Livin' La Needle Loca

...for Eye Candy Friday. Tired of apricot pictures yet? I'm not! I've been eating fresh apricots all week. We have another set of petunias blooming: And the Asiatic lilies have started blooming: Up this weekend: Tour de Fleece starts tomorrow!   I have yet to pick a theme or a chalenge to spn during the tour. I have an idea--I'm thinking of spinning exotic fibers, like yak, and some of the pther specialty wools like the Heritage wool samplet pack I got at last year's Stitches Wes. Howver, given the state of the studio, I'll need  stash dive to find the fibers. I hope I can come up with enought to spin for the whole tour! While I'm stash-diving, I'll pull the fibers I'll need for the Ravellenic Games  (formerly the Ravel****cs). I am entering the Handspun Heptathlon and hope to spin 7 yarns during the games. I did it last time. However, that was the winter games and I didn't have Tour de Fleece immediately before them. My hands migh...

...I had a work project that was due yesterday. Something had to give and it was the blog, again. It's just as well, because my only active WIP is the studio. I was able to start loading the wall opposite the sewing table. (Finally!) Because Target no longer carries the modular furniture in the birch color, I must make do with what I have. I pirated a shelf unit from my closet and a couple of units from the Daughter's old closet to make a new case to hold yarn and other items. I already had two bookcases in the room to use for the remainder of my library and some yarn. Here's what the corner looks like now: On the right, the tall bookcase holds books on aromatherapy, spa products, soap making, and  needlework, and a few class binders.  In the middle, cloth drawers contain wool-based yarns (in plastic zip bags); the bottom shelf holds my project binders, class binders, and sock club binders. On  the left, photo boxes hold  tapestry and sharp needles, stick...

... lots of invisible progress and some visible progress. The Husband finished installing the threshold yesterday. This picture also shows the grids that are on the side sections of the atrium door; you can see the hydrangea behind it.  I'm waiting until he says it's OK to start loading the other side of the room. Soon! In the meantime, I've been arranging (and rearranging) items in the cabinet drawers and shelves. I've tried 4 different ways to handle my thread, none of which are the ideal arrangement. The last attempt was better that the first 3, so I'll leave it for now. The problem is that the old Coats & Clark spools are different in shape and size from the Gutermann and Mettler spools. And I have many of the smaller Gutermann spools, too.  For some reason, I have about 20 spools of Christmas red. I need to purge those,  because I just have too many. Anyway, I'm going to live with the current arrangement for a while. I pared down my circular ne...

...today's eye candy is brought to you by the color orange . Orange freesia: Nearly-ripe apricots: I've already been munching on the apricots...they are ripe enough for me! Up this weekend: We are helping the Husband's parents with their birthday/anniversary party tomorrow. So tonight, we have some prep work to do. We're making a caprese-on-a-stick appetizer that I saw on Pinterest. We're also making a cheese tortellini appetizer...another on-a-stick presentation. We are trying to keep the appetizers simple and easy to eat. These two seemed like they'd fit that category. Fortunately for me, the Husband has been doing a lot of the leg work for this party. He's tracking down the basil we need for the caprese and a couple of other things. I have some things to get on my way home from work. Tomorrow will be consumed by the remaining prep and the party. I plan on crashing when we get home Saturday night! On Sunday, it's back to the studio. I...

...that's about all I can handle right now. I started this little embroidery project on Sunday while I waited for the Husband and Daughter to return form their hike: It's an old Dimensions kit I found in my stash. After working on it for an hour or so, I remembered why I don't do a lot of embroidery (or crewel for that matter). I don't like having to cover those pre-drawn lines and I don't enjoy working on this kind of fabric.  The only saving grace on this project is that it's small and I'm almost done with it.  It will need a really good pressing and then I can put it in its glass frame. Another kit I found in my stash was a limited edition pillow kit from Pine Mountain Designs called Recipe for Summer. I love their pillow kits! They are usually fun to stitch and after a quick press with the iron, they are ready to go. I have a thing for summer items, so this was a good choice to start last night. I decided that working on stitching projects...

...there is still a lot to do, but I'm beginning to see a studio emerge from the chaos. As an added bonus, pieces of the dining table and living room are also emerging! My goal last weekend was to finish emptying the closet in my old room and moving the stuff into the studio. Well, I didn't quite make that goal...there was a lot more there than I thought and I had less time to spend organizing than I expected. The less time was because of Father's Day. The Daughter and Husband went on a 6+ mile hike not far from where she lives. After that we went to lunch. Because she lives about 35 minutes away, it made sense for The Husband and I to drive to her house together. That meant I had to chill at her place until they were done. I took a small embroidery project and worked on that while they were gone. It was a peaceful way to spend the morning, but it didn't get anything accomplished in the studio! I probably could be making faster progress of I didn't go through ...

