Lemon Tree Tales

London calling ...

... or the story of how blogging turned into a trip to that famous city. A few months ago as I was trolling through my many bookmarks of blogs -- yes, I should sign up for blogroll or some type of feed service, but I still enjoy seeing them load up -- I came across Claire of Needle Book's account of her honeymoon visit to London. She shopped for fabrics and trims at Liberty of London and the two locations of Cloth House. I'm lucky to have visited Liberty once before but had never heard of Cloth House.

me: Hey babe, the next time we have to go through London I have a store that I'd like to check out.

Steve: We don't have to wait until then. How about making a quick trip there just to shop?

me: Wow! That'd be fantastic. When could we go?

Steve: We'll book it for some time in February.

So that's how we planned a very quick escape - a long weekend actually. Fortunately we had enough airline miles for the trip and we had Starwood points for a nice hotel stay. I can't wait.

Finished Object: Noro Scarf

May I present to you, my first official finished knitted object, the one, the only -- Noro Silk Garden Scarf! Yay! This was finally completed the other night and I can't fully describe how many ways I'm pleased. First, this was the result of teaching myself to knit. I used books ("The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Book of Needlecrafts" by Cecelia K. Toth) and websites (learntoknit by lionbrand and knittinghelp) as my knit gurus. I used the uber simple garter stitch and since then I've become familiar with purl, 2x2 rib, stockinette, and the slip stitch. So now I am formally adding knitting to my list of artistic interests. Second, I'm happy to have found something that I can do in the evenings while enjoying my husband's company. It's not too fun to sew in the other room when he's home after work. I'll keep that as a day endeavor, unless it's a sewing emergency. You know what I mean -- when the gift is due the very next day and you're only a third of the way to completion -- not that I plan on doing that anymore, oh no sirree, not me.

As a result of my newfound interest, I chose the following book to read -- "Chicks with Sticks (It's a Purl Thing)" by Elizabeth Lenhard -- as this week's reading. I didn't realize that it was about teenage girls, but that's okay. No matter how old I get, there's still the odd teenage moment of awkwardness. Thank goodness it's not often, but it does make such a book interesting. I'll let you know what I think after I've finished.

And the next knitting project is a Mason-Dixon washrag. I know, it's a simple project, but it's so cute. After that I'll have to get a good pattern for a man's watchcap to make for Steve. My dad calls them felony caps because it's what you always see the tv show felons wearing. So if anyone has any good suggestions for one, please give me a holler.

Puerto Vallarta (and a winner)

I've been away for a few days visiting my in-laws in a warmer climate - Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This was the view from their side balcony of the condo that they've rented for a few months, four to be precise. Apparently Connie Stevens owns the white house, uppermost right, but only stays there for a week or two in December. You can also see a sliver of the beach to the right of this photo, but not too much. We walked down two blocks worth of dangerous broken concrete steps to get to the beach, Playa Los Muertos or Beach of the Dead. There's lots of tourists getting tan and a lot of vendors trying to separate their money in exchange for trinkets.

Here's a quick shot of the beach:

The highlight of the trip (other than spending time with family) was going to La Palapa restaurant for Mexican coffee after dinner one night. This nice young man pulled up to our table with a rolling cart and a brazier and some liquor (Kahlua and Tequila) and some ordinary metal gravy boats. He heated the gravy boats on the flame of the brazier and then poured in the liquor. What came next was simply spectacular .. he held the gravy boats over the flame and caught the liquor on fire. Then he poured a stream of this blue enflamed liquor from one boat to the next. After a few minutes of this he poured these into our glasses, adding some salt to create sparks. Next came coffee, whipped cream and a spoon with a liquor-drenched cherry. These were placed on our plates that held two crossed pieces of banana leaves. He told us to wait .. what more could there be I wondered? Ah, this is the most amazing part, he then took the reheated gravy boat with more liquor in it and poured a blue stream of fiery liquor onto our glasses. They promptly became engulfed in blue flames and eventually burned out. I wish that I could have taken a great picture of our flaming glasses. I've never seen anything like it. Oh, and by the way, the coffee tasted superb!

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I asked Steve to draw the name from the 100th post drawing and the winner is ... Samantha Millard. Congratulations! Send me your snail mail and the goodies will be on their way. Thanks everyone for commenting on the baby quilt. You'll be happy to know that it now has its borders sewn and is just waiting for the quilting and binding stage.

Post# 100 - Monkey quilt update

Wow, can you believe that this is my 100th post? I've noticed quite a few people also have made their centennial post within the last couple of weeks. Blogging is such an interesting medium. So far I've tried using it to kick myself into creative gear -- I'm not sure if you've noticed, but uhm, I seem to have a bit of trouble with procrastination. Notice the above evidence, the sock-monkey quilt. This was supposed to be a new-baby gift for Tina's little boy, BEFORE, the birth. Of course that was in September and let's see, now it's January of a whole new year! Somehow I don't think that I'll be able to kick this procrastination habit anytime soon. I know, I'll just jot it down on the to-do list. In the meantime I've been making progress. Here's the quilt's center all pieced. It just needs two borders and to be quilted. The yellow fabric will do double duty as the small inner border as well as the binding. The brown fabric will be the wider outer border and that fabulous red fabric will be the backing. Hmm, did you notice how all three fabrics are polka dots? I must be having a Minnie moment today.

Now on to the fun stuff ... since so many people seem to have a drawing in honor of their 100th post, I'll follow that trend. I've been organizing my crafting area and have found, much to my dismay, duplicates!
The winner of the drawing will receive this book and other sewing goodies. I'll post the winner next Sunday, January 14th. Now it's time to get those borders cut out.

Happy New Years!

Welcome 2007! Here's to hoping that you'll be a stellar year, full of promise and good things to come. There will be many projects started, fingers crossed that they'll also be completed. Perhaps procrastination will slowly ebb away like low tide, but never to return as does high tide. Who knows? To all my friends I wish that you have good fortune, good health, and much merriment this year. (This beautiful image is from a cigar label ...  lots of great vintage looks to be found as inspiration.) Okay, now it's time to go and see what eye candy makes up the 2007 Rose Parade.