CatBookMom's Yarns

Time to Give

2008-12-15T12:12:00.000-08:00

Stephanie, the Yarn Harlot, has again started accumulating her tally of the dollars given to Doctors Without Borders, via the groups she's christened Knitters Without Borders (Tricoteuses Sans Frontières). Until December 5, when she posted about her 2008 campaign on her blog, the cumulative total was $420,000 (US?).

Today, after only 10 days, the total is $560,000. That's right, $140,000 in 10 days.

Give what you can. Donate what that yarn that you managed NOT to buy would have cost you. Donate what you would have spent for one more prezzie.

Here's the link to her FAQ about the plan. You can click on through to the Doctors Without Borders website from there (she has links for Canada, the US, and worldwide), or you can send a check. Either way, send an email to Stephanie at the address she's set up to capture the donations (don't send to the email addy in the FAQ page) - kwb@yarnharlot.ca

As Stephanie has said in her speeches, knitters know how much one stitch at a time can do, when added to another stitch and another and.... We are also showing just how much we knitters can do $1 at a time.

If you prefer, give to Heifer International, which teaches people how to care for the animals that will give them a better diet and a better life - cows, pigs, SHEEP, rabbits, LLAMAs, geese, etc. You can donate enough for an entire animal or just a part. They've even got a larger gift they've labeled a "Knitting Basket" - 2 llamas & 2 sheep. A part of the Knitting Basket is $50.

Or give to Freedom from Hunger, a successful microfinance organization helping women to support their families.

You can check on charities at Charity Navigator, a site I found thanks to my friend who writes the Short Stuff blog. Heifer International gets 3 of 4 stars, Freedom from Hunger rates 4. Doctors Without Borders also rates 4 stars.

Give to one of these or to whatever charity you prefer to support. Just give what you can.

'Scuse me while I ROFL

2008-12-14T09:23:00.000-08:00

I love the celebrity Q&A in Parade Magazine every Sunday. Today one of the entries had me nearly breathless with laughing.

Someone asked what George Lazenby, the one-time-only James Bond (1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service) was doing these days. George is now 69, and hasn't worked in 6 or 7 years. But he still blames the decline in his career on his former agent, who told him, all those 40 years ago, that the James Bond franchise had run out of steam. Right.

A quick check of his filmography on IMDb, which started with his James Bond movie, shows that his career has been, um, checkered since he broke his James Bond contract just before the release of the film. There are a lot of Asian chop-socky and Central European foreign-language movie roles, one-time TV appearances, and quite a number of Emmanuelle TV spots. Emmanuelle? Are those on the Playboy Channel? (Snickering here.)

Now, this is strictly my opinion (shared, I understand, by thousands, and with better comments in this blogger's post I found by Googling ;D) that George was the absolute, completely WORST James Bond ever. The Tin Woodman was more animated and charming. I was so excited when I learned that my favorite Diana Rigg, the awesome and gorgeous Mrs. Peel from The Avengers, was going to be in the movie. But then she had to work with Lazenby; I wonder how disappointed she was.

The best James Bond? Of COURSE it was and always will be Sean Connery.

The new one, Daniel Craig? Ah, he reminds me a lot of the brush-cut Robert Shaw, who was one of The Big Bads in From Russia With Love. Which means he's down by 2 out of 3 at the start.

OK, soon I will return you to your regularly scheduled knitting news.....

What a Week!

2008-12-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

My jaw is finally beginning to relax. Yesterday I handed over all of my out-of-town gifts to the US mails. Four to friends in Vancouver, four to family across the US. Plus one to the UK, not a gift, but 2 skeins of a particular yarn and dyelot which will finish off a warm sweater, another happy thing due to Ravelry. I didn't feel particularly stressed, but the ache in my jaw every morning from teeth-clenching said otherwise.

Now I just have to organize and finish and wrap gifts to my LA friends and to my DH. He has hauled home all the holiday decor from the storage locker, and we can Deck the Halls this week. The outdoor lights and wreaths and greenery have been done since Thanksgiving weekend, being stored in the garage.

On Tuesday morning I learned that my beloved Sears microwave, circa 1984, is finally in its last days. That's right, 24 years of service with only one $80 repair! The fan didn't come on, but I didn't realize that meant the heating was very uneven, and when I reached in for my reheated morning oatmeal, I scalded 2 fingertips and left some skin from a third finger on the bowl. Swears, you bet!! A couple of layers of band-aids helped me get on with most of my life, and by Wednesday I could even type and knit, very carefully. But I couldn't write, and the idea of typing and printing mailing labels and holiday messages didn't enter my tiny mind. The fingertips are back to normal, but re-growing a full layer of skin will take a while. Side note: Your experience may vary, but IMO the genuine Band-Aids, the 'flexible fabric' ones, are the only way to go. Other brands, whether proprietary or major branded, just don't stick through a day.

I did finish knitting the Woven Bands Pullover for DH, and with the help of some little hair clips to hold the sides together he tried it on. I am very happy with the result, which fits him well. I have to sew the side and underarm seams, but he should be able to wear it next week. Size 42 took just a bit less than 10 skeins of Elann's Sierra Aran, which is 80% wool, 20% alpaca, in the Fiddlehead Green color. Note that my row gauge was way off, and I finally just added rows (it's knitted from sleeve edge across to sleeve edge) to get to the length I wanted; as written, the sleeves are only 17.5in long, so they're 3/4 length or so. The 'Woven Bands" are done in linen stitch, running down each sleeve and around the open neckline. BTW, the next time you do a bit of linen stitch, check out the wrong side. I think it makes a pretty texture of its own, with definite diagonal lines, something that would work very well as trim for a stockinette project. Or even an entire scarf or hat, etc.

The week ended on a majorly fun note. P, one of my Friday Night Knitters group, set up a spa evening, with a masseur bringing his table and massage chair, and a hairdresser offering trims. Of course there was wine and egg nog and lots of holiday treats - any chocolate, you say?? Oh, yeah! K, a new group member, brought a dessert spread made with mascarpone cheese, candied nuts and Grand Marnier, among other goodies. Calorie count way up there but incredibly yummy!! Some non-knitting friends also came, and we ended the evening with a lavish roast-beef dinner. I rolled down the hill (she lives on the uphill side of town, I live on the flats) to Chez CBM, full of great food and friendship, relaxed from 30 minutes of chair massage, and with a much shorter hairdo.

I leave you with a picture of Midnight, in her current cave, which has a heat-reflecting kitty pad (I learned about it at Wendy Knits, something she got for the famous Lucy) and a little blankie folded in front to help keep out the drafts. It's been in the 40s and 50s at night around here, and a couple of mornings during the week it was cooler in the house than was strictly comfy. I'm taking advantage of the 'winter' coolth to wear some of my shawls, ;D

Zooming Right Along

2008-12-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

I have progressed to the start of the 2nd sleeve of DH's sweater. In fact, I should finish it today, assuming the pasta sauce I'm planning to make doesn't take up too much time. I have about 14 inches to knit, over some 60 sts, mostly stockinette. I won't say easy, 'cause that might be hubris, lol.

I've also been knitting more of the Maine Morning Mitts, totalling 3.5 pairs so far. Yesterday I braved the crowds at the local Michaels, and by the grace of the knitting goddesses I found 3 single skeins of Patons SWS yarn in colors I can use for more mitts. Honestly, the yarn section, except for the basic and baby acrylic areas, looked as if a horde of locusts had chewed their way through, leaving empty shelves and disorder everywhere. My friend Fran tells me it was the same way last week. Guess they're not getting any new shipments in.

Photos will be available when the sweater and the mitts are done. In the meantime, here's Midnight, looking snug in the "Kitty Loaf" position, next to my knitting bag, with a bit of DH's lovely green sweater showing right above her head .

Negative Progress

2008-12-02T13:44:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of muttering and sub-vocal swearing going on the last couple of days. No point in cussing out loud - it scares the cat. Sadly, DH's sweater has become a member of my too-large Benighted Large Project group.

I've written about the row gauge problem, and having to frog back to add rows between the sleeve and the collar dividing point. I got that fixed, got back to the collar dividing point, got the front side started and then joined yarn to start the back, so I could work front and back at the same time. Looked for more KP Options needle tips and hmm, US7s it said right there on my needle gauge. That sailed right past my sane-thinking ability, and I went on to knit nearly 5 more inches of both front and back. I was enjoying a great audiobook, J. A. Jance's Justice Denied, the latest in her J P Beaumont mysteries and the knitting was going really well. . Along about 11:30 the needle size thing floated back into mind.

O. M. G. !!! I checked my notes. I was supposed to be knitting this on US9s. NINES!! not 7s.

At that point I went to bed.

I have now frogged all the way back to the middle of the sleeve, which seems to be the point at which the texture of the knitted fabric became a bit denser. I now have a *really* big ball of yarn, about 4 skeins worth. I went and found my beloved but recently neglected Crystal Palace bamboo circs, US9 clearly marked on them. T'heck (or wherever) with the possibilities of getting the wrong size points any more.

And I may need to dig out my night guard tonight. Right now there's a fair amount of tenseness in my jaw. DH will come home tonight and wonder where his sweater went. I hope I can keep from snarling at him too much. But he better not comment about 'getting a lot of knitting from the same yarn'.

Mitts and Sweater and Koigu, Oh My!

2008-11-29T11:52:00.000-08:00

"Man, it Pours!"
Wednesday was another rain day, even heavier than Tuesday night. Here's a photo of the downpour in our back patio. We laid the bricks on a bed of sand, so there aren't any puddles. All the plants look so clean and fresh. With as little rain as we get, the leaves get really dirty in between feedings, which is about the only time we 'wash' the plants, lol!

Knitting and Knitting
I finished another pair of Maine Morning Mitts, this time in Paton's SWS Natural Pink. I used this colorway last year for a hat for our DGD, and if I don't finish another project for her, one that's been a UFO for too long, at least she'll have a warm gift under the tree.

I've started and made good progress on the pullover for DH. This is the Woven Bands Pullover from the Winter 2008 IWK that I posted about last time. DH wasn't too excited about the DB Merino Aran - he likes more subtle, interesting colors - so I'm using Elann's Sierra Aran in the Fiddlehead Green color. Sierra Aran comes in lovely heathery colors, and the 20% alpaca content makes it soft. I bought this last year to make the Arwen hoodie, but that can wait a while longer. It will look really good on DH. I have huge problems with my row gauge, though my stitch gauge is right, so I've been making lots of calculations to get the right size. I'm nearly to the end of the 4th skein, and it's going well. Of course, being mostly stockinette with linen stitch bands, it curls up a lot, so it's not showing up well in the photo. The color in this photo is washed out. Check the Elann link for the ferny green shade.

Koigu Attack!!
I hadn't planned any 'Black Friday' shopping, but my LYS emailed about a just-arrived (after a year's waiting!) shipment of Koigu. You never saw such fast toothbrushing, hair brushing, etc. I arrived while most of the shipment was still in its packages. ;D So I had my choice of 2 dozen or so colorways. Yeah, Koigu is pricy, a little more so here, but I had saved up my 'loyal customer' card, and this was the best use of my $30 discount I could have wanted. There's enough here for a couple of shawls and a scarf. Early Christmas? Oh, yeah.

OK, off to knit on DH's sweater, and listen to some more audiobooks. In the last 2 days I've gotten all the way through 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' (HP #1) and J D Robb's novella 'Midnight in Death'. Not only has my library had a good selection of audiobooks lately, but both Audible.com and AudioBookStand.com have had sales and specials.

It Does Too Rain in California!

2008-11-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

Well, sometimes. Last night it really rained, pouring down with some thunder-boomies as accents. We set a new record for the date, 0.95 inch of rain, beating the 0.71 record set in 1960. And it's crispy out, hitting our today's high of 60F.

Our soil Chez CBM is quite sandy, so we don't have many puddles, but oh, the trouble the people are having in the burned areas. At least we had enough rain to help avoid some of the worst oil-slicking on the roads. When we get just a little bit of rain, it 'floats' the oil that has built up on the roads over all our dry months, and it becomes a bit dangerous for braking. My friend Curlerchik, who lives near Toronto, recently commented about the problems people there have with the first snowfalls, seeming to have forgotten how to drive in snow and icy conditions. We have the same phenomenon here, but it's just rain.

In the Knittery News:

I finished the green cabled mitts, and another pair as well. This pair is done in Clara Parkes' Maine Morning Mitts pattern, which is a really fast knit. And she has written what may be the absolutely best directions for knitting a thumb gusset. The yarn is an oddball of Lang's Mille Colori blend of wool and acrylic, one of those 'same dyelot but only a cousin' sort of colorway. This yarn is a lovely singles, and the colors repeat but in no pattern I've been able to find. So the mitts are fraternal. I'm still having camera problems, so the colors aren't very true.

After much dithering and changes in yarn, color and pattern, I finally have a combination I like for the scarf I'm making for my internist. This is Elann's Baby Cashmere in the Tapestry Blue color, and the pattern is Brooke Nelson's Column of Leaves. This is an easy 8-pattern row knit, though I haven't yet, even after 10 repeats, gotten to the point I don't need to look at the chart. I know I bitched about being done with scarves, but this one really insisted on being knitted; it does remind me about why I was bored with scarves - 39 sts and turn. Over and over.

And after some not-too-subtle hints and downright questions, I'm starting a sweater for DH. The Winter 2008 Interweave Knits had this simple but attractive sweater pattern, Woven Bands Pullover, knitted from sleeve edge to sleeve edge, and I have some Debbie Bliss Merino Aran in color 506 (a sage-y green) I grabbed a while back from one of Little Knits' great sales. I'd love to knit this in a heathery yarn, like the Eco Wool used in the pattern, but hey - Shop the Stash, y'know. And hey! Here's a swatch!!

Tonight we start with the side dishes for our T-Day feast tomorrow. I wish all of you a happy and uneventful celebration.

Pattern Notes, or How to Decorate a Mitt

2008-11-20T08:44:00.000-08:00

I've been reminded that I forgot to link the pattern I used for the green cowl. It's 'La-La-Love-You' by Sandra Park, available free at the Popknits site (in the link). One warning if you make the cowl: the instructions still contain (as of last week or so) the border sts for a flat knit. So take those out and just follow the chart. I wanted to make a pair of matching mitts, so I used my 'standard recipe' for adding a motif to a pair of plain ribbed mitts.

Heart Motif Mitts
For these mitts, I used 3 vertical repeats of the heart motif from the cowl pattern. BTW, I do the left mitt first. Sandy has small hands, so I started with 36 sts on US4 needles. I like to knit mitts pretty firmly, so I go down at least one, if not 2 needle sizes from the size per the label, and 2 sizes smaller than that for the wrist and top ribbing. I knit pretty loosely, so you may want larger needles.

Knit 12 rows of 2x2 ribbing with US4 needles. Then switch to US6 needles.

To center the motif, here's the math: I try to leave at least 2 sts between the thumb gusset and the beginning of the motif. For this 36-st mitt, the motif took 14 sts, and the 2 sts before and after centered the motif perfectly (14 +2+2 = 18).

Starting from the beginning of the round, knit 2 sts then work Row 1 of the motif, omitting the beginning and ending yo's and decreases on the chart, followed by 2 more knit sts. For the rest of the round follow in the 2x2 ribbing. Knit across the motif sts for the even-numbered rows, then work the ribbing. For the first Row 3, again omit the yo's and the decreases. Follow the chart through one repeat and through the 2nd Row 4.

In Row 5 of the 2nd repeat, begin the thumb gusset, working 2 increases (M1 or Kf&b, your choice) between the 2 purl sts just before the 2 knit sts at the edge of the motif. Work double increases (one on each side) on each pattern row until you have 16 increased sts, working in the 2x2 ribbing. To make this easier to keep in pattern, make all the increases after the first purl st and before the last purl st. You'll be gradually adding 2x2 ribs one st at a time, like this: Row 1, p1, increase 2 sts, p1. Row 2, purl 4 sts. Row 3, p1, incr1, p2, incr1, p1. Row 4 p1, k1, p2, k1, p1. This is fiddly, but comes out looking nice. You can work the gusset in stockinette for simplicity if you prefer.

On the next pattern row, knit the first increase st in the 2x2 pattern, put the next 14 sts on waste yarn, and then knit the last increase st. When you finish the 3rd repeat of the motif, switch to US4 needles and work 5 rows of 2x2 ribbing and bound off in pattern, cutting the yarn.

Then transfer the thumb gusset sts back to US 4 needles, join a new strand of yarn and knit around, picking up 2 sts from the main portion of the mitt, thus having 16 sts (multiple of 4). I knitted 6 rows and bound off. If you have loose sts or open spaces, leave an extra length of yarn when you join the yarn, so you have a bit to weave in to tighten up the holes.

For the right mitt, begin the thumb gusset increases between the 2 purl sts to the left of the motif.

'Recipe Notes'
You can use this 'recipe' to add any motif you like to the back of mitts. Just center the motif over 1/2 of the sts you cast on for the mitt, leaving at least 2 sts between the edge of the motif and the thumb gusset. If you don't want a thumb, you'll stop at the stitch where you would begin the thumb increases, then work back and forth as if flat knitting for however many rows you want the thumb slit to be, then return to working in the round. The thumb slit part I'm winging here, since I almost always put in a thumb.

If you want a larger diameter to your mitt, using more sts (for 2x2 ribbing must be divisible by 4), you'll need to adjust the starting point of your motif, leaving more sts between it and the thumb gusset to center the motif. If you want your thumb shorter or longer, add or subtract rows after you pick up the sts.

Cabled Mitts
For the cabled mitts I'm working on, I cast on 44 sts for a larger mitt. The cable pattern takes up 14 sts, and I've centered it between 2 purl sts on each side, since I think that sets off the cables best. So again I have 18 sts. To put the design in the center of the back of the mitt, I have 4 sts between the beginning of the thumb gusset increases rather than 2 (2 purl sts and 2 knit sts). That gives me 22 sts, half of the total.

Begin the ribbing as k2, p2. Knit as many rounds of 2x2 rib as you want, then at the point where you reach the base of the hand:

Round 1: K2, [P2, 3sts to cable needle, hold in front, knit 3 sts then 3 sts from cable needle] twice, p2, then continue round in 2x2 ribbings. This is an 'outside cable' twist row.
Rounds 2-5: Work 2x2 ribbing around

Inside Cable Twists
Round 6: [K2, p2] twice, move 3sts to cable needle, hold in front, knit 3 sts then 3 sts from cable needle, continue 2x2 ribbing around.
Round 7: Work 2x2 ribbing around, except knit the 6 cable sts.
Rounds 8-9: Repeat Row 7
Repeat Rounds 6-9 twice more.
Knit 6 rows of 2x2 ribbing around; the 6 cable sts should be knitted as k2,p2,k2

Outside Cable Twists
Round 1: Repeat Row 1, except work 2 gusset increase sts between the last 2 purl sts of the round
Rounds 2-5: Repeat Row 7 , working gusset increase sts on the odd-numbered rounds
Repeat Rounds 1-5 twice more.
Continue working 2x2 ribbing until you have 16 gusset increase sts. See instructions for the Heart Motif Mitts for further details of working the thumb gusset.

When you move the 14 gusset sts to waste yarn, change to US 4 needles and knit at least 5 more rounds of 2x2 ribbing. Bind off in pattern. For the right mitt, you can either make the cables the same way or hold the first 3 sts in back, which will make the twists go in the opposite direction. This would make the cables on both mitts twist outward.

Looking at these now, for symmetry, there should have been 2 'outside twists' at the beginning and the end, rather than one and 3. Oh, well. This modification I leave to you, my talented knitter friends.

Of course, if all of this is as clear as Mississippi gumbo mud to you, LMK and I'll try to clarify. Enjoy!!

It's Been Really Busy!

2008-11-19T13:51:00.000-08:00

OMG. Where did a month go? I'm just fine. Srsly. But there's been knitting and knitting, and reading and reading, and listening to audiobooks and podcasts and music. And the days just go by and I forget to post.

Before I forget to mention it, Chez CBM is a long way from the fires. Makes us very happy that we settled in the 'flats' of Burbank. One of my good friends from my Friday knitting group lives in a foothill area, a tad too close for comfort to the big trailer park fire, enough to be worrisome, but the fire never blew their way. We've suffered from the smoke and ash, with smoggy, smoggy days and difficulty breathing. The fires were really bad on Sunday, and Monday morning I woke up feeling like I'd slept with my mouth open all night. Sniffles, coughing, ugh, most of the week. DH said it was even worse over in West LA than here. Our air quality is much better now, but it's awful for the hundreds and hundreds of families whose homes are gone.

I've rediscovered the local library, and I can't tell you how much I've saved on books in the last couple of months. I've been toting big bags of books back and forth, books and audiobooks both, (reminds me of the junior high days when I used to check out as many books as I could cram into my bicycle basket). Burbank isn't a full part of the Los Angeles library system, so I'm planning on zipping over to Pasadena soon to get a card in the LA system. Then I can figure out the download systems LA libraries have.

Our librarians have commented that visitor levels are noticeably higher than last year; I expect it's the effect of the economy. And for me, it's part of the Ravelry effect, lol; all the new authors and audiobooks the other Ravelers tell me about that I have to read or listen to. I've also spent a bit at sales at Audible and AudiobookStand. Audible recently had a half-price sale on a lot of unabridged books, and AudiobookStand has some good unabridged selections in their $10 list. iTunes is a good source of audiobooks, too, and you can check the prices there by comparison to Audible and to Amazon.

