Livin' La Needle Loca

...here's a peek at the current chaos in state of the studio. There are boxes and tools everywhere! Only a few things are actually in their final destination. New track lighting, with one goose-neck fixture that will point toward the future quilt wall:  The alcove acting as temporary storage for some of my supplies and resource materials, plus the TV, cable box, etc. Eventually, I will clear the bottom (solid) shelf and use it as a work area.(Yes, it's a mess right now!) My Quilter's Dream sewing table and an armoire sit in one corner: These storage cube units from Micheal's are probably in their final location: In only WIP news, I worked on my needlepoint project last night for the first time in a couple of weeks. After working on it for a bit, I decided that it's going on a time-out again. I got to the specialty threads section of the design. OMG...I forgot how much I hate the Rachel threads (tubular nylon thread, prone to raveling)! I decid...

...because my life is rather random right now. Fortunately, work is not random and I'm busy with that. Spin-In: I missed it this month. My out-of-town friend was busy in Saturday, so it looked like I might be able to go. However, the Husband and I were working on the studio, moving in some furniture (yes!) and other odds and ends. Rather than stop progress, I decided to stay and continue to work on things at home.   Crafts: I haven't worked on anything in days...   Yoga class: It was another great class. I feel a bit sore today, but that's just the core work she included. It's kind of cool when you take a step back and look at your kid the way others must see her. She is a wonderful instructor, a very calm and reassuring in a class situation.   Meeting my friend: K and I finally connected Sunday night. I took some projects with me for Show-and-Tell. She showed some pictures of her latest projects. We had a great dinner and really enjoyed catching up! She plans to b...

...and boy do I need the extra day! We've been enjoying snow peas for the last few days: and the berries are ripening: This morning I discovered that we had 5 cherries on the tree. That's more than we had last year! There may be hope for this tree yet! Not shown are the fava beans we had for dinner last night, The Husband prepped the beans (a PITA task if there ever was one). He then combined the cooked beans with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and crumbled bacon. He tossed this mixture with bow-tie pasta and served it with shaved Parmesan cheese. It was incredibly good! I doubt that there will be any leftover when I get home tonight! Up this weekend: A stitching friend (K) from my Cross Stitch Festival days is in town for the weekend. We are going to try to meet up sometime between her activities and mine. There is a Spin-In tomorrow, which I might have to miss if that's the only time she can meet. I haven't seen K in years and would love to reconnect. ...

...I finally got the pictures uploaded! This is the view from the atrium door—that's the longest side of the room. When this was a garage, it was the back wall. This is a closer view of the end of that same wall. There is a drop down for the canister lights on the back wall. A third scone is installed on the left wall. You can see the trim that the Husband and I installed in these pictures, too. We emptied one of the alcoves last night and found an enormous number of floppy disks. I hope to get a picture of that end of the room soon. .

...I'm starting this post at 11:13am, as I wait for various builds and conversions to run on another PC. Maybe I'll get it done by the end of the day. Multitask Tuesday might be a better title... CNCH was fun!  Loretta and I took BART from Fremont, which was a nice way to travel on a Sunday. Our goals were to look at looms and other weaving implements and not to spend a lot of money. We both loved the Saori loom demonstration and the Gilmore temple clips. She fell in love with the Ashford table loom in the Village Spinning and Weaving booth. I like the table loom, too. However, I think a folding floor loom like the Baby Wolf or the Saori loom would work better for me. I bought some batts from Shooting Yarn plus some hemp fiber and a merino-silk bump from Opulent Fibers .  Loretta bought a kit for a crocheted cowl (from ?) and a pretty little boat shuttle from Carolina Homespun . We had a yummy lunch at the Pacific Coast Brewing Company before we headed home. It was...

...yes, it's been another busy week at work. But busy is better than no work , right? We have a few orange poppies blooming in the back yard: And these roses are interesting. They start off orange and then fade to a pale orange-pink. The studio is coming along. The floor is nearly there and the Husband is getting ready to put the baseboard and trim back up. We have this little problem known as a reed (or pump) organ that my mother gave to me; she got it from one of my father's employers eons ago. It's probably 100 years old, but the company that made it prided itself on making an organ every 10 minutes...not exactly a rare item! The organ will take up too much room in my soon-to-be studio. I'm ready to let it go, but I'm not sure what my mother will think about that! Up this weekend: Continue doing the purge of unnecessary items. The Methodist Church took 6 boxes and 3 bags of books from us, so that was good. We still have far too many b...

