Gung Hay Fat Choy!

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

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

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???

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

1. Seam and finish Ribby Cardi (from early 2007)
2. Finish and seam Something Red cardi
3. Finish and gift Ribwarmer vests to Rita and Anna (this is an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern, found in her Knitting Workshop book) (spring 2007)
   
4. Finish Keri Mac socks (test-knitting pattern)
   
5. Finish Jaywalker socks (UFO from 2006 Knitting Olympics)
6. Finish Dayflower Lace shawl (2007)
   
7. Knit DH entrelac vest with SWS, Natural Slate - first entrelac project
   
8. Knit shawl with Lonesome Stone alpaca
9. Knit Odessa hat
10. Knit Urchin hat - pink LB Woolspun - use this old stash up, and give to charity
11. Knit Wisp or Branching out, or other smallish scarf in laceweight - first laceweight project
12. 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'!!!

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!

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?

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!!