Self portrait.

self portrait, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

This is actually a silver mirrored vase that my Mom gave me. It was reflecting the pretty colors of my dining room, but if you click through to Flickr and read the note, you'll see that one of the mirrors is actually...me. Or at least part of me. Maybe my hand as I lined up the camera. :D

Convergence.

convergence, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I got this chair for $2 at a flea market. These ridges are in the crosspiece on the back, and I thought they were interesting. When I went to set up a perspective shot, I noticed the brush strokes in the paint that sort of mimic the ridges, which just added a layer of niftiness.

We are family.

family, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Someone over on Ravelry asked what people were spinning on, so I decided to take a picture of my spindle family. I only have 5 so far (OK, I really have 6, but one of them is a piece of crap that I bought to test for a possible spindling class and I hate it, so it's banished from this picture), and they're all nifty.

Clockwise from the top, we have a Bosworth midi in bubinga (1.13oz), a Kundert bubinga wreath (1.4oz), a ButterflyGirlDesigns murano foil glass (1.4oz), another Bosworth midi in English boxwood (1.2oz) and a ButterflyGirlDesigns polymer clay millefiori (0.9oz).

Whee, spinning!

Poetry.

poetry, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

So, about 5 years ago or so, my sister gave me this cat-themed refrigerator poetry set. I have the whole kit up on my fridge, and there are a few poems that people have put together over the years. Not surprisingly, every GUY who has ever been to my house has immediately homed in on the "pussy" tile. So predictable.

The poem in this picture is my favorite. My BFF Jackie composed it when she was in the midst of breaking up with her asshole TX boyfriend. Now it's immortalized in case I ever have a fridge magnet disaster.

Diligence.

diligence, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Holy shit! What's this? A photo taken OUTDOORS???

Yeah, I was waiting for the car dealership shuttle to pick me up, and I noticed that all of the walkways outside were lined in blue. The grounds crew has been diligent with the ice-melt, apparently. Nifty.

kthxchai.

kthxchai, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Sometimes the picture of the day is art. Sometimes it's just a photographic representation of my day. And sometimes it's wholly utilitarian.

Today is a utilitarian day. :D

I have addicted my Mom to Tazo chai latte, and she wanted to buy some for herself, but she didn't know which of the 10 bazillion tea choices she was supposed to buy. So, she asked me to take a picture of the carton and post it, and I could use it as my PAD. So here it is. Good luck, Mom!

Vigilance.

vigilance plied, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

This is Australian Polwarth in a colorway called Vigilance. I spun it on my new, gorgeous and delightful Kundert spindle. I only did 2oz (140 yds) because I was impatient to see what it would look like. I swear, that spindle is like magic...it practically spins itself. It has great squoosh, which I've had a hard time with lately...everything I've been spinning has been so fine, it took conscious effort to back off and not twist the crap out of this fiber and lose its wonderful loft.

Twilight.

twilight closeup, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

OMG. This fiber. It's 22 micron organic merino, the January 09 Spunky Eclectic club shipment. It's so unbelievably soft and luscious, and such gorgeous colors. And I got a new spindle! It was a tough call picking which picture to make my PAD, but I liked the perspective on this, so I'm considering this my official daily shot.

But, because it's also beautiful and I'm all squeearific over it, here's a bonus shot of my new Kundert Bubinga Wreath spindle, which spins like a DREAM. OMG, so awesome.

Lip.

lip, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Still working the hand blown glass carafe. :D

Bubbles.

bubbles, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I bought a new hand-blown glass carafe. I thought the perspective through the bubbly surface was sort of nifty. :D

Avoidance.

avoidance, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I'm the worst procrastinator in the world. My Mom came over a week and a half ago to help me undecorate the tree so I could put my xmas crap away. The tree was so dry by that time, I decided that instead of having her help me drag it out to the curb, and shedding needles all through the house on the way, I would clip it all down and put the remnants in trash bags and dump it in the woods when the weather gets warmer. Except...I never did.

My cleaning lady comes tomorrow, so obviously, the best time to perform this task I've been putting off was....tonight. And I'm not done. Because I'm an idiot.

BLAMB!

blamb, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

My hand-dyed Polwarth from David/Come In Spinner finally arrived from Australia today. Each 4 oz bundle was packed in the tiniest little bag, and when you open them up, the fiber goes BLAMB and says hello. :D

Of course, the use of "blamb" as an interjection came from the Spunky Eclectic group on Ravelry...I'm pretty sure it was originally a misspelling, but with the "b" on the end there, it seemed pretty appropriate to a group centered around fibery pursuits!

BTW, that's Dingo on the left and Vigilance on the right.

Oh, and today, you all get a bonus picture:



When I saw this stamp on my package, my first reaction was "Uh....WTF is that thing??" I looked up Diprotodon on Wikipedia, and apparently, it's the largest marsupial that's ever roamed the earth. Ugly little enormous hippo-sized (OMG, I didn't catch it the first time I looked at the Wiki, but that animal was HUGE!!) cuss, isn't he??

Progress.

progress, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I went up to the sit'n'knit at Anthology in Scranton tonight, and I worked on this spinning project for part of the time. I'm doing very well on this spindle now, which is a minor miracle. I tried to learn on this spindle, and it was just too light...I wasn't ready to spindle this fine at first, and I gave up in frustration and decided that this spindle was going to be more artwork than tool.

I'm loving it now, and I love love love this fiber.

