Livin' La Needle Loca

 ...I'm off a day this week...sigh. I'm still working on Morgana. The lower fins are taking *forever*. There are not very many color changes. On the one hand, it's good that I don't have to work a bunch of confetti stitches. On the other hand, it's really boring stitching long swaths of one color, especially the light colors. I've queued up a couple of smaller projects to work on when I get bored of DMC 27, 156, and 3747. WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Morgana (cross stitch) Still working on the lower fins.  No Work This Week: California Red Poppy Handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ]  Illusion Cube Blanket (knitting) [ Ravelry ]  My Recipes (cooking)  Website (other)  Queued for Starting Moon Lets Sun Shine (or Luna y Sol) quilt (quilting) Starwoman (cross stitch)  Summer Typography (cross stitch)  Ready for Finishing: Finishing work for some old crewel pictu...

 ...that week went fast! We had a couple of fire drills that sucked up some of our time.  For the studio, we had to quickly find flooring after we determined that the contractor thought we ordered the floor and we though they did. After finding our that our first choice (floors matching the rest of the house) would take 5 weeks to come in, we found another flooring that will work. It's in the same color range that we wanted and we were able to get it by today. Whew! The second, more worrying problem was a plumbing back-up that happened yesterday. We had Service Champions replace our old furnace and install a tankless water heater in the last 3 years. As a result, we joined their MVP program, which give us some free services during the year and reduced costs on some services and appliances. They were able to come out yesterday and snake the main and run a camera to check for issues. Whew! Today, I caught up with a bunch of photo editing that I...

 ...and a belated finish. I finally got photos of the Daisy Handspun that I finished last week: and the close-up: Specs: Started 3/26/2026 Finished 4/8/2026 Merino-Stellina (4.0 oz) from Greenwood Fiberworks 189.6 yds., 12 WPI I queued up a couple of projects, but just haven't had the energy to start anything new. In the meantime, there's plenty to do on the latest mermaid, Morgana. WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Illusion Cube Blanket (knitting) [ Ravelry ]   Started another cube. Morgana (cross stitch) Still working on the lower fins and tail. No Work This Week: California Red Poppy Handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ]  My Recipes (cooking)  Website (other)  Queued for Starting Moon Lets Sun Shine (or Luna y Sol) quilt (quilting) Ready for Finishing: Finishing work for some old crewel pictures (sewing) August 1997 Hat-of-the-Month (cross stitch) Bring Us Good Cheer CATrina ...

...and I'm a little behind. I've actually finished two projects this week, but I've only photographed one. This is Stay Warm. Specs: Started 2/26/2026 Finished 4/7/2026 Free pattern from Barbara Ana Designs I'll take photos of the other when I get a chance. This week in the garden, we have a bunch of new flowers. The Husband and I went to a local nursery and picked out some colorful additions.  We have Blackberry petunias: Electric Purple Sky petunias: Classy Carmine Dahlias: and Havana Calla Lilies: There are more in my Flickr photostream .

...and it's April! The garden is coming along. We have baby Blenheim apricots now. More Dutch irises: A couple of tulips: And a new clematis:

 ...and a little progress here and there. Morgana, my latest mermaid from Mirabilia, is coming along. I'm happier with my DMC substitution of the Waterlilies Fir fiber, but I'm not totally convince with the design's overall color scheme. Even if I used the original Waterlilies fiber, the colors are off. The tail and fins are so much brighter than the body color.  I'm just going with it at this point. I don't think either the linen or I could take another frogging session to get the body color closer to the tail. WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Daisy Handspun (spinning)  Started 3/26; finished singles and ready to ply. Morgana (cross stitch) Working on the lower fins and tail. Stay Warm (cross stitch) Working on motifs above the arms.  No Work This Week: California Red Poppy Handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ]  My Recipes (cooking)  Website (other)  Queued for Starting Moon Lets Sun Shine (or Lu...