Livin' La Needle Loca

...first one of 2026! Much like the last sunrise of 2025, the first sunrise of 2026 had no sun in it. The cats and I stayed up to greet the new year. However, we were all a little too wired to go to sleep afterwards. Typically, they are ready for breakfast at 6am, but I don't feed them until 6:30. After our late night and insomnia, we were all late waking up. They didn't want to move even after I got up and hung put for a few minutes more. With latest rainstorm, that garden has been covered with raindrops, puddles, and open containers are full of water. The nasturtiums are particularly happy. I love how the water pools in the middle of the leaves. As they fill with rain, the leaves tilt and empty the rainwater and then fill up again. I was unable to get a video of it happening, but it was soothing to watch. 

 ...and it's Happy Gotcha Day for the girls! 5 years ago, we brought home two kittens to fill the cat-sized holes in our hearts. They were an early birthday present for me. 😊 We love them!! Now that our water is working better, the Husband is replacing some of the flowers that dies because he couldn't water the yard well enough. He planted a yellow hibiscus: and replanted the hanging baskets with petunias, vinca, and pentas. The gaillardia is going string: as are the Frida Kahlo roses:

 ...and Happy Birthday to our kitties! Our cats turned 5 today. They keep us on our toes and bring joy into our lives. Craft-wise, I have been bouncing from one thing to another. I'm too easily distracted these days. :) WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Red Alder Handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Finished the singles, almost done plying. Sea Merchant's Wife (cross stitch) Beading the top half of the design. Studio purge and organization (other) Identified a bunch of things to donate and straightened up a bunch of drawer and box contents. Website (other) Consolidated some posts and finished replacing embedded photos. No Work This Week: Color Chaos quilt, formerly Brighter Day (quilting) Look Through My Window quilt for me (quilting) Mom's cookbook (cooking)  Teal No-Noro Hat (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Ready for Finishing: Finishing work for some old crewel pictures (sewing) Happy Pumpkin needleroll (cross stitch) He...

 ...so fun to do! My friend Jane asked for a replacement catnip mouse for her kitty. I made one for her in 2018 and it's finally on its last legs. I decided to do two because there are now two cats in the household.  Specs: Started 11/15/2024 Finished 11/24/2024 Pattern: Catnip Friends by Barbara Albright Yarn: scraps My cats love the little catnip fish that I made them last year, so i made two for Jane: Specs: Started 11/17/2024 Finished 11/23/2024 Pattern: Rybka (Wee Fishie) by Kino Knits Yarn: scraps Just about the time I was finishing these toys, Fuzzy Mitten (Barbara Prime) published their free Christmas pattern, Little Penguin. I decided that Jane needed a pair of penguins. Specs: Started 11/26/2024 Finished 12/3/2024 Pattern: Little Penguin by Barbara Prime Yarn: scraps These projects were fun to do. I love doing quick and cute projects!

...we adopted them 8/29/2023 and we love them! Canela: Cassia:

 ...too much going on in my life to post on a regular basis, much less do crafts. The one thing that's throwing things off (in a good way) is our remodel. No matter that we did not leave the packing to the end, there are still a lot of things to consider when remodeling a kitchen that has not had a full remodel since it was built in 1969. One of the issues is establishing a cat-friendly zone.  I got the last of the things out of the kitchen on Tuesday night. They started demo yesterday. We're still tweaking the cat-friendly zone. The cats do tend to worm into the smallest spaces that they shouldn't go! And, of course, they climb all over the boxes that we've packed up. Canela Cassia WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Little Red Fish (cross stitch) This has gotten the most play this week because I can pick it up and do a few stitches. Ocean Ripples Wrap (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Started 8/26/22 Repurposed yarn from IDJ proje...

 ...I'm still here. A week ago on Saturday (7/21), I went to my Mom's for a few days. It was a mentally-intense 5 days and it took me a couple of days to recover from it. So, what's happened in the last week? The Daughter visited us the following Saturday (7/28) to celebrate my birthday early. My birthday always falls around Labor Day weekend. (I was actually born on Labor Day.) As a result, people always have plans so we frequently celebrate early or late. This year, we celebrated with fresh peach pie and lemon meringue pie (my favorite). I worked on a few more catnip mice. A friend asked for 4 of them. When my sister saw me working on them, she asked for one for her kitty, and my great-nephew wants one for his new kitty. I love knitting these mice because they are a fast knit. I love seeing quick results! Yesterday, marked one year since we adopted our cats, Canela and Cassia. They have brought so much joy to my life! Canela is the...