And then there are the podcasts. Oy. News, music, knitting, Garrison Keillor, etc. And there's Podiobooks, too. Some of the serialized books I've been enjoying are Max Quick, Shadowmagic, and Karen Moning's Darkfever, which you can get as a podcast via iTunes. For those of you looking for good knitting podcasts, I'm not a good source for suggestions. I find many of them either tedious or shrill, though interviews with knitters like the Yarn Harlot and Franklin Habit are good. If you go to the Podcasts part of iTunes and search for knitting, you'll find a lot of choices.

OK, about the knitting. I warn you, I've had a terrible time getting a good match of actual color and photo color, and currently I can't get my digital camera to flash. Gotta go online to get this figured out.

I spent most of October madly knitting scarves and hats for my senior's charity boutique, which was Nov 7 & 8. I found myself knitting and frogging and knitting a lot; why is it we knitters feel that projects have to be the 'just right' combination of yarn and pattern???!! The multicolor scarf is knitted from Bernat's Satin acrylic yarn, in a 'moving square' pattern I dreamt up. It looks like there are cables, and I hope I remember where I left the notes for the pattern. Then I finally put together some deep purple Lion Brand Microspun and Crystal Palace's Little Flowers yarn I bought a couple of years ago, using the Montego Bay (aka Mimi Very-Long) pattern. And there had to be a plain warm hat and scarf set, this one with a mistake-rib scarf and a good deep brim on the hat for warmth. This took 2 of the big skeins of Universal Yarn's Classic Worsted Long Print, which is an 80/20 acrylic/wool blend. I loved how the yarn made perfect random-but-repeating stripes. And, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I finished 2 Odessa hats in red Bernat Satin.

There were noticably fewer shoppers at the boutique, and I think a lot of the other sellers didn't do well. We sold a LOT of scarves; we started out with more than 3 leaf bags full of scarves and had less than a kitchen trash can full left. We had some adorable baby jackets, lots of baby and adult hats, knitted and crocheted afghans and small quilts, mostly lap-sized, and tote bags. Overall, we made $1400+, which makes us very happy. We've already sent off checks to the local Temporary Aid Center and a local church's Thanksgiving dinner fund. BTW, we took over 350 hats (our liaison quit counting at that point, lol!) to the Operation Gratitude group for inclusion in the boxes they're sending to our troops. And we have at least 80 scarves left for the Christmas party given by a local foster kids' group.

Then I switched over to knitting Christmas gifts, and I've finished a hat & mitts set for my cousin and a cowl & mitts set for his wife. The cowl and matching mitts I did with WEBS' Valley Yarn Superwash Merino, and I have to give this a *RAVE* review. Nicely sproingy, good color, and it blocked very nicely. Good price, too. My cousin's hat and mitts are stash-busters: I found a last skein of the Cascade Lana d'Oro yarn (discontinued in 2005) I used for a scarf for him a couple of years ago, then I found a single skein of WEBS' Valley Stockbridge yarn (freebie from Stitch & Pitch) and a gorgeous hank of Shelridg e Farm Soft Touch yarn that Curlerchik, one of my near-Toronto friends, sent me a couple of years ago in exchange for some Chibi needles. The mitts and hat don't quite match, but I think they're a close-enough set, since the hat does match the scarf and is trimmed with the same dark blue as the mitts. Yes, I'm sure my cousin still has the scarf; he still has one I made him some 20 years ago. Gotta really love family who appreciate home knitting, don't you!! Mitts being the addictive projects that they are, I'm half-done with another set of mitts with the left-over 1.5 skeins of yarn from the cowl. None of these three pictures has the real green. Sigh.

My remaining gift knits are for our honorary family and for my beloved DH. I have an EZ Ribwarmer done for one of our 'daughters' and another nearly done for her daughter, using some yummy pinky-lavender Cascade Cloud 9. Plus I think there are matching mitts and a hat. These are on my Mission Possible 2008 list, and I'd really like to get them done. The biggest project, and with some 5 weeks left there's some pressure, is the entrelac vest I started last winter for DH. I discovered when the first front was nearly done that it was way too short below the armscye; hence a lot of frogging and its long time in the UFO pile.

And for a very special Awwww! moment: Last week I got an email from one of our honorary daughters. I've sent baby things now for 2 babies, hats and scarves for the holidays, and nary a peep. Well, she made up for all of that BIG time. She said that she wanted me to know how much I am a part of their lives, and that each of them have favorite CBM gifts. The newest baby is now wearing the baby jacket I made for the first one (2005), and the matching blankie has survived and is still keeping babies warm. I wrote back, kind of choked up and teary, that I had just gotten a really big, warm hug! Yeah. Like that.

Miscellany

2008-10-31T10:00:00.001-07:00

I'm sadly behind with blogging, but reading and charity knitting have been continuing. I'll catch up with photos in the next few days, I promise. But today I want to urge you, however you choose, please VOTE on Tuesday.

And to mark the day, here are wishes from Basement Cat (the LOLcat version of The Big Bad)

Tag, I'm It - Reading-wise

2008-10-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

I suffer as much from 'startitis' as a reader as I do with my knitting, so I have several books in various stages of reading going at all times. I have books I'm currently devouring or dipping into in bits (current WIP), books I've started and have left for another that was more tempting (WIPs in short-term time-out), and books that have been in short-term time-out so long they've become UFOs. And some of the long-term UFOs eventually are frogged and de-stashed to the library.

My blogger friend Short Stuff tagged me for this:
Page 56. 2-5 lines of whatever you’re reading right now.

Free-Range Knitter is the newest book by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot herself. This is a 'dipping into' book, since it's a book of essays; I read one and then put it aside till I'm in the mood for another of her thought-provoking tales. Page 56 is in an essay I haven't read yet; I was going to post an excerpt from "Helen", but that's at the end of the book, where I started for some unknown reason. So here's a bit from page 56 of "Denny":

Denny can put on striped tights, a plaid skirt, a handknit sweater in a color that is not present in the stripes or the plaid, top it with a red velvet jacket and a white lace scarf, toss on German shoes, and look inspired. it's a gift. If I put on the same outfit I would look crazy, or homeless, or both.

Otherwise, I'm reading Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs, part of my ongoing fascination with vampire tales. This is #2 in Ms Briggs' newish series. I zoomed through the first 5 Sookie Stackhouse books, four of them courtesy of the library, and then felt 'done' with it. My favorite is Tanya Huff's tales of Vicky, Henry and Celluci, which were loosely turned into the TV Series 'Blood Ties'. Well, favorite after Buffy, of course. There are a *lot* of Buffy books.

On the knitting front, I've finished 2 red hats in Grumperina's Odessa pattern, and both my seniors' group and my Friday night friends clamored for the pattern. I started another, this in the yellow Schoeller + Stahl Hobby yarn (discontinued) that I did first. After working with the red Bernat Satin, the superwash Hobby is scratchy. I'm also working on a scarf using the Satin in a deep jewel-tone multi-color, a design of my own with alternating blocks of knits and purls, which is turning out to look like I've cabled it. ;D. If anyone of my local knitter friends likes it, I'll write up the pattern when it's done.

I'm into Clue #2 of the Pangea shawl KAL. Clue #3 will be posted tomorrow, so I have to move along with it today.

And I'm going to tag Marie for the book meme. Marie, you're it!!

I'm a Good Friend, I Hope

2008-10-17T09:53:00.001-07:00

Samwise Gamgee. A brave and loyal associate full of optimism, you remain true to your friends and their efforts, to whatever end.

But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Samwise is a character in the Middle-Earth universe, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings world. You can read more about him at TheOneRing.net.

I found this quiz via Sarah's blog, Short Stuff. Since I took up knitting, I've found very good friends both in real life and virtual, courtesy of knitting blogs and forums. Life is sweeter with them in it.

Serious Post - Trying to Understand Where My $$ Went

2008-10-11T17:28:00.000-07:00

Money makes the world go around, faster and faster all the time. At Planet Money, a multimedia team of reporters tracks down the economists, investors and regular folks who are trying to make sense of the rapidly changing global economy

Like everyone else, we're watching our savings for retirement dwindling *fast*. Yesterday I saw a statistic that said the Dow Jones had dropped some 36% since a year ago. And despite what many economists and financial mavens are saying, this may not be the bottom, and it probably isn't going to get better any time soon. The rest of the world unfortunately seems to have followed the US into the sub-prime lending bog; Iceland is among a group of countries which are essentially bankrupt.

Our bank statement arrived yesterday and I commented to DH that we had an unusually high balance in checking (last month had 3 paychecks in it). My initial instinct was to get it moved to a better investment, but y'know, the bank is a darn good substitute for the mattress right now. Twelve-month US Treasury bills are paying interest of ONE CENT on the dollar to investors (per the chart, yield is $1.01 per $1). T-Bills are supposedly the safest investment anywhere, being based on the credit of the entire US government. But even large corporate and institutional investors are willing to take that rate of return in exchange for what they're seeing as the best no-risk place to park their dollars.

As I posted a little while ago, I recently got an 80GB iPod, and I've discovered podcasts, courtesy of a couple of groups at Ravelry. One that was being highly recommended was NPR's Planet Money. If you know how to access or subscribe to podcasts via iTunes, it's at the top of the most-popular podcast list. Otherwise, it seems that you can read and possibly listen to these discussions at the NPR site, as with this link to one of today's stories.

In the last 2 days I've listened to all of the 'episodes' since 9/28, and I'm very impressed with the way that all of this money-babble is being made clearer. Yesterday while I was on my way to my Friday night knitting group, I heard the host tell the guest "This is a jargon-free zone." And the guest proceeded to explain LIBOR and the Ted spread, why it's bad that banks are not lending to one another, etc. Right now, the fact that banks are not lending to other banks is a very scary thing, since companies won't be able to borrow to meet short-term cash-flow needs, such as our paychecks.

This may be far TMI (too much information), but I hope that these links will help some of you, my friends and readers, to understand just why we're in the financial crisis.

Party!

2008-10-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

I had a Blocking Party yesterday, assisted most ably by Midnight. But she was just exhausted with the effort, and insisted on a nap.

I finally have FO pictures of my Woodland Scarf ,

Chevron Scarf ,

Wavy Feathers Wimple

and Odessa hat. Odessa is the bright yellow object in the foreground of the first photo.

I'm thinking I may have blocked the long scarves too severely; I'll get some feedback from my Friday Night Knitters tonight.

This, That and the Other

2008-10-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

Lots of reading and some knitting still going on Chez CBM. Plus a bit of Stash Enhancement, though some is purpose-bought, so it 'doesn't count', right?

I finished the kid's vest for A4A, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I hadn't knitted with Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride before, and it's quite nice; good saturated teal color, not itchy to knit with, and a sort of silky feel to it, compared to the plain New Zealand wool that's the trim and stripes.

I made another Odessa hat, meaning it for the seniors' fund-raiser boutique, but my friend Irma fell hard for it, so it's a gift for her. When you leave out the beads, Odessa is a fast knit. The pattern was available via the now-defunct Magknits, and now it's free as a Ravelry download. It's one of my friend Grumperina's first published patterns, and I now understand why it's been so popular. The yarn is Schoeller + Stahl's Hobby in a cheerful yellow, retrieved from the stash. I'll make another for the boutique, and I've got some green, too.

I also finished a scarf for the foster kids' charity that my seniors' group supports. This is from some 4-year old stash, TLC Amore; the pattern was off the top of my head. There are 3 bands of [yo,k2tog] 'lace' divided by garter stitch bands at the ends, and the main section is plain garter. Amore is a ribbon of tiny boucle, and the small size of the loops avoids the usual boucle catching on the needle tips. Not the greatest yarn, and it looks better IMO in stockinette, but then there's the curl factor. Hence the garter stitch.

I've been working on a gift for a dear friend, but she reads the blog and Ravelry projects, so it's a mystery project for a while. It's coming out really well. ;D

And another friend, whatifknits, has published a 'mystery shawl' pattern, called Pangea. The finished shawl is shown on her blog, but the clues are coming out weekly, and the design is purposely worked to show off some of the pretty hand-dyed yarns we've all collected and then find don't work for many lacy patterns. Clue #1 is available until tomorrow, and the final full pattern will be available through Ravelry (I think) later this fall. This is the just-right project for some of my See Jayne Knits yarn, some that I bought when she first opened her Etsy shop. The yarn is 50%/50% alpaca and wool, in a colorway she calls 'Meadow'. I have 1060 yards, though I don't plan to use much of the second skein, or the shawl will trail on the floor, lol!

I've been very, very good at avoiding all sorts of wonderful closeout yarns at Elann all summer and fall, but Monday they were offering Lana Gatto's Prestige 100% cashmere (!!!) at $7 for 82 yards. I sharpened up my keyboard skills and managed to snare some, in two colors, a lovely Cape Cod blue and a nice Caramel tan. The Caramel will become a manly scarf for a relative (maybe my cousin in Illinois?), and the blue will be perfect for a small shawl and a scarf.

I met my dear friend Knittess for lunch on Monday, over on LA's busy West Side. Lots of knittery show and tell and chat, plus both of us have discovered podcasts and the other joys of MP3 players; she has a Zune and I've been filling up the new iPod Classic. Whenever I'm in the area, I try to stop by Stitches from the Heart, a LYS that supports the children's charity. I found some yarns for immediate-start projects: Bernat's Satin yarn in deep jewel tones for a scarf for the foster kids and in red for Irma's DGD, a request after seeing the yellow hat. The Universal Yarn Classic Worsted LP in shades of brown will become hats for the troops. This is great yarn, 197yds for $6-7, though it's not stocked by many LYSs; check the store locator at the website. BTW, so far 'my' seniors have produced over 350 hats!

My West LA visit also gave me the chance for a quick run through my favorite Barnes & Noble store. I scored lots of bargains, hardcover remaindered copies of Dick Francis and James Patterson, a couple of 35% off trade paperbacks, and the newest paperback about Anne McCaffrey's 'Pern' universe.

I picked up one new hardcover, the story of Dewey Readmore Books, the adorable cat (a pale marmalade tom >>) who put the Spencer, Iowa, library on the world map, which is going to be a quick and fun read. Even this one was at a 40% discount. Love my book bargains. The Spencer link will give you the one-page version of the story. It's a major 'Awwww' tail, um, tale. ;)

Guess I am

2008-09-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

You Are Teal Green

You are a one of a kind, an original person. There's no one even close to being like you.

Expressive and creative, you have a knack for making the impossible possible.

While you are a bit offbeat, you don't scare people away with your quirks.

Your warm personality nicely counteracts any strange habits you may have.

What Color Green Are You?

I found this quizlet via a Raveler who goes by the name of 'shelob'. Those of you who are fans of the LOTR will recognize the name. She has a blog named "Caution Blind Driver". This reminds me of the woman who organized a camping group we used to belong to; her license plate read 'LOSTCAR'. Oddly, she wrote great directions. ;)

Catching Up

2008-09-27T12:33:00.001-07:00

Hi! Bet you thought I'd fallen off the planet. Those reports were premature. Today I join the millions of fans who are mourning the death of Paul Newman. Time passes, and we keep losing actors of his stature. And IMO we don't have replacements for them. Especially not Paul.

In the knitting news, I've finished the charity baby blanket, which took a lot more yarn than I thought. OK, it grew in the making a lot from the original 4-square pattern (Tender Blankie from Wendy Bernard) , too. But honestly, I was amazed that I used nearly 2 full skeins of white in making this, most of which went to the crocheted border; the Simply Soft skeins are 330yds each!

I modified the border from the pattern, adding a row of double crochet between the pick-up row and the doubled-up triple crochet row which gives the ruffled effect. I think it lets the edges of the squares lie flatter.

There was some minor swearing when I discovered that the skein of middle-blue I had was far from a full skein, and there wasn't enough to make the planned 3rd square. Fortunately, one of the benefits of making a blankie in squares is that you can play with the layout in the real world. Acrylic doesn't block or square up as natural fibers do, so I gave up trying to get a shot with the edges straight; the weight and the garter stitch make this very stretchy and I think it will be a lovely baby blanket or laprobe. Even though Simply Soft is much nicer in texture than most acrylics, a quick wash and dry with a dryer sheet makes a big difference in how good it feels. Final dimensions are 40in square. Midnight immediately approved; the moment I spread it out on the floor she moved in.

I also finished the Chevron Scarf. The variegated skein was the border yarn, and that I finished up with about 3in left. It looks terrible unblocked, being basically stockinette, and so curled in on itself; a picture will come later. A friend who's just finished her first lace shawl will be joining me in a blocking party next week; should be fun!

The most exciting part of life Chez CBM has been getting my new iPod. When the new Nano's came out a couple of weeks ago, I was all set to snap up one in purple. But then a knitter at Ravelry told me about the great deals at Apple on refurbished iPods; they come with the same 1 year warranty, and the prices are amazing. I meant to buy the 16GB Nano for $199. But thanks to this iPod-savvy Raveler, I am the proud owner of an 80GB Classic (2007 edition) for only $169. I was even able to find the same nice leather sleeve and carrying case (iSnug) that I have for my 2GB Nano, nearly 65% off at Overstock.com. Woot!!

Needless to say, iTunes has been getting a lot of my business in the last week or so. In spite of adding a lot of new songs from iTunes, and some free ones from Amazon (nice selection, though not Top 40), plus some new audiobooks from the library and a few TV episodes, I've still got 64GB free. I'm a very happy wired-in girl!

Note to the thrifty shopper, courtesy of my clever friend Joan: iTunes (and the Apple store!) offer 4% rebates via Mr. Rebates. All you have to do is to log into Mr Rebates (say, in a separate tab) before you hit the 'Buy' button; the Rebates site will also take you to the vendor, just by clicking on the store name, and there are hundreds of online sites which have rebates. I recently got a rebate check for nearly $31.

Middy is just exhausted from all the activity. She's currently changing her favorite napping spot every few days. Last weekend she was hanging out on one of the footstools; before that it was under the little foyer table. With this one, we have to be careful not to catch her tail in the door. ;) But she seems to be in good spirits and very good appetite, in spite of still weighing in at a dainty 7lbs.

Ka-Thump! Fell Off the No-Yarn Wagon

2008-09-10T11:48:00.001-07:00

Well, just a bit. My dear friend Grace, who's known to the Elann Chat group as Queen of Shawls (QOS), designed a beautiful lace shawl, called Lovin' Comfort Shawl, for a design contest and it's been published by Little Knits. So I had to zip over to buy the pattern. Of course I couldn't just buy a pattern. So I went exploring and settled on some more of the really nice Happy Feet sock yarn I'm using in my Chevron Scarf (see below), in a lovely combo of browns and greyed browns and then fell hard for some Flying Sheep Blue Faced Leicester yarn from Fly Designs. I tried to get a good color match in my photo for the BFL, which is the most gorgeous, saturated deep teal, with very subtle color variations, but I didn't really get the color right. There's 660 yards in the skein, enough for a big shawl.

I'm making very good progress on a baby blanket, my first in a couple of years; I thought I'd sworn off knitting blankets, but a design by the so-talented Wendy Bernard at Knit and Tonic grabbed me. It's called Tender Blankie. Hers was done with 4 squares of the lovely Pakucho cotton; mine seems to have grown beyond just 4 squares. The blanket is made from 11-12in mitered garter stitch squares, sewn together and then adding a little ruffled crochet border. I had Caron's Simply Soft acrylic in shades of Country Blues, plus white and I think this will be a 9-square blanket of blues trimmed in white. I found a 3rd shade of blue after I took the photo. So far I have 3 light blue and 2 dark blue squares done. This is the ultimate no-brainer knitting, so much that I was able to knit a square last night while watching the exciting season premiere of 'Fringe', a combination of weird science and FBI-type investigations. BTW, you can watch the entire episode at the link, and I think there's a repeat later this week. This is definitely on my list of new fall viewing.

The Chevron Scarf has progressed, too; I've added the 2nd skein and it's moving along nicely. I've also gotten a couple of new books and I'm trying to be good and ease back on the knitting, but the blanket squares are sort of like Ripple chips - it's hard to knit just one. But some aches in my shoulder and left thumb are beginning to remind me that I need to be moderate.

And - excitement! - Apple just announced their new iPod Nano, with twice the GBs for the old price. I'm looking forward to reading reviews of some of the new features. DH has decided he likes the iPod, and he's happy with my 2nd Gen 2GB, so there's a new one in my not-too-distant future. There's a purple one, and y'all know about me and purple. ;-D

Knit Knit Here, Knit Knit There

2008-09-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

Suddenly the knitting mojo and interest is back in a big way! I've got 3 different scarves going at the moment, 2 of them rescued from the aged WIP pile.

The pink is the Any-Gauge Reversible Pinecone Scarf from Gardiner Yarn Works. I'm doing this in KnitPicks' Shine cotton yarn. The yarn is nice and silky to the touch, and isn't splitty, but the pattern is full of K2tog's and I'm finding the cotton is hard on my wrists. I don't want to think about how tough K2tbl would be! The pattern is 20 rows long and has pattern stitches on every row, so I'm working closely from the chart; I don't find that the design is in any way intuitive, but it is very pretty. This will be for our seniors' charity boutique.

