A Different Kind of Fiber?

Just so there's a little knitting content, here's Simon and his little friend,
who wears a knitted sweater. This little cat looks a lot like Simon, which is why when I picked him up from a vendor's table (at a Barbie show/sale, of all places) I couldn't put him down. He came home as a surprise for Himself--stood him up on the nightstand while H was sleeping. Simon does like him, too!

Took an "early weekend" to head to San Diego for their annual Quilt Show. We stayed at a very nice Marriott--here's the view from our 19th floor room:

And some of the quilts we saw at the show. There were some truly spectacular ones, but I decided not to post ALL my pictures. The moose is for you-know who, and I hope he's enjoying a lot of moose-watching now!

Fuschias are one of my favorite flowers. I can't grow them here, too hot and dry. I might have to make some fabric ones myself--whaddya think??

Autumn leaves. My very favorite time of the year, at least it used to be. Maybe it will be again, who knows? I have some great fabrics to make an autumn-leaves quilt, and maybe that will be a good way to work out some of the feelings.

Of course, first I need to locate the sewing table and make it useful. That was one of my goals for this weekend. So far, though, I've not had the energy. Maybe tomorrow? After all, as Scarlett said, tomorrow is another day; I'll think about that tomorrow!
Happy Labor Day weekend to all!

Another Day, Even Less Knitting

Road Trip! Two of my favorite words... but not when this happens! Blowout on the 57/210 transition road! I think some of my yarn budget (snicker!) is going to be diverted to the New Tire Fund. Anyway, all's well--the spare was in good shape, and seems to be holding air just fine; the Metro Patrol was on the job, had the tire changed in no time. But gee, what a way to end a trip!
Pictures from the quilt show later...

Pea Pod Pics!

Okay, progress shots:
This one doesn't have the detail but is truer to the real color, which is definitely a neon green!
Madge and Mary winding Sea Silk

Even in this picture you can see the sheen and suppleness of this yarn. Sooo yummy! Do I need some ? Of course not! Do I want some? Well, yeah. But it's going to need to find me, I'm not going to go looking for it.

Not. Going. to. go. Look. For. It. Really not...

An Early Fall

Came home from work (Job #1) today and nothing was amiss... Left to go to Job #2 and look what was at the end of my driveway! Yes, it's a branch from my liquidambar tree. I tried to move it up on the sidewalk, but no luck--it's a lot stronger than I am. Luckily The Daughter was able to get it out of the street, but it's her opinion that the trash guys won't take it--it's just way too big. So I guess it's time to get out the pruning saw, and work on cutting it up. Did I mention that this limb is about 6" across?
Why doesn't the universe want me to knit?

True Confessions of a Clutter Freak

After visiting a couple of knitter blogs today, I came to Crazy Aunt Purl who is on a cleanup and de-clutter campaign. So I thought perhaps I would blog about my efforts to reduce the CQ (clutter quotient) around here. Oh, and get ready for a possible move to CT.

A little background: about a year and a half ago, the Mr. and I decided (well, I decided, he was all in favor as long as I didn't make him do the work) that we really needed to do something about the state of this house. Between his various problems (the broken leg and subsequent knee replacement, then the cancer) my attention had not been on the house; and we tend to be packrats anyway. The Grand Plan was to reduce the volume of "stuff" by at least half.
Now, this is a big house. As in, 2500 sq ft big, with big rooms and big closets, and a full attic. Ah, the attic. And the two-car garage.
So what's the current status--what left? Well, thanks to some heroic efforts by the Younger Generation, the attic is now empty. The garage is still full, but some of that is stuff the The Resident Daughter is holding onto for her move--grandma's table and 6 chairs, a dresser--and the glass collection. Or part of it. Depression Glass is bulky to store. The piano is gone, along with the 8-foot brown sofa; we sold Himself's car to Carmax, and Youngest Daughter took her beloved VW bug home with her, so now there's only 2 cars in the driveway. I took two full Explorer-back loads of really nice (but way too small) clothes to a friend who works with a thrift shop that helps women get back into the workforce.
The sad thing, of course, is that we now have fewer people here, since Himself lost his fight with the cancer. It was inevitable, but he is still loved and missed here.
His clothes went to friends who were assembling boxes for dialysis patients uprooted by Katrina. Our group of charity-minded quilters (that's another whole post, how we migrated from Ugly Quilts to Hope Quilts) had a bunch of quilts ready to go, too, so our friends wound up sending 42 boxes of clothing and quilts to their contacts. The cat population is lower now too--the white cat, who was Himself's most devoted nurse and constant companion, at the age of 21 went to join her man.
A couple of rather largish dressers have also gone to live with Youngest Daughter, so you'd think that it would be getting better around here instead of worse. Well, maybe. It seems as though, the more I purge, the more stuff creeeps out of hiding! I had to move a lot of stuff so the contractor could get to the French doors, and some of it actually went all the way out. Books--most of the law books--are gone, and I'm going to weed out and organize magazines, too. I don't think I will be wanting to cross-stitch designs from those old magazines; and I'm beyond the Country-Living type of thing. Now I want that Craftsman look. (In THIS house? It is to laugh!)