 ...because kitties need toys! Having several large or time-consuming projects in process can be a little daunting sometimes. Yesterday, I just couldn't deal with any of them, so I looked for something quick to do. I notices that the old catnip mousie that I'd made for Sombra (my sweet angel kitty) had a hole in it - Cassia can be quite rough with her toys! I decided to make two new mousies, one for each of the cats. I found some left-over teal variegated yarn and some leftover fuchsia yarn. Here are the new catnip mousies [ Ravelry ]: Specs: Started 8/15/2021 Finished 8/16/2021 Pattern:  Catnip Friends by Barbara Albright in “Odd Ball Knitting: Creative Ideas for Leftover Yarn” Yarn: leftover worsted weight These knit up quickly and were perfect for that sense of accomplishment!

 ...yesterday didn't quite go as planned. I knew I'd have to spend time dealing with the delivery of our new refrigerator. The delivery window was set for 1:30-5:30. I planned to empty the fridge at 1:15 in an orderly fashion. They never come at the front end of the delivery window, right? Wrong. They called when they were 30 minutes away at 12:30! Yikes! I hurriedly emptied the fridge and unlocked the gate. At the last minute, I remembered that I needed to remove all the pots from the hanging rack. Oops! Fortunately, I was ready for them when they arrived. When they removed the old fridge, I found Cassia's cache of toys. OMG! There were so many! Of course, nothing happens without problems. Apparently our GFCI outlets in the kitchen are not compatible with the refrigerator. Arg! I scrambled to fins a long enough extension cord to plug the new fridge into a non-GFCI outlet to begin the cooling process.  Then I finally sat down for the...

...and a finished object. I finally finished Tucson Twilight (needlepoint): Specs: Started 6/8/14 Finished 3/11/2021 Charted needlepoint design by Laura J Perin Modifications: Replaced the original Caron Watercolors and Wildflowers color (Bark) with Scheherazade with some strands of Amethyst; did not place all of the stitches in a couple of sections. This project sat in hiatus for a few years because I hated the colors called for in the design . The whole reason I bought this chart was because I liked the copper and purple combination displayed in its photo. As I stitched the project, it was too brown for my taste.  The Watercolors and Waterlilies color Bark had too much brown. Because these fibers were used extensively in the project. By replacing Bark with Scheherazade, I was able to have more  copper and purple. However, they were in short runs. Adding strands of Amethyst allowed me to add more purple to the piece.  I modified th...

 ...so many things in progress! I'm trying to pull together my year end recap. I'm having a little trouble settling on the best tool to use to combine 12 recaps into one big post. I think I used FrameMaker last year, which means firing up my Windows laptop. Guess I'll have to do that since my old version of Word isn't doing the job on my Mac Mini. I've managed to kick-start my rotation. So far this week, I've worked on the mermaid, the sweater, my needlepoint project, an old crewel project, and the By The Sea cross stitch sampler. One long-standing home project is fixing a broken drawer in my dresser. I finally fixed it this week. After fixing it, I went through everything stored in that dresser and got rid of items I no longer need. The cats continue to be challenging - their curiosity and relentlessness are amazing! They've been kicked out of my studio several times because they...

 ...first finish of the year. This is Arizona-Seafoam [ Ravelry ]: and the close-up: Specs: Started 1/2/2021 Finished 1/7/2021 BFL (4.0 oz.) from Greenwood Fiberworks 79.2 yds. chain-plied, 8 WPI Our kittens are almost completely grown. This is Canela: and Cassia: They are still trying to get into everything! I'll be so glad when they've grow out of this phase!

 ...and it's a week before Christmas. We have a little color in the backyard. and the cilantro is going to seed. I'm having trouble staying in the Christmas spirit. I kick-started it a bit by baking a few cookies. That helped, but like everything else this year, not quite the same. I've had to cut back on our decorations because the kittens are getting into everything, so it doesn't look as festive this year. I'm just so ready for this year to be over...