The lavender scarf is from Allison Jeppson Hyde's SpinDyeKnit website, a variation of feather & fan called Rabbit Tracks. There are only 2 pattern rows, so this moves along fast. The yarn is Elann's lovely Peruvian Baby Silk in the Lotus Blossom colorway. I'm using my new favorite needles, the Harmony wooden circulars with the nice sharp tips, but this rather slippery yarn would be better with bamboo; my old favorite Crystal Palace just don't have a sharp enough tip. This will be a gift to someone someday. Just fun to knit and a good traveling project.

The russet and brown scarf is part of the Fashionably-Late KAL, which was started by some of my Elann friends. It's last year's so-popular Chevron Scarf from Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I'm using one skein of Shibui Knits sock yarn, a nearly-solid russet, and one skein of Plymouth's Happy Feet yarn in shades of browns and russets with one of the shades as close to the Shibui yarn as if they'd been dyed together.

And, not last, here's the A4A vest I started the last weekend in August, my LOTR marathon project. I meant to finish it over the long weekend, but I just never got back to it. I spent a lot of the weekend knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging the Chevron scarf, to get the best combination of needle and yarn and to deal with miscounted stitches, false starts on edgings, etc. The yarns are Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride worsted (teal) and Kona Bay worsted. I picked up both of these very nice wools in super-cheap odd-skein bags at a LYS which closed last year. The pattern is from the Coats & Clark website but modified to be knitted in the round.

In the Knitting News

2008-08-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

I've had another reading binge, so it wasn't until this last week or so that I've picked up my needles. I finished another couple of charity hats tht had been OTN for a while as well as my Woodland scarf. And, in an attack of startitis, I cast on for another few projects. I joined the Fashionably Late KAL of smoke rings and found a pattern that was a really fun and fast knit, so I finished it in a week. The brown hat is Needle Beetle's Seaman's Cap in James C Brett's Marble acrylic yarn; it's lovely stuff to knit with. The pastel hat is from some old (2004) Encore Colorspun, just a simple roll-brim pattern.

Last weekend I decided to have a Lord of the Rings video marathon. Since I didn't have any truly mindless projects going, I started a simple V-neck vest for the A4A youth project. I got to nearly the point of dividing for the armscye while watching the extended versions of Fellowship of the Rings and The Two Towers; I'll continue with it today while watching The Return of the King. This is the first time I've watched these on our big 42in TV (Christmas present). I am again in awe of the wonderful work that Peter Jackson, his cast and crew did in making these epic films.

The Woodland scarf is my 'Elves' project for the 'One Shawl to Rule Them All' KAL at Ravelry. It was supposed to be a stole, but I found that the 2nd skein was so much different in color that I had to frog the entire thing and re-knit as a scarf with just one skein. The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in the 'Beach Fog' colorway; it made me think immediately of Galadriel and Lothlorien. Unblocked it's 6.5in by 54in.

The Smoke Ring is the Wavy Feathers Wimple, knitted with 1.5 skeins of Jojoland Melody, a superwash fingering weight yarn. Although the 2 skeins had the same dyelot and were bought at the same time, the 2nd skein is lighter, but I think in this case the slow transition is acceptable. Unblocked it's 15in long by 16in around.

Both of these patterns are easy and fun, well-suited for light TV watching or SnB knitting. The Wimple, in particular, is a doddle; with the purl stitch every 11st stitch, it's easy to catch any mistakes fast. I did find that using a row counter - in my case, a row-counter bracelet I bought at Hide & Sheep - helped to keep me on the correct alternating row of the 28-row repeat.

And for a bit of cat-love, here's a shot of Midnight lounging in front of our big TV, which radiates a lot of heat; she's not really a Stargate SG-1 fan, but we are, lol!

Let Us Be Thankful

2008-08-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

DH goes to the local farmers' market early every Saturday, to get the best selections. The last few weeks I've been musing about the gorgeous fruit and vegetables that he brings home. Today's is typical of the beauty and variety of the fresh food we enjoy. I know this isn't Thanksgiving, it's Labor Day. But it is the labor of our farmers that provide this, and I am thankful for it. I hope you, too, have a farmers' market nearby and have a chance to appreciate the goodness.

Cindy, This One's For You

2008-08-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

I don't usually 'get' La Cucaracha, a Latino-themed comic in the LA Times. But this one had me nearly ROFL. You'll have to click on the picture to read it.

There Are No Words

2008-08-15T16:35:00.001-07:00

I found out today that one of my dear friends in my seniors' group lost her husband on Monday. Heart attack. He was only 66, and he had been just fine. Last Friday she said they planned to clean out their garage over the weekend, his idea.

I looked for a sympathy card, and I finally chose one and will send it. But really, what can you say to someone whose husband just suddenly died, something that isn't a well-worn platitude? I've been thinking about my friend all afternoon; my heart hurts for her.

But I'm also being thankful that DH just had a major physical and everything, everything is "normal." I guess that's a bit selfish of me, but even after only 20 years together, I can't quite imagine life without him.

May the gods help my friend to bear this grief and eventually to be able to re-make a life on her own.

Counting my Bles... Er, Bags!

2008-08-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

Recently there's been a ton of chat among my knitting friends about the Namaste Cali collection handbags/knitting bags. Elann and Dreamweaver Yarn, in particular, have a decent selection of the colors. I'm a total sucker for the 'Me, too!' bandwagon, and I've been grinding my teeth trying not to hit the 'buy' button. So today I decided to inventory the totes I have. The total is somewhere in the vicinity of 2 dozen plus.

So, to remind me what's in the Bag Stash, I've photographed the really nice bags I have. This first bag, from a gorgeous Laurel Burch fabric, was made for me last year by my dear friend U, with whom I've stayed in Sidney, Vancouver Island, BC. This has 3 nice-sized pockets.

The rest of these bags I purchased over 15 years from Dancing Cat Bags, a woman-owned business which produced the bags here in Burbank. All of these bags are the most amazingly durable totes you can imagine, made with lovely tapestry fabrics, heavy satin linings and never-fail zippers.

First is what I call my 'seniors' bag; this holds all the stuff that I take to my seniors' charity knitting/crochet group, so any patterns, ideas, FOs, etc. that I have for the group during the week just goes into this and I'm ready to go. It's big enough to hold a baby-ghan either finished or in process, with all the yarn that takes. This is Dancing Cat's 'El Grande Tote', and it's huge: 24in x 17in, though there's only one zip pocket.

Then there's my 'Multi-Purpose Bag', the one that I usually take with me to my Friday night knitting group. This was my first Dancing Cat Bag, bought back in 1991; it was my briefcase-equivalent for several years of daily use, and it's gone on many trips as my in-cabin tote. It's a messenger bag, really, and there are small pockets, medium pockets, and 2 dividers in the main section.

These days, I'm carrying a 'Deluxe Zippered Tote' as my handbag/small knitting project bag. I have 2 of these, one a deep red with black/white/silver patterns; the fall-colored one will probably rotate in after October. These have a zip compartment and 2 nice big pockets, right-sized for sunglasses, cell phone, etc. There's plenty of room for a knitting project bag, on top of all my purse-type things. I have a small cosmetic bag that holds a small set of essential knitting notions as well as lipstick and so forth.

Not in use right now are 3 'Essential Totes'. These are plenty big to be project bags or unstructured handbags; there's only one zip compartment in these.

Here's where I quit counting: This drawer and this cubby are jammed full of other totes, from Barnes & Noble, from Lands' End and from all sorts of other sources. I've culled from here once or twice already, and I suppose I should do it again.

Midnight is exhausted from helping me consider all the options. She's 90-leven to our zero when it comes to getting her medications down her; she's gotten much better at spitting and foaming them out while we've used up all our ideas - kitty burritos (wrapping her mummy-fashion in a towel), smashing them into powder to be mixed with her canned food, pill pockets, pill pusher-thingys, etc. But she's got a good appetite and doesn't seem to be drinking too much, so we have our fingers crossed that she's having a good bit of life right now. She's spending more time grooming herself, which is also a good sign.

Moving Slowly, but Moving

2008-08-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

I'm still here, still recovering, still very little stamina. But there is a tunnel and I'm seeing some light way down there. DH and I have been walking around our (very long) block at night, after the temps drop out of the 80s, and I'm getting faster.

I've read my way (for the 2nd time) through most of Dana Stabenow's 'Kate Shugak' books, up to about pub. date 2000 - I'm missing a couple of books at that point, and neither Amazon, Borders, nor B&N has them in stock. These, and her 4 'Liam Campbell' books, have meant a lot of nose-to-page extreme close-up examination of the big AAA road atlas of Alaska (bigger than our world atlas pages). Yeah, not many roads in Alaska, but still, AAA has good maps. DH is a very good source of info on Alaska; he spent 7 years working for a major CPA firm in Anchorage, and did financial audits all over the state, including around Nome and Barrow.

Yeah, I know, Stabenow's 'universe' isn't quite the same as ours, but it's close; Kate does live in a version of Wrangell-St Elias park, and there really is a Bristol Bay (Liam). Has anyone besides me noticed that there are significant similarities between the 4 Liam Campbell stories and Nora Roberts' Northern Lights? Cop falls to bottom of his world, moves to back-of-beyond in Alaska, has hot-but-complicated love affair with local female air-taxi pilot, finds decades-old murder to solve.

Haven't had the attention span to knit much; trust me, reading is easier to stick with. I also haven't done much blog reading, though I've been checking in at the Elann Chat Center as well as my emails.

I have to spend some TV time, though; I'm behind 6 episodes of Doctor Who. And 4 of Stargate Atlantis. TiVo is getting full.

More later, and thanks so much to all of you who have commented and sent warm, healing thoughts. Mwwahhh!

On Hold

2008-07-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Marie emailed to find out why I've been absent from the online community. Early last week I came down with a very nasty bug that caused severe dehydration and all the side effects. I spent a week in the hospital and just got home Tuesday afternoon. All is OK, no permanent damage to my kidneys, and I'm on the mend. But I'm likely to be extremely low-energy for the next couple of weeks. I don't even have the oomph to answer many emails.

I found that being a blogger helped with the frustrations and annoyances of being in the hospital, since I could think about how to write about them, which helped to distract me. I'm not going to go into details, which I think will be way TMI, but it was a difficult few days, though thankfully not painful. I will share this: You know you're REALLY thirsty when the breath strip won't melt on your tongue!

I'm way behind with reading blogs and with Ravelry, but I'll catch up. My dear friends here, especially my Friday night knitting group, were wonderful at keeping my spirits up, including sending the most cheerful bouquet of flowers. DH was just amazing, bringing this and that to me, and even letting me talk him through how to delete and add audiobook chapters to my iPod - he's never used iTunes before.

A Knitted Hug

2008-07-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Marie (Smariek) posted today about a secret project that many of us Elannites (as we've come to call ourselves) worked on the last month. Benne, one of the first members of the Elann Chat Center group, has been through a couple of serious health problems, and most recently had surgery on her eyes to save her sight. We decided that she needed a' knitted hug', and so Libby organized a community-knit blanket. Each of us knitted a 12in square, which Libby and others sewed together and added a beautiful border. You can see pictures of the finished blanket at Feather Song's blog here.

Marie's post has identified several of the squares, with links to the blogger's posts. Alice, Jamie and I knitted them during our knitting retreat in mid-June. Here are pictures of my square and theirs.

Mine, the lacy green one, is the Dayflower facecloth pattern, which I found on Marie's blog, though the motif is found in quite a few patterns, and is one of my favorites.

Jamie's green square is done in an arrowhead sort of pattern - sorry, I forget the exact name.

Alice's lovely deep purple is a motif she took from one of Elsebeth Lavold's patterns, Gyrid, I think.

I finally got to meet Benne on my Vancouver trip; she is a warm and caring person, and being a part of a group knitting project to remind her how much she is valued by the Elann group and each of us was a pleasure. It was a huge amount of work for Libby and the others who organized and put this together, and I thank them for it very much.

Honest, I Really Have Been Knitting

2008-07-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

What with the overdose of knitting I did in Vancouver and the resultant break from knitting that I had to give my tendinitis afterward, the knitting progress has been slow. Plus my Woodland Shawl had to be totally frogged and turned into a much-narrower scarf when I found that the 2nd skein I'd planned to use was too different a shade; in the skein it looked nearly identical. As written and knitted, the one skein measured about 14x42, far too short for a shawl or even a scarf. Arghh! DH told me that I should be comforted that I got more knitting fun from the same skein of very nice yarn - yep, he's become a Knitter's Spouse.

Yesterday in a burst of energy, I washed and blocked two lacy FOs (and DH's Rockport Vest and a pair of socks). For the first time I used blocking wires, courtesy of the friendly guys at the local welding shop - 3ft lengths of stainless steel, in size 3/32 of an inch diameter, 15 in a pound for $16. Neither lace project has points, so I'm not sure that weaving the wires through the edges saved any significant amount of time compared to using just T-pins, but there was less fiddling around to get the edge really straight.

So - herewith the FOs. Both are patterns from the so-talented Cindy Guggemos, aka BaxterKnits, and the triangular shawl is the 'test knit' that I started weeks and weeks ago.

The shawl is her Hudson River Triangle, knitted with one skein of Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn, color Blue Lagoon. Unblocked, this measured 46x23; as blocked, it's 64x32.

I made one major modification to the final pattern; at the top edge, I knitted several rows of stockinette and then a row of yo, k2tog before binding off. I think this matches the yarnovers on the edges of the shawl nicely, though even blocked, the stockinette rows make the top edge tend to roll a bit. Cindy's pattern is written to have a nearly-invisible edging on the triangular and top edgings both. But I couldn't resist twiddling with the pattern.

The scarf is Cindy's Dazed and Confused Zigzag Scarf, knitted with 2 skeins of KnitPick's Gloss yarn in Burgundy. I didn't block this as severely as the shawl, since it was already rather long. Blocked, it's 88x11.

Both of these patterns are excellent ones for a traveling project, since the patterns are easily memorized. Cindy's patterns are well-written and she's really good about answering any questions you may have.

BTW, I was having the devil of a time trying to get good color today, so the closeup of the top edging of the Hudson River shawl is closer to the real color, and the Zigzag Scarf is a much deeper brownish burgundy. Please - click on the photos to see them better - the lace is much prettier than you can tell from the small pictures.

The Negative Side of the Olympics

2008-07-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

I don't want to get into the debate about whether athletes should or should not participate in the Beijing Olympics. That gets far too heated, and my personal opinions are still in flux about it.

But when I was in Vancouver, the site of the 2010 Winter Games, they were a topic of discussion in terms of the impact on the residents of the area. And, oddly enough, this week I came across a blog post at And She Knits Too which led me to thinking about it again. My friend KJ (aka Lunadog) posted a comment there, which you can read here. The blog also has a link to some books about the issues of the Olympics, which sound like interesting reads, though the author is quite anti-Olympics as they have become in our current world.

The point of my Vancouver friends' comments is that the Olympics isn't really any lasting benefit to the majority of the Vancouver population - although the development will bring some additional jobs, during the construction of the venues and the hotels/motels/restaurants will be full during the Games themselves. But the average citizen will have major construction delays to deal with as they get around the area, the tickets are far out of reach for most budgets, and after the Games are over, there will be limited positive effects on their incomes for the long term. Obviously the local Olympics Committee says otherwise, in the best corporate-speak. But the local sponsors and contractors, hotel owners and so forth will certainly benefit. The rich do get richer, don't they? Plus I understand that Whistler, where the skiing-related events will occur, is difficult to reach (Mapquest says it's 70-some miles from Vancouver proper) and the existing roads are dangerous and far from adequate for the sort of traffic that will be using them. Building a better road? When did any of us encounter major road construction that can be done in less than a couple of years in the city, let alone in a mountain area?

As it happens, I lived for many years with a side effect of the 1976 Olympics that didn't happen in Denver; it was turned down by the residents, who thankfully had a vote on the matter. My condo development was built by a Californian company that built on speculation that the Games would happen there. And clearly some graft and bribery went into the construction, since we discovered to our sorrow that the insulation was flimsy at best and several aspects of the plumbing failed to take Denver winters into account. Two out of the four condos in each building had water pipes running up exterior walls with no - that's right, NO! - insulation around them. When I moved there in 1978, I found that the ceiling insulation didn't even cover the ceiling beams. Those of you who live in climates like Denver's can imagine the problems - frozen and burst water pipes, water damage, etc. The financial impacts were horrible, both for the residents and the condo association; at one point we nearly lost our blanket insurance policy and the association's finances were so bad that many lenders wouldn't issue mortgages for the units. (Yeah, I wound up on the condo board.)

I understand that some low-income housing will be demolished to provide housing and other structures for the Olympics. I wonder if some of the new housing will be pushed through under marginal standards, with the excuse of the 2010 deadline. How will the low-income families displaced be housed, either during the construction or after the Olympics?

My conversations in Vancouver and my housing problems in Denver don't begin to constitute a thorough look into the side effects of hosting an Olympics, as they affect the residents. But I'm interested in the experiences of others who live or have lived in an Olympic host city. Most of the comments I've heard about the 1984 Olympics here in LA only say that, because employers cooperated with flextime for their workforce, the traffic flow was the best in anyone's memory. Were you living in Atlanta (1996), Calgary (1988), or Salt Lake City (2002)? If so, please speak up about your experiences.

Oh, yeah, this is a Knitting Blog!

On the knitting-related front, yesterday I had my first physical therapy session for my tendinitis, which has in the last couple of weeks caused some nerve tingling in my hand as well as the pain in my arm. Diagnosis: poor posture with rounded back and hunched shoulders, too many hours at one time at the computer and knitting or reading (all involving much the same body position) and not enough exercise. So I got a wonderful neck and shoulder massage, exercises to do with my shoulders and back to stretch my shortened chest muscles, and orders to take frequent breaks from the computer or knitting or reading, and to WALK more. I go back tomorrow and I have a couple more appointments for next week. I've been doing the exercises, I've put pillows under my elbows while knitting and reading (another change), and I plan a walk today after it cools off. But I just realized I've been here Net surfing and typing for most of 2 hours. Gotta get that kitchen timer in here. Guess I'll go wash and block a couple of FOs so I can show them to you.

MeMe Movies

2008-07-13T14:29:00.000-07:00

I found this on Knitting Knot's blog. She's Csquared on Ravelry, and we've been chatting about our furbabies. She's also fluent in LOLspeak, and I've been catching up on her blog posts. Another funny knitter from Ontario.

One movie that made you laugh: Big
One movie that made you cry: Philadelphia
One movie that you loved as a child: Lady & the Tramp
One movie you've seen more than once: Young Frankenstein (dozens and dozens of times - long story)
One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Can't Stop the Music, the Village People movie - so awful, campy and yet upbeat
One movie you hated: anything Rambo
One movie that scared you: Wait Until Dark
One movie that bored you: Gosford Park
One movie that made you happy: Pleasantville
One movie that made you miserable: Midnight Cowboy
One movie that you weren't brave enough to see: The Exorcist (read the book- enuf said)
One movie character you've fallen in love with: James Bond as played by Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan
The last movie you saw: Pirates of the Caribbean, whatever the 2nd one is called
The next movie you hope to see: The Hobbit, whenever Peter Jackson finishes it

I'm supposed to tag people, but I'm going to let you all decide on this one yourselves. This meme got me to thinking about the movies I like and those popular ones I don't have any interest in seeing. And reinforced my opinion that the movie premium channels are a waste of money.

Alice's Knitting Retreat, Part 2 - The People and the Knitting

2008-07-08T14:08:00.001-07:00

Alice plans the retreat classes to provide a good understanding of the knitting techniques, so we knitted a lot of samples, including center-increase squares, center-decrease squares, left- and right-decrease triangles, pentagons, hexagons and so forth. I found the pentagons and hexagons to be the most difficult; I didn't have short circulars so I defaulted to dpns, and may I say that maneuvering 5 or 6 dpns is tricky! Working over a table really helps, since the weight of the piece can rest on the table-top. The largish piece in the upper left corner of the photo is a pentagonal motif based on a pattern in Nora Gaughan's Knitting Nature book; Alice has devised a scarf made with two long pieces joined to adjacent edges of the motif, so that the lacy motif hangs at the back of the neck. Sorry, no photo.

Since Alice supports a charity group providing clothing for kids and babies in northern British Columbia, several of her examples meant to inspire us were baby items, and these two jackets in particular caught my eye. In the left photo, large squares made with internal decreases are joined to make the body and sleeves of a jacket. In the red photo on the right, she has used rectangles, decreased from outside to the center and bound off with a 3-needle join. The red yarn in both jackets is the same, one of the many bargains Alice finds at Elann.com; I think this was a bag sale yarn

For my 'graduation' project, I chose a shawl made from triangles, called Tumbling Triangles, from Ginger Luters' book. I've only finished the first section, but I'm very pleased with how the yarns work together. The solid is Nashua Creative Focus worsted in 3317 mint, and the variegated is Lang's Mille Colori, color 697.0006 both from the Stitches shop in Ganges.

Alice had made up this pattern using a plain green wool and Colinette Jitterbug (left), and at least one of our group really wanted to take the model home, lol!

Our 'class' was quite small, just 3 full-time knitters, with Margaret, an SSI resident, and Dani, Alice's daughter, joining us for a couple of mornings. I'd never met Jamie (another Elannite!), but Lorraine was part of the class I took from Alice in 2005. Here are pictures of Dani and Alice and of Jamie (red skirt) with Lorraine in the foreground. Margaret is on the far right in the group photo, which we took as Lorraine was leaving to head back home. Um, that's me in pink - I'm always the short one.

