Jolly Holiday

I mentioned in my last post that I was heading for Monterey and thereabouts for a long weekend. Well, I am here to report that I went, along with the Grandcarrot and his parents, and a good time was had by all. Garrett is a good little traveler and was as well-behaved as one can expect from a 16-month-old.

Son-in-law Ferdi grew up in Monterey/Seaside and wanted to check out a few things while we were there. Unfortunately Garrett isn't quite old enough to appreciate the trip down memory lane, but it was fun for Mom and Grandma. We did the 17-Mile-Drive, shopped a bit in Carmel, had dinner at Bubba Gump's (there will be food pictures later--long story!), visited the Aquarium, which is where I was able to get some pictures of my knitting. The Chevron scarf posed with this bronze river otter, who definitely does not look happy about being adorned with Noro Cashmere Island yarn.
Silly otter!
I have to say, his disposition did not improve any once the offending headgear was removed.

So a different otter had to be found to model the progress on Lady Eleanor III.

He looks much happier about it all.



The boy had a good long nap after the visit to the otters. He liked the sea otters best, I think, although the white shark paid him a visit and his mom and dad were quite taken with the TWO giant sunfish in the deep water tank!

Now we are home and busy getting ready for a baby shower this weekend. I'm wondering whatever happened to my quiet life, and how did I ever manage to find time to go to work??

Hopefully posting will become a little more regular after the excitement this weekend. Of course, if you check D5's blog, you will see that there is more excitement coming up in the near future!!

Friday Cats

I'm sure that's out there somewhere, right? When there isn't much knitting to show, distract the readers with pretty cats?

Meet Shyla. She's the sister of Maxine, who was featured last month. True to her name, this one is a shy girl. But. She decided to come out and visit the other night, and make nice to "grandma." She is every bit as soft and silky as she looks.

D5 actually took this picture--and, Shyla is posing on an Ab Fab that I made.

Does that mean this can be an FO picture as well as a pretty cat pose?


Here's my Highland, doing his "contented cat" pose on a quilt.

In other news, I am packing for a quick trip up the coast with D3 and her family. Yes, Memere gets to spend some quality time with the Grandcarrot. We're going to hit the Aquarium, and Back Porch, and Monarch and whatever else we can find in Monterey, Carmel, and Pacific Grove. Maybe I'll (finally) get D3 to scope out Asilomar, too--I've been telling them for years that it's an ideal spot for our Family Reunion.

So, here's wishing you a happy weekend, if you have the Monday holiday especially. I'm hoping to have lots of good knitting pics to show you when I get back--maybe some nice photos from 17 Mile Drive and the Bay, too!

Wednesday Wanderings

Yes, there has been knitting. Voila! Madgik finished a baby blanket today. Very very cute--soft, fuzzy, black with furry red trim. There's going to be a little devilish baby hat to go with it--too too rock n' roll!
The funniest part of this was her absolute horror at working with furry yarns again--so much so that the leftover yarns went directly into the trash can! I think she's really just OVER the funfur phase...


Is this not the cutest, cutest, most adorablest baby bootee ever?? It is definitely squeeee-worthy!

This was Mary's project today. She will s how you photos when the pair is done, complete with their little buttons, but honestly--too much! Now I have to find the copy of the pattern I downloaded, and start a pair for Sweet Pea.









How much stuff got moved out of my house during the sale?

Let's see: this many empty tubs' worth.




Oh, and this many too:

Simon says, what happened to my house??

More stuff to go:

Rocks! This rockpile has been around for quite a number of years. Some of the rocks came out of the concrete in the old driveway, including the two that I always tripped on when getting out of the car.
Always.


Bricks too. Himself had a "thing" about bricks, and he loved his brick pile.

So.
The brick pile before.










Rock pile after.


Brick pile after.

Rocks and bricks have gone to live with Mary U. She's been wanting bricks to build a planter with, and rocks to build a rock garden on.

Hey, after all her help with the yard sale, it's only fair, right??

Tonight is "dinner with the Ds" and more knitting time. I've cast on for a blanket for Sweet Pea, which I will take pictures of and post as soon as it looks like more than four rows of garter stitch! (It's the Totally Autumn blanket from Knitty, only done in Lotus Yarns' Lullaby colorway. You'll have to use your imagination for a bit. But there are only 8 rows of garter in the border, so be patient!)

And yes, we seem to be developing a vegetable theme for the latest crop of grandkids. First the Carrot, and now Sweet Pea. That's partly because the invitations for the baby shower have a little pea-in-the-pod theme, and it's just a cute way to refer to the baby-to-be. However, I draw the line--there will be no turnips, rutabagas, zucchini or Brussels sprouts! (Hmmm... just remembered that my dad always referred to D2 as his "hot tomato." Guess the veggie theme isn't so new after all!)

