tencel from Abstract Fibers, called Sea Scape: I'm spinning this on the fa...

...too much work makes me lose track of time! It's going well (I think), but there's still a lot to do. I had hoped to show you a completed shawl today, but no luck there. I was almost done last night and then I discovered a major error 5 or 6 rows back. ARG!!! I think I dropped a stitch (like maybe when I fell asleep in the middle of knitting a couple of nights ago) and it ran. At least it stopped before it got too far. [Sigh] I need to rip back to the error and get it back on track. So instead, you get eye candy from the garden. First up, dragon beans: I think these look more like leopard beans, but they're cool. Here's another one: And new addition to the "It came from the garden" set is this cucumber: I don't think I've ever seen a cucumber black hairs before... ewww ! Up this weekend: I have the two Sandi Rosner sock classes tomorrow. I'm going to get my knitting bag together tonight. I'm really looking forward to doing...