Stitching Bloggers Question (SBQ)

This question was on a blog I read, she will be publishing a question for every month.

OK - here is the November SBQ:

What's your favorite color of thread? Pick just one. Why do you like it?

I have been thinking about this question a lot. First I thought I would pick a variegated floss. My favorite was a turquoise base with bright yellow, coral, and blues... but then I read the question again, and I can only pick one color... not one floss.

I think if I could only have one, it would have to be red. I always feel a deep satisfaction when I finish a piece with red.

I have to make a list of projects, so I can get them done.

crochet hat for DD1

hydrangea bag

lacy scarf

paintbox scarf

2 bathrobes

C-pap pads (done)

c-pap chin strap

Christmas presents (crochet done...)

Holland Springtime Mandala

SAL temari

exchange temari

12 season flower temari

That should keep me out of trouble for a while... don't you think?! I better get busy.

I have decided not to work any longer on the toothbrush rug. It is not going to fit in the location I had planned for it (the door catches on it when it opens and closes!) :-( I will use the rest of my strips for dining room chair pads.

Fiber Festival

We had a wonderful time on Friday! The traffic was not fun, but the trip itself, even so, was worth it. The Botanic Gardens are such a beautiful setting! The courtyard of the building the show was in has bonzai trees on display. I thought this one was so beautiful with the fall colors!

Inside this was one of the hallways with displays. Later we were chatting with one of the hostesses, and she commented on how the beauty of the setting enhances the quilts too.

We did get a chance to do quite a bit of shopping. Each of the three guilds represented had an area that had things to buy from their specialty. I was totally captured by the beauty of a hand dyed silk shawl. I tried it on, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I took it off and put it back on the rack. It was a gorgeous, flowing aqua, and the artist showed me a new way to tie knots in the corners to make a sort of a shrug.

I didn't buy it.

The quilts were the most interesting to look at. I love the colors in this leaf quilt, and the different sorts of leaves, several different species of oaks, and ginkgo and maple leaves. This was a big quilt.

The best way to look at the woven stuff was to look at what was for sale. They had some beautiful things too. The weaving guild had the best participation opportunity. They were teaching weaving on small drinking straw looms.

I started a bracelet, and I will show you when I get it finished. They had tubs of donated yarn for people to choose colors from... Karen and I had fun picking out different theme colors and textures.

When we were done looking at the show we took a couple of minutes to walk around in the gardens. There is beauty around every corner and such different things to look at. We walked to the Japanese garden. Here is the group we were with:

Karen, Elizabeth, and Cathy. You can see that it was chilly in the breeze, but in the sheltered areas it was lovely.

This is a longer view of the Japanese Garden.

Here is a vista across one of the waterways. If you enlarge the picture, you can see a heron stalking along the hillside.

This is from the Waterfall garden. Here too, every couple of steps brought you to another view of a waterfall, each one different, and each one lovely. I took tons of pictures.

Going home was an adventure... it took 2 hours, and we thought we were lucky it didn't take longer. Our GPS ("Susie") took us through the highways and byways on the way home, but we made it!

It was a lovely day.

Knitty outings

Yesterday, the knitting group I belong to went out for Brunch to a tea room in Crown Point. The food was very good:

and we had a wonderful time together, but the whole experience was a little disappointing, because the service was... grumpy. We did not feel welcomed at the shop. There are pictures on the flickr site, if you are interested. I didn't post them here, because none of them is very flattering. We were having too much fun.

The rest of the day was very relaxing though, and I got a lot of progress made on the second of the two baby blankets I am trimming for this weekend. I think I may be able to finish them by tomorrow!

One blue trimmed one, one pink trimmed one. The blue one is done, the pink one is 3/4 done.

There would be no question about finishing it today, except that I am going on another outing. Several guild members are going to the Fine Art of Fiber show at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Four of us are driving up to the gardens, and plan to spend the afternoon immersed in the fiber arts. I am really looking forward to it! Pictures next time.

Halloween Reflections

I did not go Trick or Treating when I was a child. We "celebrated" Reformation day, which always seemed kind of a jip, because there usually was no candy involved. Other than that, I really didn't mind too much. Now, it seems that even grown-ups play Halloween. We went to what was for us kind of an upscale restaurant, and all the staff was dressed up in costumes. We didn't pay too much attention until our waiter came to take our order:

(I asked permission to take a picture, and he struck a pose, but my camera was too slow, and I missed it!) There were others that I didn't get pictures of: Roy Orbison (complete with a large acoustic guitar), a ballerina, a pirate, a red-neck (the costume was so good, we were glad he was not our waiter), a 1800s "gentleman," and a cup of jo. It was entertaining.

Our food was good. DH had the steak and shrimp:

I had the paella:

I ordered it because the paella we had down town this summer was not the dish I was familiar with... neither was this. This was closer, but the sausage was so spicy I could not eat very much. I did pack most of this and bring it home. I will eat the seafood; that was delicious.

I do know a couple more people who like to dress up for Halloween:

P is Darth Vader... check out the eyes! C is a "Spanish Princess" (also known as a flamenco dancer). She is very proud that she has high heels, and is planning on continuing to wear them after the holiday.

I better go get busy. DH wants me to make a pad for his CPAP machine. I promised DD2 that I would make two baby blankets by the weekend. And I owe C a home-made bathrobe for her birthday (which was two weeks ago) (bad grandma!). So what I have I been doing this morning? Knitting!

Talk to you later!

Odds and Ends

Well, I had hoped to have a little finish to show you today, but it didn't happen. So here is my work in progress. This is the "Paintbox Scarf" that I mentioned a little while back, and this is my progress on it so far. I am really enjoying knitting this. It is not so complicated that I have to have complete silence when I am working on it, but it is involved enough so that it is not boring. I am enjoying the color changes. By the time I get tired of one color, another one starts appearing. I must say, though, I am not crazy about the mustard yellow. (It will change soon enough.)

This is the other side... don't pay any attention to the edges on the purple section. That is where I started, but the edges are getting better and better as I go along.

I was given a box full of yarn, all of it wool! There are at least 1/2 a dozen cones like the green (all in guy colors), a couple of cones of boucle, several spools of the white, in 2 and in 3 ply, and 2 spools like the mohair on the left. I have plans for that one!

Any suggestions for what to do with them? They are not soft and cuddly. I think they were originally for weaving. If I cannot think of projects, they will be very gratefully used to wrap temari.

Thank you Lore (and Jane)!

Dorky new hat

I was reading blogs, and found a pattern for a hat made with bulky yarn on the Purl Soho website, and since I happened to have a lump of bulky yarn sitting on my footstool, I decided to make it. As usual, I was running out of yarn, but ended up with about 24 inches of the blue left over at the end. (The green is from my floor doily.)

I am having issues with my gauge... this hat turned out way too big for me. It fits DH, but he says it looks dorky. It is Very Warm, so if you need a warm hat, and don't mind looking (a little) dorky, let me know, and it is yours. If no one chimes in, it will go to a charity.

Who knows, if this is a cold winter, I may make this again with new yarn and smaller needles, because I like it!

Temari SAL, Anne W

I finished this temari this week, and I really like it. It was a stitch-a-long (SAL) through Talk Temari lead by Anne. Thank you Anne!, it was a very fun stitch.

I didn't follow the color recommendations exactly, because I thought it would look nice in flower garden colors, with the obi being the flowers, and all the other stitching being the greenery. There is a little metallic on it, but even in person it is hard to see.

Check out the pole!



You can see a guild project I am working on here.