Livin' La Needle Loca

 ...just in time! Our Christmas wreath was falling apart and we dumped it after last season. It did its job for 6+ years and it was time for a new one. I saw a few DIY Mid Century Modern wreaths that looked interesting. I settled on this one because it looked cool and it seemed easy to do. Specs: Started 12/11/2023 Finished 12/12/2023 Blue and silver tinsel garland, styrofoam wreath form, and 2.5-inch ribbon in Peacock blue Instructions from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoQA0R6zMM8 I need to adjust the ribbon a bit, but I'm happy with the results.

 ...and I missed WIP-it Wednesday. I finished another Christmas ornament. This is Earth's Delight: Specs: Started 11/29/2020 Finished 12/2/2020 Pattern: Shepherd's Bush from the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue I resurfaced a very old WIP from the mid-70s. My ex-husband had a special Christmas stocking that was covered with Christmas motifs and animals. They were beaded and sequined - it was beautiful. I wanted to create one for myself, so I started making Christmas motifs to stitch onto my own stocking. I created several, but realized that it was going to take forever to make it. I put them away and made myself a different stocking. Over the years, I'd run into the motifs and wonder what to do with them. This year, I decided to turn them into ornaments for my advent calendar. I've done 3 so far. I think they will be a nice addition to the calendar and I'll finally put all that work into use!

...and I'm ready for a weekend! Let's hope I get one. Even more important, let's hope The Husband gets one. The Husband has been dealing all things related to getting his mother up-to-date on doctor's appointments, ID cards, and whatever else is necessary to get her life in order. He's been staying there most nights just to avoid driving too much. Fortunately, his siblings are helping out, so it's not completely on his shoulders. There is not much new in the garden to photograph and I haven't had the time to go our and find other things to photograph. To keep this post from being picture-less, here's a closer view of the peony that was in my Mother's Day bouquet: Up this weekend: Maybe a trip to my mother-in-law's. All of the normal errands and chores need to happen regardless. I plan to work on the mermaid while I'm doing laundry. I'm hoping that my bead order comes in today, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll use up ...

...and it's raining again. Don't get me wrong. I'd rather have the rain than a drought. I'll happily put up with people who don't know how to drive in the rain and wet clothes and shoes if we don't have to go through water rationing. I took a few photos this morning when the rain lightened up. Our neighbor's orange roses are going nuts: This is the Spanish lavender in our front yard: This is our Schwarzkopf Black Rose plant with lots of raindrops: And our woodland hyacinth is blooming: Up this weekend: I'm feeling closer to normal, so I think it's time to catch up on a few chores. I want to finish spinning the singles for Mirabel handspun [ Ravelry ]. Then I can transfer all of the singles to a bobbin and let it rest before plying.  The other thing I'd like to finish is the Christmas 9-patch Pillow...I'm so close! My beads arrived today, so I can get right back to where I left off on the mermaid. Yay! .

...as in Finished Object. Here is the photo of the August 2016 Phat Fiber box. The theme was Indian Wedding. This photo shows what was in the box: And here's what I spun: Specs: Started 6/18/17 Finished 12/29/17 Yardage not calculated; mix of singles, 2-ply, and chain-ply I did not spin the silk hanky, locks, and banana fiber that were in the box. My hands are too trashed from washing them 50 million times during Christmas baking, so the silk hanky and the banana fiber will have to wait. As for the locks, they are my least favorite things to spin. Up this weekend: Today is V. E. T. day for the cats. They are not going to be happy with me and will need a little extra TLC. Then they'll really hate me on Sunday when I do their monthly Advantage application. Might as well get it all done at once! Other than the normal chores, my goal is to spin a lot more of the Mirabel fiber ( Ravelry ) and make progress on the mermaid. .

