Livin' La Needle Loca

...if I say it enough times, it will happen, right? I'm manically desperately trying  to finish the Westknits KAL Mystery shawl today so I can submit a "finished" picture to the prize thread tomorrow. I have 5.5 rows and the bind-off to finish. It's gonna be a long night... .

...yes, we had crafting! A little spinning, a little weaving, a some knitting. So, I couldn't resist the Bollywood fiber.  I hadn't ever plied with sequins and I'd only plied with beads once. I just had to try it. I strung the beads and sequins on some gold rayon thread I had leftover from a previous yarn. Then I plied my Bollywood Wedding #1 (red and gold) single with the threaded add-ins.  I didn't use all of the ball, however, so I did a two-ply with the remaining single. Here are both version wound onto my makeshift bobbin: and here's a close-up of the beaded version: The butterfly sequins were a challenge--they didn't want to go through the guides and had to be helped along. It will be interesting to see how this weaves up. I worked on the Mas y Mas shawl. It's coming along slowly.  A couple of the warp yarns are a bit sticky. To open up the shed big enough for the shuttle, I have to use a pick-up stick to keep the shed open in the right pla...

...most of my week has been plagued by a massive sinus-TMJ-eye headache. When it got into day 3 and the extra-strength Excedrine was not even touching it, I went back to an old stand-by: cold diet Pepsi. I've been trying to kick my diet Pepsi habit, but sometimes I need that combination of sweet (or faux-sweet as the case maybe), syrupy and  bubbles to really cut through the headache. Why it works, I have no idea. But it worked and I woke up this morning without my head splitting. Hooray! Today's Eye Candy Friday is a combination of veggies and flowers. The Husband is growing a wide variety of peppers. This Spanish Spice Pepper is one of the biggest peppers I've ever seen. It's on a dinner plate, with a quarter used for scale. This is an Anna Russian tomato sliced open. It is a very meaty and sweet tomato, perfect for salads. I think it would make some nice dried tomato slices, too. This purple blossom is from an eggplant bush: The Dahlias continue to bloom...

...and we have a little more Bollywood spinning going on. Here are the latest two: Both of these samples came with sequins and the red also had some gold beads. I plan on plying the red single with the add-ins, but I'm not sure about the other. I wasn't in love with the colors when I opened the box, but adding the pink silk to it really helped. I'm going to try to ignore the other samples until I finish the Westknits KAL shawl. There is a prize thread for the KAL and you must post a finished photo of your shawl starting 9/1. I'd like to enter the drawing, so... The Turquoise Trail needlepoint project is still progressing. I found an error in the pattern last night that caused me to frog a few stitches. Nothing major, just the number of plies was written wrong. I knew that the full strand of 12-ply silk was too thick for the section within 3 stitches, so I didn't worry about it too much. Then I tried to split the silk into two six-ply chunks. OMG...I'd f...

..bet you didn't think I could do it, right? Aside from grocery shopping and a couple of chores (like laundry) that need to get done every weekend, I didn't do anything other than crafty stuff. I finished knitting section 3 of clue #3 for the Westknits Mystery Shawl KAL 2011, AKA Mysterious Waters [ Ravelry ]. I found a stitch count problem when I picked it up again and had to fix that first. Otherwise, I think I would have finished clue #3. When I finished section 3, I had to decide what size shawl I was going to make. While I love the colors I choose and the way they are used in the pattern, I decided that I was not going to wear this if it was a medium or large shawl, but would wear it if it was more like a scarf. (If I'm going to wear a triangular shawl, I want it to be lacy.) So I'm making the small size which requires a repeat of section 2 before I can go on to the final clue, which I downloaded today. You won't see any more pictures until it's done....

...it's been a week.  We'll get to that in a minute. First, let's have some eye candy. Nasturtium leaves, just because they are pretty and green: Little gala apples, because we actually got to eat apples this year. Fewer squirrels means more apples for us! Wonderfully shaped Anna Russian tomatoes: A green and gold tomato: Freshly-picked red tomatoes: For the first time since I heard about them several months ago, I managed to remember the date and time for the Phat Fiber box. I scored a Fiber box on the first try! Must be beginner's luck! The box arrived faster than I expected and was filled with wonderful samples. The theme is Bollywood and I'm loving the bright and shiny colors of the fibers. Don't you just want to dive in? Anyway, that box was the bright note this week. On Monday I got my new glasses and let me say that while I love the frames for both my regular and sunglasses, I am less than pleased with the vision improvement (or...

...this week has escaped me. Too many things going on and a last-minute eye exam today left me with dialated and numbed eyes.  Thank goodness for spell check because I can barely see to type this. Hope to be back on Friday.

