Livin' La Needle Loca

...and tomorrow it's May! (I know! Where did April go?!) Since I'm still suffering from project ennui, all of today's eye candy is from the garden. Blueberries to be... A beefsteak tomato blossom... And a nasturtium... The nasturtiums are currently taking over the garden. They'll die back in a bit, but until then, they add a nice jolt of color to the garden. Up this weekend: I have some neglected housecleaning to do...it's time to get serious about the dust on the shelves and I need to move some books from the bedroom to the upstairs bookshelves so I'm not tripping over them all the time. Craft-wise, I'm determined to get the cuffs done on the Rusty Dahlia socks so I can move on to another part of the socks. I also want to ply the "Green Crazy Batt" single (need a real name for this yarn) and declare it done. Beyond that, who knows what will catch my attention!  

...or not. I have only been working intermittently on one knitting WIP, the Rusty Dahlia socks. I started these puppies back in October and have not been able to finish them. Other projects have been started and completed, but I can't seem to finish these. It's not that the pattern is hard or the yarn is icky...far from it. The pattern is well-written and easy to follow, as are all of the Sundara patterns I've tried. The yarn is a yummy Bugga! from Sanguine Gryphon (from the Loopy Ewe sock club). I just can't seem to get motivated to finish them. So much so that I have been afraid to cast-on any other socks until I finish these, or at least get them close to finished.   I've pretty much been in a state of apathy with my knitting and, to a lesser degree, my other crafts. I start thinking about a new project and that's about as far as I get. Not good when you have two rooms full of craft supplies that need to be turned into something useful! I thought swapping...

...it came a little to soon this week! On Saturday, the Husband took a long bike ride and was gone most of the day. I took the opportunity to do chores around the house, interspersed with some spinning. Laundry is the perfect chore to do while spinning. You have to get up to change the loads, which gives you several breaks during the process. I decided to spin one of the batts I bought from Faerie Mountain Fibers. I bought three batts: a cream one, a light green one, and a black-red-and-white one. I was immediately drawn to the red one, but I've been doing a lot of red lately. I decided to spin the green one. The batt contains bamboo, wool, and angelina, as well as some nepps and noils. This is the first time I've spun anything that intentionally contained nepps and noils. And, I don't like them. I don't like the slubs they create in the yarn. Fortunately, this batt didn't contain a lot of them, so I was able to pick them out and finishing spinning the batt witho...

...to be completely honest, I'm just glad it's any-kind-of-Friday! Not that the week has been that bad, I'd just like some time to myself. This week's Eye Candy is brought to you by the letters G and L . G reen Nectarine... L emon blossom... The garden is getting very green and lush. The Husband is busy weeding and planting new flowers and vegetables. Who knows how many tomato plants he'll end up with this year! The Daughter is now gone for a couple of weeks. She'll be back around Mother's Day to attend her grandfather's memorial (my ex-father-in-law) and then we won't see her again for a while.  And I finished something else! I finished plying the Blue Lake Lily yarn: ...and the close-up: Specs: Started 3/20/10; Finished 4/21/10; Blue Lake Lily Merino-Bamboo top from Royale Hare; Spun using the "faux-ro" method; two-ply; 13 WPI  While the colors didn't quite fall the way T envisioned, I'm happy with the subtle ...

...my WIPs are seeing little or no action now that I have finished the woven scarf. My craft mojo is on a short hiatus while I take a deep breath and figure out what's next. Random thoughts for a rainy Wednesday: While rain is infinitely better than snow, I'm ready for rain and cold to go away. Usually by this time of the year, I have turned off the furnace and we can open the windows for part of the day.  We've had a couple of days like that, but that's it. I'm ready for warm...   So tired of drivers who do not stop at stop signs and get annoyed when I do, do not signal, and ride my bumper when I drive the speed limit in residential and school zones. People, traffic school is not fun [I certainly don't want to repeat that experience] and I really don't want to be in another accident! Riding my @$$ will not make me go faster... I will pull over as soon as it is safe so you can speed by. I just hope you don't hit anyone on your way to get some pl...

...that doesn't quite have the same ring to it that Finished Object Friday has, does it? Oh, well! I finished weaving the bouclé scarf yesterday and trimmed it out at lunch time today. Here it is: Specs: Yarn: Jo-Ann Sensations Rainbow Bouclé, used in both warp and weft Finished size: 7”W x 80”L (including 7” fringe each end) Warp: 7.5 epi—93”L x 7.5”W Weft: 8-9 ppi The colors are beautiful, although one end of the scarf is a bit stripey. I thought about pulling it out and starting again, but the bouclé is very tricky to work with and I didn't want to wreck it. I'm also not washing it because the fringe pieces may completely come undone. Aside from my normal errands a few chores, I really only worked on two things this weekend: the scarf and my craft room. I had a huge pile of clothes fro goodwill in the middle of the floor, as well as some fiber that had not been put away. I spent a few hours organizing it, but it is clear that I have outgrown this space.  I'm n...