...and an overall update. Let's take this by Tour de Fleece days. Tour de Fleece, Day 12: Finished spinning the singles for Tidal [ Ravelry ]. Tour de Fleece, Day 13: Because my time was limited, I spun an art yarn using a Wild Card Bling Batt (4.1 oz.) from The Yarn Wench. I plied it with two threads, one gold and one copper. This is Kraken [Ravelry]: and the close-up: Specs: Started and finished 7/13/17 Wild Card Bling Batt (3.5 oz) from the Yarn Wench 57.7 yds plied with gold and copper metallic threads; Bulky Tour de Fleece, Day 14: Day 14 was also our last day of work before vacation. The Husband was leaving early Saturday morning, while I was going to start my Craftcation (AKA Staycation). However, my shower faucet decided to give up the ghost - it would not turn off! I had to shut off the water to the house to avoid wasting gallons of water. The Husband called a plumber and spent the day at home while the plumber fixed things. Not what The Husba...

...today is my birthday and I'm just about over my angst about my age now. The Husband started celebrating my birthday early by cooking dinner last night. And not just any dinner...the man barbecued tri tip, lightly smoked with oak wood that my mother sent from home, and made some piquinto beans. Our family moved to Santa Maria when I was in elementary school; my mom, sister, and two brothers still live there. There is nothing like Santa Maria barbecue and the tri tip is the best. The thing that makes it so great is the oak wood. There is nothing like the flavor of meat cooked over oak. That flavor is hard to duplicate in a propane barbecue, but using oak wood chips does a decent job. The Husband did a great job! The other thing he did for my birthday was buy new plants for the garden. He carefully chose varieties that we didn't already have. Here are some of the new things he chose. Santa Cruz Sunset begonia boliviensis: Torenia Hybrid: Fuchsia Emu Bush: ...

...another week just whipped on by! We finished harvesting the apricots from our original tree and now the rogue tree's fruit is almost ready: The kangaroo paws plant is finally beginning to look like something besides a couple of buds on the end of a stem: And the hydrangeas are turning a lovely pink: Up this weekend: Who knows!?  It's Father's Day, but we haven't made any plans yet. The Daughter has been out of town until now so I don't know what her schedule is like. We'll have to play it by ear. I seriously need some sleep, so much so that I've even toyed with the idea of checking into a hotel for one night just so the cats and my husband don't wake me up! I have so many projects to choose from that I'm having a hard time focusing on one. Another play-it-by-ear situation...I hope I land on one quickly! .

...first one for June. The bougainvillaea outside of my studio is blooming like crazy: New flowers are appearing in the back yard: Even the garlic has gotten into the act: Our berries and apricots are ripening faster than we can eat them. The Husband made a berry tart for dessert last night to use up the pound of berries we picked over the last two days. I looked at the bushes this morning and there are lots more that are ready. The Blenheim apricots all ripen at the same time. I'm not sure what we'll do to keep up with them! Up this weekend: More of the same...errands, chores and crafts. I'm still digging through my stash and finding things I'd forgotten about. I know I went through everything when I moved into my studio, but apparently I have a short memory! I need to go through the cross stitch charts again, this time with an eye out for certain designers. One of my friends wants to give them a new home. :) I need to ply Sochi to clear the ...

...that was fast! The garden continues to bloom. The tulips are going strong: More fruit trees are setting blossoms. This is our Asian Pear tree: And these tiny lobelia are filling in a hanging basket: Up this weekend: We have our company's holiday party. Our theme this year is: Italian food, ancient or modern.  I'm making biscotti (naturally) and a sundried tomato and pesto torta (a cheese spread layered with pesto and sundried tomatoes). I can't wait to see what other yummy dishes people bring. What's left of the weekend will be devoted to chores and whatever project s catch my eye. I've had a real motivation problem this month, both with my crafts and reading. I hope April will be better! .