...where the main WIP is my studio. Before I get into that, here's a picture of dessert from the fabulous Mother's Day dinner that The Daughter made: There's a Key Lime tart, two heart-shaped cheesecakes, a vanilla whoopie pie, and a chocolate whoopie pie. All were yummy! On to the studio... The Husband is doing all of the the hard work:  painting and laying the new floor. He's 90% done with the floor and it's looking good! He's staining the wood trim for the ceiling. We decided that the baseboards will be white. I'm still going through all the stuff we've accumulated. Over the weekend, I went through all of the CDs. I found a bunch of cases with no CDs in them. I'm hoping that they will surface as I continue to sort through everything. I bought the new wall lights (sconces) for the studio on Saturday. I didn't buy the ones I wanted because they didn't give out enough light. I bought 3 of my second choice, which use 100 watt bulb...

...and the chaos continues!  First, let's do the pretties. A Mother's Day tulip bouquet from the Daughter: An orange tulip... A white tulip... A purple tulip... And Nigella hispanica from the garden. On the chaos front, the Husband is pulling up the last few vinyl tiles in the room and is scraping up the remaining adhesive. His goal is to start laying the new floor sometime this weekend. We'll see...scraping up the old adhesive is quite labor-intensive. He might not have enough time do do that and start the new floor. Up this weekend for me: I have yoga class on Sunday and the Daughter is cooking dinner for us. I'm looking forward to that! I want to go through the final stack of cookbooks to decide what to keep and what to donate.  I found several places I can donate books as I don't think any one location can handle the number of books that I'm purging. The books are all in pretty good shape, but I'll give the best ones to the...

...finally! Finished: 4/22 Avila Beach handspun  [ Ravelry ] Merino-Bamboo top by Wolf Creek Wools; 275.4 yds 2-ply, WPI TBD  Books: Murder Spins a Tail, Veryl Ann Grace Damian's Immortal, Lizzy Ford Katie's Hellion, Lizzy Ford Katie's Hope, Lizzy Ford Rhyn's  Redemption, Lizzy Ford Summer Desserts, Nora Roberts Lessons Learned, Nora Roberts Twilight, Stephanie Meyer Started: 4/21 The Great Fabric Refolding Project Worked on: Carousel Socks  (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Works In Progress, did not work on: Anasazi by Susan Portra (needlepoint) Cazadero Mist handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Seaweed Cardigan (knitting)  [ Ravelry ] Happy Pumpkin Scissor Fob by Shepherd's Bush (cross stitch) Isonzo Merino-Bamboo top (spinning) [ Ravelry ]  Jungle Songs quilt Natural Dyes batts from Yarn Wench (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Peacock Pomatomus socks (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Royale top, 2 oz (Merino-Yak-Silk) top from A Verb for Keeping Warm ...

...we have stuff everywhere. The Husband has moved the majority of the items out of my soon-to-be studio and into the courtyard, the house, and the backyard. He has scraped the old vinyl tiles in the resulting open area. He's been cleaning (and cleaning) old adhesive off of the cement in preparation for the new tiles. One task last weekend was to buy the floor tiles. He discovered that the vinyl tiles we wanted are being discontinued and the two local Lowe's stores did not have enough stock to cover our floors. Rats! He found enough at the San Bruno store (40 minutes away), so we made a quick trip to buy them. We bought a few extra just in case! He did another coat of paint on the walls and they look great! Here is a first look at the colors (the stuff you see through the window will eventually get put away...somewhere. You can also see a a few floor tiles that we were using to determine where we wanted the partial tiles to occur. My job for the next few days (weeks?...

...it was a very busy work week!  Some long days at work, but I get to take this afternoon off. Yay! So let's do the eye candy first. A chive flower Sage flowers Poppies Phacelia grandiflora And a blue flower, type unknown. Up this weekend: I want to start the cookbook and video tapes purge. Currently, they are taking a a lot of space in my soon-to-be studio. And I can finish the fabric folding project now that I have more comic book boards. The Husband has made great progress on ripping out the old floor. In addition, he has put two coats of primer and one coat of white paint on the ceiling. The ceiling is a series of beams with paneling in between. He is painting on the paneling and leaving the beams as stained wood.  Even with one coat of primer, it was amazing how much lighter the room looked! Today he plans on getting the wall paint. I picked a green called Zen Garden (Valspar paint from Lowe's). I think it might be a bit dark; he thinks it...