...another long, yet short week. We're heading into that part of the year where the garden is mostly tomatoes and chile peppers. They all start to look the same after a while. Finding eye candy this morning was a challenge. Another hibiscus is blooming in the courtyard: More dahlias are blooming in the back yard: The dew on the dahlias was interesting this morning: Love how it glistens in the sun. As an added bonus, here is the latest progree picture of Turquoise Trail. The upper-left quadrant is finished! Up this weekend: It's Spin-In on Sunday, but I have to miss it this time. Mom is coming for a short visit on Sunday. Since this is the first time she's traveled in my direction in at least 3 years, I can't miss it.  So on Saturday, I get to clean house! If it was just my Mom, I wouldn't worry about much more than the "public" rooms, but she's bringing two of her sisters who have never been to my house. I just know they'll want a...

...because I showed you a picture of my latest WIP on Monday. Here's a mini-update on the WIPs (project name - mood): The Beets Go On Socks [ Ravelry ] - Frustrated/Irritated I found another break in the yarn at about the same point in knitting the cuffs for these socks. I'm about ready to chuck the yarn and put this pattern aside for now. I don;t know if it's the quality of this particular skein or if some random bug is eating the yarn (EWWW!). I tend to think that it's this skein because I am having no issues with other projects that I have in process.   Seaweed Cardigan [ Ravelry ] - Pleased I haven't worked on it in a while, but the knitting is coming along nicely and I still like the pattern, Just too many things in the queue right now.   Mas y Mas Shawl [ Ravelry ]- Excited I wove about 12 inches over the weekend (there are about 80 usable inches to weave). I love how the colors are showing through the weft and I'm thinking that it might work a...

...man, they keep escaping from me! Since it's so late, I'll keep my weekend report short. I spent a few happy hours weaving on the Mas y Mas shawl [ Ravelry ]. Mostly I was obsessed with the Westknits mystery shawl KAL [ Ravelry ]. Maybe it's because the photos of the potential color choices were so beautiful [ Flickr ] and everyone's pictures of their first liittle nugget of knitting looked so ineteresting. Or maybe it was because I'd already done one pattern by Stephen West and enjoyed it. Or maybe it's because I found yet another break in the yarn for The Beets Go On socks. Or maybe it's because I found the perfect shades of teal to use for the shawl. I started it. ...that is all. :) .

...and I'm actually posting on schedule. Woo hoo! Today we have pink amaryllis (AKA pink n@ked ladies): Purple lantana: Yellow lantana: and a weed (Field bindweed). We harvested a few vegetables last night...a gherkin, a cucumber, and a couple of tomatoes: Here's a close-up of that gigantic gherkin: Up this weekend: A few chores, a few errands, followed by weaving and knitting. I want to make progress on the Mas y Mas shawl I'm weaving. I also want to make progress on the Beets Go On socks. What is really tempting me right now is a new Knit-A-Long...the Westknits Mystery KAL 2011: Earth and Sky [ Ravelry ]. I really enjoyed knitting his shawl pattern for the Pro-Verbial club (Blue Whale Shawl on Ravelry ). The mystery shawl looks intriguing...I might have to do a little stash diving over the weekend! .

...still off-track this week, but at least you get a recap!   Between Tour de Fleece and the length of George RR Martin's "A Dance with Dragon," I didn't finish as many books this month. Finished: 7/3 Spring Lake Lagoon handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ] 50% Merino, 50% Tencel top from Royale Hare 139.5 yds Navajo-plied , 11 WPI 7/5 Mountain Meadow handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ] SW Merino-Alpaca top (4.1 oz) from Wolf Creek Wools; 271 yds, 12 WPI 7/10 Armstrong Woods Redwood (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Merino-Tencel (4 oz) from Royale Hare; 269.8 yds chain-ply; 13 WPI avg. 7/17 Bainbridge Island handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ] 75% merino, 25% bamboo with sparkle (4z) batt from KnitPicks 135.8 yds 2-ply, 10 WPI 7/17 Forest Afternoon handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ]Merino-Bamboo-Silk (4 oz) from Miss Babs; 238.2 yds, chain-ply, 14 WPI 7/19 Rhapsody in Blue and Purple quilt for my boss' retirement (quilting) [ Flickr ] 7/24 Silver Lake handspun (spinning) ...

...and I've already gone off-track! Monday just flew right by and it's looking like Tuesday is going to follow! On to the weekend report: On Saturday, I had the itch to weave. I had an idea of what I wanted to do and then I walked into my craft room. Oh, yeah...it was a disaster in there. Between the quilt that I finished and the stash diving for Tour de Fleece, things were seriously out of place. Since I don't have a lot of room in my room, I needed to put things away before I could even try to find the stuff I wanted for weaving. A couple of hours later, I did a little stash diving and came up with this: I'm using the technique I learned in my Stitches West class: multiple yarns and colors for the warp and a solid color for the weft. Some of the warp yarns I've had quite a while, like the pink ladder yarn. Some are new like the Piedmont Yarn Skyline in Berry with the sparkles. I pulled a rayon yarn out of a necklace kit that I was never going to make. It...