...I'm glad that week's done. Not that it was particularly bad or anything. It's just that I'd rather be organizing my studio and getting my house out of the Chaos Zone. More on that later. (Note: Cookie A Sock Club Spoiler below!) This morning, I picked berries: and a close up: The Blenheim apricots are turning pink and orange: Here's a look at how packed the branches are. No, we didn't thin them...I want as many apricots as I can get! Also, I'm a little behind on showing my yarn acquisitions. I've received two club installments and a co-worker shared some free yarn she received. Here is the Rockin' Sock Club installment for May: The Cookie A Sock Club installment for June, Vintage Icebox from The Plucky Knitter: My yarn gift is Punta Handpainted Merino: Up this weekend: More work on the studio. There is still so much stuff to go through.We still have boxes everywhere and I have yet to empty the closet in my ol...

...and it's an old one at that. I started this last summer as a travel project and only work on it when I remember that I have it: I needed a project to take to Craft Night last night that wasn't needlepoint (on a time-out) or knitting (not in the mood). This was perfect! It's paler in real life. I'm still sorting through all the papers I had tucked away in my sewing room. I decided that I really didn't need to have that many free knitting charts printed out when I have them online. Better to make them PDFs that I can then upload to my iPad.  Between those patterns, the recipes I tore out of magazines (that I'll never make...not that much time in my world!), and many duplicate copies of recipes, I recycled almost a ream of paper.  Now that I'll have a place for all my things, I hope to avoid keeping duplicates. Tonight, we're going to move a bookcase or two into the studio. We want my stuff out of the Husband's office so he can arrange it th...

...just not long enough! Spin-In on Saturday was great! In addition to catching up with my spinning peeps, I actually worked on a craft . It's been a while since I had the attention-span and the time to sit down and make something with my hands. In this case, I was spinning some Corriedale from my stash. Here's what I spun on Saturday: On Sunday, the Husband and I assembled my Expedit unit that we bought last weekend. I was finally able to get the fabric out of the dining area!  I started shelving the mini-bolts first When I refolded the fabric, I didn't  spend much time sorting the mini-bolts.So I opened up my sewing table to its full width and sorted the bolts as they came out of the boxes. ( Note to self : You  don't need any more blue fabric right now.) Once I had them sorted, I started filling the shelves. When I finished with the mini-bolts, I started with the smaller folded cuts. I had already sorter the smaller cuts into color stacks and type stacks...

...I took pictures this morning, but none of them turned out, at least not good enough to post.  So the following picture is from a couple of weeks ago: [sigh] It's been that kind of a week.  Lots and lots of work. so much so that I crashed on the couch at 9pm last night...I usually make it until 10pm. I haven't done anymore in the studio this week because the Husband was removing the old wet bar cabinet and sink. They are over 30 years old and really needed replacing.  He's ordered a new cabinet because it's a non-standard opening...why they made it 33" (standard cabinets are  30" or 36"), I'll never know. The cabinet isn't cheap, but at least it will be better quality than the old one. We still have to get a counter top and sink... Up this weekend: Spin-In tomorrow!  I need to bake something to take and unearth my poor wheel. It's been shoved behind the dining room table for safety. I need to find something to spin, too! The rest ...

...it's getting there. The floor still has a few places that need caulking, but it was done enough that we could move furniture in.  I moved all of the remaining furniture in my old sewing room into the studio. Not everything is in its right place yet (assuming I've figured out where they are!). After mopping the floor, we moved all of the teak bookcases into the old sewing room. There was enough room left in there to move in the organ. Yay! While it won't be a guest room anytime soon, it's a good temporary storage area. Anyway, I still haven't emptied the closet in there. Once the organ was out of the studio, we determined that the IKEA shelving unit I chose would fit. I also decided to rearrange the white cube units and make a work area next to the sewing table: I have some tweaking to do to deal with the power to the sewing machine. The power strip cord currently runs in front of the storage cabinets, making it difficult to open the bottom drawers. I t...

..where nothing project-wise was finished, but a lot was accomplished in the soon-to-be studio! Finished: 5/3 The Great Fabric Refolding Project Books: At Graves End, Jeaniene Frost One Foot in the Grave, Jeaniene Frost 11th Hour, James Patterson Deadlocked, Charlaine Harris Shadow Walker, Allyson James Firewalker, Allyson James Stormwalker, Allyson James Witchfire, Anya Bast Started: 5/3 Purging unwanted items: books, CDs VHS tapes, clothes, towels... Worked on: Anasazi by Susan Portra (needlepoint) Carousel Socks  (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Works In Progress, did not work on: 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 ...

...yeah, I'll go through the whole month with that song in my head!  Guess it's time to watch Carousel again...LOL! For Eye Candy Friday we have some tomatoes... A hydrangea or two an the bush roses are going crazy in the front yard. Up this weekend: We're keeping our fingers crossed that the floor will be done. I know the Husband is very frustrated with the whole thing and would love to be finished with it. Once we declare the floor done, we can donate the rest of the cookbooks to the library. Right now, they are stacked in bakers boxes, which make excellent weights on the newly caulked floor tiles. I'd like to make a run to IKEA to scope things out. We have an idea for a work table top that we can make with a hollow-core door from Home Depot. It's only $30, but it means that the door has to be painted and finished before I can use it as a table top. IKEA has table tops you can buy, so it's a matter of checking the dimensions and compa...