Catching Up, Yet Again!

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

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

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?

More Bits & Pieces

".. at the end of the storm is a golden day .."


I woke this morning to a glorious fall day - intensely blue sky, big white puffy clouds, crisp air and warm sunshine. Back in the Dark Ages of my junior high years, I had a chorus teacher who favored all the classic choral music, and "You'll Never Walk Alone" was part of our repertoire. And so this phrase was immediately in my mind. Brunch on the patio, oh, yeah!!

Burbank received nearly an inch of rain in the last two days, nearly a third of our rainfall for all of last year. Lots of mudslides and flooded areas and power outages. We had a big shock last night; I looked out the kitchen window and couldn't see the barbecue grill! We rushed out, and it had fallen over, just below my line of sight from the window. Cause: We had to have the outfall sewer dug up and replaced last spring, and have yet to replace the paving over the big swath that was cut out of our old concrete patio. We've recently had some caving-in in that area, and DH has been investigating, but without yet finding the reason. Well, the heavy rains collapsed a 4-5 foot section, and the barbecue had been sitting partially on the soil, not on the concrete, so it fell over. The noise must have been masked by the rain drumming on the roof. We think there's no damage to the grill, but we turned off the gas connection and more investigating is needed.

I had a nice catch-up message from my good friend Jayne, she of the gorgeous See Jayne Knit Yarns, so I remembered that I haven't shown off the yarns I bought while I was in Vancouver in July. Here's all the goodies:

Here's a huge skein of Café au Lait, 860 yds of beautiful fingering yarn, based on some Henry's Attic yarn.




These are CBM private colors, hand dyed before my eyes. I had a bag of the South West Trading Optimum dk in a boring odd sort of grey, and Jayne made it up into 2 batches for me. One is a bit more intense, and there's 300 yards of that; the other 1200 yards are more pastel.






And then there's another special yarn. Elann had a small batch of Cashmere Wool tweed yarn (70% cashmere!), and Jayne turned one skein into this gorgeous Blaze of fall color, nearly 400yds.







This is a very special present from her to me: a skein of her popular 'Jeans and a Tee', but this is 'Jeans and a Purple Tee'. In a wild coincidence, the day the package with all this yarny goodness arrived, I was wearing - jeans and my favorite purple tee. LOL!!

You may have seen a theme to my favorite yarn colors here, blues and purples and lavenders. Ah, yes; there's quite a lot of these colors in CBM's Stash.


I thought I'd end with a cutesy thing. Some time ago I put out an old throw rug, for Midnight to lie on when she's outdoors with us during our weekend brunches. The last few weeks, I've kept finding it dragged off the porch, and it's sprouted long pieces of yarn, ripped from the rug backing. I mentioned it to DH, and last week he came in laughing. He'd just seen a squirrel trying to make off with the rug. When he came around the corner, the squirrel panicked, but found that the yarn was caught and it took a bit for him to free himself. Today when we went out to have brunch, this is what I found, caught in the plants by the back steps; I'd left the rug neatly folded by the back patio door. Squirrels!!

Where My Yarn At?

A couple of posts ago I wrote that I'd ordered some Dream in Color Smooshy Sock yarn and a skein of Hand Maiden's Sea Silk from the well-known Sweet Sheep. I ordered on September 12. I got confirmation that it was shipped on September 13 via Canada Post Expedited, the free option for orders over $80. Mine was $86.

Today is September 22. Why do I still have no yarn? Because, dear knitters, Canada Post seems to have decided that the yarn needs to marinate in their possession at their Newcastle, Ontario postal centre. As of today, CP says I should probably get my yarn on September 27. The standards say, and I quote:

Expedited Parcel - U.S.A. has a delivery expectation of 6 to 12 business days between major centres in Canada and major centres in the U.S.A. (Some exceptions apply)

Darn them, from Sept 13 to Sept 27 is 10 business days. On the calendar, it's 14. Seems like last month.

I inquired of The Sweet Sheep staff, who quickly responded that 'normally' it takes perhaps 8 days to ship to California. So much for free Expedited. Have you had similar endless waits for yarn from The Sweet Sheep? Or other vendors who use "Expedited USA"? Elann has me spoiled. I pay for the shipping, regardless of order size, though they charge barely $2 handling over the actual cost of Priority Mail. It gets here the 3rd day after my order. Next time, I'll see about paying to get my yarn.

Small childish tantrum here - "I want my yarn and I want it now, already!!" It's been a cranky week.

My Bit of Fame

A year or so ago, one of the talented knitter/designers who is part of the regulars at the Elann Chat site had a chance for a book of her designs. Several of us 'Elannites' knitted up the patterns and sent them off to Elann, which was supporting the project. Sadly, the book deal didn't work out, but the finished designs and projects have been appearing as featured projects with the yarn used.

TODAY is the day that my project shows up! Woot! The bolero jacket is being shown on the beautiful Margaux, who is the spokesmodel for Elann.



Somehow the professional photographer didn't take any pictures of this from the back, so I'm posting the pictures I took of the bolero on me. Sorry, but it's far less elegant-looking with my ponytail and plaid shorts, lol!!



I'm going to be posting detail closeups at Ravelry, though if anyone should want these, with knitting the bolero in mind, LMK and I'll send them to you.

I'm jazzed!

Bits & Pieces

Most of the friends who were part of the group at the Yarn Harlot's talk have posted their photos, and here are some of the links: Knitdevil, mehitabel, and slowknitter. But here's a picture of the Harlot herself with our whole crew. Slowknitter is the brunette in the black top right next to the Harlot, and I'm next to her. I'm still jazzed about how much fun Stephanie's talk was.

It's been a quiet week Chez CBM. I took a tumble on Monday, another of my 'congenitally clumsy' moments, and bunged up my knee, just a huge bruise and all that. So I've spent a lot of time on the couch under the influence of good painkillers with my knee up and iced. No knitting, but a lot of good reading time. No, I will not show off the Technicolor feature - I'll leave that to your own imaginations, lol!

I took this really cute picture of Midnight the other day. Cute Overload had this adorable video to a 'Munchkin' kitten - a genetic variation that causes cats to have very short legs - and Middy was just entranced by it; sometimes she notices the moving pictures more than others. This one has a musicbox sound track and she kept patting the monitor. There was a Munchkin cat living at my aunt's assisted care facility when we visited there last fall; just an ordinary-looking cat with very short legs.

I've nearly finished cataloging my stash at Ravelry, and it's shocking how much yarn I have. It's being a real benefit, though; I'm completely lacking in yarn hunger, well, nearly. After all the oohing and aahing that Wendy Johnson has done about Dream in Color's Smooshy sock yarn, and then seeing and feeling several socks-in-progress at the YH event, I fell into order mode, and I'm looking for 2 skeins from The Sweet Sheep, which had a really wide selection last week.

A friend has started a KAL - Entrelac'tober, and I'm so tempted by the Danica scarf; I just happen to have 7 skeins of Rowan's Tapestry yarn in a good colorway, greys/browns. (BTW, am I the only one who thinks the guy modeling the scarf looks like the younger Ben Cross??) But then Knitdevil and I have been planning an Arwen-along. What to do, which to cast on first?