...and the weekend report. My Saturday morning meeting went well. I have taken on a commission quilting project that will be in complete stealth mode. I won't be posting pictures or saying anything specific about what it looks like. I know you probably think I'm crazy to take on another project, but there is no set delivery date for and that allows me some flexibility to work on it when my creativity is high.   Spin-In was fun! I took some Irish cheeses and some crackers. A couple of spinners brought pie for Pi Day. The pie was so good! I didn't quite finish spinning the Meteor Shower singles [ Ravelry ], but I did finish them on Sunday. The singles are resting until I get a chance to ply.   I did some preliminary scoping of online quilt stores and one of my local stores to check the availability of what I need for the commission project. A couple of yards of fabric might have made it home with me. (Pay no attention to the quilter behind the curtain...)   I worked o...

...it's been a long week.  Work has taken precedence over blogging and pretty much everything else. I never did get around to a weekend report, not that it means much at this point. I did some chores on Saturday and a little spinning. On Sunday, we had lunch with the Daughter. That's it in a nutshell.   The spinning project is Meteor Shower [ Ravelry ], one of the Yak-Silk tops I purchased from Greenwood Fiberworks. No photo yet.   I'm making incredibly slow progress on the Irisa Cowl/Scarf [ Ravelry ]. I keep falling asleep in the middle of it. And over the last few days, my wrists have not been happy due to lots of work, so I've been letting my hands rest. However, it looks cool: No progress on Be My Baby, Tucson Twilight, or any other WIP.   Reading slowed down for a bit, but a lot of my favorite authors released books on Tuesday. I'm happy to be reading at my normal pace now.   I'm slowly learning how to edit Wordpress CSS and customize my theme ...

...can you believe it?!  Februaries always go by so quickly! Today's eye candy highlights the early spring we are experiencing. In our front yard, the lavender is blooming: In the backyard, freesias are popping up everywhere: And the Blenheim apricot tree is blossoming like crazy: Up this weekend: I need to catch up on some chores that were completely ignored while I attended Stitches West. :-) My floors, in particular, need serious attention! I'm an itching to start spinning some of the yak-silk top that I bought from Greenwood Fiberworks. However, that is the only new project I'm going to allow myself to start. I have not works on Be My Baby [ Ravelry ]in a while and I need to continue making progress on my Loopy Academy project, Irisa Cowl [ Ravelry ]. I wish weekends were longer! .

...I had big plans of photographing the latest handspun and doing a F.O. Friday post. And that's as far as we got...big plans, little action. As the days count down to my end of the year vacation, the number of  things I have to finish by the 19th increases. Most of the increases are work things, as the Christmas tasks are pretty much the same every year. This means that by the time I get home, my mind is exhausted and I don't feel like doing anything except eat dinner and sleep. So today, you get a small eye candy installment. We have a jade plant in our courtyard that is several years old (read: more than 15, maybe more than 20). The Husband cuts it back periodically so it doesn't outgrow the area it's in.  Sometimes it flowers and looks like this: This was taken after a recent rain storm.  As was this photo of the Lucky Lantern Red Abutilon that is also in our courtyard: Up this weekend: It's Cookie Time!  All baking, all the time!  I will take ...

...no, I did not wear a costume to work. I did wear some skeleton earrings...that's about all I can handle these days. The more important thing was to open the bags of candy and get them ready for tonight.  I don't get home until 7pm, so it's up to the Husband to hand out the candy until then. Out decorations are minimal--a skeleton on the door, a metal luminaria (with ghost silhouettes) to light the top of the driveway, and we're good. We didn't even get around to buying a pumpkin this year, much less carving one! Today's eye candy is the sunrise. When I got back from the gym this morning, the sky was just lightening up: A few minutes later, everything had an orange glow: By the time I was ready to leave for work, it had started raining. Hooray! Our plants have been doing pretty well between the drip irrigation and using the water that we catch while the showers warm up. However, there are some plants that just haven't gotten enough water, and...

