Pink-a-liciousness

Here it is--the pinkalicious purse, seen on the arm of a very pinkalicious lady at the recent Barbie show. She was very nice, very friendly, and was quite happy to let me photograph her pink purse. It matches her pink sandals, she showed me, and it also went with her pink outfit. She'd worn it to remind her of the doll she was going to pick up, which is wearing a... wait for it... pink outfit.

Barbie show always includes lots of pink. Many attendees seem to feel it's necessary to dress like Barbie doll, but I can assure you it isn't. I don't.

But, it does make for a fun outing. Would I have preferred going to the Santa Monica Fiber Fest? Probably. But my wallet, and my credit card balances, are much happier that I made this choice. Total spent? $0.


So imagine my surprise when I showed up for Montrose Monday Knitting, and found that Mary had resurrected her Wobbly Tote.

It's pink. Totally pinkalicious.

This is a view of the back, along with a random person at the coffeehouse who is obviously smitten with the project. Kudos to Mary for picking up this large WOOLY UFO!!
As you can see, though, the coffee house's nice table provides a good resting place for all those little bobbins of yarn. And they do keep their a/c at slightly above freezing, so it's not painful to work on wool.

Check out Madgik's new project--her Chevron Scarf. I will let her tell you what she calls it.

However, I will just note t hat I am sporting a large example of the species, in exactly those colors. No pictures. Nuh-huh.


So Wednesday is usually Knitting Day, but this week it became something else. Several people had conflicts so we had to cancel our knit n' coffee time.
But it was okay, because this Wednesday happened to be Guild Day. And August, being a hot month, is not usually a terrifically well-attended meeting, so it's become our annual charity sew-a-thon. Here you see my work space--serger threaded and humming, I managed to get quite a bit done. Note the snacks readily at hand: blueberries and blackberries. You can't see the table with the cookies and veggie tray and cookies and crackers and cookies, but it was there.

Here's one quilt top, ready to be backed and quilted. Blocks made by E. and H. (the quilting doctors) and the whole thing assembled by Yours Truly.
Here's a couple more shots of the work area. This is the table behind my sewing station, complete with lots and lots and LOTS of stuff.




The guild ladies--there were 19 of us today working on this project--left with 27 finished quilts as well as another 20+ in progress. Now, not all of these quilts were started from scratch today--remember, I had blocks already made--but still, it's an impressive total. Our Charity Chairman Charlene has a goal of 100 quilts to donate this year, and it looks as if we're well on our way!

You may have noticed (duh!) that there are pictures with this post. Darling D4 fiddled and futzed with the camera, and it is now happily working away. Plus, the more I use it, the better it seems to behave. Whew! (The body is healing.)

On a happy note, I went to the workshop today with 4 large tubs full of stuff. I came home with one tub, half-full. Yay for destashing!! And the best part is, it's all going to get used in a good cause. One tub is full of quilt tops (with matching backs) which some of my friends (Hi Anne! Hi Carol! Hi Lisa! Hi Sandy!) are going to use for practice--they took a long-arm quilting class and are really eager to practice their technique, and this tub o' quilts will be perfect. I just love it when everything comes together!

Traumatized!

Note: no pictures in this post. There is a reason for this. My trusty camera is sick! I had taken it out to the back yard for some photo shooting--you know, pics of roses and spiderwebs and such--and on my way back to the house, I got sorta kinda tangled up with an old push broom that LEAPED out at me and tripped me up! Camera went flying, and after I had picked myself up out of the tangle of old lawn chairs, I finally found it. Seemed to be all right, but then yesterday when I tried to take some yarn pr0n photos, I couldn't get the lens cover to open. I finally got it open, and then of course it wouldn't close. D4 finally got it closed, but it's going to need a trip to the Camera Hospital.

The up side of this is that I cannot take a picture of my bruise. Trust me, you don't want to see it, even if it is a deep rich royal purple. I would so love some yarn in this color...

