Livin' La Needle Loca

...I can't believe how fast that day went! It's all about purple for the eye candy...an agapantus flower: A passiflora (passion flower): and another view: And (finally) a picture of the Phat Fiber box contents: Don't ask me what the individual fibers are right now...I barely got the collage made, much less identified each of the fibers! Up this weekend: I'm helping the Daughter with some furniture deliveries tomorrow. She's at a conference and can't be there herself. Since we figure it would be nice if she had a bed to sleep on, I'll be babysitting the process. She has no Internet at her place yet (gasp!) so I'm taking my knitting and my iPad so I can read. That will take up most of Saturday, which means I'll have to cram errands and chores into Sunday. That's it...time to go home and have a glass of wine. It's been a long week! .

...with one WIP.  Here is the current state of Hopi: I need to finish the ecru stitches in the center area and enlarge the openings for the eyelets. Once I have established the size of the eyelets, I can go back and do some fill-in stitching around them. I chose not to stitch too close to the eyelet openings to avoid [I hope!] having to frog stitches. No new pictures of the Peacock Pomatomus Socks or the Nefertem Shawl. They don't look marginally different than the last time, so there's no point in posting new pictures. However, I am making progress on Nefertem—I'm on repeat number 13 of 17 for the body of the shawl. I'm wondering whether I'll have enough yarn to make it a full-size shawl rather than a shawlette. I might get more use out of a large shawl. We'll see! .

...Monday posts are just too hard to do. Here it is, the end of the day Tuesday, and I'm just now starting the first post of the week.  It's just been too busy around here! My weekend report: I spent it mostly spinning. I finished the Lisbon Merino-silk handspun that I started at Spin-In this month. It turned out a lot pinker than I expected. Here's the skein-shot: and the close-up: Specs: Started 10/8/2011; Finished 10/23/11; Lisbon 1 Merino-silk top from The Yarn Wench; Spun and plied on Lendrum DT folding wheel; 2-ply; 357.3 yards; WPI: TBD...I think it's worsted weight I also finished spinning the last two samples in the Bollywood Phat Fiber box. I was toying with the idea of starting to spin the Witching Hour (Halloween) Phat Fiber box, but wanted to be done with Bollywood first.  (Hmmm, still need to post pictures of this box...) I did quite a bit of needlepoint, too. I'd forgotten how fast the Susan Portra designs worked up.  Maybe it wi...

...everything's been running late this week, so let's get right to the Eye Candy. These are Lion's Tail flowers.   A close up of the top: A close up of the fully grown flower: The fuzzy petals and the size of the flower make them look like orange tarantulas! And as promised here are a few pictured from Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF). (I show one  picture of the quilt and a close-up of the quilting.) Beyond Beauty by Jan Reed (Audrey Hepburn) and Can You See What I hear by Mickey Biickert: Garden of Haiti by Susan Shie (could not get the entire quilt in the picture) and Last of the Blueberries by JoAnn Hoffman: The Haiti quilt is covered with handwriting....just amazing! My spinning stash increased a little in the last week. I received the first Proverbial installment for the 2011-2012 club: I also scored a Phat Fiber box for October...woo hoo! I'll post pictures of the box contents when I finish taking the pictures. Up ...

...I have no idea what happened to Monday and Tuesday. Every time I thought I'd get a minute to post, something interrupted! I have not had a chance to process the pictures I took at Pacific International Quilt Festival.  Some are Eye Candy Friday-worthy, so I'll post some then. There were many cool quilts. The ones that really intrigued me were an Audrey Hepburn portrait/wall quilt, two Beatles discography quilts, and a quilt about Haiti. I bought a few yards of fabric and a couple of tools, but I really kept it to a minimum...for me, anyway! For WIP-It Wednesday, here is a picture of a needlepoint project: This is Hopi, by Susan Portra. I pulled this out of the UFO stack....it's been there since before 2008!  I love all of Susan Portra's designs. I have already stitched Navajo , Taos , and Vegas designs. Several years ago, I was smart enough to special order many of her not-as-well-known designs.  I have quite a stash just of her stuff and I'm gra...

...I finished Turquoise Trail! Yay!!  Here is it's preliminary picture: The lighting wasn't right this morning, but I wanted to take a picture anyway to show it off. It is much more beautiful than this picture shows. Specs : Started: 8/22/10 Finished 10/12/2011 Laura J Perin Designs Some modifications, mostly because I ran out of 2 Rainbow Gallery threads. For Eye Candy Friday,we have a sky picture: A penstemon: A bottlebrush: And a red and white dahlia: Up this weekend: Pacific International Quilt Festival at the Santa Clara Convention Center!  I'm looking forward to seeing the beautiful quilts and shopping at my favorite vendor, Quarter Inch Publishing . I hope to find some border fabric for the Day of the Dead quilt I'm making. Other than that, I have no plans. It's been a long week...some rest would be nice! .