On deck.

on deck, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I think this is going to be the next spindle project I work on. The fiber is 2 oz of richly dyed 50/50 blend of tussah (silk) and camel down. Mmmmm. The spindle is from Butterfly Girl Designs, and is about 0.8oz so it should be good for some really fine lace weight yarn.

Sangria.

sangria, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Three months after Rhinebeck and 395 yds later, I present my first spindle-spun yarn. This is a corridale/alpaca blend from Spunky Eclectic in the colorway Sangria, spun on my Bosworth English Boxwood spindle.

Chaos.

chaos, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Playing with the macro at work. My desk has a dearth of interesting subjects. ;)

Striking.

striking, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I liked these matches from yesterday, I decided I wasn't done using them as a subject. Today's title is courtesy of Troubleagain. :D

By request.

by request, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

A while back, I was lamenting that I was out of ideas for things to take pictures of, and my Mom suggested that I take a picture of my antique match striker. I think I got distracted and found something else, and never got around to it. It occurred to me tonight, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I thought that the ridges on the outside of the striker, covered with streaks of sulfer from the match strikes, would be the most interesting aspect, but when I set the striker down on the dining room table, the way the matches themselves fell around in sort of a spiral caught my eye.

So, here it is. :)

LDM stage II.

ldm stage II, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

More Lame Duck Mallard spinning, have the second bobbin done now. One more to go, and then we'll see how the plying goes for what I *hope* will be yummy sock yarn. Bottom bobbin is the new one, top one is from the other day. I think they're looking pretty consistent, but I'm worried about the strength of the singles from the first bobbin, as I was just getting used to the new high speed rig when I did that one.

We'll see.

Yowl.

yowl, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

This is a departure from my normal photo a day. I was trying to find something to take a picture of, and the cat was driving me batshit insane.

YOWL. YOWL. YOWL. YOWL. YOWL.

So, I took a short movie so y'all can see what I deal with on a daily basis. She does this as she wanders around the house, at full volume, so I can hear it in distant rooms no matter where I am.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

Forest through the trees.

forest through the trees, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Part of sculpture in my bedroom. Jackie's not the only one who has cool stuff. ;)

Lame duck mallard.

lame duck mallard, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

That's the name of this fiber. It was the October Spunky Eclectic club fiber, named in honor of the upcoming election. Except that an election is a difficult inspiration for a fiber colorway, unless you want to go red/white/blue, which...ew. So apparently, AmyBoogie's thought process went towards lame ducks, which led to mallard colors. You can't see the brilliant sections of green in this particular shot, but they're awesome.

Anyway, this is what I've been working on all afternoon. I got a new high speed whorl for my spinning wheel for Christmas, so I decided to practice on it a bit and see if I could spin some fine singles for sock yarn. They seem pretty fine to me. ;)

Um.

um, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Believe it or not, this is a scarf that a friend of my Mom's at work made for her. And that's all I have to say about that.

Classy.

classy, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

When I'm waiting in the morning at the stoplight right before I get on the expressway to work, there are these 3 old houses right in a row, all exactly the same except for different colored trim. This happened a lot back in the days when Wilkes-Barre was still a booming coal town and was actually growing...houses would go up in groups, and the same plans would be used for multiple houses right next to each other as the builders threw them up as fast as possible.

Anyway, this one house at the corner was recently for sale, and I'm thinking that whoever bought it got an FHA loan, because this fancy handrail going up the stairs from the sidewalk to the porch appeared out of the blue one day. For those of you who don't know, FHA has a lot of nitpicky requirements for what sort of shape the property has to be in for them to approve the loan, and the owner usually has to make the house meet FHA's rules before they can close. Things like having to have a handrail on any stairs on the property over 3, no electrical sockets within so many feet of a sink, no chipping/peeling paint, etc.

I'm pretty sure this handrail got thrown up in a hurry for that purpose, and the owners made a rather goofy attempt to spiff it up so it didn't look quite so halfassed. Except, well....FAIL. :D

While the fancy turned spindles are what caught my eye at first (in a totally contrasting unfinished wood than the raw 2x4s, of course), I really think it's the quarter-round molding along the handrail that really pulls it all together!

Did I mention....FAIL???

Under the wire.

under the wire, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Tonight was a combination of goofing off and trying to get the post-holiday explosion of clutter under control before Cindy gets here to clean tomorrow, and I totally forgot about my PAD. I had actually shut the computer down and was doing final tidying before bed, when it occurred to me that I hadn't blogged a photo today.

So, with the final minutes of today ticking away, what better subject than my kitchen clock? Yes, my kitchen walls are that orange. :D

Absence.

absence, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

My new refurbished Zune died. I'm spending my days at the office staring longingly at this space between the charging cable and speaker plug where my Zune should be. *sigh*

End game.

end game, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I am not at all looking forward to taking down my xmas tree.

Snit.

snit, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

I've been away for 5 days. When I get back from a trip, Jadis' mood can go one of two ways...she either follows me around for hours, yowling her displeasure at the top of her lungs, or she ignores me completely. This time, it's the latter. She gave me a disdainful sniff when I got home, then disappeared upstairs and wouldn't come back down to say hello (or even to yell at me) no matter how I called and called. I decided to go up and take her picture, and she wouldn't even look directly at me.

Her Highness is displeased with my transgression. :D

Leaves.

leaves, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

This is new decor at Jackie's. She always finds the coolest stuff.

Grapes.

grapes, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

Oooh, sparkly. :D

Heat II.

heat II, originally uploaded by jadis_eoc.

At Jackie's for the weekend. I wish I had a fireplace.