The second 'class' was a full complement of knitters, most of them women I've 'met' only through Elann, plus they had several knitters join them for just a day or so. Uleta (my hostess in Sidney) and I drove over one day to meet the others for lunch.

I got to meet Elannites Amy (in pale green),

Les (in red/white/black),

Benne (in mocha) and

Chris, Cheryl, and Naomi (in the middle).

There were others I didn't get to meet, since we were just there for lunch, but I did get to meet a new person I hope to get to know better in person. She's asked to remain anonymous, but she lives not too far from Burbank, and I hope we'll be able to plan a meet-up sometime.

Alice's Knitting Retreat , Part 1 - The Place

2008-07-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

Yikes! Where did the days go? I've been knitting and reading and surviving yet another SoCal heat wave, and haven't followed up my posts about the reason I went to Vancouver this year: Alice T's fabulous knitting retreat on Salt Spring Island (SSI). Bad knitter, bad!

Alice is a wonderful knitter and extraordinarily patient teacher whom I met via the Elann Ch at Center; she holds annual knitting retreats, with a different technique being featured each year. This year it was modular knitting, using ideas from Iris Schreier, Ginger Luters and Nora Gaughan. In the photo, she's modeling a tunic sweater of her own design, with modular squares making up a central front panel (there's a herringbone panel on the back)

The retreat can manage about 8 knitters, with accomodations in a lovely B&B farmhouse on a working sheep farm at the north end of Salt Spring, a lovely island just off the south-central coast of Vancouver Island. Pictures are of the farmhouse, showing the deck and the view to the west, across the channel separating the two islands. For less than the cost of a decent hotel room for a week, Alice provides all meals, on-island transport, and a week's worth of knitting instruction, fun afternoon outings and lovely knittery days. The food is fabulous, prepared by Jenny, the retreat's chef (shown here with her usual impish grin), and while you get 5 meals daily (breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea and dinner - with wine), she serves right-sized portions and lots of veggies, so weight gain isn't much of a problem. Though Jenny does make some luscious desserts; the best was this orange-chocolate cheesecake, just big enough for the 7 of us eating that evening.

There's only one knitting shop on Salt Spring, in Ganges (detail map), the main town, but Stitches Quilt Shop has a very good selection of yarns, including some brands I don't see in the SoCal area. We found plenty of fiber goodies to bring home or to add to the yarns we brought for our projects at the retreat.

Part of the fun in visiting Salt Spring in the summer is their weekly Saturday market, full of gorgeous hand-crafted items and yummy food treats. There are more than 20 artisans on-island with studios open to a self-guided tour, and even more show up at the market. There is also an artisan's collective, with top-quality art, jewelry, woodworking and fiber crafts on display year-round. The SSI woodcrafters are particularly well known for their work with the lovely reddish arbutus wood (known in the US as madrona). Some of the bowls in this shop's display are turned to less than a ¼in thickness.

DH and I are both fans of hand-crafted items from beautiful woods, and I brought home a lovely bowl from my first visit to SSI, in 2005. This year I fell hard for this little box made from a red-maple burl. The actual color is between that shown in the two pictures.

There are so many photos I want to share with you that I'm dividing this post into two, with the second part being about the knitting itself and the fun knitters who were a part of this retreat.

Vancouver Trip - My Wonderful Friends

2008-07-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

I am blessed with some very good friends in Vancouver. I met KJ and U by way of the About.com Knitting Forum back in 2004, and they generously have offered me lodging on all three of my trips to Vancouver.

KJ lives in one of the suburbs of Vancouver, in a lovely condo development, surrounded by all the lush trees and shrubbery that, to me, says Vancouver. She is a woman of many talents: she knits, crochets and spins; she's been part of the fun at SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and currently does belly-dancing and other forms of eastern folk dance; and she is now Volunteer Coordinator for the Big Heart Rescue Society, which rescues animals primarily from the northern parts of British Columbia.** She adopted Cory a couple of years ago; he's a big boy, with a particularly noble look to him, courtesy of his part-collie ancestry.

Then last year, as the Society members say, she 'flunked' Fostering 101 and adopted Maddie. Maddie had just joined the family when I visited last year, and she has definitely thrived under KJ's care; she has put on some much-needed weight and is much better socialized with people and other dogs. I have to say that, coming from a feline-dominated household, life with 2 large dogs is quite a change. But Cory in particular seems to like me (or maybe just my tummy rubs!), since he spent most nights sleeping curled up next to me.

While I was staying with KJ, we had a chance to spend a little time with Jayne, she of the very-popular Etsy shop, SeeJayneKnit Yarns. Jayne's yarns have been flying out of the shop as fast as she can dye them, and her newest yarns, hand-dyed in the roving and hand-spun by Jayne herself, are selling even better. We spent a bit of time at lunch with Jayne at one of her favorite pubs, and then she invited us to play in her fiber toy store. WOW! KJ brought home some roving in the tropical-toned Fishy Wishy in a Dishy colorway (she promptly spun it up!), and I scored 2 big skeins of the superwash merino/tencel blend fingering/sportweight in the gorgeous Sand and Sea Glass color. I'd link the colorways for you, but there aren't any for sale right now; they're very popular. Here's a photo of Jayne (left) and KJ, ready to dive into some home-baked cookies.

I spent the last couple of days of my trip in Sidney on Vancouver Island, staying with U. She's a lovely woman, with a beautiful townhouse. Her garden, lush and colorful, has many plants that I'm familiar with, though mine don't do as well as hers, having to tolerate the summer heat here in the infamous San Fernando Valley. I especially enjoyed the honeysuckle vine, which brings back memories of the big trellised plant in my grandparents' yard.

U has traveled extensively, and has great stories of her trips, including some of the terrific knitting cruises she's been on. Besides her fine knitting skills, she's a talented seamstress, and I enjoyed seeing the results, especially the patterns she designs herself, and the ease with which she alters purchased clothing to fit properly. Ripping out shoulders to re-fit them? Ohh-kay.

Sidney has a half-dozen or more general and specialty bookstores (CatBOOKmom, right?), mostly in and near the rather nice shopping area along Beacon St. We stopped into Beacon Yarns, where I spent time fondling the largish selection of Fleece Artist and Handmaiden yarns. Two skeins of Handmaiden's Camelspin (silk & camel) laceweight and a skein of Silk Twist (wool/silk) followed me out the door. (BTW, I still haven't made a visit to the famed Beehive Wool Shop in Victoria; after all the yarny fun I've had elsewhere in the Vancouver/Gulf Islands area, I can't quite imagine my Visa card surviving the experience.) And Salty's, the pub we visited, had hands-down the best fish and chips I've ever had. I think my grandma would have called it a corn-flake batter - light, extra-crisp and not the least greasy. YUM!

During my 2005 trip, I discovered a terrific hard cider, sadly not for sale outside of British Columbia, Growers' Extra Dry Apple (far left). This is dry, dry, dry, with just a hint of apple, and the perfect cold drink, a great choice for many occasions instead of beer.

I have searched in vain for a substitute here in SoCal, though I have to say that Hornsby's Crisp Apple (left) is a decent substitute for Growers' Granny Smith variety (right), somewhat less dry and crisp than the Extra Dry. If anyone figures out how to safely bootleg Growers' to SoCal, *please* let me know!! As if providing me lodging, transportation, and great pub food are not enough, my dear friends pre-stock their fridges with Growers', just for me.

Here on Canada Day 2008, I salute my Canadian friends, their hospitality, their lovely Vancouver area, and their Growers' cider! Cheers!!

** I warn you, if you read the stories about the animals they have saved, you may find yourself in tears. Some of these pets, now loving companions, had terrible lives before they were rescued. But you will also read about the wonderful, generous hearts of the people who take these animals into their homes.

Vancouver Trip - Family by Love

2008-06-29T12:09:00.001-07:00

There's so much to blog about from my Vancouver trip that I'm going to break it up into several posts. One of the most-fun parts was a little side trip from Vancouver to Bellingham, WA, where part of our family-by-love lives. My dear friend KJ was willing to drive down, about a 50-mile trip, plus the delay at the border.

BTW, for those of us cringing at our gasoline prices, the Canadians have been paying much more for quite a while; it cost $67 for the 12-13 gallons it took to fill up the little Honda CR-V. That's $1.443/liter, and there are 3.78 liters per gallon, making the cost about $5.45/gallon. On Salt Spring Island, where I went for my knitting retreat, I was told that they pay the highest price in Canada, $1.60/liter when I was there.

We had a great visit, meeting my new 6-week-old DGS by-love Tonio and getting big hugs from the very DGD-BL Rita. She has become quite a pianist, and is learning composition as well as the usual lessons. We had a lovely Mexican-food lunch, at a small place which serves the biggest burritos I've ever seen; KJ and I were able to share one, and nearly couldn't finish it. The hostess kindly snapped a photo of all of us, with KJ on the right.

Before we left Bellingham, we stopped at a LYS. Y'see, on the way to the house we got a bit confused in our directions, due to the street signage saying the street was one name turning right and another, not the one we wanted, on the left where we thought we should turn. So we turned the way we thought was correct and then decided to pull over and ask for directions. There was a nice little pedestrian-friendly shopping area, and we just happened to find a parking spot 3 doors from- ta da! - a yarn shop! A quick peek said - gotta come back! - and so we did. Apple Yarns is a great little shop, friendly and with a good variety of yarns. I brought home some Koigu and ShibuiKnits from their very nice selection; oh, yum!! I must be planning on making several versions of the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I find the pattern as written a bit boring, but there are so many easy changes to make in the feather-and-fan pattern that these won't look exactly alike. I think. It's a plan, anyway.

Home Again, Part One

2008-06-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my lovely trip to Vancouver. DH picked me up at LAX at midnight, bless him! My usually-effective EarPlanes failed me on the flight from Seattle, so I'm partially deaf in my left ear and my head feels stuffed with cotton. It's 78.6F right now on our back porch, with 55% humidity - that's very high for us - so I'm missing the crisper air I enjoyed the last 12 days.

I have to unpack, do laundry, and try to get back on purring terms with Midnight. I have pictures to share, stories to tell, and lots of yarny goodness to show off. Right now I'm going to overdose on decongestants, which will eventually get my hearing back.

Missed y'all!!

This and That and New Baby Pix

2008-06-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm off tomorrow for the Vancouver area, for a week-long knitting retreat on Salt Spring Island, and some extra days to visit with friends. I'll be back in the small hours of June 24, exhausted but with many happy memories.

I was zipping around Burbank today, getting last-minute errands done. We may be part of greater metropolitan LA, but we're a small town. Residents complain about traffic congestion if they have to wait through 2 lights to cross an intersection in the middle of evening rush hour. Our city council has spent hours and hours and many, many $$ over the last 2+ years to consider if we should change the local ordinances about the height and composition of fences, arbors and so on in front yards. Yep, our government $$ at work on minutiae.

What I saw and found so typically Burbank today:

Gas prices for regular, $4.61 on one block, $4.65 on the next.
Seeing the same woman coming out of the drugstore that I saw coming out of the bank. Don't know her, but I remembered those wild print capri pants.
The bank teller insisting that I was eligible for a $13,000 credit limit on a Visa, in spite of my repeated statements that we *have* a Visa account with them. She even called in a reinforcement, her supervisor. The come-on? I'd get 'Reward Points' of 1.5cents for every $1 charged. Whoopee. Our current card has Rewards, and I've never found anything I want to use them for.
A woman at the nail salon talking to the owner's teen-aged daughter about having told stories to her when she was still a toddler and the woman was getting her nails done. That's shop loyalty for you!

I love Burbank.

And, just so you know, our 3rd grandkid by love arrived last week. Sophia May was delivered at her grandparents' home by Dad and a midwife after a short labor. She was nearly 8lbs. Here's Miss Sophia and her happy Mom and Dad.

I Hate My Cable Service!!

2008-06-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

Let me once again add my name to the millions of people who hate their cable TV provider. Arrggghhh! Somewhere recently - Consumer Reports? Parade Magazine? - I saw a mini-poll which said the two most common causes of complaints about and the most dissatisfaction with customer service are cable TV providers and cell-phone companies. Does this surprise anyone?

I wrote a couple of months ago about the problems we had with disassembling our audio/video setup to change to a new TV/audio system stand. And I wrote last fall about the 'not ready for real service' new program from AT&T, called U-Verse; we were unsuspecting beta testers, marked our service "Not Acceptable", and sent back the equipment (their cost). Charter and U-Verse are the only two choices for cable here in Burbank. Monopoly much? (Is there such a word as 'duopoly'?)

After hours of fiddling , our cable TV boxes are - mostly - playing nicely with our TiVo. There was absolutely NO support for this from Charter; the folks at TiVo tried really hard to help, but mostly it just took persistence on my part. There are these two tiny receptors that have to work with an infrared light on the cable box, and they have to be positioned "just right"by minute increments, which TiVo can't do for me. The main set-up, which runs our big-screen TV, works well. Our former main TV moved to the living room and caused more trouble, even when I set it up exactly the same as the other. But it's been working for a couple of months. This is our main back-up TV, used for watching programs when there are 2 on at once that we want to see live, or for recording conflicting programs. So this isn't on every day.

Today I sat down to watch the movie of Nora Roberts' novel 'Sanctuary' with Melissa Gilbert, one I missed the first time these movies aired. Eeek! The cable box was turned off, so there was no picture. I turned it on and clicked to the recorded programs. Gah! I had 2 hours of black screens. Two other shows I recorded late last week or over the weekend were also black. For reasons unknown, the cable box turns itself off sometimes. Which means TiVo records black.

I called Charter. I've recently found that saying "real person" repeatedly can cut through a voice-activated phone tree and get a live person much faster. Try it. Of course Leslie asked all the identifying-your-account questions first. This is just a ploy to give the customer-service people a chance to plug the services you don't have, while you're trying to maintain patience to get back to the problem you called about. We don't have or want their DVR service (we have lifetime service with TiVo, no monthly payments); we don't have or want their Internet service; we don't have or want any premium channels. No. We like our Basic/Extended service. No; nothing more.

Finally, she shut up long enough to listen to my question: "Is there a time limit that the cable box will to stay on when it's not in use?" Her: "Your TiVo is incompatible with our service." Me: "No. It works just fine when the cable box is on. Why does your cable box turn itself off?" Her: 'Your TiVo is incompatible with our service. You could upgrade to our DVR service." And repeat. After the third round, I conceded. "So, the whole problem is the TiVo?" Her: "Yes." Me: "OK. Thank you for not solving the problem." And I hung up very gently.

If I didn't mind hurting my hands so that I can't knit, I'd go pound on something.

The reason I never feel like ranting about my cell-phone service? I have a simple, prepaid plan with Virgin Mobile; my minimum cost for an entire year is $60, and I don't spend much more than that. The $$ never run out if you don't use them. I can call anywhere in North America, anytime, for 18 cents/minute. I just can't call from Canada. I love my Virgin Mobile!!

California has a new law coming into effect on July 1, making it a ticketable offense to talk on a hand-held phone while driving. I don't know how well this will be enforced, but it's certainly going to boost the sales of those on-your-ear phones. Is that Bluetooth?

I have no knitting news.

Quick Hats and More Tonio

2008-06-01T11:38:00.001-07:00

Yikes! I realized on Friday that I hadn't made anything for charity in May, one of the few Mission Possible 2008 goals I've been making. So I cast on for the Seaman's Cap from Brenda Zuk at NeedleBeetle, using some new James G Brett Marble I picked up last week at Stitches from the Heart in Santa Monica and finished it. I still had 'hat knitting' urges, so I grabbed some Plymouth Encore Colorspun DK from old stash and whipped up a basic 72st roll-brim hat. I admit that I stayed up way too late Friday night working on the Seaman's Cap, but I am a total sucker for long-run stripes, and the Marble is a really nice acrylic, not squeaky on the needles at all. The marled effect is great with the multiple plies. The Colorspun isn't bad, either, with its 25% wool content. Edith makes such a nice model for hats (Edith Head, get it? I crack myself up.)

A week or so ago I fell madly for a colorway from another indie dyer, The Woolen Rabbit . I saw Kim's Oh, Canada scarf (an Anne Hanson design) made from this yarn in her projects at Ravelry and had to have some of my own. This is Opulence, a 50/50 merino/silk, in the shade she calls Moroccan Spice, 300yds, which will be a nice scarf. This is the color of cayenne and paprika, rich as can be. Yum!! Small world - Kim is a fan of Cavalier King Charles spaniels and knows Jean, one of my Elannite friends, also a fan.

We also have new-baby cuteness. Mom Anna sent a photo of Tonio on the so-cheerful baby quilt I sent, quilted by one of my talented seniors. Tonio is clearly ready for a BIG hug!

And while I was carrying the camera around, Midnight was in an adorable pose, so I just had to snap a picture. She's lost a bit of ground in our fight against her kidney and thyroid problems, and while her appetite is better with a change in her canned food, she's not yet put back the one-pound weight loss from a couple of months ago. She's down to under 7 pounds, which is a really tiny, skinny girl, even though her long fur hides it a bit. The change in food may not be better for her ailments, but she had nearly stopped eating the canned prescription foods. It's all trade-offs now, I guess. I think she's feeling better, too, since she's doing more grooming.

Meme Again

2008-05-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

Cindy, aka Baxterknits, has "challenged" me to a meme. Challenge accepted *G*

Here are the rules:Rules:* Answer at least three of the questions. Yes, I know a few look time-consuming and there are several of them. That's why I only ask for three. See? I'm nice!* Post them and the rules on your blog, and please link back to me here. Pretty please?*

Comment here telling me and the rest of our little party where you're at and link to yourself.That's all!* Oh yeah, don't forget to tag others!

What's the last book you read that you thought was really super, inspiring, you'd recommend it to most anyone?

Any of Jennifer Chiaverini's Quilters books. By chance one day, I bought 'Circle of Quilters', which is in the middle, and I immediately had to read more. 'Circle' tells of 5 quilters, how they came to quilting and how it has affected their lives. I'm not a quilter and don't want to be, but I found the stories to be extraordinarily similar to how I - and other knitters I've talked to - feel about knitting and its effect on us. You can get an omnibus of the first 3 novels for about $13 at Amazon, and I'm sure libraries carry these.

What food totally grosses you out, you'd never be able to touch it? Ew. Gag. *hurl*

Snakes or insects. Blech! I've eaten a lot of different kinds of game - elk, deer, antelope, rabbit, squirrel, and yes, Rocky Mountain oysters (no big deal) - and those are really good, especially when cooked properly. I've eaten snails and that's mostly garlic; I have no particular urge to eat more. Raw oysters, yep; DH and I enjoy them.

Did you ever watch a scary movie that frightened you so much you were afraid of the dark afterward? I mean like you're lying in bed trying to sleep, but you have to pee, but you're scared to get up. It doesn't have to be recently; could be when you were a kid. So what movie was it?

I don't usually watch scary movies, though the trailers for 'Jaws' freaked me out and I wouldn't to see it for years and years; finally saw it on cable. I think 'Wait Until Dark' is one of the scariest movies ever.

Is there a song that makes you dance every time you hear it? Would you tap you feet and sing along to it in public?

'Footloose', from the movie; 'Bailamos' by Enrique Iglesias (it's my ringtone on my cell); and 'Shall We Dance' from The King and I.

Tattoos: yes or no? Do you have any? Tell us! Do you think they're gross? TELL US!

Don't have, don't want, don't understand why others want them, especially those people who have big ones or all-over ones. In the words of Robert Heinlein and Michael, I don't grok it.

When's the last time you laughed so hard your ribs ached and/or you nearly peed yourself? What made you do it?

This little video from Cute Overload was the most recent.

Draw or doodle a picture of your pet(s) and post it if possible. Nothing fancy, don't be shy!

No drawing skills here. None.

Go through a stack or box of your old music. Stuff that you may not have heard in years. Pick one and tell us about it. Is it as good (or as bad) as you remember?

I've done some of this recently, to add to my iTunes library. Judy Collins - 'Both Sides Now', 'Send in the Clowns', 'Who Knows Where the Time Goes?' - all good folk. Chuck Mangione - 'Chase the Clouds Away', 'Feels So Good', etc. - oh, YEAH! Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison album - uh, no! (I lived in Wyoming for 10 years, had to listen).

Do you still sleep with a stuffed animal? We won't laugh!

No, but there are quite a few bears around here.

Ok, I'll tag smariek , TracyKM, and Joan If any of you eschew memes you're off the hook.

The Sticks and Strings are Moving Along

2008-05-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back to doing some knitting, picked it up over the weekend. My good friend Cindy, aka Baxterknits, has a new shawl pattern coming out, and I was jazzed when she asked me to proof-read it. I'm not so advanced a knitter that I can do much knitting in my head (my imagination is something else, lol!), so I cast on and zoomed along.

Like the other patterns from Baxterknits that I've done, this is a good design, more complicated-looking than it is to knit, and a good project for traveling or SnBs. It's essentially a 4-row pattern, which I found easier to knit from the written directions than the charts. This is also another of her patterns that can be done with those lovely one-skein-wonders we have in our stash. This yarn is Dream in Color's Smooshy sock yarn in Blue Lagoon, done on a US4 needle. The final version of the pattern should be available soon at Ravelry and Cindy's blog.

