I finished my 3 squares of Parisian stitch.  The first one came out pretty good:

I turned it a quarter-turn to work and spent a lot of time pulling each thread in the 3-thread strand after making each stitch so the threads would lay flat and even.

My second square is my own design based on various samples I saw:

I really like how this one came out.  I centered it exactly and had to do fill-in stitches on each edge.  I think it came out great.

My third square is a copy of one of the samples in the book done in my own colors:

This is George's favorite.  I like it too.  I finished the square and then noticed that I had mixed up  some of the colors on stitches in the ribbon so I had to cut it out and re-do in the correct colors for the pattern.  The front looks great, but I won't be showing off the back of this square to anyone.

I now have 8 of the 25 squares filled in and have to start paying closer attention to the overall appearance of the sampler.   I also need to decide how I'm going to fill in the lines between the squares - one color, multiple colors in patterns, etc.

I've been working on my sampler very slowly.  Here's the first block I did in Old Florentine Stitch following the directions in Ms. Slater's book:

My edges are very messy and some of my contrast color (dark orange) is pulled too tight and looks buried in the main color (dark green).

My second attempt was only slightly better:

I'm having real trouble getting my fill in stitches on the left side looking as full as the regular stitches.  I put off doing the third block for quite awhile because I was disappointed with my efforts on the first two blocks.

My third, however, went like a dream when I finally worked it:

I moved the canvas a quarter-turn so I was still doing the stitching horizontally, but having it appear vertical on the canvas.  I paid more attention to keeping my 3 strands of wool flat and my stitching smooth.  I'm still having some trouble with my fill in stitches as seen at the top of this photo, but I'll keep working at it.

I'm now starting the first of 3 blocks done in Parisian stitch.  I'll update when I have them completed.

Updated 20070227: Replaced 2nd photo with a better one.

Back in 2005 my office in the basement looked like this:

North-end

Middle

South-end

These metal racks were filled with books in plastic file boxes.  We had had a flood in the basement the year before.  Fortunately none of our books were damaged and we got the leaks repaired - by having the west and south foundations sealed, but I didn't want to risk any damage and also didn't have enough bookcases to put everything out.  I put all our books in a ReaderWare database and indicated which box they're in.

In the fall of 2005, we decided to upgrade this part of the basement (approx. 13' x 30') to house refugees from Hurricane Katrina.  We never actually got any refugees despite putting our house availability up on numerous websites, but we did improve the basement to this:

South end with new escape window

Middle

North end

We used the yellow paint because we have gallons of it left over from painting the living room (we were oversold at the paint store).  The coral paint in the north end photo is the color we have in our dining room.  The room seemed way too yellow until I put that stripe in.

It's been a over a year since we painted/carpeted/rewalled/rewindowed this space and it now looks like this:

South end

Middle

North end

It's a mess, but a more organized mess.  I've been working on getting it sorted and cleaned out on and off.  Someday I'll be done, I think.  I definitely need to find the right storage solutions to store my knitting supplies, needlepoint supplies and weaving supplies.  I also need to get more books moved back in.  Our books have been in the garage for the past year and a half.  We can still find them using the database (and a thousand or so are in bookcases on the second floor), but I'd like to be able to just see them again.

George says that in a few more years he'd like to completely gut the basement and get it set up right.  Such as right now we have a corner room with east and south facing windows which is a very poorly set-up laundry room with lots of wasted space.  We had to install our washer and dryer where the pipes and outlets were, which are on opposite sides of the room.  This would be a perfect location to set up a loom.

I was sitting in the living room on Monday night and my fingers were freezing.  I thought "I need a pair of fingerless gloves."  So I checked out various patterns online and on Tuesday started this pattern:

This is the "Fetching" pattern from Knitty.com.  I knitted them in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran that I had left over from the scarf I knitted George back in December 2005.  The color number is 300506 and I would describe it as Fir Green.  With this pattern, I cabled without a needle for the first time and picked up my first thumbs.  I had to re-do the thumb on the first glove because I had big holes.  Now they're done and I'll leave them next to my chair in the living room for the next time my fingers are freezing while I knit, needlepoint or read.