So I'm trying a new tactic in my battle with Stash Enhancement. This consists of wallowing in what's already here, as opposed to going out to find more more more. Yeah, I told ET, this is like bolting the barn door after the horse is off and running, isn't it? But I have to say, it's amazing and awe-inspiring to see what's already here. I'm currently winding some of my treasures from Stitches West, with lots of help from Simon and kibitzing from Padua. (HiHi, on the other hand, is much more interested in his new feather-tailed mousie.)

So, tonight a little Train Wreck TV (the kind that's so bad you hate yourself for watching but can't tear yourself away) and lots of yarn winding. The a/c works in the living room, so it will be much cooler than outside!

And if I have to leave the camera at the CH, maybe I can persuade D4 to loan me hers for a few snaps. Just a couple of pictures...

Sky, Spectrum, Winding Things Up

There is seldom any kind of sky action out here--usually, especially with the kind of heat wave we're having, the sky is that clear hard bright blue that looks fake. Today, even though we've got severe weather warnings for the heat, we've also got clouds.
See?


This view is looking south, over my neighbor's roof. From this angle, you can't see the holes that my poor late lamented oak tree punched in the roof. Holes that, 2 1/2 years later, are still covered with black trash bags held down with bricks and rocks. By the way, I'm not being snotty about the roof damage--I happen to know that their homeowners' insurance paid them plenty to repair it.



View looking west, with a corner of my roof and my crape myrtle and liquidambar trees.
Interesting cloud formation, isn't it??
My green rose seems to have acquired a tenant--can you see the spiderweb?
Yes, it's supposed to be a green rose. It turns yellow as it opens, but the petals get a touch of green as they age.


This is PURPLE for Project Spectrum. It's a Rose of Sharon that volunteered in my rose bed. Also known as Blue Hibiscus, it's a nice shade of magenta.

Agapanthus, aka Lily of the Nile. An extremely hardy plant with hummingbird-approved flowers. A very blue-purple!


Along with the morning glory, which is growing next to and amidst my combretum. I'll be out to take pictures of its blossoms as soon as they are ready, since they fit the orange part of this month's colorway.

Orange rose:

and orange rose hips!

Hmmm... didja think there would be no yarn in this post? Think again! What does a person do while waiting (for the fifth time, folks!) for a freezer to be picked up?
One gets wound up, of course! Here's my "collection" of Black Water Abbey yarns. The green is Moss and the blue is Bluestack.
Now, here's an interesting bit of trivia. The green was fine, but the blue smelled really funky. Not only that, but when I had finished winding it, there was a fine layer of blue-grey grit all over the coffee table.

What's that all about??

Oh looky, looky! New yarn! Gee, I wonder where that came from?

Well it says it's from See Jayne Knit. So I guess that's where it's from.
But how did it get here?

ET!! Phone home, and tell me what's going on here!
Mmmm. Rum Raisin--much darker in real life...
Fuzzy Peach, silky and wonderful.

Check out the adorable coffee bean stitch markers that came on the Cafe au Lait!
Ah well, they're all PS colors, aren't they?? And that alpaca is sooo soft... I can hardly wait to get it knit up into a nice cozy shawl. Then I'll need some cool weather to wear it...








One last look at the sky. Looking due south again. Sure wish there was some rain in those clouds, and not just humidity to make the heat more uncomfortable!

Ah well, at least it's a pretty interesting sky!

Oh, and the freezer? It's gone, gone gone!! Finally!!

Sunday "Sports"

What does one do when it's Sunday and hot out? How about visiting one's local stamp pusher...err, demonstrator, yeah, that's it!--even when she's not super-local. Maria was having an Open House, with some super-fast and quick projects to make. So over the river and through the freeways we went (yes we do have rivers out here, even though they are all encased in cement troughs and are bone dry this time of year!) and a good time was had by all. Can I just mention that it was 104 out in Rancho Cucamonga?


So I came home to a cooler project. When the knitting mojo has wilted from the heat--and trust me, driving almost 100 miles round trip in that heat will wilt anyone's mojo--there are still yarny things to do with the fan blowing.


