Finished yarns:

“New Day”  Corriedale

“Goblin Eyes” Merino/Bamboo

“Joshua Tree” BFL

Singles (plied after the Tour was over)

“Gunmetal” Merino/Alpaca

I’m skeining the last bit up tonight.  Should come out w/ around 500 yards of light fingering weight 2-ply.  I have ~12 more oz of that blend, so if I need more of the yarn, I can spin some more!  Handy how that works.

This week’s Farmers Market featured a cookbook sale.  I totally scored!  (Only wish they had one of the OLD Betty Crocker cookbooks w/ the spiral binding, but alas I will have to keep hunting)

Jane Brody, Fanny Farmer, James Beard, and “Russian Tea Room Cookbook”.  Johnny was excited to see the last one of that list, being 1/2 Russian and all.  I was happy to find the hardbound copy of the Beard and Fanny Farmer.

I leave you with this morning’s sunrise via my commute home.

I’m gearing up. Literally. As soon as said “gears” arrive from the other side of the planet, I’m sure I’ll be breaking my own records.

I’m spinning for Team Monkey Farts. This is the Spunky Eclectic’s club followers “Team”. I haven’t been able to afford the club for some time, but I do have a back log plus extra Spunky Stash. I think I’ll be concentrating on corriedale & bfl. Right now, I’m practicing spinning fat singles. By “fat”, I mean singles that are thicker than 20 wpi (wrap per inch). I’m aiming for 14-16. The goal is to knit “Daybreak” in “New Day” and natural dark brown corriedale singles.

Other fiber queued up for TdF is Lunar & Jupiter in Spunky Eclectic’s “Zodiac” series on grey corriedale.  While I’m not a big fan of dyed white corriedale top, this grey stuff is a marvelous spin.  There is also some BFL and more BFL.  I have a 4oz braid of “Joshua Tree” that told me it wants to be lace.  How can I argue?

My pepper plant starts didn’t do too well, and neither did the lavendar. I’ve decided to just buy the darned pepper plants, so I now have 4 sun bells, 4 poblano, 1 red bell, 1 serrano, and 1 cascabel. At least 10 basil plants now. The cilantro decided to bolt rather early.

A couple flat leaf parsley, three Florence fennel plants, chives, carrots, volunteer red potato, sweet potato, rhubarb, and four red cabbages round out the field. Oh, and I just broadcast a bunch of “mesculin” mix in the empty spots on a raised bed.

It’s going to be interesting keeping up w/ the watering. I think it’ll be the last thing I do before going to bed in the morning.

The block pattern is “Bento Box”. It’s destined as a table topper.

This is the one I sent. Since my machine quilting sucks, I decided to hand quilt it.

I haven’t done much sewing in the past week – mostly knitting and spinning. I expect that I’ll be back at the sewing machine soon enough.

Basically, I like clean, symmetrical lines and clear, un-muddied colours. Think IKEA vs picasso. My first quilt top is basically like that.

I also love scrappy charm quilts in all those fabulous new modern quilt lines that have been coming out lately. My favorite blocks include: straight up nine & four patch, bento box, chinese coins, to start.

Currently, my favorite colours are lime green (spanning from the rind of the lime to the flesh), sky blues, turquoise, brown, white, and black. I’m starting to get into yellows and oranges, but I usually say if you can find it in nature (or the back yard) I like it.

I live in a dove grey house with white trim and lots of dandelions.

SO!  What’s new?  Sewing…and more sewing.  And three “new” sewing machines this week, alone.

I finally started on John’s quilt.  The one he’s been nagging me to make for him for years.  It turns out I’m not quite up to speed on what fabrics are best for quilting (aside from the $10/yd stuff one can buy at the LQS, which I don’t do).  We picked up some nice broad cloth, and it turns out after swearing and ripping out most of the seams in the first block that its actually too thick to press all the seam allowances to one side.  So, I get to press OPEN the seams and thus far, it’s been going better.

Here’s the latest Singer to follow me home.  I actually had to pay for this one, but I was happy to!

A bit dusty from being on display at a local antique shop, it came in its original bentwood box.  This is a Singer 201-2.  Arguably one of the best Singer ever made.  I spent several hours cleaning and lubricating it; this included removing 65-year-old gear grease from all the gears which was truly gross!  Tri-flow for the win, to be sure!