Remembering

Andrew Robert Watterlond

October 9, 1963--October 2, 2004

We know that this is not goodbye.

Aftermath

After all the effort, the sale is over, the boxes of leftovers are distributed to various charitable endeavors, the tents are down, the only thing left to do is relax.



Oh. I forgot. There are all those empty tubs to clean and sort and put away. But that's a minor detail!


My iron infusion today was--well, let's just say, I'd rather not discuss it. Moving on.
It was an impromptu Montrose Monday. Barbara brought her unopened package from Elann.


It's her bolero! Not only did she knit this beauty, it's the current front-page item on the elann.com website.

Way to go!

When I got home, I had a package too. A cute little square box, containing a cake of Cabin Cove laceweight. My prize from Dave's contest!

Thanks, Dave! Not only is it a great color, it's very very soft. I think this might work very nicely for a stole pattern I have in mind... I posed it on an antique desk we have. Family lore is that it came West on the Emigrant Train--from Virginia to Illinois. Back in the days when Illinois was the frontier. (The family later kept moving, to Nebraska and then on to California. But that's a story for another day.)

So. An altogether good Monday, all things considered, even though our heat is back and the temperatures keep rising. No complaints!

Oh--wanna see another video? You can mute the conversation, it's just the dinner-table talk.

Experiment!

Ok, this is my first video upload. What do you think? did it work??

All Over...

Blue skies with a little cloud activity going on... cool, clear, crisp day.

Check.

Change? Signs? Ads?

Check.

Merchandise?

Oh, yeah, check!

Supervisor on duty?

Check!

Deryk did not spend all day in Baby Jail. He did, however, find the deck to be a great place for an afternoon nap.


Dillon agrees.
Merchandise displayed to advantage.

Check.

We tried to get everything at a pretty good height for browsing, since after all straining your back to bend over is not conducive to a good shopping experience.
There's a reason they put the high-priced impulse items at arm's reach in the supermarket, and make you bend for the store brands and the staples!
Wool-Ease is easy to display on the floor, however, since it's one of those yarns everyone knows! (Yeah, I think I had cornered the market. But most of it has gone to a new home or two or seven, so it's ok.)


The crew assembles for coffee and waiting for the first customers of the day.
The fence makes a great place to display quilts for sale. I might need to remember that!
No, they are not quilts I made; they are all commercial quilts. Nice ones.
But now that I no longer have 8 beds to cover, there really is no need to have a couple of dozen quilts. One dozen or so is sufficient!
This was before the knitting began. Of course, by that time, I had been relieved of the camera. If you want to see some more great pictures of the knitting bee, visit Ellen's blog. I'm not sure that a yard sale is supposed to generate quite so much laughter, but it was certainly a lot of fun!


Balls of yarn bigger than your head.
Check!

Who knew there was this much yarn lurking in our stashes?? No no, it's not all mine, not at all. It's come from lots of homes. Honest!
Mary is not tempted by that Koigu/Charlotte's Web Shawl kit.
Nope. Not at all!






End of the day, what's left over?

Well, there are a few boxes of yarn going to Stitches from the Heart.
Some books and fabric will go on to the next sale, at blogless Gwen's.


The needlepoint and cross-stitch supplies will head for A Stitch in Time, which will be having a special sale of UFOs to benefit a local charity.

Time to put our feet up and relax, with a little more breathing room in the house for the remaining yarn!

Many many thanks to everyone who helped out: Mary, Madge, Barbara, Mary U, Leigh and her boys, Anne, Sandy, Meighan and Courtney; Melise and her boys, and Ellen and the very supportive WeHo group, too!

Preview time!

Well, for starters, there are two BIG bags of crochet thread from Madgik. Also in sight, some needlepoint goodies from CatBookMom, as in, can you say Ehrman? Or hand-painted?


A view of the Book Dept. Yes, those are quilt books, and cross-stitch treasuries, and a lovely book on stenciling, and... well, you get the idea!
Tubs and tubs o' yarn. Oh yeah. I have lots and lots of Cherry Tree Hill, Wool-Ease, some mohairs, some vintage Sears Fisherman yarn--well aged!--lots of stuff. That's CBM checking out the tubs.

More stuff. There are some rubber stamps in there, and lots of albums.

Now, bear in mind, this is before we had everything out. There will be more coming in the next day or so.

I'm expecting baskets, and there will be quilts for sale, too. Finished quilts. Lots of fabric is supposed to be on its way, too.

Tempted yet? Check here for more info!