...as promised, here are some pictures of our trip to Lake Tahoe. As I mentioned on Friday weather was good when we drove to Tahoe. It was cold, but it was nice to see blue skies. On Saturday, we took a walk along the beach, which was just across the highway from our hotel. I took a few pictures: The wedding was at 2:30pm in a park...yes, outside. I was thankful I brought my long wool coat! The wedding was beautiful... We enjoyed the reception, catching up with family and friends we hadn't seen in a while. It was nice that we could walk to the reception and not have to have a designated driver. On Sunday, most everyone left in the morning to avoid the storm that was coming in. We decided to keep to our plan of spending the extra day, knowing that we had chains if we needed them. Well, we needed them! This is what my car looked like Monday morning: Not too bad, but after checking the CalTrans site, we knew that we would have to use the chains to get over the pass. So ho...

...cuz that's all I've been working on for the last week or so! My goal is to finish these puppies tonight so I can move on to something else. And yes, that was plural...not only do I prepare our taxes, but I also prepare the Daughter's. Two Federal returns, one California, and one Maryland...it's a barrel of laughs, I tell ya! I will admit to doing some knitting in while we were in Tahoe, but not all that much. I am working on the cuffs of the Rusty Dahlia socks. I also tried to start the Skew socks from Knitty , but the pattern wasn't making sense to me. I later found out that the pattern had some errors in the version I printed so I decided to wait until I could print out a corrected version. I have yet to upload the pictures from our trip because my spare time is taken up with the taxes. I hope to get them uploaded for Friday's Eye Candy. That's all for now. I'm still trying to get back to a normal blogging routine here...maybe next week!

...on the way to a family wedding in Lake Tahoe. The view from our room by the lake... back on Monday...

I have a long weekend coming up and it's thrown me off by a day. As a result, I forgot to post yesterday. Oops! My biggest WIP is our taxes. Almost there, but I'm missing a couple of small things. Them it's on to the Daughter's taxes. Why are most skirts so short that they show things you don't want them to? And when you do find a skirt that's long enough, it has no structure so it's guaranteed to look dumpy. Or, it's made out of fabric that looks like clown barf.   On the same subject, when shopping for clothes, why are my choices limited to looking inappropriately young (and stupid) or looking like I'm really old and frumpy? People, there needs to be something in between that doesn't cost as much as a car!   Can you tell I've been shopping? I'm trying to find something decent to wear to a family wedding this Saturday. I found something...not totally happy with it, but it's the best I can do at this point!    I'm hopi...

...the company party was fun, but my food took longer than I expected to put together.   The party theme was "Games and Sports." We always try to have at least one vegetarian dish, so I decided to make vegetarian chili beans. To keep within the theme, I called it Final Four-bean Chili and used black, piquinto, pinto, and garbanzo beans. I made it in the morning and it cooked all day...it turned out pretty well. I also made an appetizer and got a little more creative there. I had an old Go game and used it as the base for my appetizer. I made little cheese balls for the white pieces and stuffed large black olives for the black pieces. (As soon as I can get a pictures uploaded, I'll add it to this post.  Right now my work machine and Picnik are not cooperating...)   I spent most of Saturday assembling the appetizer, though. I'll have to keep that in mind next year! There were lots of interesting dishes, like the cross-word deviled eggs and the 3  horse-jumps m...

Finished: 3/21 Midnite Lava Flow Merino-Wensleydale-Firestar batts from Lisa Souza [ Ravelry ] 342 yards; WPI TBD 3/28 Angie's Cap (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Started: 3/6 Midnite Lava Flow yarn 3/13 Bouclé scarf (weaving) [ Ravelry ] 3/20 Blue Lake Lily merino-bamboo top from Royale Hare (spinning)  [ Ravelry ] 3/22 Angie's Cap (knitting design) 3/27 Angie's Cap (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Worked on: Angora Cottage 70% Merino and 30% Silk 4 oz.roving in purple [ Ravelry ] Works In Progress, did not work on: Flower Power quilt; top finished, need to sandwich and quilt (quilting) Jungle Songs quilt; top finished, need to sandwich and quilt (quilting) Rusty Dahlia socks (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Sea Foam Wrap (knitting) [ Ravelry ] IDJ (It's Dead, Jim): Cascade Fixation anklets (knitting) UFOs: Chasing Rainbows Heather--one Merino-Bombyx (2 oz) and one Merino wool (2 oz) (spinning) Dogosaurus Rex sweater (knitting) [ Ravelry } Happy Pumpkin Scis...

...let's hope April is a better month for blogging! First, here's a progress shot of our fava beans: This orange cauliflower is doing interesting things... And I finally got a picture of an open Five Spot flower: I managed to get a little spinning done last night and it felt good to be productive again! Up this weekend: Our company party is Saturday night. I need to prepare the dishes I am contributing and wrap a white elephant gift for the exchange. We have no plans for Easter so I'm hoping to do some weaving or spinning. I'd just like to have an uneventful day...that would be nice way to spend Sunday.

...just thought I'd get that out of the way! So here it is Thursday, the second week in a row where my posts have been haphazard. I do not want this to become a habit, but sometimes work and life just get in the way. I hit the ground running on Monday after taking the Daughter to the airport. Originally, my work project was due at the end of Monday, but it was extended when additional tasks were added to it. On Tuesday, the Husband left early to go to San Francisco for business, While I was getting myself together for work, he called from the freeway—the car had broken down and wouldn't run. (Hello, Triple A?) I waited around to see whether he needed to be picked up (he ended up renting a car) and I got into work late. Goody...that's in late two days in a row! So I work madly away trying to finish the project by the end of the day. You know there were more changes, right? I did as much as I could while I waited for a final piece of information. When I got home, the Hus...