Green Rabbits and Yellow Flowers

It has rained quite a bit here lately which means the hills are green and the wild mustard is in bloom. This small orchard near our house has to be the most photographed spot in town; for good reason!  The photographers been out in full force this year and if you can't beat them....

I particularly like the last one because the oak tree in the background look like a rabbit coming down hill (well, to me anyway!)

I really love the strong color of the mustard blooms after weeks of gray weather. Later on, when the orchard is in bloom, it is another kind of beautiful all over again. The legend is that Father Serra and his party strew there path northward with mustard seeds. When it came time to go South again they just followed the golden road.

I have been mostly getting things ready to teach a class on Wednesday but I did take a break to finish my piece for the Muster Mixer challenge this month. Which was to combine Afterglo and Ahh. Here is my sampler of ideas:

And the Diva Challenge this week is to use  a tangle as a string. I decided to use Dragonair as my string.

Tangles Used: Nekton, Cayla, Nzeppel, StarMap,
 L-Aura, Fanz, and Poke Leaf

I think you can tell I had a good time with this one! But, back to the grindstone. I still have a couple of stitch charts to finish and then I can put the final touches on the kits and be all ready to go.

Back to Reality

It's hard to believe we are 2-1/2 weeks into the year and this is my first post! There seemed to be so many things to catch up on after the holidays were over. My daughter was able to be here for a week and she is moving back to the Bay Area <happy dance!> and my son was here for 2-1/2 weeks and we all had a great visit. But it is time to get back into the normal stream of things.

One thing that absolutely had to be done was a new design that I had been toying with since just before the holidays. I am teaching a class in 2 weeks and they had wanted something heart-themed for Valentine's Day. I came up with a ladybug and put it on a needlebook.

Prototype Needlebook

My husband did the first production run this weekend and thankfully everything went smoothly. Now I just need to write the instructions and make the kits!

I have been keeping up with the Diva Challenges even though I haven't posted them. And the first challenge of the year gave me an idea for a new (to me anyway) tangle. The challenge was to use Diva Dance and Auraknot. The last was because it (sorta) sounds like her name, Laura. It occurred to me that L-Aura would be even more like her name and I doodled around and came up with this:



For that first challenge of the year my response was:

Duo Tangle: Auraknot and Diva Dance

The second challenge was a back to basics challenge. So, white tile, black pen.

Tangles Used: Pop Cloud, Arc Flowers, and Nzeppel

This week's challenge is to use the logo for the Moebius Syndrome Foundation as a string. The Diva's younger son has this syndrome and each year there is a challenge to raise awareness.

Tangles Used: Wist and Lazy Eights

So remember to color the internet purple on Sunday, January 24th to raise awareness for Moebius Syndrome!