...I'm on a roll! I finished the Gatitas quilt last night. This is the label: Specs: Started 9/15/2020 Top finished 9/17/2020 Completed 10/26/2020 2 Nine Lives fabric panel and stash fabrics Quilt for the kittens

 ...mostly due to kitten antics. They are relentless in trying to open the cabinets and play with every cable and electric cord they find. And they do it all in the middle of the night! I'm a light sleeper, so I hear every sound. We never had to install childproof latches for our daughter or our other cats. We only had to move the dangerous items out of reach. With Cassia and Canela, we've had to install latches and build panels to hide all the cords under furniture. Every day, they discover something new that makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night. I hope I'll eventually get a full nights sleep! They are growing so fast! I can no longer carry one in each hand.  Cassia is the instigator in most of their adventures. Here she crashed hard after "helping" the Husband build a panel for the bedroom. Don't get me wrong, Canela gets right in there, but only after sitting back and watching Cassia before she engages. She is s...

 ...and I forgot about posting on Friday again. For the last couple of weeks, it's been hard to stay on a blog schedule. There are so many things that are pulling at my attention that I'm finding it hard to stay focused. I'm going to try to do better this week. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can break out of this. I finished another Shepherd's Bush Christmas ornament from a Just CrossStitch ornament issue. This is Mary and Joseph: Specs: Started 9/22/2020 Finished 9/26/2020 Pattern: Shepherd's Bush from the 2006 Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue Modifications: replaced words with year and moved position of charm The kittens have been with us a whole month now. They are growing quickly. We love them so much!

 ...Finished Object first. I started and finished this mini-picture in the last week. This is Spooky Sheep: Specs: Started 8/24/2020 Finished 8/30/2020 Kit from Shepherd’s Bush The news: We adopted 2 kittens!  They are tortoiseshell sisters, approximately 3 months old. We haven't named them yet, but we're working on it. I am so happy to have cats in my house again!

...and we made the tough choice to let go of our beloved Sombra yesterday. She had been having trouble navigating the tile floors with her back legs -- she couldn't get any traction. As long as she stayed on the rugs, she was fine. She was no longer able to jump up on the couch or navigate the stairs up to our bed. :( On Saturday, she was unable to walk straight, but still managed the short distance to the cat box. We moved her food and water bowls closer to where she was camped out. I also keep a water bowl in our bedroom. In the middle of the night, she came in and took a long drink. Rather than go back to her rug, she slept in the room with me. By Sunday, she could no longer get to the cat box. I helped her in and out so she wouldn't pee herself (which she would hate). She would still drink water, but food no longer interested her.  It was clear that she was miserable. She appreciated being petted, but no longer purred. We called the vet on Monday and helped her c...

...and I finally finished processing our vacation photos. Yay! I have a few photos from this week. Sunrise on 8/9/19: Our magic lilies are blooming again: We have a large number of Australian finger limes this year: and we have white allium blooming: Up this weekend: I have no specific plans, just the usual. Errands. Laundry. Crafts. Maybe some sleep. And mostly babying the cat. We're trying to get the cat to eat on a regular basis and it doesn't always work. At almost 18, she's become more and more picky when it comes to food. I'm sure some of it has to do with her kidney disease and some due to age. But, man, it gets expensive throwing away food that she won't eat. And in the heat, the food goes bad quickly. I know we don't have too much longer with her. It's hard seeing her go downhill. Sigh. .

...and I have photos! Here is a first look at the Seaside Dreams quilt that I finished on Sunday: Specs: Started 12/29/18 Finished 4/7/19 Seaside Dreams panel and border fabrics augmented with leftover fabrics from my stash. For my mother-in-law I didn’t use a specific pattern. I had two Seaside Dreams panels. I used one intact and cut the second one up to make the corner motifs and the label. I also cut up some Seaside Dreams border fabric to create the borders surrounding the panel. I'd like to get a better photo of this, but that might not happen before I have to deliver the quilt to its new home. I had to take our cat to the vet again this week for a follow-up on her blood pressure meds. Sombra was less than pleased to go back into the carrier and go to the vet! At least the vet us only 5 minutes from home! Up this weekend: Spin-In tomorrow. Followed by finishing our taxes and getting them into the post office by end-of-the-day Sunday. It's going to ...