Last year Cindy authored a beginner's sock book for Leisure Arts, 'I Can't Beli eve I'm Knitting Socks', (it's part of a Leisure Arts series) and there are a lot of nice patterns and how-to's for newbie sock knitters. This year, she's done a book of kids' knitted designs, 'Lots of Love Knits for Kids; I haven't seen this one, but the cover is really cute! You may be able to find these at Michaels' and Jo-Ann's stores, which carry lots of pattern booklets from Leisure Arts.

I also made a lot of progress on my Woodland Shawl, the shawl for the Elves in the Ravelry 'One Shawl to Rule Them All' KAL. The group chose one knitted and one crocheted shawl for each of the Races of Middle Earth who were the Companions in the Lord of the Rings saga. This shawl is also being done in Smooshy, this one in Beach Fog. For some reason this immediately made me think of Galadriel, all sort of pale and misty.

The pattern is another really easy one, basically one 8-row repeat done twice, offset from the previous repeat, and the stitches on the wrong-side rows are knitted as presented. The edge is scalloped in the shape of the leaves in the pattern, and I think I'm going to block it this way, rather than trying to give it a straight edge. This one is also IMO easier to knit from the written directions.

This Smooshy yarn is really a joy to knit with, nicely sproingy and the colorways are subtle, with just hints of different colors, no striping or pooling.

Heeerree's Tonio!

2008-05-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

We've finally conquered the problems with getting pictures of our newest DGS-by love. So here's Antonio (Tonio); check out the
message on the t-shirt at the right - 'Party in my Crib, 2 a.m.!

Call me

I rock!

Left Side? Right Side? Both?

2008-05-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

Found this via an OT Ravelry post. This is fascinating. I am able to see the figure go both ways, one for a number of turns, then it goes the other way.

Where What How Why

I've been told I'm weird...... ;-D

Miscellany in Prose but with Lots of Links

2008-05-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna was right: "It's always something". BTW, that's the title of her memoir, an inspiring story of her fight against ovarian cancer. Just as I was finally beginning to come to terms with the scratchy-throat bug I've now had for nearly a month (though it is better, thanks), something I ate disagreed with me. So once again I've spent most of the week in the house, though with our current sky-high temps, that's not been so bad. As of 1pm today, it hit 100F in the shade on our back porch; it was over 80F at 9am and was still 80F about midnight. The whole continent seems to be scorching, and it isn't even Memorial Day. Hey, there, you Powers That Be in government, d'you think global warming might really be important enough to do something about and not just Al's delusions?

I've nearly worked my way through all of Nora Roberts' standalone novels, including a couple that I don't think I ever finished before; interestingly, those are from her very first books written for Jove Books in the late 80s (her genre fiction is published by Silhouette). IMO she got better as she went along. I tried knitting, but just didn't have the urge, though I managed to get nearly to the end of the Sea Silk (6g left) and thus the Sand and Sea Shells scarf.

A couple of weeks ago I got into a discussion at Ravelry about favorite hand creams and balms. I have psoriasis on my hands, which makes them very dry, itchy and much-inclined to peel and crack. As most knitters I know have found, working with yarn tends to dry out your hands, and I think most of us have also learned that washing your hands a lot during the course of a day may really help to keep us healthier. But all that washing also adds to the drying-out effects.

I've had my own little comparative testing going for the last couple of years, in search of the best hand creams to keep mine from snagging the yarn. I suppose my favorites are Neutrogena Norwegian Formula, a long-time standby, and The Body Shop's Almond Oil Intensive Hand Rescue (love the scent). My doctor recently recommended using Aquaphor at night, covered with cotton gloves, and I've tried that - wow, that stuff is like Vaseline! - though I'm not sure that it really helps as much as I'd hoped. I've tried Eucerin and most of the other drugstore 'heavy duty' creams, The Body Shop's 'bestseller' Hemp Hand Protector and Blue Sky Alpaca's Knitter's Little Helper, (can't stand the scent of either of these last two), etc. I've found that I am very particular - ok, picky - about the scent of my hand creams, and my nose rejects a lot of possibilities. And even my two favorites vanish in an hour or two.

Anyway, the Ravelry discussion brought Nanette, of the Knitting in Color blog to share her homemade hand balm recipe (here), and yesterday I made my first batch. I was excited about this, since my favorite scent is English lavender, and I can choose that essential oil to put into this balm. I had to put more beeswax in, as she suggests for a firmer balm, but the scent is perfect! I'll let you know how it works compared to the commercial ones.

For what it's worth (FWIW), I'm even more particular about lavender scents than others, and I currently only know 2 places that make lavender-scented products that I like - Norfolk Lavender in England and Jardin du Soleil in Washington State. After I visited Jardin du Soleil in 2002, I quit buying from England, but Norfolk products are excellent. The other lavender scents on the market, including those from L'Occitane (very good products), are mostly scented with other varieties of lavender, especially the most-produced in the world 'Grosso' variety, which has a harsher, sharper smell. IMO.

What are your favorite hand creams and balms? Do you find that wearing cream and gloves overnight helps? Any other ideas - other than standing around, uselessly showing off your jazz hands, and doing nothing - for keeping your hands soft? [Jayne, just for you]

Totally OT (if there is one to this post), if you don't check out Cute Overload on a daily basis, you are missing some of the biggest 'Awww's and laughs and chuckles on the planet. This one had DH nearly ROFL.

Family and So Forth

2008-05-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

My mother's side of my family are generally very long-lived; she was the youngest of 5, and was nearly 82 when she died in January. One of the siblings died at 82 in 1995 from cancer. When I was in kindergarten and grade school, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and my aunts. And in the late 70s one of my cousins was stationed at the air force base in Denver, which gave us the chance to become friends as adults. He is the brother I never had, and we are still close in spite of the miles between us now. Last fall my cousin and his dad visited the rest of the siblings, and sent me a photo of them all.

The sibs are sitting in birth order, with my oldest cousin on the left next to her mom and my 'brother' cousin in the back next to his dad. My aunts are 98 and 86, my uncle was 90. Both of these aunts were very loving to me as a kid, part-time mothers. Sadly, my youngest aunt (on the right) passed away in January, from complications of surgery. My oldest aunt was just honored by the local Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), for her years of work as a grade-school aide and, since about 2004 when she had to 'retire' from that level of activity, her telephone support and 'check-in' network for the seniors in her area. She is the last of the original RSVPs in her area, having become a volunteer in 1973 when the program started. I just hope that I am blessed with even part of her stamina as I grow older.

This Just In
Right after I posted about our Family By Love, our newest DGS arrived, after a very short labor for Mom Anna. We're having 'technical difficulties' getting photos from there to here in a format I can post. But I received photos of Abram, the DGS who joined the family in March, shown here with his Big Brother Noah.

Limited Knitting Content
After quite a hiatus, knitting mojo has returned. Yesterday I finished nearly 3 repeats of my Sand & Sea Shells stole, with enough Sea Silk left for perhaps 2 repeats and the border. Between Friday night's SnB and last night's work, I also added another few repeats of my Dazed and Confused Zigzag Scarf.

I've promised myself I'm not going to cast on another lace project until I finish Sand & Sea Shells; I've got the new project ready to go, from a new KAL at Ravelry, "One Shawl to Rule Them All" . The group has selected a shawl for each of the four races represented in the Fellowship, hobbits, men, elves and dwarves, and I'm planning to start with the Elven choice, the Woodland Shawl. I have 2 skeins of Dream in Color's Smooshy yarn in the Beach Fog colorway, a pale version, which makes me think of Galadriel.

We're Getting Spoiled

2008-05-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Just now on Ravelry I came across a forum thread started by a knitter who'd ordered from a small (not an indie) but wonderful yarn vendor on Monday and was worried about her yarn since the website was down today. I've seen other "should I worry?" threads there about slow delivery or slow response from an online vendor after just a couple of days. Some have gone into snarkiness and beyond. WTF? Can we say "Overreactors R Us?" What about the indie yarn dyers or pattern designers who've been touted on the big yarn blogs or podcasts - Yarn Harlot, WendyKnits, Lime & Violet, etc - who are just totally overwhelmed by the volume of orders they get in just a few hours. I expect you've read the stories, and those include lots of people who don't seem to get how big the yarn community has become. When Grumperina announced a contest to pick 6 people to receive skeins of the new Lorna's Laces yarn done in a color just for her, she got 1,000 posts. ONE THOUSAND, people!! Even with Lorna's Laces production capacity, the vendor couldn't keep up for a bit.

Now I deal with Elann a lot. Their orders are always shipped USPS Priority Mail, and it's rare that I don't get my yarn on the 3rd day after I order, unless it's a Canadian holiday or those days include weekends. KnitPicks used to be pretty slow, and so was WEBS, but both of those seem to have improved. Patternworks used to be notorious for shipping by way of turtles. There are a lot of other online vendors, knitting-related and otherwise, who are really speedy with delivery: Amazon, Zappos.com (shoes), etc.

So we can get spoiled quite easily and come to think that good service means just a couple of days. Maybe I'm just more patient than most, especially since I sometimes forget that I've emailed someone about an order and haven't heard back. Since I charge everything to VISA, I figure if it never comes, I can deal with getting a refund through them. Recently I've had transactions with a couple of yarn vendors that had backordered some stuff for me, since they were waiting on product from elsewhere. I'd forgotten to follow up for a couple of months, but I got my yarn soon after I inquired again. Both vendors tossed in a bit of a price cut, because of having fallen behind themselves, or lost my email in the inbox somewhere. That price cut was gravy IMO, and I wouldn't have felt full price was unfair. How do I know I've forgotten these deals? I have a folder in my email where I move all the incoming bits about an order, and I go through periodically and zap the ones that have come; then I check on any open ones. Fairly foolproof works for me.

It seems to me that we need to take a breath and think about what's truly reasonable in terms of response and delivery times. I suppose I'm fortunate that I have a stash larger than some small LYSs, and I've always got more projects on the needles or in my Ravelry Queue than I can possibly knit in weeks and weeks. So a delay of a week or two - or even a month or two!! - isn't a deal-breaker for me, let alone something I'm going to panic about. Other knitters are in a different mindset, and may have nothing else they want to knit than THAT project with THAT yarn. I wonder if there's a larger proportion of rather-new knitters in that group, or if there are other interesting demographics.

So, my little group of readers, what are your thoughts about what's good turnaround, good service?

Or Maybe Lavender?

2008-05-05T13:35:00.000-07:00

I found this by way of Marlyn, who commented on my earlier post. This has a very interesting short set of questions. I'm not sure I ever met a purple I didn't like.

You Are Grape

You are bold and a true individual. You are very different and very okay with that.

People know you as a straight shooter. You're very honest, even when the truth hurts.

You are also very grounded and practical. No one is going to sneak anything by you.

People enjoy your fresh approach to life. And it's this honesty that makes you a very innovative person.

What Color Purple Are You?

Interlude with Floral Eye Candy.

2008-05-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Not much of anything going on Chez CBM. I've been fighting a stubborn sore throat and sinus bug, which is still with me in spite of a visit to the doctor and some prescription-level meds. Just enough to keep me tired and quiet - the voice runs out fast. No biggie, just annoying and tiring as can be. Doctor said 'vasomotor rhinitis' (seems to be popular right now, lol!), and our yo-yoing temps have made it worse - 90F+ one weekend, low 70s the next. Right now it's 58F and overcast, a preview of our "June Glooms". I'm not even having enough oomph to knit, so I'm currently working my way through another re-read of Nora Robert's stand-alone novels. These are 'comfort reading'; I'm continually amazed at the variety of tales she produces in such numbers. Yesterday I started 'River's End', which coincidentally is set in the Olympic Rain Forest at Quinault, WA, where DH grew up.

But the garden is spectacular as more flowers come into bloom. The self-sowed coreopsis are brightening the whole place. It's odd; I planted just a few of the foot-tall variety and the front garden plants have turned into 2-foot giants. I attribute this to the SoCal effect, which also turns our roses into 6ft+ plants when they max out at 3ft elsewhere. And we continue to see blooms from last year's additions to our epiphyllum collection. Two popped over the weekend, another huge yellow and a smaller multi-color that is just amazing. And our huge amaryllis is just stunning.

ETA - He's Here!! ;-D

2008-04-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

Just after I posted about our FbL, I sent a note to Anna that her photo (as approved by her, TYVM) had been put up on the blog. I got a quick reply, saying that I was out of date: they had just arrived home from the hospital!!

I don't have pictures yet, but I'm happy to announce that Antonio Luis (probably he'll be Tonio) arrived on Monday after a very short labor (Mom Anna is *really* happy about that!). He's 19in long and weighing in at 7lb, 9oz. Proud father Ed says he has lots of hair and is already doing very well with eye contact. Plus he has a cute frowny face.

This is creating huge Awwwwws! here Chez CBM.

Family by Love

2008-04-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

DH has no family by blood unless you go out to second cousins and the once- or twice-removed sorts. But he has lifelong friends, whose families I think of as our Family By Love, nearly all of whom live in Washington State.

There's Alan and Karen and Taylor B, who is on the swim team and is suddenly taller than I am, though I tend to think of her as the adorable little girl in a blue pinafore and blond pigtails, from the photo which first joined our family "album" on the mantelpiece.

There's Bill, who moved in next door to DH when they were 2; Bill and Claudia produced Peter and Maureen, and Peter and the lovely Sara just presented the grands with Abram, who will keep his Big Brother Noah busy.

Then there's Louie and Sharrie, who have known DH (and have been a couple) since high school. When we went to visit them early in my relationship with DH, I felt as nervous as if I'd been meeting DH's mother. Thankfully, they seemed to like me; they sent WA State wine and cheese for Christmas. At the time we met, their girls Anna and Teresa were in high school, and seemed to do nearly everything well - Teresa composed a little rap song about DH and me while we were all enroute to a beautiful Western WA beach. Off the top of her head. A year or so later, Anna's cheerleading squad won a trip to the Hula Bowl. Etc. Oy!!

Well, time passeth, whether we understand it or not, and a week or two ago I got some photos of the about-to-be 4th DGC (dear grandchild) by love. I say about-to-be, since the little boy hasn't quite made it into the world. He will be adored by Mom Anna, Daddy Ed and Big Sister Rita, and will be ready to play with his cousins Andrew and Hayden and the also-about-to-be newest girl cousin, when he - and she! - are a bit more mobile.

We don't get to see these members of our Family by Love as often as we'd wish, but they bring happiness and caring to our lives. And smiles to our faces when they send pictures!

Blocking Soie Bambou

2008-04-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

There's been some interest in how the new Elann yarn, Soie Bambou, is knitting up. Here's the pre-blocking swatch. With very little tension added in the blocking, this grew only a half-inch or so. It's *very* drapey. This is the color 'Rouge'. I enjoyed knitting with this. It has a bit of the feel of a raw silk or silk noil, but not so rough. With the 65% silk, 35% bamboo content, there's not much springiness.

Ya-HOO!! Clue #2 is DONE!!

2008-04-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Dancing here! Had just a couple of yards left of the 3rd ball of Elann's Baby Cashmere; so that's 300yds done.

Updates and More Eye Candy

2008-04-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

I'm up to Row 91 on the Mystic Light shawl; 4 more pattern rows to the end of Clue #2. I've finally figured out that I can't have TV on, can't even listen to music with words while I'm knitting this. So yesterday I cleared more space on the iPod for classical music. As a break from the concentration, I'm moving along on the Sand & Sea Shells scarf. I think back a month to how tough this seemed, and now it's easy by comparison to ML. Even with only 2 horizontal repeats, this isn't going to be a long scarf, though I don't know how the Sea Silk will grow in blocking. DH's entrelac vest is on hold; hard to believe that it's been sitting there for 6 weeks or so. Wasn't February just a few weeks ago???

The roses are still gorgeous, but I need to deadhead them. Not going to happen today, though; our local temps are predicted to near 100F, and I believe it: it was 85F at 10am today, and yesterday was 95F in the shade. At least one of the roses in the front yard is beginning to be covered in a second round (!) of buds.

The star jasmine (not a true jasmine) is blooming, so the air is filled with fragrance. Here in SoCal, this evergreen climbing vine is also used as ground cover or even low hedging. The one under the front window here covers the 10ft width, and has covered the downspout nearly up to the eaves.

In the arbor outside the other office window, the 'Easter' cactus is finally blooming, vivid deep pink starbursts all over. And under the lime tree off the patio, we have the first blooms from some epiphyllums we bought at the Huntington Gardens plant sale last year, a nearly-white. In this heat, the blossoms don't last long, but oh, they are stunning!

DH found the right replacement pump for the fountain yesterday, and started cleaning out the basin, so we'll have that pleasant sound again. I love to listen to it as I'm falling asleep. We 'inherited' a classic fluted 3-bowl fountain with the house, one from real cast concrete; it weighs a ton, as we found out 2 years ago when we hired a local fountain expert to rehab it.

BTW, for you Ravelers and LOTR fans, there's a terrific group just started, named 'One Shawl to Rule Them All'. We've chosen one knitted and one crocheted shawl for each of the races of Middle Earth (Hobbits, Men, Elves and Dwarves), and I've added over a dozen of the suggested patterns to my ever-lengthening Queue, particularly this one from the so-generous people at DROPS/Garnstudio. Plus I've found a wonderful lace knitter, Rav-name lacefreak, whose Project pages are a fabulous display of lace shawls, scarves and even doilies. She has offered me a few suggestions, and I'm feeling more encouraged about actually finishing Mystic Light.

Going Nowhere Slowly, But Greenly

2008-04-23T16:40:00.001-07:00

Argghhh!! I have just frogged the first half of the 79th (77th? 81st?) row of the Mystic Light Shawl, early in Clue #2 of the current Mystery Shawl KAL. For the 4th time. I counted the stitches in the completed half-row - 81 stitches. That *should* mean the completed row is the 79th row (stitch count currently = Row # + 2), and I should knit the 81st row of the chart (WS rows are even numbers). So, why was I 2 sts short when I got to the center? The prior knitting effort, I was 2 sts too long.

The final clue, #5, came out this morning. Many knitters are already planning to finish this chart today or tomorrow; I think the edging starts around Row 171. I'm stuck on Row 79 - or 81. Still.

Pounding. Head. on. Table.

======================================================

On a positive note, yesterday was Earth Day.

I didn't know this until about 10am when I was driving to West LA for an appointment with the dentist and other errands. So, when I got back to the Burbank area about 3pm, I got the tires rotated and properly aired up. This should increase my gasoline mileage. Maybe. And I did 2 appointments and 3 errands in the same trip, which is sort of efficient. I try.

My current odometer reading? 33,191.
Age of car? Bought new in 1999. ;-D

Edited to add: We bought the car shortly before I had to quit working for health problems. Otherwise, there'd be something on the order of 40+ miles as a 5 day/week round-trip commute; in 9 years, that would add up to a lot more. DH drives the little 1997 Ford Ranger pickup, which has some 85,000 miles on it.

Some Assembly Required

2008-04-18T11:40:00.000-07:00

I put up this post last week, and then stopped to edit it for reasons now unknown. Thanks to Grace, it's finally a post. So - TWO posts today; the second one is Floral Eye Candy, below.

We got a big 42in TV for Christmas, and it wouldn't fit on our decades-old 'entertainment center'. So we improvised with a coffee table for a while, and then I found a big-TV stand online. We've had quite good luck in the past with ordering furniture online, and this one had enough space for all of our 'home theatre' components - cable box, TiVo, A/V receiver, CD, DVD - and a couple of drawers, too. The color wasn't quite what I'd have preferred, but would work with the various wood finishes we have, plus it was on sale, at a price that didn't seem outrageous. The service was good - I ordered on March 20, they shipped on March 28, and it arrived last Thursday. The freight truck driver called ahead, arrived on time, and hauled this big HEAVY box into our back patio. Seriously heavy; I couldn't budge it.

We knew this would be traumatic. We've had the TiVo/home theatre setup for more than 5 years, and we've learned that any minor change - like a new cable box - can take a couple of hours and quite a few adjustments to get to working smoothly. TiVo service is always excellent, something I can't say for either of the two cable companies we've worked with. (I refrain from mentioning their names, since I can't use them without profanity, and this is a family-friendly blog, right?)

I cleared working space in the family room, figured out where our LP collection was going to move to, which of course involved moving something else and then something after that, removed breakables from the bookcases we'd be moving around, and then DH and I started the assembly after a late lunch last Saturday. Oy. The directions booklet was over 25 pages long - 20 wood pieces, 12 different pieces of hardware and 12 different fasteners. No fractured English, just large, clear, line drawings. Every single piece of wood had a part number and a letter marked on it, the fasteners and hardware were on a bubble 'board' or in separate pouches, each clearly marked with a part number. All we needed was a couple of screwdrivers, no power tools please.

Some good thinking went into the directions: the parts that required glue were done first, and then set aside to dry while we assembled others. Quality/quantity control was really good: the pre-drilled holes were where they said they were supposed to be, there were as many fasteners as they said, and so forth. So, in about 3 hours, it had been transformed from a stack of parts into a long, low cabinet. We measured, moved the rest of the furniture, primarily our 6ft bookcases, to allow for the extra length, and we were ready.

That was the easy part. DH took the black boxes apart, labeling the cords and cables according to where they belonged. We moved them off the old stand, figured where we wanted to put the various components, hooked them up, and - nothing worked.

Everyone of you who is surprised by that, raise your hands. Ah, yeah, you in the back? Um-hum. We tried again and then again, and still no sound, no picture. By that time, it was after 7pm, so we broke for dinner and discovered that we were too tired to care.