Okay, okay. Enough of this. I did take a whole lotta pictures of the "before" look and as I get areas done, I'll post before-and-after, just like I did with the deck and the fence. Maybe you guys can keep me honest here, huh?

Fencing Anyone?

This is the "before" shot. Remember that tree that fell over? Well, this is the way the neighbors repaired the fence. I especially like that one panel was put up (leaned up?) upside-down. Oh yeah. I have lots more revolting pictures, but this one tells it all. Really, the only thing holding up this fence was the termites, holding hands and praying little termite prayers.This is after. I won't say it was super-speedy, but it's done right and it looks really good. See that little planting area? Can you say, whee, new plants! This is taken from the front of the driveway, the shorter part of the fence. Can you see the old gate there? They didn't want to pay for a new one, so the old one went back up. Awfully nice of my contractor, don't you think? View in the back yard, under the apricot tree. Does this not look like a nice place to sit and knit on a summer afternoon?
That little bit of concrete curbing you can see on the left side is a vestige of the original house and yard. It delineated a professional-sized croquet court. Yes, back in the '20's, people with big houses and big yards could have a croquet lawn in the back. There was a lily pond about where that hose is... the apricot tree is "new" since we planted it, way back when. I've made a couple of tons of apricot jam and apricot jelly from its fruit. Now, I'm afraid it's almost gone--we had it cut back last year, and no fruit at all this year. I will give it a year and see what happens and then it might be sayonara apricot tree. Very sad.

Off to SnB to get my knit on. If I can find the camera, I'll likely have another post later!

Made in the Shade?

Before: my front porch, exposed... faces west, dontcha know, so the sun just bakes everything. During. There's just something really cute about a couple of pairs of feet dangling in mid-air, isn't there?

After. It still needs to be stained, but it's already cooled the living room down significantly. Just in time for the new heat wave.

On the knitting front (you just knew there had to be knit content, right?) I'm still sorta struggling with Pea Pod. I did mess up the pattern, but I think it can be fixed. If not, then it's rippppp back and redo. I've also joined the Beadwork KAL Yahoo group, which might encourage me to get busy going through my magazines for the pattern. Beadwork is a Jade Starmore design, mainly knits and purls, and it looks like a good challenge. Of course I need a challenge--have I mentioned the trouble I'm having with Pea Pod, which is a very simple lace pattern?

Anyway, once I get that Adirondack chair cleaned off, I can see me sitting out there to knit in the early evenings. Wanna come join me??

By Request

There was a comment made somewhere (which shall go nameless) wondering what I look like. This is one of the better pictures of me. I'm having fun, giving my baby brother a hard time. You know you are no longer a spring chicken when your baby brother turns this grey! I particularly like how gnarled my hands look. Oh well, they can still knit, so I'm not complaining. They can still open wine bottles, too, sometimes with a little assistance from a tool of some sort. The champagne bottles are definitely left to the daughters. I'd show you the pics of the three of them trying to wrestle open a bottle, but I'll save them for some time when they need to be blackmailed. (Let's just say, they were taken from behind...)

Home Improvement, Part ??

This is the fence... that was slammed down by a 150-year-old oak tree, with a nearly 6' diameter trunk. Obviously the fence got the worst of it. The driveway did very poorly too, but what you see in front of the old fence is the NEW driveway. Yay!