I swapped the 15-91 and the 201 from case to cabinet.  I’m now using the 201 as my “main machine”.

I also was given two other machines this week.  One’s just another 1990′s metal bodied machine, but the star of the day  was this 1962 Singer 327k “Spartan”

I seem to be collecting a lot of 66 Class machines of late!

I’ve developed a real love for English Paper Piecing.  I really appreciate the portable nature of this method of piecing.  I can put everything I need in a quart size ziptop bag for many hours of “work!”

This is my first go at a Dresden Plate:

The pattern is somewhat unique, in that it has an odd number of blades (19). The templates are from sunshinequilter on eBay.  I really like working with her papers, as they are die cut from thicker cardstock than other brands and have no “sprues”.  The fabric is Connecting Threads “Summer”.

More pictures when I actually get something finished!  Right now I’m concentrating on accuracy in cutting & seaming.  Wish me luck…

Here’s a pic of Kiwi (who’s 14 this year!) from last week.  Strikin’ a pose!

Lately, I’ve been getting a bit burned out on the Big String Thing (i.e. knitting) and turned back to my “roots”, so to speak.

This past couple weeks, I’ve been working on embroidering flour sack towels.  My town’s new “fabric & more” shop got in some nice flour sack towels worthy of embroidery.  Here’s a sample of the set I’m working on for my kitchen:

It’s covering a batch of whole wheat “no knead” bread.  Recipe is here.

There’s been more crocheting happening here than knitting, and mostly in the form of potholders.  Nothing fancy, just worsted weight cotton yarn and the “potholder” stitch (single crochet through back loop and previous row’s unworked front loop) with an I hook.

I did start “Traveling Woman” last week, but since that’s still in the plain stocking stitch section, I’ll spare you the photo.

One skein of yarn for Ravelympics.  100% superwash merino from a etsy seller who’s shop closed.  ”Embers”, my bog-standard 2-ply sportweight spun long draw.  Approximately 300 yards per 4 oz.

I leave you with Bunny Buns.

Stage 1:  7 February 2010, 00:44 PST

So I started Laminaria on the 3rd,  and I’m in about 3000 stitches to the first section on Saturday night when shit started hitting the proverbial fan.  First I was off by one stitch on one side, then I counted ALL my stitches to confirm my place in the row count.  THAT didn’t line up with the spreadsheet.  I look at it very carefully and see that stuff isn’t symmetrical.  I counted one side vs the other side.  I was off by four stitches in a way that couldn’t be “fixed” without ripping it all out and starting over.

I’m one of those people that if I don’t get it bang-on right the first time (and I usually do), it gets tossed aside and addressed later.  If I feel like it.

Stage 2:  7 February 2010, 01:18 PST

Frog Laminaria.  Note the plant’s interesting medical usage as a cervical dialator (and pregnancy inducer) and move on.

Stage 3:  7 February 2010, 01:42 PST

Recover enough to hit the Ravelry Pattern Database to find inspiration for what else to do with 1300 yards of alpaca laceweight.  I look at Irtfa’a a bit, look at the designer’s other Faroese shawl(s) some more.  Realize I have Myrna Stahman’s shawl book.

Stage 4:  7 February 2010, 02:40 PST

Discover that I’m going to have to knit a sw*tch and do a style of shawl never done before (by me).

Stage 5:  7 February 2010, 02:41 PST

Hyperventilate into paper bag.

Interlude:  02:58  PST test of all-call phone startles me into reality.

Stage 6:  7 February 2010, 04:00 PST

Swatch half-assed-ly, decide it’s close-damn-enough.  Cast on for The Real Thing.  Get a few rows done before it was time to go.

This is where I left off yesterday morning.

16 Rows:  As you can see when spread out, it pretty much maxes out the cables.  I’m thinking I need to get a longer circ…

And this is where I’m leaving off this morning.  The sun is up, and it’s past my bedtime.

I was knitting right along on the border of my latest shawl when the sodding Knit Picks cable comes flying out of the metal fitting and drops a good 30+ stitches.

This could be the last straw for Knit Picks products. There’s a reason they’re inexpensive.