...the weekend report. PIQF I had a great time at PIQF . There were a lot of interesting art quilts and a lot of traditional quilts. I pretty much blew past the traditional quilts. I appreciate the effort and skill that goes into them, but my eye will always be drawn to the unusual, colorful, or down-right odd quilt. I'm still processing my pictures, but here are a couple that caught my eye. I love the colors in Firmament by Brigitte Morgenroth of Germany: And I loved the bees in Coreopsis by Bernadine Hine of Australia. I have a 2014 PIQF album on Flickr with a few more photos; I'll add to it as I get a chance. (And, yes, I bought a little fabric...it's in the Flickr photo album.) Alcea Cowl [ Ravelry ] I finished knitting the cowl. I washed and blocked it. I'm waiting for it to dry so I can sew the ends together and call it done. So my first project for Loopy Academy is almost done! Wurm Hat [ Ravelry ] I started my second project for Loopy A...

...the weekend report: Quilt top is not done. I'm not happy with the fabric choices for the border, so I ordered more of the yellow dotted fabric I'm using in the squares. I had a serious attention span problem. I worked on  my needlepoint, cross stitching, spinning, quilting, and knitting projects. I could not land on just one no matter how hard I tried. Loved the second episode Outlander! Sad that True Blood is ending, but, man, are they going to have to cram a lot of stuff in the last episode to even come close to tying up the loose ends. As long as it doesn't end the same way the book series does...hated that. I tried a yoga class this morning at my new gym...guess I'll have to stop saying "new"since I dropped my membership at the "old" one. Anyway, I loved it! I am so happy to be doing yoga again! I had been taking weekly yoga classes for 7 years when the California Yoga Center had to close their Mountain View location because of constr...

...and not a moment to soon! With the 3-days spent at my Mom's for the family reunion and a concert on Wednesday night, I'm beat! So one picture from the reunion. Here are the Esquivel siblings that attended: That's my mom second from the right. We never could get them to line up straight.  My mom is one of 9 kids, so you can see we're missing a few. I'm waiting for a cousin to send a picture of the whole crew. Obviously, I couldn't take the picture and be in it, too. Her camera was on a tripod and she used a timer. My mom has some pretty flowers in her garden. Here are a couple...a pink and yellow rose: and a pink hydrangea: Up this weekend: I need to catch up with laundry and other things that didn't get done while we were gone. I need some serious crafting time. I'm hoping to finish the top of the quilt and then figure out what I'm doing on the back. I have a bobbin full of teal singles that need to be plied. I've bee...

...and I'm so ready for the weekend! Today's eye candy comes from the local elementary school. They have some beautiful rose bushes. and another In a previous post, I showed you a detail of the their ocean-themed mosaic. Here are a few more pictures of the mosaic. Left: middle: right: Up this weekend: I have no clue! Now the Tour de Fleece is over, I'm having a major concentration problem. I can't seem to spend more than a few minutes on a project! I hope to spend some time on the new quilt, but we'll see how that goes. There are always household chores that need to be done; errands to run. Yeah, that doesn't sound that interesting to me either. Maybe I'll just read. .

...yeah, I know I missed Eye Candy Friday.  Having a national holiday on a Friday means that I'm not working n the computer all day. I forgot to blog! And I didn't post here all weekend because Tour de Fleece started Saturday and I'm busy posting to the team threads on Ravelry. This year, I'm moderating the Team Spinnity thread and I'm a member of Team Spinning Purls and Team Lendrum. Just a joiner at heart! :) I'm spinning from my Yarn Wench stash. I have somewhere on the order of 20(!) Merino-Silk braids so I'm going to try to make a dent in that number. Tour de Fleece, Day 1 and 2: Spun the singles of Plum Honey Light: I need to ply it, but I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get to that before Thursday. It's hard to spin after work as I'm pretty zonked. However, I start my Craft Stay-cation on Thursday. Number 1 on my craft list is spinning for Tour de Fleece. In other news, I'm on the home stretch of the Stuck in Neutr...