This is where the old deck was. You can just see the shiny new back door. Well, those blue French doors have had a very hard life. I could show you close-ups that would make you weep for them. The deck succumbed to an assortment of ailments, but its final demise was wrought by a talented demolition crew. The tomato plant is a volunteer, and has produced masses of delicious cherry tomatoes over the last two summers.
However, it is sad but true that the tomato plant is not as valuable as access via the back of the house. I am terribly weary of bringing everything in from the front, as it is a long hike back to the kitchen. Here's a closer view of the fence in all its cheesily-repaired glory. Do note that the panel on the far right was put up upside-down. Oh, and I hate those umbrella trees. Nasty icky things!
Good-bye fence! Goodbye termites, and goodbye yellow jackets that had made a nest on the fence.More fence bits, including the extremely ancient and elderly chain link that was the front part of the fence.
Can I knit while this is going on?? Of course! Pea Pod is now back to where it was when I ripped it all out last week. There will be pictures as soon as the lace panel begins to look like something other than a bunch of holes and crossed stitches.

Test

For several days now, all I've had on my blog is the Blue Screen of Death. This is a test post, to see if anything will show up.

Happiness Is...

Getting close to the end of the eternal edging on the LaLa shawl! One of the unfair laws of the knitting universe is that, the larger you make something triangular that grows from the inside out, the more miles and miles of edging you have to knit. I'm thinking this one came to about 3.5 miles, right Joan?? Mary did some stash enhancement on her trip North...
As far as my personal knitting life goes, well, it's in a bit of a funk. Oh, I'm coming right along with the navy blue shawl (which is half practice piece and half prayer shawl), but the Pea Pod baby sweater? In the fluorescent green? Well, I should know better than to try to start that sort of pattern in the midst of a tie-dye frenzy. It's a simple chart, 15 stitches. Except that I was reading it left to right, instead of right to left, on the right side rows. Now that I'm 12 rows in, and realizing what happened, I have to decide to either:
1. bite the bullet and rip the whole thing back to the ribbing--137 stitches per row, mostly stockinette.
2. keep on the way I've been going and see what happens.
3. rip down the offending 15 stitches and re-knit them the right way. This is a lace pattern. (Shh! Don't tell the little guy's parents I'm putting LACE on his sweater!)
Day off tomorrow, so maybe I'll tackle it. We'll see. Otherwise it will be coming to SnB with me for a good shot of moral support.

Dyeing to Dye

So here we have the Great Dye-a-Thon 2006. Is there anything cuter than a tie-dyed baby onesie? Or two?
Or three?
Well, yes, actually there is. It's a baby in a tie-dyed onesie. However, the onesies weren't in any condition to put on the actual baby when these pics were taken, so there's going to be a little suspense.
Now, the next thing is, Mumsie here is going to use the leftover dye to dye her some yarn. We'll see how it comes out.
Stay tuned for the next exciting chapters!

KIPping in Pasadena, Part Deux

At the weekly gathering of the Pasadena Daytimers the usual rip-roaring good time was had by all. There was an additional touch of festivity however in the form of chocolatey goodness--have I mentioned that Zephyr is notorious for its delicious baked goods? Those are miniature Chocolate Lava Cakes, replete with deep dark chocolate fudgy filling and extra-special chocolate chips. Madge is making a 70's-style wrap. It's a joke, she says. Luckily it's crocheted and going quickly. We are all split on whether or not we'd do that much work for a joke, but she says it will be worth it. She's been photographed in her favorite style--hiding behind her project.
In case you were wondering why the extra festivities, it was a Bon Voyage party for Azusa (soon-to-be-Seattle) Marie. Even though her house hasn't sold yet, we knew we'd better catch her while we can, since she's heading up to Seattle next week for a visit--class reunion, family reunion, that sort of fun. We are SURE she'll be back--but she might be packing up her house by then! If you wonder what's in the baskets, be sure to check out her blog (My Crafting Ramblings, and there really is a link to it here on this page) since she laid out all the goodies and photographed them.
More Daytimers--Annette and Kille and of course Our Joan, who orchestrated all this hearty-party! Notice how they are "appearing" to concentrate on their knitting, thus ignoring the siren call of all that chocolate...

Okay, so no one really wants to show her face? This is a second view of the Candleflame Shawl, before I ran its tails in. It just felt so good to be finished! The top border is only 9 stitches, but it's garter stitch, and it takes two rows to reduce by one stitch. When you've got 300 or so stitches to get through, it feels like the worst kind of Knitting Black Hole.