Winding yarn!!

These are some "previously acquired" skeins: the two big ones are Fleece Artist BFL, one skein each of Blackberry and Autumn. The middle-sized on is Sea Wool in Autumn, and the two small ones are the skeins of Lori Lawson's handpaints from the trip to LPK on Saturday.

It can take a long time to wind this much yarn! The BFL is laceweight and has 1000 meters per skein. I think they will become shawls--I have some Fiber Trends patterns marinating in my stash that I think will work just beautifully!
And yes, MS3 is still in Time Out. I moved it around this morning but haven't made a final decision about it. We'll see how things go later today!
Meantime, there are two tubs of Black Water Abbey waiting for me to wind them. I was looking at pictures of Celtic Dreams and getting the urge to cable... Yeah, it's almost 100 here today and I'm thinking of heavy wool and cables. I think the heat has melted my brain. Either that, or the a/c is finally working!

Care And Feeding of an ET*

*ET is my Evil Twin. She tends to shop for yarn "just because." Turns out, I'm not the only one who has one. She has a way of finding playmates, and this weekend turned out to be a banner one for several of them!
ETs love cupcakes. Well, they like anything sweet. They travel best on iced tea, with or without pomegranate juice added.

ETs can find really cute places to hang out. They are, as you may have noticed by the cupcake choice, particularly fond of the color pink.

Therefore, the Pink Porch is a prime hunting ground. Wait, what's on those PINK flyers in the windows??

Look closely... they say 50% off entire stock!
No the chandelier did not come home with me. Neither did the punchbowl. However, there were a couple of items that did.
Simon helped to wind them into balls. Well, not everything needed to be wound, so it didn't take the entire evening to get it all wound up.
He wants you to see how good he looks with Noro Transitions, Classic Elite Bravo, and red Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky. There might also have been some sharing of Debbie's Bliss too. However, this post is already too photo-heavy so I'll tease you with a promise to "bare all" soon.

But ET isn't happy with just a trip to the Valley on Friday. Oh no. She found a couple of other playmates on Saturday as well. Braving the horrors that await on I-5 South, this intrepid crew of three went into the deepest OC. All the way to Ladera Ranch, to La Petite Knitterie.

There were spinners there!

There was wonderful handpainted yarn by the incredible Lori Lawson. (I do believe that's her at the spinning wheel. The balloons are for a birthday. The cake was in the back room.)Madgik couldn't resist the siren song of the silk. Oh, did I mention?? They were having a sale. 40% off on many things, 10% off on the rest of the stock. Patty found some handpaints too, in wonderful glowing colors. I hope the two of them will be showing you more pictures on their blogs. Madge likes to take pictures of people who are taking pictures of her.

Then there was lunch. This is a Pacific Cobb Salad.

And a roast beef sandwich....

And this wondrous concoction of apples, cranberries, walnuts, greens etc... as well as the cupcake previously seen.

ETs need to eat. Part of the "care and feeding" means finding great places to eat. This one was called Pacific Whey.

My haul:

some handpaints--to go with my Can't Elope from a couple of weeks ago

some patterns--interesting cardigans

and a book of mother-and-baby designs, from Rowan, designs by Martin Storey. Plus a really cute pattern for baby (and teddy bear) sweaters, from the people who brought you the Wonderful Wallaby.

You cannot venture down I-5 without a stop at this iconic location:

Well, at least we couldn't. It's amazingly freeway-close and accessible, and it's HUGE. I mean, HUGE! They have an amazing selection of all kinds of yarns, from the most basic--more colors of Cascade 220 and Encore than I've seen on this coast--lots and lots of Colinette, Rowan, etc etc. And a world-beating collection of floofy, fun-furry, glittery, shiny, novelty yarns too.

But they weren't having a sale. And ET's been hideously spoiled, and besides the thing she liked best was the Colinette Cadenza and it came in three colors she couldn't decide among. When faced with a difficult choice, ET often will refuse to choose and just pick up her marbles and go home.