Thoughts

I've been reading the Knitting Curmudgeon's archives lately.  She writes a lot about people being afraid to try new things in knitting.  I realized that I can often be one of those people.  It takes me a lot of time to work up my nerve to try something new -  a technique, a pattern, a substitute yarn, etc.  I tend to doubt my abilities.  Some of my fear is left over from when I couldn't afford much yarn so I was afraid of messing up and destroying the yarn I did have. 

But some of it is a fear of losing/wasting time.  I don't know where this fear comes from, but it has a big hold on my mind.  I fear losing time to having to reknit an item, to surfing the web and getting nothing substantial done, to just wasting time.  And I waste a lot of time, often doing nothing.  And then I beat up on myself for wasting all that time.  I often fear that my life will just disappear into "wasting" time.  I need to work through that and actually get somethings done.

I started on a sampler using this book, The New York Times Book of Needlepoint by Elaine Slater.  Ms. Slater teaches the new needlepointer 10 different stitches.  She includes lots of diagrams of the wrong as well as right way to do the stitiches.

So far I've marked my 10-mesh canvas for 25 square blocks, picked out 5 colours from the DMC 3-ply Persian wool (3 oranges and 2 greens), and I've done my two squares of brick stitch.  I followed the directions for the first block:

And then looked at Ms. Slater's various examples and did the second block in my own simple design:

I turned the canvas a quarter-turn to work the block as Ms. Slater advised rather than trying to work it vertically.

I'm finding it harder to work with 3-ply persian wool then it was to work with the Appleton tapestry wool I used on the Plums canvas.  Ms. Slater has the learner use 3 strands for all vertical/horizantal stitches so I have to keep the 3 strands as flat as possible for the stitch.  I guess I'll get better with time - practice, practice, practice.

Back in November 2006, I finally did something I've been wanting to do on and off for years - I took a class on Needlepoint.  The only class I could find was at Churchmouse Yarn & Teas on Bainbridge Island.  I missed the first of the 3 classes, but was able to meet with the teacher an hour before the 2nd class so she could show me what they had done.  With the teacher's help, I picked out a pillow kit for my first project.  I was unemployed in November so I had plenty of time to work on the canvas.  In 3 weeks, I completed this:

This kit is Cleopatra's Needle's Herb Pillow Tapestry Kit : Fruits of the Forest Collection - Damsons.  Dimensions: 10" x 10", Wool: Appleton Tapestry Wool

I started working the canvas and thought I would probably grow bored with the stitching.  Instead, I was fascinated by the way the wool brought the canvas to life.  I couldn't stop stitching. 

I'm now working on a couple of other projects.  I feel as if needlepoint is allowing me to open up creatively.  I have ideas for color combinations and stitches beyond the tent stitch.  See what I've got:

This is DMC 3-ply Persian Wool in 29 colors.  I'm going to have lots of fun.

Boy, I have a lot of photos that George & I have taken since we got digital cameras.  I created a lot of new folders so I can more easily find what I'm looking for.  Here's a photo from June 2005.  It's of my niece Catherine (left) and her friend Mel (right) in the Temple Bar area of Dublin.  This was a trip I'd promised Catherine if she did well in high school.  Not only did she do well, she was a National Merit Scholar.  George said it was a good thing the trip wasn't pro-rated.  We would have been in Europe all summer!  As it was, we spent a week in Ireland and a week in London.

I knitted this premmie jacket for the daughter of a boss I had a few years back.  Unfortunately, the daughter died at 10 days old so I never gave the jacket to her dad.  I'm keeping it until someone else I know has a premmie.

This isn't a very good picture, but it's the best one I have right now.  I'll try to get a better shot before I put this up on my Finished Projects website.

I've just spent the last 2 evenings finally arranging all the digital photos I have on my desktop from 2001 - 2006.  I created new folders by date(s) and events.  Now I can more easily search through the photos to find what I want.  Since this is now done (tho' I still need to copy some 2006 photos over from George's computer), I'll be putting more pictures up on the blog.  Here's an example from 2002 Jul 6:

Doesn't it look delicious if messy?

I started a six-month contract at Geospiza, Inc. on November 26th.  My job is to write up test cases for the core program, Finch.  I'm working for Jim Hancock again who hired me at CVS.com and then at Washington Mutual.  It's nice to work for someone who knows my work and likes it.

Geospiza is a small company, about 24 employees, and everyone's been great to work with.  They're planning to hire a couple of more programmers in January and Jim is looking for a performance tester to fill out his team.