...a quick summary of what's in progress. Peacock Pomatomus socks [ Ravelry ] are taking a very short break. I only have so many hands and so many hours in the day. Seaweed Cardigan [ Ravelry ] is taking an even longer break. I haven't actually touched it this month. Spinning Isonzo [ Ravelry ] is also on the back burner. Spinning Lisbon 1 [ Ravelry ] might have to wait until the weekend. It's looking pretty good so far: So what's been taking up all my time? Turquoise Trail! I'm almost done with the last quadrant of stitching. The metallics are being a pain in the @$$ (big surprise!), but it's nearly there. I can't say that I'm a fan of the "arrow" section of this piece, but the overall effect is beautiful. Here's hoping that I can have a Finished Object Friday this week! .

...can't trust either day. I started this post on Monday, and now it's Tuesday.  I hope it's not Wednesday when I finish it! My weekend went partially as planned and partially not. As planned, I attended Spin In on Saturday. My wheel was acting up a bit...I think she was miffed that I've basically ignored her for a month. She settled down after an hour or so, but this served as a reminder that I should spin at least a few times a month to keep the wheel happy. After thinking about it, I decided to start a new bump of fiber at Spin In. I pulled Lisbon 1 , a Merino-Silk by Yarn Wench,  out of my stash. It's a nice blend of rust, orange, violet, and purple.  I'll finish up Isonzo at some point, but for now something more Fall-like appealed to me. The unplanned part of my weekend involved going with the Daughter to see her new apartment. Yes, the Daughter is moving to her own place and she's excited! We're excited for her as it represents getting bac...

...I have the preliminary picture of the Tealing Groovy quilt. I really need to find a good place to take quilt pictures. This is in my office and the lighting is not good: I mentioned earlier in the week that I had taken a walk around my neighborhood and took several pictures. Sit back...relax...there are a few of them! A purple daisy: Dewdrops in a rose: A chrysanthemum: A collerette dahlia: Some [insert name here] white flowers Morning glories climbing a light pole: And a close up of a morning glory: This week I received the September installment of the Rockin' Sock Club from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I love the yarn color, but I'm kind of "meh" about the patterns. They are both toe-up and we all know how much I dislike knitting toe up socks! (And let's not forget that I have a major FAIL every time I try to knit a pair.) Anyway, I'll finish the Pomatomus socks first and then see what I want to do with this yarn. ...

...finally. Finished: 9/3 Mas y Mas shawl (weaving) [ Ravelry ] 9/1 Mysterious Waters shawl (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Books: Visions in Death, JD Robb Sins of My Brother, Michael Hake Forgotten Past, Michael Hake New York to Dallas, JD Robb Divided in Death, JD Robb Crunch Time, Diane Mott Davidson Imitation in Death, JD Robb 1105 Yakima Street, Debbie Macomber Started: 9/17 Peacock Pomatomus socks (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Worked on: Isonzo Merino-Bamboo top (spinning) [ Ravelry ]  Tealing Groovy quilt  (quilting) Turquoise Trail by Laura J Perin (needlepoint) Works In Progress, did not work on: Bollywood Phat Fiber box samples (spinning) [ Ravelry ]  Seaweed Cardigan (knitting)  [ Ravelry ] Happy Pumpkin Scissor Fob by Shepherd's Bush (cross stitch) Jungle Songs quilt Natural Dyes batts from Yarn Wench (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Royale top, 2 oz (Merino-Yak-Silk) top from A Verb for Keeping Warm [ Ravelry ] Sea Foam Wrap (knitting) [ Ra...

...I finally took some pictures! Here is the current state of Turquoise Trail: The lower-right quadrant is done (yay!) and the upper-right quadrant is almost done.  I made good progreass over the weekend and I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! The Peacock Pomatomus socks are starting to look more interesting: I like the scalloped look that is developing. At the last two Spin-Ins, I've been working on Isonzo from Creatively Dyed (Merino-Bamboo-Seacell top). Here is bobbin 1, about 4 ounces: This top weighed in at 8 ounces, so I'm only at the halfway point. The October Spin-In is this Saturday and I've got to decide whether I'm going to continue spinning this or start something else. We all know how easily bored I can become if a project takes too long! And finally, here is the new shawl I just started: This is Nefertem by Kristin Kapur in Midnight Rendevous (that's how it's spelled on the label) Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in ...

...hey! A Monday post on Monday, sort of. Finished the Tealing Groovy quilt on Saturday! I need to take some pictures, but it's done! Lost my battle with Start-itis...I started the Nefertem Shawl [ Ravelry ] on Saturday. And, started another quilt, as yet unnamed.  I have a lot of Day of the Dead fabric and other Mexican-themed fabric from Quarter Inch Publishing . I'm doing an experiment and letting the fabric tell me what it wants to be. (I have a backup plan in case that doesn't work, though.) I want to feature the various skeleton couples and faces. We'll see how it works! Actually worked on Turquoise Trail for several hours yesterday and finished the lower-right quadrant! Didn't touch the Peacock Pomatomus socks. Went on a 40-minutes early morning walk yesterday and remembered to take my camera. My neighborhood is not that interesting, but I did find several flowers to photograph. You'll see some of them on Eye Candy Friday, if not before. And, ye...