What a weekend. And it's only Saturday night! It's been rumored that there is an outing planned for tomorrow as well, but we'll just have to wait to see if it comes off first.

Goofin' Around

Found this little button today while blog surfing. For some reason, though, it doesn't want to play nice on my sidebar. But it's such a cute idea! More info on it here.

An alternate view:

The idea is briefly that instead of JOINING a Sock Yarn Club, you can go stash diving into your own collection and get all excited about the "new" yarn you've found.

I think this could easily be expanded to any type of yarn you might want. For instance, I have some yarns that have been kicking around since my last trip to Australia. In 1988. (Makes it sound as if I've been lots of times, doesn't it? Actually, twice. Both times in 1988. But that's a long story for another day. Ah, Sydney. North Richmond, Windsor, the Hawkesbury River, the Blue Mountains. Bowral. Stop me now before I go book a trip right now!) I have yarns that are older than that.

Moving on. Here's the latest on what I'm starting to think of as the Great Freezer Farce. Our local electrical utility has a refrigerator/freezer turn-in program which they advertise heavily. Of course, that's the PR arm of the company at work. The arm that's actually in charge of picking up the appliances? Not so good.

Consider this: I have an elderly upright freezer. It used to sit side by side in my garage with my old refrigerator, both being very handy when I had a horde of people needing to be fed three or more times a day. Go through 2 gallons of milk at a meal? Not a problem when there's a spare fridge! Need lots of ice cream to get through the summer? How about a place to store that turkey that was on sale? See, extra appliances are good when there is a need for them. Once the need dwindles, though, those appliances sit out there eating up perfectly good kilowatts, and don't get enough use to justify the expense.

So. I called. I made an appointment for a pickup. Monday, July 2. I will save you the litany but today was the 4th appointment I had made. Got a call this morning. Truck is broken down. No pickup. Rescheduled for next Tuesday. That's 6 weeks, folks, and the freezer is still there. We'll see if they make it the next time.

At this point, it's the principle of the thing. They say they want to pick it up, they tell me they will, so by golly I'm going to hold them to that. Even if I have to deliver the thing myself to their corporate headquarters. Hey, Electric Company, I know where you live!!

Sushi Socks!

Looking around for some purple and orange, and while it's a bit of a stretch, here's some: Nordy's apparently has a "thing" for orange, as you can see by their bags, with a little purple thrown in for good measure.
This is the Grandcarrot at 9 pm after a productive night's shopping. In the bags? His new jeans.

Some new clothes for Mom.

And for Memere? Sushi socks!
Shown posing with my new green Birkenstocks. I had to promise D3 (aka the Fashion Police) that I would not wear socks with my Birks.
But aren't they cute?
I was in Downtown Monrovia yesterday and my friend (whose birthday we were celebrating) wanted to go to the library.
Guess who hangs out at the Monrovia Library?
Gotta love small towns!

Brown, Orange, Purple

Time to say hello to the last group of Project Spectrum colors.
First up, my pretty peach rose from the front yard. I was trying to photograph these today with one foot in a hole and the other balanced on a slope, while the breeze blew the flowers around quite enthusiastically. I am amazed that this came out so well, because there was also enough glare that I couldn't see the image on the camera's little window.



I like that the orange daylily has some purple jacaranda blossoms on the sidewalk next to it. For some reason, the jacaranda blossoms are hanging on much later this year.

Purple yarn. Okay, pinky lavender yarn, but still. It's close.

Ditto.
This is orange, not brown, but it's close.
Now I have to admit that ET did some shopping last night, and lo and behold, what did she order?
Some brown yarn.
Some purpley-brown yarn.
Some peach yarn.
When it arrives, I'll show it to you. Promise. Gotta hold that ET accountable, after all!

By the way, if you haven't read Crazy Aunt Purl today, go do it. Hopefully that link will take you to the right post. I think she's been tuning in to my frustrations and aspirations. In any case, the post gave me a lot to think about.

So I'm off to think about them. And to dream, in color, about what to make with these yarns!!