Last Sunday after breakfast I settled in to work my way through the gazillion connections. This time, I pulled out my handy label-maker and labeled each cord as specifically as I could, as I went. Once I got the cable box playing nicely with TiVo, the rest went pretty smoothly. The 'home theatre' deal has 6 different speaker wires, which are nicely color-coded (thank you, Onkyo!), but by the time you plug pretty much everything into the back of the receiver, it's crowded, and difficult to find that last little plug-hole for the remaining red, white or yellow plug.

I finished in time for us to watch most of Star Wars Part II - the Clone Wars on the big screen. Pretty impressive compared to the old 27in set.

Floral Eye Candy

2008-04-18T09:39:00.001-07:00

The lost camera charger has been found; it had disappeared into the depths of a knitting bag. How? No clue. Savings = $56!! ;-D

So this is a post brimming with the flowers currently delighting the eyes in our yard. First, the bougainvillea - San Diego Red

Texas Dawn
The 'house-eating' Barbara Karst (the best she's looked ever!)

and a poor soul that has become nameless.

Then some random beauty - Fortnight Lily, so named because it blooms about every 2 weeks; a gorgeous epiphylum

Our deep pink New Zealand Tea Tree

and some 'freeway daisies' (aka African Daisy or osteospermum); these bloom with abandon, even in the awful conditions along freeways. I love this cheerful yellow (the only one in bloom yesterday). Sometimes I find these in white, but most often they're a vivid purplish-pink.

And then some of the roses - French Lace, with IMO the prettiest buds of all; Mr Lincoln - had to pull this one down from its 6ft height

Our new simple but vividly red climber

Abraham Darby, a David Austen with a bit of citrus in the scent

Another David Austen, this one Pat Austen

The 1868 climber Sombreuil; this one always makes me think of dozens of petticoats

And the promised shots of our enormous (David Austen) Gertrude Jekyll, a close-up and a view of the dozens of blossoms on this huge 6-7 foot tall bush.

Well, Maybe....

2008-04-15T12:40:00.001-07:00

You're The Mists of Avalon!

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

You're obsessed with Camelot in all its forms, from Arthurian legend
to the Kennedy administration. Your favorite movie from childhood was "The Sword in
the Stone". But more than tales of wizardry and Cuban missiles, you've focused on
women. You know that they truly hold all the power. You always wished you could meet
Jackie Kennedy.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Hmm. I do have 3 shelves of books about Arthur, Camelot and so on. And I would have fainted at the thrill of meeting Jackie.

The alternative was 'Watership Down'. It seemed to turn on whether I feel old or not. ;-P

Interlude Sans Photo

2008-04-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

I put up a post last week and then 'took it back' for editing. 'Twill come back soon.

In the meantime, my camera battery is drained, the backup battery didn't keep its charge while in storage for less than 2 months, and the house gremlins have hidden the charger. Sony - after over 20mins on the phone with 2 different people, tells me that they have the charger in stock, despite the website disavowing any such part, but it's $56US! I'm gonna keep looking for the charger I know I have, for $56!!

My Friday night friends and I partied Chez CBM on Friday and then went on a road trip to the Santa Clarita valley for a small yarn crawl. Pictures of new yarny goodness are, of course, tied up in the blinkin' camera.

Yesterday and today hit 95F on our shaded back porch, and about 6 dozen new roses popped on just one bush since Friday, our beautiful David Austen rose, Gertrude Jekyll. BTW, the grower who's linked, with a very good picture of Gertrude, doesn't grow her in SoCal - our rose regularly puts out 8-10 *foot* tall canes, which we have to bend over (peg), and she loves to bloom and bloom and bloom. Of course, she also grows some seriously wicked thorns!

The roses are stunning, but many of the petals have dried in the extreme dry heat. Later this week we should timewarp back to Spring. I hope. I start melting at 85F.

Later, my friends.

Eye Candy/Yarn Pr0n Friday

2008-04-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

Whee! My order from Elann just arrived, and I'm joyfully fondling the yarns. I've been really, really good; this is my first order from Elann this year, but I fell hard for their newest house yarn, Soie Bambou. This is 680yds of 65% silk, 35% bamboo, in the color Rouge. You have to look at the color at the website; it's as close as photos can come, IMO, to the real color, which is not the case with my own photo. The texture on the cone is of a raw silk, or silk noil; Elannites who have swatched with the yarn already say it has a lovely sheen - which it does! - and very nice drape.

This beautiful yarn will become a shawl, but which of the dozens of patterns I have in my Ravelry Queue or Favorites? Dunno. I'm planning to swatch with this over the weekend, but since my two lace projects are moving along at the speed of tortoises, I'm going to resist casting on for another shawl.

While I was at it, I got little 'tastes' of a couple of other yarns I've been wanting to try - Elann's Peruvian Highland Donegal and their Pakucho Organic Cotton. The Donegal colors are Wedgwood and Mineral Rose, and the Pakucho is Forest. The Pakucho will become a facecloth, since it's a pretty good match for some new towels we got recently, and DH has become a big fan of knitted cotton facecloths. The Donegal will become warm hats.

And, uh, the Baby Lace Merino, in Irish Moss? Well, I have no excuse for this - I just love the color, which is far prettier in real life!

Progress of Sorts

2008-04-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

Not a lot of knitting to show for the week. I finished two charity hats for the troops in some mystery chunky yarn, a deep, dark chocolate brown. For one, I used the Marsan Watchcap pattern, which gives a really nice, tight fabric with its K1tbl, p1 ribbing; the other is just a 2x2 ribbed hat. Both are long enough to have good deep brims, keeping ears warm.

And I've made some progress on my Mystic Light mystery shawl. The picture is one-half of the shawl, through about Row 53 of Clue #1. The beautiful yarn color doesn't show up well on the bright blue background, so I've included a picture of the yarn itself. This is Elann's Baby Cashmere in Starlight Blue, and it's lovely yarn to work with.

An Apology

2008-03-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I posted about my opinion of some yarn that was donated to the seniors' charity group with which I work. It was donated to Operation Gratitude, and it was then passed along to us for the making of hats and scarves for the troops.

I have inadvertently caused trouble to the OG contact in my group, and upset and dismay to the Operation Gratitude people themselves. I have been reminded that a group such as OG is given many items by generous companies, and it is their job to find a use for the bounty.

I cannot at this point do more than apologize for my post. I have deleted that portion of my post, and I have posted a response to the OG person who commented and to Operation Gratitude at their website. I have a net readership amounting to about a dozen, and I did not think that my opinion would cause these problems.

I am sorry for my thoughtlessness.

Mission Possible - Not Much Progress

2008-03-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hmm. Not much progress for Mission Possible 2008 . I've only done #8, my beautiful green Wool Peddler's Shawl; started #7, DH's entrelac vest; and almost kept up with #12 (February item was knit on March 1). I do have a total of 6 charity hats and 3 charity scarves done so far. I cast on and tried knitting the Urchin hat with the Woolspun (#10), and frogged the first attempt; note to others - short rows with a thick/thin/floofy yarn is no picnic. I'll give it another try later.

Seam and finish Ribby Cardi (from early 2007)
Finish and seam Something Red cardi
Finish and gift Ribwarmer vests to Rita and Anna (this is an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern, found in her Knitting Workshop book) (spring 2007)
Finish Keri Mac socks (test-knitting pattern)
Finish Jaywalker socks (UFO from 2006 Knitting Olympics)
Finish Dayflower Lace shawl (2007)
Knit DH entrelac vest with SWS, Natural Slate - first entrelac project STARTED
Knit shawl with Lonesome Stone alpaca DONE
Knit Odessa hat
Knit Urchin hat - pink LB Woolspun - use this old stash up, and give to charity
Knit Wisp or Branching out, or other smallish scarf in laceweight - first laceweight project
Knit or crochet (finish) at least one project, minimum a hat, for charity each month KEEPING UP

As I posted earlier, I frogged several long-term UFOs, mostly charity items: a baby blanket, a lapghan (lap-sized afghan), a scarf, a shawl, and a kids' toy. And I frogged one new WIP, another charity scarf. All of this is gone from stash. I've knitted 2344 yards from stash and 1576 yards from yarn purpose-bought for the project, a total of 3920 yards.

I have 5 new WIPs in progress, four from stash and one from a gift yarn. So - I'm feeling pretty good about the Stash Knit-Down, in spite of the MP2008 goals yet to be met.

Had Fun, Too!

2008-03-27T14:11:00.001-07:00

My Fridays are full of fun and knitting. Besides my seniors' group which meets in the early afternoon, there's a small group of friends who meet Friday evenings at our LYS, Unwind. Last week was a birthday for Debbie S, and there's only one picture, since we all forgot to bring cameras. I slid into the background on this one.

So I thought I'd include some views of another birthday we had earlier in the year, that of Mary Ellen. We somehow started this odd tradition of having to have our birthday pictures taken wearing these incredibly dorky glasses.

In no particular order, then, here's Debbie A, enjoying some of our snacks,

Patti carefully focussed on her big baby blanket,

another view of Patti, this time with Kris in the background at the ball winder,

and Debbie S again, concentrating on a tricky pattern bit.

As you can see, the shop is open and airy, and full of yarny temptations.

Ah, yes. Snacks do include wine, and usually champagne on birthdays. Plus chocolate, chips and cheese. All the necessary ingredients for a fun evening with knittery friends.

Busy Week for New Projects

2008-03-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

I signed up for the Mystic Light Shawl, a mystery KAL that is now closed, and I've actually started on it in the first week of the KAL. Since I'm doing this one with the recommended fingering weight, it's moving right along, though I frogged the start twice last night. Once was a beginning screw-up, the other was to add a border stitch on each side, so I can do a slip-stitch edging. The top edge of this shawl is a 4-st cable, and I didn't like the large loops I was getting with that first stitch. I can tweak the slipped stitch to get it tighter, and it seems to be folding under the cable nicely. This is through Row 13 of the charts. The yarn is Elann's Baby Cashmere, in Starlight Blue, which name seemed appropriate to the shawl name.

I'm also 75% done with a scarf for my seniors' group; I started this on Saturday. This is from 2 skeins (190yds) of lovely alpaca that was donated to us. The pattern is Smariek's easy Georgiana pattern.

And I finished the scarf I made to go with the Binary Hat for A4A. This took about 1.5 skeins of the darker yarn and a bit of leftover in the lighter shade. This is Nashua's Creative Focus Worsted, and I really like knitting with it - soft, a bit fuzzy but not at all splitty. The spin of the yarn gives this mistake rib pattern some nice variation in the knit stitches - subtle but not boring.

I finally scored a skein of Posh Yarn!! I 'met' Dee via Ravelry, when I was looking at yarns used for the Wool Peddler's Shawl. She's quite nice, and is a wonderful knitter; see her lovely projects at Ravelry, where she's known as PoshDee. The new yarn is offered on Sundays and the sales fly, so you've got to be quick on the 'buy' button, at 10am sharp Pacific Time - which is 6pm Greenwich Time. This is Lucia, 70% merino/30% cashmere, with 430yds in the 100g skein. The colorway is Royalty, but Posh doesn't repeat colors exactly, so you can't get quite this same yummy color. The deep reddish-purple is wonderfully saturated. I expect this will become a shawl of some sort.

I had a bad case of start-itis this week, so I did some playing around with ideas. I've settled on some Crystal Palace Waikiki in bright tropical colors for the Montego Bay scarf; I picked up 3 skeins of this at Marie's garage sale last fall. And I fiddled around with variations on the Chevron Scarf, finally choosing a Peacock Plume pattern that's part of a bolero pattern at Elann, since the simple feather and fan pattern as written in the Last-Minute Knitted Gifts book is boring. But neither of these are further than a row or two, and I found my start-itis was satisfied with the setup work.

Liberating Yarn from the UFO Archives

2008-03-24T11:00:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I started a charity scarf with Lion Brand's Jiffy yarn, just about the only acrylic yarn I hadn't already sworn off using, making a narrower version of the Palindrome reversible cable pattern. I got nearly to the end of the first skein and stalled, fretting about how short it was going to be with just the 2 skeins I had in stash. So it sat for a while, and I checked out the local Michael's for another skein, with no luck; then more time passed and I finally stopped in at JoAnn's and found another skein. This is no-dyelot stuff, so I wasn't too worried about matching colors. So that Friday I picked up the scarf while at my seniors' group, and discovered that I had come to hate working with the yarn. It squeaks on the needles! Yechhh! I've since hauled it out twice at my group's afternoon meeting, knitted a few rows, and promptly switched to my always-one-there baby hat.

Saturday morning I decided I have had it with even Jiffy yarn. I hauled out the charity yarn bins and dug out the UFO piles. I frogged and wound into balls, and then frogged and wound some more. I got rid of quite a few projects that have been faintly nagging at my conscience to be finished 'one of these days':

A pale yellow Red Heart Baby blanket, stalled out at a few rows past the 400+ stitch circumference where the border begins (3 years old)
A Homespun pillow meant to look like a lamb. I REALLY hate Homespun! (3-4 years old)
A partially-finished pair of crocheted leggings for a friend who long ago gave up on getting them. (2 years ago)
A diagonal crocheted box-stitch multi-colored striped afghan, with about 8 different colors of RH and no-name acrylics. These skeins went into a separate bag; it's now an afghan 'kit'. (BTW, for the crocheters in my tiny readership, this is a fun and fast pattern.) (2 years old)
The beginnings of a scarf and a shawl, both for charity and from the same chunky blue-grey acrylic, of which we got 20 skeins. (last fall)
The said Palindrome scarf and all the other skeins of Jiffy in my house.

So I have 4 big bags of yarn to take to my group on Friday. And my 'charity yarn' bin (just one bin!) has alpaca, wool and wool blends in it, plus a bit of Simply Soft and acrylic/nylon baby yarns. Our group does get donations of nicer-fiber yarn from time to time, and two or three of us always snag it to make shawls or scarves from. We started doing this after one of our older ladies was going to double-strand some sportweight wool with a Red Heart-type baby yarn to get the worsted/chunky gauge she was used to. We intervened to save the lovely wool!

OK, feel free to call me a yarn snob. All together now:

You're a Yarn Snob!!

Acrylics do have all sorts of uses in the knitting and crochet world, especially for nursing homes and hospices. My seniors' group support those and other places where a machine wash-and-dry yarn is a necessity. I've just decided not to spend my knitting time using them. The items I'm going to knit from now on will be fundraisers at our charity boutique, and the money we raise from their sale will go to charities that don't need our handmade items. Our group just gave $500 from last fall's boutique sales to a local group that serves Easter dinner to the needy.

The pictures are two projects that came from the non-acrylic yarns. There's a Comfort Shawl I knitted from the Knitting Daily pattern in a mid-blue mohair/acrylic blend and the so-talented Gaye's shawl - the Sun Ray pattern from Shui Kuen Kozinsky at Elann - in a glorious alpaca.

And BTW? If the Sun Ray shawl isn't already sold to one of our members (the Comfort Shawl went to a fundraiser a friend's group was having last fall), you can buy it - the price should be around $25US. Yeah - *that* cheap!

Easter Eyecandy

2008-03-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

We are so fortunate to live in SoCal. Yes, we 'pay' in terms of horrendous traffic jams, hour-plus commutes over just 11 miles one-way, smog, and all the other problems of living in a huge metropolitan area. But Burbank has much in common with a small city (pop. 100,000) and Spring is joyful for me, even if our flowers don't have to push their way through snow and cold. So today I'd like to share the bounty with you. Click on the pictures for a larger view.

The first roses are blooming: Diana, Princess of Wales with her pale peachy-pink that will add yellow tones later, and First Prize, the deep pink that makes blooms 4-5in across.

In our arbor, just outside my office window, the cyclamen are blooming again, and have produced some tiny new plants; you can see one just at the edge of the top plant. The deep purple oxalis is spreading, and the wisteria is adding its lovely grape-jelly smell. Last summer some of the dad-dratted squirrels took a fancy to the bark, and we lost several large branches to their gnawing. We've sprayed the remaining branches with cayenne pepper as advised, and I'm hoping that this year's growth will fill in the gaps (blooms on 'old' wood).

Elsewhere in the yard, our newly-pruned lime tree has the last of the old crop, thumb-sized new fruit, and cascades of tiny white flowers, all at the same time, promising another huge crop, spread over several months. Our 'peppermint' camellia is blooming, for the first time in over 10 years; it has always had lots of buds, but they have all dropped without opening. Finally we seem to have found the combination of water and food to suit it. Our other two camellias exist entirely on their own on the north side of the house in the few feet to the lot line fence, unwatered and unfed, growing higher than the eaves, and producing dozens of deep and light pink flowers. The neighbors enjoy the colors more than we do, since they have a better view.

The front yard is finally looking much better. The gazanias we planted last fall are thriving and showing off their lovely cheerful yellows and deep oranges. Gazanias are evergreen, and when they've spread make a lovely and drought-tolerant substitute for a lawn. Last Saturday we replanted the hanging baskets by the back porch, and they're popping with lavenders, white and sunny yellows.

Into the Frog Pond

2008-03-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

AAARRRGGHHH! The Sea & Shells stole is destined for a complete remake via the Frog Pond. I'm in the middle of the 7th repeat, and thought I'd check the remaining yarn. So - 100g total in the skein, currently 60g on the ball. Huh??? What you're seeing here ('scuse the sunlight blur at the bottom) is approximately 13in, which I'm guessing would block out to 16-17in.

This obviously required a re-reading of the yarn requirements. OOPS! The pattern as written calls for 100g of laceweight yarn, which, at least in Posh Yarn, the source of the pattern, has approximately 650yds per 100g. Sea Silk is light fingering weight yarn, with 437yds per 100g. The other Ravelry knitters who have finished this shawl in Sea Silk have used TWO skeins. None of them have listed the final dimensions of their shawls; it's really annoying when Ravelers don't include this information.

Gee, golly, gosh, shucky darn!!!! (my teenage swear) How the h**l did I screw up something so basic? California dreamin', I guess.

So - I'm currently knitting 3 horizontal repeats of the Print o' the Wave pattern. I'm going to try this again, with only 2 horizontal repeats. That will reduce the yarn requirements per inch of length. This will still probably be only a scarf, not a stole, but the yarn and the pattern are a terrific combination.

The good: the pattern is much easier to follow after 7 repeats; I've only had to tink back part of rows here and there, and less often than before.

Drat!!

Around the House

2008-03-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

There's limited knitting content to show off, though the Sea & Shells stole has grown - slowly - through the fifth repeat of the pattern. My best day's work was one full 12-row repeat. I stopped at that point, dubious about pushing my luck. It IS beautiful! For easy knitting, I'm working on a mistake-rib scarf in the same two shades of green as the "Binary" hat I finished a week or so ago.

Spring has definitely sprung here, and I'm feeling the joy in the new plant life. Our freesias have spread a bit, and they are among my favorite flowers, with their refreshing scent. Our New Zealand tea tree is bursting with deep pink flowers, and our first alstromeria blossoms emerged. So I have a couple of little bouquets to admire; the little one is from all the freesias with really short stems.

Our 'office' is in the old dining room, with a lovely bay window, where part of my collection of African violets thrive. I look out onto the street and the football field across the way, with the far view of the Verdugo Mountains. On the other side of the room is our arbor, of which you've seen some photos when it's fully in bloom. Right now, the wisteria is just starting to leaf out, and the very first blooms are hanging over the wall, so it's not much to look at. But we have an unexpected second blooming of our "Christmas" cactuses to add even more visual color.

I've become the blocking volunteer at my seniors' group. You saw the gorgeous alpaca shawl that one of the group knitted last year, in Shui Kuen's Sun Ray shawl pattern. Last week she knitted the Simple Yet Effective Shawl, and I blocked it for her. Another of the ladies made a lovely, soft wool cabled scarf (her first cables!) for her son's Christmas gift. I offered to block it for her, but sadly, she took it to the dry cleaners for blocking; she'd been told they did a good job. Hah! They *pressed* it! So I've promised to try to restore the spring in the cables. I just hope it hasn't been permanently squashed.

We've moved some things around in our family room, and my Knitting Bear (carries a little tote that says 'Knitting is my Bag' and came complete with reading glasses, lol!) has come to rest for a while in the wing chair, which Midnight thinks is her chair. First she sat for a while in her queenly 'Elegant Pawsitude' pose, glaring at me, then circled around to let her rear clearly express her intention to ignore the intruder.

SLOW Progress

2008-03-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the Sea & Shells Stole, but this is going very slowly. The central pattern is exactly the same as Eunny Jang's Print o' the Wave, just fewer repeats across, and it's not really a complicated pattern. But the partial motifs on the sides of the main pattern take a different # of stitches for each row, so I'm having to knit nearly stitch by stitch. And there have been lots of time in the Frog Pond. You know, knit a row, purl back, knit a row, tink the last one.

The yarn is working out even more beautifully than I had hoped. There's pooling, I suppose, but the colors change so subtly that it isn't something that bothers me. The colors are somewhere between these two photos, one without flash, the other with.

I keep being very tempted, particularly by the gorgeous edging of Eunny's pattern, to frog the whole thing and use that, just with 3 repeats across. Sea & Shell has no edging to be added afterward, just a border of the Razor Shell pattern (this is the best close-up picture I could find). But all the knitters who have finished Eunny's pattern have used 2+ skeins of Sea Silk, and some have commented that the edging can take nearly a skein. Sigh. Another time, perhaps.

