Works in Progress (various)

The Tour de France continues... and so does the Tour de Fleece.

The 10 finished skeins so far.  I still have a lot of orange to go, but should be plying again today.  I ought to have enough yarn to make a sweater for my Ravelympics project.

Here's my little gem of a Kuchulu, all filled up with Dicentra Designs BFL/silk.  I started another cop today.  Fun seeing a little progress on this long-term spinning project!

For my yarn-along project, I'm still working on my Black Roses stole (a.k.a. Lady MacBeth because my homemade dye job comes off on my hands as I knit).  I've been taking it to swim lessons the last few weeks and am finally almost done with the long slog.  The Madhur Jaffrey cookbook I borrowed from the library... oh my, such good recipes!  I've tried ground turkey kebabs flavored with yogurt, coriander and mint; some pan-fried fish, and several different recipes for different kinds of dal.  Yum!  It's not that difficult to cook some cumin and mustard seeds in oil and saute onions with them, and it adds so much flavor to a dish.  I could really get to like Indian cooking, and so could my family.

Here's the aftermath of one of our meals, before the turkey kebabs were gone.

My machine quilting is at a standstill as I gather courage and strategize how to replace the worn plastic tracks that the rollers have to move on.  You can kind of see in this photo how cracked and abraded they are.  That means bumpy quilting and very little control.  I have the replacements from the Grace company but have been postponing putting them on.  It scares me to dis-assemble the Megaquilter because it's so touchy to get set back up right.

And here's the quilting UFO for July I need to work on.  I haven't touched these little 6" log cabins for years, and it's time to finish them up.  I don't know if I want to make more or just finish a lap quilt.  Probably finished will be better than perfect, as it usually is.
The summary of WIPs:

• purple arrowhead blocks - no progress this week
• baby Jack's chain binding - no progress
• log cabin blocks - evaluating
• knitting Black Roses Stole - 85% done!
• knitting "Summer Flies" - minimal progress this week
• spinning Tour de Fleece - I've spun about 1000 yards of 3-ply yarn so far!

Check out other WIP action at Freshly Pieced!