K IPping in Pasadena

Hanging out at Starbucks' in Pasadena on a hot summer night is a good way to get some knitting done. Herewith two examples:
Yes, that's yet another Candleflame Shawl. This one is knit out of white LB Jiffy, speckled with blue. Model Marie insists it's quite large, but I think it's just a good size to wrap up in. This one will be going to St. B's in Conn. for their Shawl Ministry.

Example Two:

She's swatching to find a good pattern for the neckband of her Tempting II. After several hours, she still had this much to show for it--but a really really good idea of what WOULDN'T work!
Lastly, this little number is the washed and blocked swatch from the Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed that was photographed in process a few days back. It actually got tossed into the washer with the shawl shown above, with some lavender shampoo (heapie-cheapie brand) and some lavender fabric softener. The yarn really got soft and bloomed nicely. But, as you can see, the detail of the cable is lost. There's also a really strong vertical line to each stitch, which didn't show up on the swatch before washing. I think this yarn is destined to be yet another Slouchy Cardigan--I love the pattern, and I think it will be fun to have a couple (or more). I have an idea for personalizing the Blue Sky Alpaca one, too, which is almost ready to execute. However, since I have to ball the BSA, and the DB AT is all ready to knit, guess which one will be started first??

In other news, I've been on a shredding binge lately. Have been fighting a sinus infection which has left me feeling pretty lousy, and sitting at the computer and shredding old stuff is quite therapeutic. Ten bags of shreddies went out last night, and I'm willing to bet there will be that much again by Tuesday night. Yeah, I've let it go way too long! Also had a nice chat with the contractor and we are set to begin work in two weeks (YAY!!!) on a replacement deck and fence. In fact, I'm going out right now to take some before pictures!

Stash Yummification

There was a yarn sale. At Unraveled (in Monrovia). With discounts in a fishbowl. Hey, what's a knitter who's been craving Koigu KPPPM to do?? Especially when the SnB gang decides to meet there at opening time!

This is what:

Blue Sky Alpaca in cream, for a Slouchy Cardi from Greetings from Knit Cafe. There's a KAL for it, but I may or may not join t hat. After all, I have a bunch of other stuff in the queue. Not least of all, swatching some of that Koigu. I'm thinking that there may be a couple of scarves/mini shawls in my future. The orange is the big surprise, to me at least. Normally I don't gravitate to autumn colors, but this time I did. I love that orange! The blues are "my" colors but I also love the yellow/green combo. I only got one of each of those. Gotta show some restraint!

But the fishbowl was good to me--30% so it's like almost every 4th skein is free!

Gotta love that Koigu. Of course, when I got home from the sale, t here was a package from England waiting for me. Jannette had this lovely Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed on sale, super cheap, so that with shipping and everything it was well under $5/skein.

This might be another slouchy cardi, I dunno yet. I am swatching and it seems that the little nubs want to pop up on the back rather than the front, which is saying to me that a garter-stitch something might work nicely. I'm going to do a couple of cables on the swatch--I sure love me some cables--and then wash it to see what happens. The yarn is pretty rough right now, but I don't think it's meant to be next-to-the-skin wear anyhow.

So here's my "deep thoughts" for the day. I was listening to my SnB buds talking about their purchases, and I realized (I'm slow on the uptake on this, duh!) that there isn't anyone here at home for me to show it to, discuss it with, or any of that. I'm only accountable to me. For everything. Gets a little scary out here--kinda feels like I'm on the high-dive and I'm not even sure there's water in the pool to catch me!
I'm getting ready to make a few improvements to the place--a new deck (the old one was demolished over a year ago), a new fence, a new cover for the front porch, replace a couple of doors--and here I haven't even decided if I'm going to stay in this house! However, it would be nice to be able to use the back door again... so I'm doing it. Deep breathing now.

Meantime, it's fun to add to the stash--soothes the soul, don't you know!

Repeat after me:

Doesn't everyone have a cute bear keeping the monitor warm?? I haven't given this guy a name, he's just Bear, but isn't he sweet? He showed up in my Easter basket a couple of years ago, because D3 is just as big a sucker as I am for a cute face and a big nose and a cuddly shape!

On to other matters. This is NOT going to turn into a baby blog. Honest! The real reason I put this picture in is to show you the baby quilt. Yeah, the blue one. You kind of have to look closely, but it's a whole-cloth quilt done in pale blue on pale blue. It has a LOT of quilting on it--there are hearts, flowers, a Tree of Life in the center, with lots of little critters in and around the tree. There's a squirrel, and an owl, a lamb, a bunny, birds... take my word for it, okay. It's just a really busy quilt! The irony here is that the quilt came along with me when I first met Baby G, and his mom really really loves it--it goes everywhere with him. You've guessed it--the quilt is the blankie, not the little knitted one. We'll see what The Boy decides when he's a little older, but for now? He's still wrapped in Gramma-love.