I thought I'd show off our newly-washed Midnight. Saturday was a very stressful day for her, and I seemed to be nearly as wet by the time we were done, lol! But Miss Elegant Pawsitude has become a very, very 'lazy groomer', as the vet called it, and she was really dirty. After a suitable amount of Greenies and bonita flakes for treats, she consented to forgive me by the next day. She seems to be putting in a lot of extra effort to keep up her 16-18 hours/day sleeping routine.

Hats and More Hats

2008-03-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last post that I hadn't met my Mission Possible 2008 goal of finishing a charity item each month. In reaction, this has been Hat Week; I've finished 4. Gotta love the fast gratification!! I made 2 versions of the extremely popular Binary Cables Hat (#1 at Ravelry right now), another Binary Hat from a different pattern, and the 'Toddler' version of the Republic Hat.

The Republic Hat may have been made from the 'Toddler' version, but that's written for worsted rather than chunky/bulky yarn, and although it's a bit shallow, it is 19in in circumference, plenty big enough for me (and Edith Head, lol). I used bits and pieces for this, starting out with the band using some Dale Free Style in white and a bit of teal acrylic mohair I had. Then I realized I didn't have enough Free Style and switched to Patons Classic in a nearly-white, along with some authentic mohair, for the rest of the hat. The pattern calls for a really big button, but all I had were two small ones.

I made the first version of the Binary Cables Hat with Nashua Creative Focus Worsted, following the pattern, and I found it to be a bit shallow, too. I really like the yarn, though for a rather-basic yarn it's a bit pricey (at least at my LYS; MSRP is $8) compared to say, Patons Classic. Since this was TV knitting, I found that putting a marker every 28 stitches (total is 112), really helped to make sure I had all the cables in the right place; the cable rows are generally written for 4 repeats .

Since both of these are for A4A or Dulaan, I realized I needed one for my seniors' group, which sends a lot of hats to Operation Gratitude for the troops. So I pulled out some Caron's Simply Soft in Dark Country Blue and made another Binary Cables hat. For this one, I added 4 rows before starting the pattern as written, just to add a bit of depth, and it worked very well. Simply Soft is a nice acrylic, not scratchy or squeaky on the needles, with a bit of a silky feel.

And yesterday I finished a different sort of Binary Hat, this one supposedly 'spelling out' "hat" in Binary. Regardless, it's a nice easy stockinette hat, and the stripes are narrow enough that I was able to strand the color changes, and the 'jogs' are nearly invisible. Love it! This is also done in Creative Focus, in two shades of green.

And I finally decided on a pattern for my lovely Sea Silk gift yarn. I don't have enough in the one skein for Eunny Jang's lovely Print o' the Wave stole, but I found this variation at the Posh Yarn website, Sea & Shells, via Ravelry. At the moment there are only 6 or 7 rows, so showing it to you is going to present a narrow band of pretty much nothing. But the pattern is pretty straight-forward and I have great hopes for success. The Sea Silk is, IMO, a very fine version of fingering weight yarn, so this is another step in my plan to 'work down' to laceweight. Cross your fingers for me!

Off the topic of knitting, I wanted to pass along a recommendation for a couple of books. Among the many that I've read in the last couple of weeks is 'The Other Boleyn Girl', a novel by Philippa Gregory. The movie is recently out, starring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. I found the premise quite interesting, and apparently Ms Gregory is one of the first to explore the part that Mary Boleyn played in Henry VIII's love life. Having several biographies about Henry VIII, I found myself digging into them to get another perspective. Note that, in all of the other books I have, Mary Boleyn gets barely a sentence or two, in spite of the fact that she was Henry's mistress for 2 or 3 years. Alison Weir has written several books about this period, and I find that her writing style is very easy to read and seemingly well-balanced; she's quite meticulous about noting those conclusions that are suppositions rather than based on documentary evidence. I just finished her 'The Children of Henry VIII', which stops at Queen Mary's death.

Knit, Knit, Knit. Read, Read, Read.

2008-03-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

In spite of having read about 2 dozen books in the last couple of weeks - fantasy from Mercedes Lackey, cozy mysteries from Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown, 3 Torchwood novels, etc. - I have *lots* of fun knittery projects to share.

In terms of Finished Objects, the pretty Leaf Lace Shawl (Evelyn Clark, Fiber Trends) that was part of my Chinese New Year greetings has been finished and blocked. With 3 skeins of Hacho yarn from Mirasol (411 yds), this blocked out to a nice shoulder shawl, 58in x 28in. I love the vibrant fuchsias and purples.

Plus I also finally blocked my pretty Misty Garden stole (from the Scarf Style book) that I finished late in January. This is a monster! I just wanted to open up the feather-and-fan pattern a bit, not really to stretch it any, but I found myself patting the strands back together just to keep it on my big blocking sheet - it's now a foot wide by 8 feet long!! This was knitted from one skein (480 yds) of Cherry Tree Hill's Sockittome! sock yarn, in a lovely mix of abalone shades.

And then a KAL reached out and yanked me in. My friend Joan started a KAL for the hugely popular Clapotis (klah poh tee) shawl from Knitty in 2004. I knitted one back then, in Schaefer's Laurel mercerized cotton, a nice springtime colorway of pinks, corals and greens. But it is *such* an easy knit, and so much fun to drop those stitches and run them down the rows. So I thought about it, browsed the CBM Yarn Shop as listed at Ravelry, but didn't find anything that just screamed to be this versatile stole. Then my special order of more yarn from Lonesome Stone Alpaca arrived, another huge skein, this time their 50/50 alpaca/merino blend, in their Hot Rod Red colorway, and it said, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be perfect!" Having only 500 yards of DK yarn, I had to hum and haw about how many repeats to include, but I guessed absolutely right - the leftover bit is the size of a walnut! I managed 5 repeats of the increase section and 12 of the straight section, on a US7 needle. Unblocked, just sort of straightened out, it's approximately 60in x 13in. I think I may steam it, just to uncurl the corners, but I don't want to flatten out the pretty ripples.

This flew off my needles, though I admit to a rather late night last night - it was so much fun to work through the decreases! And it was great knitting while watching Captain Jack's debut on Doctor W ho, from Season One. (I'm a huge Torchwood fan, and regardless of Jack's orientation, he *is* great eye candy!! Snicker!)

The UFO's are moving along. I've nearly finished the left front of DH's entrelac vest, though it seems a bit short. If I can get his attention long enough, I'll be able to check it out on him. I do like the way the greys are working out, though I did decide to interchange 2 different skeins, just to avoid really large pools of light or darks.

Having finished the Misty Garden scarf, my chat-and-knit project, I started another easy but relatively interesting scarf. This is a fun, zig zag scarf pattern from Cindy Guggemos, aka Baxterknits, an online friend from the About.com Knitting Forum. It doesn't seem to be available on her blog any longer, though she has lots of other lovely projects both free and for purchase. Last year, she authored a sock-knitting book for Leisure Arts, and there's a new kids' knits book out now. I'm using KnitPicks' Gloss yarn in Burgundy, though I have to say that I find the color is muddy, not as clear or vibrant as I thought from the skein.

My charity project for February did not, sadly, get done; the '8 rows and cable' pattern (Palindrome scarf) is just incredibly boring, and compared to Paton's SWS soysilk-wool or the merino and alpacas I've been working on for DH and me, the Lion Brand Jiffy is just squeaky-icky, even if it is better than Red Heart acrylic. So I'm pondering if my Mission Possible promise to knit a charity project a month is met by the 3 projects I made in January. Moving on. There'll be 12 for the year, at least.

A kind and generous friend sent me a fabulous gift last week: a skein of Sea Silk from Handmaiden yarns. Oh, yum! I'm wondering what project will be right for the lovely fiber and the perfect colors - greens, blues and lavenders. It makes me think of those pictures on TV of tropic waters, just a foot or so under the surface, with the sunlight shining through. Thanks, Joan!

Speaking of gifts, I wanted to show off the best gift my mother ever made me. Back in the 80s when I was living in Denver, she asked what I'd like for Christmas, and I asked for an afghan. This was the result. It was made from a Herrschners kit, so it's an acrylic yarn in a sport weight, and it is in Mom's favorite pineapples motif, with a pretty little ruffled edge. It's a full-sized throw, probably 40in x 60in, and considering the wear it's had over the years, it's in great shape. Oddly, nearly every cat we've had has been very partial to this throw. I just wish more of Mom's lovely crochet work had survived, but she didn't keep many things. Thanks, Mom.

And, just to round off a long and photo-filled post, here's a shot of dear Midnight, having a nice stretch before heading off to check her food bowl.

Happy Pink and Red Day!!

2008-02-14T17:53:00.000-08:00

moar humorous pics

Note the tail action, adding to the wishes for the day!

The fuchsia scarf is blocking and will be ready for its close-up tomorrow. I've cast on for DH's Entrelac Vest, using Paton's SWS in Natural Slate, and the beginning looks like this:

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

2008-02-07T14:31:00.001-08:00

An online friend of mine used that for her post today, and I'm copycatting here. I'm not sure this is entirely Chinese, but the good wishes are coming to you all for good fortune in this Year of the Rat.

This is a Maneki Neko - Beckoning Cat and it has been sitting in our home for 20 years; I bought it in Little Tokyo the first year I was here in LA. It is supposed to bring good fortune to the home or shop in which it is displayed.

The cat is sitting surrounded by the Leaf Lace Shawl (Evelyn Clark) that I just finished last night. It's red, fuchsia and dark purple. So, red, which is auspicious for the Chinese New Year. I'll post a better photo of the shawl when it's blocked. The yarn is Hacho, from Mirasol, which I picked up last week from Stitches from the Heart, the sole LYS of the kids' charity. I didn't really need/want any yarn, but I like to support the cause by spending my yarn $$ there from time to time. Pretty, and very nice yarn to work with.

Knitting and SoCal Winters

2008-02-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

OK, so SoCal (short for Southern California) doesn't have winter as most of the US and all of Canada define it. Last year we had several days when the temps dipped below freezing for a couple of nights , and we lost a lot of plants, including my beautiful plumerias (also called frangipani). So far this year we've not q-u-i-t-e dipped that low, but we've had a lot of rain all in the last month, nearly 10 inches officially; compared to last year's 3 inches, we're flooding. Our fountain has a basin that's about a foot or so deep, and it's full. It was in the low 50s (F) this afternoon, and everything was washed clean from last night's rain. So DH and I took my new shawl outdoors to photograph it.

This is the Wool Peddler's Shawl from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls. My friends told me about possible bad luck with any color other than red, but the knitting and blocking of this went beautifully well and quickly. My LYS got in a few skeins of yarn from a new source, Lonesome Stone Fibers, and I was immediately captivated by the colors of this beautiful 100% alpaca, colorway Forever Evergreen. A few days' struggle with myself later, I was the proud owner of 2 big skeins, 1330 yards of yummy alpaca goodness. I wasn't sure which shawl I wanted to knit, so I got 2 skeins, but my Wool Peddler's took only one skein, with a little bit left over. So I have another shawl waiting for its time in the knitting Queue. Unblocked, this was 60in x 30in; gently blocked, it's 78in x 39in. The knitting took just a bit over a week, including having to frog and re-knit the first 25 rows of the lace, since I didn't find a fundamental error at the beginning of the lace section until I tried to add the first horizontal increases. The close-up photos are fairly true in color.

My knitting timing was coincidentally great, since the Lonesome Stone yarn rep put on a yarn tasting at my LYS last Sunday, and I think I helped them sell several skeins of this buttery-soft yarn. ;-D You should check out the selections of yarn and colorways - all 48 colors are available in all of their yarns. The 50/50 merino/alpaca and the 55/45 mohair/merino yarns are especially yummy.

I LOVE this shawl!! It is so lightweight and just warm enough for wearing right now, outdoors as well as in the house, where we keep it at about 68-70F this time of year.

While we were outdoors, we took a few pictures of our winter garden. I've often written about our 'overbearing' Bearss lime tree, and right now it is nearly weighed down by fruits. We'll never use a small fraction of this year's bumper crop. But you can see that it's a substantial tree, overhanging the corner of the garage and providing us with lovely shade on the patio.

A couple of years ago, DH and I visited my uncle in Ft Myers, Florida, and managed a meet-up with one of my friends from the Elann chat group. I had looked forward to getting some local citrus while we were there, especially grapefruits. Apparently it had been a poor year for them, so when we got home, we got a lovely gift from my Elann friend, a dwarf grapefruit tree. It managed to survive last winter's freeze, though it dropped its buds. This year the Stanback Grapefruit Tree is larger than ever, and I'm hoping for some flowers, which will mean fruit in about a year. Yeah. It takes that long for a grapefruit.

And for an even more delicate sign of spring to come, we found the first blossoms on our peach tree. We just planted it last spring, and we have great hopes for it.

Lots of Goodbyes

2008-01-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

What *is* it with January?

Last year, we lost our dear Shadow, our clever cat, to a very severe, acute attack of pancreatitis. Plus, all in one week, both of our credit card accounts (different banks) and our debit card/checking account were the targets of attempted fraud, all in the same area of Ohio. We lost no money nor did we have any credit problems, since the attempts were denied, but WTF?

This year has been even more difficult. Four members of my little circle of friends and family have passed away. Marie, one of my dear friends in my seniors' charity knitting group, died from a brain tumor, two months after the diagnosis. Apparently her colon cancer had metastasized, after a supposedly successful surgery and series of treatments about 2 years ago. My friend Greg, my hairdresser of twenty years' standing died, also of cancer. It is believed that his colon cancer recurred, and he chose not to treat it again or disclose it until it was obvious.

More difficult to bear is the death of my mother and one of her sisters. My aunt Bettie died from complications of lung cancer. We thought the surgery to remove one of the lobes had been successful and that she was on a path to a good recovery. She died quite suddenly while still in the hospital. We had reconnected at her wedding in 2002, to a lovely and caring man she met when both of their spouses were in the same nursing home, both suffering from a dementing illness. I was so proud to attend the wedding of my 79-year old aunt; she was such a valiant and loving woman who had overcome many difficulties and sorrows in her life, and was very kind to me in my childhood.

My mother passed away from a short bout of pneumonia. Mom had a stroke in late 2002 and had spent the last 5 years in a nursing home here in Burbank. My father died in 1975, and as the years went by Mom wished more and more to join him; he had been her center, the light in her life. The last couple of years she withdrew from all activities, just waiting to die and completely losing her mobility. Mom wasn't a warm, loving person, and we lived quite contentedly far apart until her stroke. I tried to develop a closer relationship during her years here, visiting often and looking for ways to engage her more in the good things of life. It was because of her, to keep her company and stimulate her, that I took up crocheting and knitting again after 20 years, and that has led to the many friends and the happiness and personal growth I have found in the knitting world. I know that her passing was merciful and that she didn't suffer any pain.

My local knitting friends have been a big source of support and kindness, and I have not the words to adequately say "Thanks!" to all of you.

Next post will return to knitting content, of which I have a lot to share.

Mission (Im)Possible???

2008-01-17T11:03:00.000-08:00

OK, my friends have talked me into this, and I think I have a do-able list. Here goes:

Seam and finish Ribby Cardi (from early 2007)
Finish and seam Something Red cardi
Finish and gift Ribwarmer vests to Rita and Anna (this is an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern, found in her Knitting Workshop book) (spring 2007)
Finish Keri Mac socks (test-knitting pattern)
Finish Jaywalker socks (UFO from 2006 Knitting Olympics)
Finish Dayflower Lace shawl (2007)
Knit DH entrelac vest with SWS, Natural Slate - first entrelac project
Knit shawl with Lonesome Stone alpaca
Knit Odessa hat
Knit Urchin hat - pink LB Woolspun - use this old stash up, and give to charity
Knit Wisp or Branching out, or other smallish scarf in laceweight - first laceweight project
Knit or crochet (finish) at least one project, minimum a hat, for charity each month

I’ve already done my charity project - a ruffled crocheted scarf - for this month, actually 2, including one of the baby hats I posted about last week. I started and finished the scarf on Tuesday - crochet goes SO fast, yay! This is nearly 2 full skeins of Lion Brand's Jiffy yarn, in a pink/blue/white variegated. It's about 4in wide and 66in long.

I've gotten to the heel turn on Keri Mac's socks (sock #1), and I'll consult with her about it tomorrow at our Friday Night Unwind group.

And I’ve cast on and started my Lonesome Stone alpaca shawl, though right now it looks like the usual blob. I *finally* decided to do Cheryl Oberle's Wool Peddler's Shawl, from her Folk Shawls book. The knitter who dyes the Posh Yarns in the UK posted a picture on Ravelry of her Wool Peddler's Shawl, done in a brighter but similarly dyed yarn, and I decided that my yarn would show off very nicely in this pattern. Plus it's pretty quick, since the center section is all garter stitch. ;-D

Yesterday I took a remedial seaming lesson from a friend to get ready to finish my Ribby Cardi. The cardi, in pieces, is shown in the blocking stage. I actually have the fronts and back sewn together; I need to seam the sleeves, join them to the body, and knit the border ribbings. This will have buttons rather than a zipper - I have zipper phobia and my very short-waisted body doesn't work with zippered tops.

So I’m on track and moving right along. These may not seem like a lot of goals, but I'm trying to plan for success, rather than failure here. Plus they include some old UFOs and my first entrelac and first lace-weight projects.

The Needles are Smokin'!!!

2008-01-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

Whee! I have been so productive knitting-wise. I am *jazzed*!! Hats, mitts, more hats, and the start of my second pair of toe-up socks.

My dear knitbuds of the OOPS group started a KAL on the Shedir hat from Knitty's 2004 Breast Cancer surprise extra, beginning Jan 1. I fudged a bit, getting the 9 ribbing rows done New Year's Eve. And last night I finished the hat. Since I used Rowan's Cashsoft DK, my gauge was different from the pattern, even though I used US 2 needles. While I got close to the 17in circumference per the pattern, by the time I got to the 3rd of 5 repeats of the main section, I was already at 5.5in in depth. Row gauge versus stitch gauge!! So I skipped the other repeats and switched to US1.5 (2.5mm) needles for the decrease section. As you can see from how it fits Molly Model, this is one *deep* hat. The pattern calls for 9in from crown to brim, and it's about that. But it is soft and pretty, and someone fighting cancer will undoubtedly appreciate it. I learned to do small cables and twists without a cable needle on this project, and I also learned that this plays merry hell on my poor old wrists. Wendy and Grumperina both have excellent tutorials on how to cable without a needle. The yarn is a paler blue than this shows.

I'm pleased to help spread the news: my dear friend Grumperina got married!!! Here's the link, though it's only to a photo of the grumpy/happy couple.

Months ago, I made a Ribwarmer vest from Elizabeth Zimmerman's pattern, using some lusciously soft Cascade Cloud 9 angora-blend yarn I got last winter from Unwind's Superbowl sale leftovers. I liked the Madge hat and mitts I made for my dear friend Madge, so I decided to make them again in the soft Cloud 9. My gauge in this yarn was enough different from the Di.Vé. Autunno yarn I used for Madge's gift that the hat was too shallow, so after it was finished, I dithered for a couple of days and then ripped back to the last row of the main pattern, to add more rows. The mitts were done, too, but the 48-st ribbing I used was a tad loose, and I frogged them, too, going down to 40 sts. There's just a thumb slit, and there are 2 horizontal repeats of the hat pattern, 1.5 vertical repeats, on the back of the hand. Yummy!

I've finished some charity hats, 2 more baby-sized ones, from a skein of Encore Colorspun DK I bought ages ago; that makes 4 from one skeinAnd there was enough left from my last year's projects of the Bernat Camouflage yarn in the Outback colorway to make one more hat; this one is toddler-size. I really like the way the colors stripe in the Outback, and it's nice acrylic, so to speak.

Last but not least, yesterday I started a test-knit project for my Unwind friend Keri Mac. She's designed some lovely slip-stitch socks, knitted toe-up, and I volunteered to be the test knitter. I've only made one pair of toe-up socks, so this is a learning experience for me, too. I chose some Socks that Rock in the fingering weight, colorway Cobblestone Country (color seems to be discontinued). Keri knitted her socks in Rowan Wool Cotton, so her gauge is quite different, but I thought that a lot of knitters would want to use sockweight yarn. I'm making notes as I go along, but I've already decided that this yarn - and perhaps most hand-dyed yarns - won't show off the pretty vertical slip-stitch pattern. So I'm going to frog this and try a solid or semi-solid color. Look at that nice round toe! My second Figure-8 cast-on. I'm so proud, lol! (Damn fiddly thing.)

I've been working along on my pretty Misty Garden feather-and-fan scarf, and I've spent hours and hours poring over shawl patterns, trying to decide on the 'right' pattern for my luscious Lonesome Stone alpaca. OK, off to do some stash-diving in my sock yarns.

Drawing to a Close: Goodbye 2007!

2007-12-29T14:30:00.000-08:00

Wow! Wasn't it October just last week? Like many bloggers, I feel a bit compelled to write about nostalgia for 2007, though I'm not sure why. Next week will really just be another week, and I'll have to start putting 2008 on the few checks I still write. But we make New Year's Resolutions, most of which are broken in January - there are the always-popular diet and exercise plans; we knitters vow to cut back or stop yarn buying, as Ravelry has made us aware of our yarn stash, whether we've photo'd and posted it or not; and we also promise ourselves to try new techniques and projects, to knit more and blog/surf/Rav it less. Yep, those are all vaguely in the works here Chez CBM.

