Textileophile

 It's been about a week since my last post, and my crafting landscape has changed drastically since then. After I finished my Stephen West Painting Bricks shawl: I abandoned all of my knitting WIPs and reverted back to cross stitching. You read that right, I'm back to endlessly stitching pokemon!  I'm not actually sure where I was when I last talked about this.  I may have mentioned that I've done the first panel of the third row (panel number 11).  I found my footing again, and really decided to run with it. On this day, I went a little crazy with the black work.  Sometimes I like to do the framing stitches, and other times I don't.  It can make it easier to keep track and to count. It can also be a disaster if I lose count.  Fortunately that did not happen this time. I think this was two days of work, instead of one.  I had a day where I could only stitch for a little while, and it didn't seem worth it to take a picture. This was the end of last...

 Morning blog! I know, it's been a few weeks since my last confession err, blog post.  Things are happening around here. By that I mean, I've been lazing about with Zac the last few weeks that he's had off of work and I've done almost no knitting done at all. I blame August. And I decided to replay final fantasy nine again.  I'm about to send them through the Shimmering Island to Terra.  I have to level up my chocobo first. Last I left you all, I was contemplating casting on a sweater for Hazel.  I had two other WIPs happening and I know I mentioned thinking about casting on a sock. Well, I did cast on a sweater for Hazel: It's the Campside pullover that I've modified into a cardigan.  And as you may be able to tell, the yarn is a little warbly.  It's yarn that was frogged remains of a sweater I knit for myself last year that was ill-fitting.  I think I talked about it here, but I never shared a finished object picture because I wore it a few time...

 So, It's been a few weeks and I've been stitching a fair amount! I'm almost sad to say that I haven't done any cross stitching of pokemon since the last post.  I fell into sock knitting and sweater knitting and boy do I have some horrendously lighted pictures to show for it. My socks!  They are done! I don't have a lot to say about them.  They're my typical sock: 64 stitches, eye of partridge heel, 14 everything.  I did leave the first toe to graft till I was finished the second sock though, which was unusual.  I was waiting for a hair cut, and let me tell you, they need more hair salons in this part of the state.  Even if I had signed in online, the wait would have been horrendous.  boy.  I waited 2 hours! Well, I didn't have my accessory pouch with me when I finished the first toe, so I put it on waste yarn and started the second cuff.  Then I just left it on the waste yarn till I finished the second toe and grafted both within a few ...

 Why hello there! Crafting has been a bit hit or miss in the last few weeks.  I did finish the fire gradient second skein within a few days of finishing the first: They are gorgeous, and soft and I am excited to knit with them.  But I asked Husband which skein of yarn I should knit socks out of next and he chose:   this one.  Which is new, and I got it in a monthly prize draw on LSG.  Makes him think of summer I suppose.  It's Dye House yarns in the pixie dusk colorway. But I had to have a listless week full of jumping from one activity to another before I settled on socks. I brought out the cross stitch again: Finished page 11, and right now I've done about fifty stitches from page 12.  But, I did say listless.  So, there was some drop spindling: This is that Christmas 3-ply I wanted to make speckled yarn out of.  Eventually. I know it's only July, but I have doubts about it being done by *this* Christmas.  and you know what? ...

 So, last time I gave a bit of a foreshadow to the interruption. But in case you're not aware or don't remember, TDF is on!  Tour de Fleece is an annual spinning event that takes place during the Tour de France.  It started  last Saturday and goes till the middle of this month. I started relatively slowly the first four days:   You can kind of see the progression of bobbin filling.  Spinning is really slow when you spin fine.  I was only spinning for 30-45 minutes a day, too. But don't worry.  It picks up.  Around this time (I was still cross stitching every day!) I finished page 10 of the epic pokemon cross stitch: I can't remember where I was last time I chatted, but I'm officially here. One third done! And I've barely made any more progress since I reached this point.  I *did* learn some more of the names of these guys, though. Since then, though I've just spun. At a certain point the first bobbin got quite full of singles, so I had t...