His little buddy is named Deryk; he belongs to D4's best friend and is 2 weeks--yes, TWO WEEKS older than our little guy. He's got the smiling and cooing down pat; Baby G is just learning. We figure they will be good playmates when they get a little older!

Yeah... Baby D and Baby G...

Something Old...

Since I didn't get to SnB on Wed this week, I was feeling a little "deprived" of things to post. Lo and behold, I've had this sweater hanging in the doorway to my "computer room" for quite a while now, so I thought I'd share it. It's my own design, done in chunky lavender yarn umpteen years ago--the lavender is the tipoff, since that's D2's* color. But it was worn a lot by D5*, too, who really really loved it. It's now getting ready to go to Colorado to live with the darling granddaughters--I've been putting off sending it, since there are 2 of them and only one sweater. My innate sense of fair play says there should be 2 sweaters, and I know I have more in the closet-cave. Anyway, those are x-o cables and a kind of interlaced cable--it's not the greatest picture, but I love how the center cable unravels to edge the ribbing on the V neck. Damn, I used to do good work!
* Much as I hate referring to my children by numbers, it's occurred to me that it's much easier (and probably internet-safer) to do so. Therefore D2 will refer to my second daughter, D5 to my youngest, etc. They do have names, rather nice ones I think, and I'll probably toss them around a bit too, but for the most part I think I'll stick with the numbers. My second son usually refers to himself as "#2" and his brother was The Big A. Yes, the two boys were the oldest, followed by the five daughters. Now all but one of them are married and the four oldest all moved away from "here." 'Nuff history for you? I thought so.
Hey, at least there was something fibery here today! Considering the heat and my general degree of wilt, that's a major victory!

Knittergirls

Obviously not the most recent picture, but oh well. These are my Colorado granddaughters, and I took this pic when I was there visiting them in December '05. They both wanted to learn to knit so I got them yarn, needles, a set of knitting circles and a kids' knitting machine. They really took to all of it, as you can see from the pile on the coffee table. What brought this up is that I was talking to their mom last night, and she said they'd spent the afternoon in the living room, pillows piled all around them, knitting up a storm. I'm glad to see it wasn't just a passing fad! By the way, the white "pile" on the sofa is a cream-colored AbFab--their mom (my oldest daughter) loves white-on-white quilts so this was a natural (!) choice for her. Thanks to the great prices I found on eBay, the AbFab kits were pretty reasonable and I'm currently working on my seventh one. They were great "hospital knitting" and I got a lot done on them when Bob was either in the hospital, or at the dr's getting chemo, or just when we'd be sitting around the house. I think he really liked it when I would sit and knit, and I know that there were a lot of times--especially when he was in the ICU--when I could stick around and knit quietly, and not be banished to the waiting room. The knitting was my "twitch" so I could sit still and be calm.

New Yarns

So I know I'm supposed to not be buying yarn--but I made an exception for the brussels-sprout-green Glace, because I've been wanting to make a certain sweater out of it for eons and eons, and couldn't bring myself to pay the price for that much yarn. Elann had it half price, can you say, Sold! to the lady in the sweaty T-shirt!
The other yarn is a lovely skein of Socks That Rock in the Highway 30 colorway. It's got a nice story. A while back, Claudia (I've lost her blog addy) was getting pledges for her stint in the MS Bike thingy back in Mass. Since MS is one of "my causes" I sent her a pledge. Didn't think anything more about it till I got an email that I had won this yarn! It really has a lovely hand and I'm thinking it will make a nice scarf or shawl, since I don't like to knit or wear handknit socks. Thanks Claudia! Stash enhancement at no extra charge... now what more could I ask?

Couple more FO's!

Simon says...

Laundry is my bag! (Note the pants hanger--now that can't be comfortable to sleep on!)

Then we have the pink glittery fuzzy Feather and Fan scarf, which has provided lots of good walkabout and meeting knitting... As I type this, it's on its way East to my daughter-in-law.

Here's blankie in all its glory--finished!

And just for chuckles, a picture of the blankie with its new owner!