Personally, I have enough yarn to stock a small store, 150 miles of it, not counting what I'd like to sell. Last night I brought home what I intend to be the last purchase of 2007, 2 big skeins of some heavenly alpaca, 1330 yards of DK softness. Stephanie at Unwind Yarns found a small producer in Granby, Colorado, called Lonesome Stone, and their colors are wonderful. When I saw the sample skeins a few weeks ago, I started obsessing about this green, called Forever Evergreen, and after 5 days of trying to talk myself out of it, I ordered 2 skeins. I'm thinking big, warm, use-daily sort of shawl here, maybe Cheryl Oberle's Wool Peddler's Shawl, from her Folk Shawls book, something that will show off the gorgeous colors and yet be a fairly quick knit. The shawl link is to a nice photo of one knitter's project.

At the moment I have several projects going - no surprise to you, of course. I have about a foot of a wider version of Jo Sharp's Misty Garden scarf from Scarf Style; I'm using a 480 skein of Cherry Tree Hill's Sockittome yarn, in a melange of pale greens, blues and lavenders, sort of a mother-of-pearl colorway, a lucky accident from their 'Lottery' line of left-over dye experiments. There are a couple of hats, baby and otherwise, and a couple of baby sweaters on the list for charity projects, and I have to finish swatching for an entrelac vest for DH, using Patons SWS soy-silk/wool yarn in Natural Slate. So the needles are busy here. All this knitting has been making my wrists ache, but I tend to sleep with them curled up, so I've dug out my heavy-duty braces and sleeping with them on for the last few nights has really helped.

My three SnB groups have all had lots of holiday fun. My seniors group was a source of hundreds and hundreds of calories, with all the fudge, cookies and other treats. I gave all of them little tape measures from Unwind; an inexpensive but so-useful gift. My Monday group doesn't exchange prezzies, but we got together 7 of us for lunch last week, and there'll be another fun meet-up on Monday, a very quiet but enjoyable way to see in the New Year (well, the noon-time version, anyway!). And my Friday night group had a potluck at one of our members' home, a lovely time, with several kinds of wine, HoneyBaked ham, shrimp cocktail and so forth. We had our first yarn swap, and I *think* I got rid of more than they talked me into bringing home, several coordinating skeins of KnitPicks Elegance alpaca/silk blend yarn, enough to make a small striped shoulder shawl. Sorry, no photos of the frivolity.

Santa, aka DH, was good to me: I got a bunch of knitting books, among them Jean Frost's Jackets book, the Best of Knitters' Jackets and Clara Parkes' new book, The Knitter's Book of Yarn. Plus a new small camera, a Sony T200; the baby thing is about the size of a business card case. I'm hoping that the smaller size will make it easy for me to carry around and to take more blog pictures.

I will leave you with the same wishes I had last year, since I find that knitting in 2007 has brought more of the same wonderful things. To all my knitting friends, I thank you for your friendship, your morale support, your posts and comments, and all the other things you bring to my life. You do so much for others, with gifts and charity knitting and monetary contributions to those who need your help. Be safe, be warm and be as happy as you can. And tonight or tomorrow or when you can, whether you have already done so or not, listen to the Toast for a New Year; I hope it will provide thoughts, comfort, inspiration and resolve for you as it does for me.

They Just Fly By, Don't They?

2007-12-20T13:23:00.000-08:00

The years, I mean. Tomorrow DH and I will celebrate 16 years of marriage. In October we marked the 20th year of being a couple. I am married to the nicest guy on the planet; I am so damned lucky!

1991 was so different from now, in so many ways. We'd bought the house that April, a major fixer-upper and were learning the trials of commuting from Burbank to West LA - there's no good or quick or public-transit way to get from here to there. After only 4 years, my relatively high-powered job as tax manager for a formerly huge national corporation was vanishing, a victim of the late-80s wave of over-leveraged corporate debts. I was working very long hours, but I didn't have a new job lined up for the day the pink slip showed up. Everything we had saved had gone into the house purchase, so our finances were shaky in spite of good salaries.

So we decided on a very financially prudent, small-scale wedding. We went to Lost Wages and to a little chapel, where the wedding party was just the two of us. It was nice; the minister had Really Big Hair, since her night-time job was Country-Western Singer. But the words she said were touching and appropriate, and the bride cried happy tears.

Midnight and her sister Shadow were new members of our feline community, about 10 weeks old. Now as I write, Middy lies in front of the monitor, an elderly kitty at age 16; we lost Shadow in January and still miss her. The other two cats we had at that time have been gone for some years, both at age 11, our beautiful, feisty long-haired calico Chanel to cancer and our timid tiger, Tigger, to kidney failure. DH and I are closer to 60 than we like to acknowledge. Sixty? Huh?? Us? Can't be.

Fast forward to 2007.
I'm suffering some pre-holiday letdown. My belated gift boxes left yesterday, to Missouri and Illinois, Alaska and Washington State and Vancouver. I'm wrapping my little gifties to my seniors and a couple of other knitting pals. Only the outdoor decorations are up, due to the missing key to our storage space and DH's extreme overtime hours. He promises to take off time to get the tree and so forth on Saturday. Tomorrow I have to go get the manager of the storage facility to cut off the lock and put on a new one, complete with key.

My Friday night knitting group is having a potluck and yarn swap tomorrow, which will be fun. I have several projects fighting it out for first-up in my Ravelry knitting Queue - an entrelac vest for DH done in Patons SWS in Natural Slate, a lovely yarn that stripes slowly from silver-grey to charcoal; a cardigan for me in Cascade's Di.Vé Autunno, a lovely single-ply merino in deep blue-green; the lacy Branching Out scarf in Elann's Super Kydd in the pale blue/grey Pewter, etc. Tuesday night I finished the beautiful Liesel scarf, 2 skeins of KFI's Cashmereno in teal, and wore it yesterday; I craved the feel of the incredibly soft yarn around my neck, blocked or not.

Middy has been hanging out here at the computer all day. She's consented to having her tummy scratched, though the picture shows the difficulty in taking photos of all-black cats. She was very interested earlier in a little video from Cute Overload, a most tuneful and talented feline piano player.

DH's anniversary gift is wrapped, his Christmas prezzies are stashed here and there, waiting for wrappings and boxes and bows. I'm working at cheering up as I write, listening to Josh Groban's holiday album, hoping for some upbeatness. So I leave you with a bit of year-end color, one of our Schlumbergias, a vividly red Christmas cactus.

Happy holidays!!

Kitties and Their Toys

2007-12-12T16:11:00.000-08:00

moar funny pictures

Midnight adopted this box, and, since I'd just gotten her this kitty warmer mat from Drs Foster and Smith, I put it into the box. She's in there a lot now. I meant to catch her sleeping, but you know how that goes. So I used I Can Haz Cheezburger? to put a caption on it.

Well, Yes, I've Been Busy

2007-12-10T11:33:00.000-08:00

How the heck did more than an entire month go by?

I've had some further unhappy adventures with the Internet. Intermittently, I couldn't get myself accepted by Google/Blogger, not even enough to post comments to my friends' blogs. Most recently AT&T Yahoo refused to recognize my password, and, in spite of my being really pretty certain of my date of birth, ZIP code of residence and favorite color code-word, refused to admit me to the email world.

Now that I think about it, this could have been an angry reaction to our decision to dump AT&T U-Verse TV service after only a few months. For those of you lucky enough not to have yet tried this new optic-fiber service, don't. U-Verse is NOT ready for prime time. (I expect the residents of Cleveland, OH, whose AT&T U-Verse TV service failed them during the 7th game of the American League baseball playoffs, may put their feelings a bit more strongly. I learned about the outage when I tried to get telephone support and was told they weren't dealing with any Internet issues right then.) [Ironically, as I am writing this, 2 hapless sales people from U-Verse knocked on my door. They're gone now. They have only small scorch marks on them; I tried to be as gentle as possible. My cleaning lady can vouch that they were still OK.]

OK. Moving on here. Charter Cable has more or less renewed our TV hookups, and the programs I expect to view at a certain time are there, not the 3-hours-different East Coast feed which was a major problem with U-Verse. As of last Friday, I am able to receive and send email once again.

The working email as of this minute is
catbookmom AT att DOTnet

This morning I got an email about a comment on my last blog post from the talented Dodile, so that blog-to-email link is back. Check out Dodile's lovely lace patterns both free (gratuit) and for sale at this link. Nearly all the patterns are in both French and English.

I've been knitting and knitting, and right now I have a huge urge to knit but my wrists are crying out from overwork, so I'm smelling strongly of Tiger Balm. I've finished lots of gifts: 5 pairs of mitts, 3 hats and 2 scarves, and I have a second scarf half done and a just-started 4th hat. I'm a bit past half-way on a Liesel Scarf for myself in lovely, soft blue-green KFI Cashmereno (stash!!). There's a limit on how many of these projects I can show you now, since many of these are for friends who read this blog. ;-D I really love how the scarf for my uncle has turned out. It's made with Paton's SWS in Natural Slate, using the Habit Forming pattern I found courtesy of Ravelry. The Habit in Habit Forming is the one and only Franklin, of The Panopticon, and the pattern has a very nice photo of him.

Last night I finished 2 quick hats for our honorary DGSs in Alaska. These aren't as nice as the superwash wool ones I made last year, just basic designs with Patons Shetland Chunky acrylic/wool yarn. I love the way the colors stripe and spiral.

All of this gift knitting has been the continuation of a huge amount of knitting productivity the last few months. There have been Afghans for Afghans hats, which went off just in time for the December 3 deadline - 3 hats I made since my last post, made from some lovely bulky Kross Mondial yarn, less than one skein per hat;3 tinier green ones I made sometime earlier in the year and a mohair/wool double-stranded Cloud hat, - all of these were from stash yarn!! - plus 2 absolutely adorable pairs of socks made by my dear friend JM. Check out the Dr Seuss-style fuschia star-toe pair!

And I've finished several baby hats for my seniors' charity group, who have had a special request from our local Temporary Aid Center. I forgot to take pictures of some of them. I've been making very basic stockinette and 2x2 ribbed hats, using some multicolor yarns I had in stash (hey, more stashbusting here!!), some Caron Simply Soft Shadows and Encore Colorspun. Speaking of my seniors' charity group, we had a great boutique this year. In the two days of the boutique, we sold over $1400 worth of scarves, hats, slippers, afghans, quilts and so forth. The following week, we displayed all the leftovers at our usual Friday meeting, and the front desk helped us to let others at the center know about them, and in that one afternoon, we sold another $500+. So we collected nearly $2000 this year! Woohoo!! We've already donated a lot of that to other groups around the community: a local parish's Thanksgiving dinner for the needy, postage to Operation Gratitude (along with our 225 hats for the soldiers), the Salvation Army, etc. According to Burbank's RSVP (Retired and Seniors Volunteer Program) administration, the over-600 of us seniors participating in projects contributed over 153,000 hours to various projects this year. Yay for us!!

Ah, yes, there have been new additions to the CBM Stash. Some Di.Vé. Autunno yarn, loosely spun merino, in a deep blue-green for an Emerald cardi (Knitty, Winter 2006) . More Patons SWS in Natural Slate for the Oat Couture Entrelac Tuxedo Vest for DH - he went wild over the scarf for my uncle, especially after he saw my swatch from trying to learn entrelac. Some absolutely yummy Austermann Inka (suri alpaca and wool) in off-white; this doesn't have a project yet, but oh, how soft and smooshy this is. Plus Elann has some great new house yarns arriving as December holiday gifts to their customers: a Silken Kydd (similar to Kid Silk Haze), a new chunky superwash wool, a lovely blend of wool/silk/bamboo, and a silk noile tweed. Some of the Silken Kydd in this gorgeous Baked Apple and some of the silk/bamboo blend will be coming here.

Last but not least, *of course* I've been spending too much time at Ravelry!! For a couple of weeks, it has been the only source of email I've been able to use. Plus there's the variety of forums and discussion groups. Last week, Stephanie started a new Unwind group. Check it out!! According to Casey, on a daily basis, Ravelry is now accepting twice as many new members as sign up, and as of yesterday there were only about 7500 in the waiting list. Go. Ravel in it!! Bwah-ha-ha!!

You Can Help

2007-11-06T17:46:00.000-08:00

The Afghans for Afghans charitable group has a need for some newborn-sized baby hats, socks and blankets very urgently. The items should be knitted or crocheted from wool, and should *not* be preemie baby sized. The deadline is December 3. Please help!

Here's the link for more details and the address.

Don't Hurt Yourself

2007-11-06T17:36:00.001-08:00

This was posted at the lolravelers forum on Ravelry, with the comment: "I think the cat in this picture needs a caption."

'Nuf said.

Oh, Hi! Remember Me?

2007-11-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a phone call from a friend who wondered if I'd fallen off the face of the earth, since my email hasn't worked in ages and I hadn't posted in a while. So here's yet another catch-up post. Let's review:

Email Disaster
After extreme procrastination on my part and lots of frustrating calls to the new and rather clueless support staff at AT&T's new U-Verse service, I've had to dump my 10-year-old email address. Permanently. Argghhhh!! Changing all those accounts with online businesses is going to take even longer than fixing the problem.

For all of you who've tolerated a lot of emails to me being bounced back to you, I thank you for your patience. I'm trying to link my new email addy to the Email link in the sidebar; it doesn't work yet, sad to say. (Yes, I have backed up the blog!) If you need to contact me, the email addy is "CBM (spelled out) AT att DOT com"

What's Been Going On
I've been having some persistent but non-serious health problems, which has kept me home a lot and in a bit of a funk. I'm still reading a lot and not doing much knitting. But my MD has finally figured out what will work, and I'm coming out of the slump.

Yesterday and today have been the charity boutique sale that my seniors' group participates in. We keep back the best of the lapghans (lap-sized afghans), lap quilts, baby items, scarves, hats, etc. that we make during the year and sell them at this once-yearly boutique. Quilts and lapghans sell for $15-$25, hats and scarves for $5 or $7. Etc. Bargain city. The quilts are gorgeous, pieced tops with limited quilting, but warm and just the right size to put over your legs while you're knitting. Check out last year's post for some samples. Last year we raised over $900, which we donated to local charities who need money, not hand-crafted items.

The Knitting News
I did finish one item in the last few days, just for the boutique, and I sold it last night for $10 on behalf of the group. Yay! A couple of years ago, when novelty yarn was still fashionable, I bought some yarn for a particular project that came to mind. And I finally knitted it. I must have been channeling Loretta Young about this, since this turned into a nearly over-the-top stole, one requiring a party dress, preferably black and elegant. OK, I'm 'fessing up here: this was made from 2 skeins of Patons' Divine mohair-style floofy yarn and 3 skeins of Patons' Glitterspun metallic yarn in gold and ruby. My fun-fur urges are now all gone. Here's a picture of the 8ft x 8in stole. The close-up is pretty color-accurate; the full-length picture is doubled.

Tomorrow Knitdevil, mehitabel and others of the SnB gang are bound for the Handweavers spinning, weaving and fiber festival in Torrance. We had a lot of fun last year and I even won a skein of Schaefer's Laurel cotton yarn in the raffle.

I've been enjoying the LolCats phenom at the I Can Has Cheeseburger? website, and it's affecting my posting language a bit. The captions mangle spelling and syntax, but they're funny.

I nearly titled this post "O Hai! Rember Moi?" But I will close with a Lolcat goodbye; just say it to yourself as 3 syllables and you'll get it. I promise to post more often.

KThxBai

Catching Up, Yet Again!

2007-10-14T11:36:00.001-07:00

Wow, where did 2 weeks go? It's been an up and down time Chez CBM. Read oh, 8 books, knitted madly, made some deadlines and missed a few others. Ya know, the usual. STILL haven't tackled the problems with my email - now I can't get to my Yahoo groups, so I guess I better get serious about fixing this.

Onward to the knitting and other news:

I finished the vest I was making for Afghans for Afghans and sent it off on Wednesday, along with a nearly-matching hat and a pair of socks. Then yesterday I found where I'd put the other 2 pairs of socks. OK, part of the next A4A campaign is already pre-knitted. I used the vest pattern linked from the A4A website, and I don't recommend it. It's a nice idea, starting at the center front and knitting vertically all around, with just the shoulders to seam. But the increases and decreases which form the V-neck are done too fast, and that makes for curling. I put several rows of garter stitch around, which covered a lot of sins and ends, though I should have decreased more around the armscyes. This was made with leftovers of WoolEase, Nashua Creative Focus Worsted, Cascade 220 and Patons Classic Wool - the back is solid dark green.

I started and finished a Comfort Shawl for my dear friend Fran, who had her second surgery last week, relating to colon cancer they found last spring. Her doctors dragged their feet for approximately forever about doing the second surgery, which they insisted she had to have. First she was too dehydrated and run down from the chemo - well, duh!! She's 82, fergossakes! Then they couldn't get her heart rate stabilized. Twice. The last time, she was *in* pre-op when the Chief of Surgery at the local hospital decided it was too risky to be done in his hospital. After more dithering between her oncologist and her cardiologist, Fran forced their hand and made her own appointment at one of the best cancer centers in the area, where the surgery had been approved. Way to go, my spunky friend!!

When I talked to her niece yesterday, Fran was still in ICU and giving the nurses occasional fits, but the reports from the surgeons said they'd found no recurrence. Happy Dancing!! Hallelujahs!! Through all of this, Fran has kept up her snappy comebacks and saucy attitude, even though she's become very frail and pretty thin in the hair department. When her niece said they'd found no new lesions, I felt like a knot came undone inside me, one I didn't realize was there.

I'd hoped to have the shawl done for her before she went into surgery, but I'll take it over as soon as they move her to a regular post-surgery room. I made the shawl from some Schoeller + Stahl Hobby yarn, an easy-care wool blend I had in stash (thanks for the reminder, MT!!)

While I was blocking it, I re-blocked my Sun Ray shawl, which was a tad too small at 56in by 33in.

This time I got another 10in across, which makes it 66in by 33in, a good proportion and a better fit.

I also blocked a Sun Ray shawl that was knitted by Gaye, one of the most talented knitters in my seniors' group, using some donated alpaca. I blocked it severely, and the alpaca blocked out farther than the wool in my shawl, plus she had more yardage; the finished shawl is 8ft by 4ft, and it's as light and airy as can be. Gaye looks smashing in it, but the shawl will be for sale at our Holiday Boutique.

While Gaye was modeling her shawl, the rest of our seniors' group was sorting our yarn into bags by color. We have to do this periodically, and it's a big project. Here's a view of *part* of the 'leventy-hundred skeins of acrylic yarns we have in our stash.

And I close with yet another picture of the inventive efforts of our resident squirrels to drag an old rug off to make nests; this morning we discovered it wrapped around the legs of our patio table and strung clear up to one of the hanging pots under our lime tree. I'd toss the rug in the trash where it belongs, but we're enjoying the fun.

No Bad Words Here

2007-10-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

Guess I've been pretty restrained in those rants, huh??

SmarieK, dedicated mom and designer of washcloths, hats and scarves, got a PG, for saying "crap" and "knife". Go figure.

Yarn Sale Survivor

2007-09-26T11:21:00.001-07:00

This was a very busy week: Lots of errands (Mom's laundry, taking de-stashed paperback books to the library for their October sale, prescriptions to pick up, etc.), lunch with my good friend Fran (from 'my' seniors' charity group), SnB on Monday with Marie and Madge, SnB on Friday night at Unwind with Deb and Mary Ellen, and so on.

The biggest part was getting the last sorting and pricing done for the yarns I was taking to the Giant Crafty Sale at Marie's. On Thursday, Madge and I went over to help with the setting up and met Marie, Mary and a couple of Marie's DDs. Thanks to all gods that Mary and Marie's DDs contributed the use of their canopies; otherwise we'd have been a puddled mass of knitters and yarns in the 80F heat. Marie and Ellen have posted great photos of the set-up and the event, so check out their blogs.

We sold a LOT of yarn, scrapbooking and quilting stuff. And we made a fair bit of money, over $650. I pretty much broke even, spending my earnings on yarns for me and some for the seniors' group, including the 'yarn skeins bigger than our heads' for the seniors. For me, I swapped some long-marinated Koigu for some beautiful lavender Laines du Nord Cashsilk(50% fine merino, 25% cashmere, 25% silk), snared a man's sweater's-worth of pale grey/white Austermann Peru (70% baby alpaca/30% merino), and some other little bits and pieces. Here are pix of my bigger treats:

And BTW, if the pictures at Marie's blog of me look tired, it's true. The pictures on Marie's blog are from 8:30am on Saturday. Getting to her house at that hour meant leaving Chez CBM before 7:30am, which meant getting up at oh-dark hundred. I *don't* do well at being places early, especially not on weekends!!

We closed up the sale and were on the way home by 4:30pm, leaving a pile of boxes of leftovers to be taken to various charities, including Stitches from the Heart's charity LYS in West LA.

I sold over $150 from my Ravelry stash, and I have a lot of yarns still available to sell; check them out! If you need pictures, I'll put them up; at the moment, I really don't want to look at more yarn, even the most lovable cashmere.

Just for fun, here's a new quiz: Chocolate Cake is good, yes??

You Are a Chocolate Cake

Fun, comforting, and friendly.
You are a true classic, and while you're not super cutting edge, you're high quality.
People love your company - and have even been known to get addicted to you.

What Kind of Cake Are You?