The weather is supposed to be cooperative in the next couple of days, with mid-70's temps and no rain in the forecast. Today was hot hot hot, too hot to be doing all this schlepping. Did it anyway. Many many thanks to CBM, Madgik, Mary, blogless Mary U, D5, D3, and Leigh.

Boo Hiss

I have some charming photos of stuff for the yard sale. Blogger pretended to upload them, but they have now vanished into the ether.

So I'll try again later! Meantime, there is sale info here: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/art/433734410.html

Saturday Sky, and...

Last night, after a looooong day of getting ready for the Sale we went to dinner. This is the sky as we were going into the restaurant.

Ah, yes, we had a lovely stormy day with rain and everything. I loved it!

We'd spent the day going through tubs and boxes of yarn and fabric and... to get ready for next Saturday's Big Huge Crafters' Yard Sale. "We" in this case includes yours truly, plus D4 and D5 and Madgik too, with a little cheerleading from D3. (She'd been at work all day, starting at 3:30 am, so she wasn't up to much except egging us on and going to dinner with us.)
For your temptation: some boxes of goodies for the sale. Yes, that's a big ol' box of needles, many in grand living color. If you look hard you can see the sweater machine, too.



Just look at all those goodies: there is some Noro in there, and some Cherry Tree Hill, and lots of Wool-Ease. The hot pink Sayelle is already spoken for, though, as I promised it to a special Collector. Fear not, there is acrylic and fuzzy stuff too, along with the silver chenille and the lovely soft green cotton chenille.
Love them all, but the time has come to thin the stash. Culling is always painful but I'm hoping to see my treasures go to nice new loving homes.
Oh, there's a whole tub of cross-stitch fabrics, too. Tempted yet? And my buds haven't even started bringing over their additions!

On another note, I had a pleasant surprise this morning: I won! Dave Daniels of Cabin Cove had a contest, and I won! Dave makes such gorgeous yarns and takes beautiful pictures of his yarn and his lovely Miss Lulu Kitty (my furboys have a crush on her) and reading his blog is a delight. So thanks, Dave! (And thanks to Larry for alerting me, even before the coffee was done brewing!)
Now, having used up the rest of the month's allotment of exclamation points (!!) I need to go keep hunting for more goodies to put out for sale. Hey, one woman's surplus is someone else's treasure, right? (I have some philosophical musings about the cause of all this surplusage, but I will save it for another day. Suffice to say for now that I am quite at peace with saying bye-bye to this portion of the collection.)

Wednesday Whatsis

Some of my knitfriends use Wednesday as a WIP-Roundup day. Not me. I'm not even well enough organized at this point to even find all my WIPs! However, here's one that is an about-to-be frogged-object, an ABTFO.
This is the start of a Lady Eleanor, in Noro Transitions. First of all, I grabbed the ball thinking it was the "other" Noro, and I didn't realize my mistake right away. I cast on in the car on the way to hear the Harlot on Saturday, and this is how much I got done that day standing in line and waiting for her talk to begin.
Pretty good progress. Except that the gauge is definitely bulletproof, and at this rate it's eating up yarn really really fast. So I would have, if I continued with this piece, a "wrap" that would be really dense and maybe a foot long. Cause I have 3 balls of this stuff, and this is half of one ball.
Rrrrrip! The needles are out of it, and it will get frogged a bit later tonight while I watch Tim Gunn and learn a bit more about why I'm not very stylish.

For your pleasure, a recent shot of the Grandcarrot:


He is definitely into the maniacal 15-month-old phase by now, adorable little bundle of motion. He doesn't just walk, he runs. And he's inordinately pleased with this accomplishment, too.

Here's a little tease for you--these are all tubs of yarn that are headed for my Giant Crafters' Yard Sale. Next weekend, some fellow knitters and quilters and crafters are going to re-home some of our stash to make room for the latest acquisitions. I'll have more info for you, but if you're in the SoCal area, save the date: 9/29.
Poor Project Spectrum has been rather neglected around here lately. Well, purple and orange are a good combo on the toes, no? No!
This is what happens when you drop a bottle of shampoo (25.7 oz) on your toe.
For orange, how about some rose hips? They are pretty, and decorative, and I refuse to make rose-hip jam.
Oh, the cinder block? Isn't that how everyone props up a sagging rose bush?
Hi-Hi has found a new snooze spot: in Meg's clean laundry! He seems to think this is "his" towel and you know, she's inclined to let him have it, at least till next towel-washing day.

Simon always looks very hopeful. I'm not sure what he's hoping for, but he's very hopeful.
Ah, controversy! Here's a quiz for you.
I got these shoes. I think they're pretty cute, and very comfortable. Birki clogs, red with cartoon sheep.
D4 thinks they are awful.
D4 says I can't wear them. Ever. At least not out in public.
She thinks they would be cute on her 8-year-old niece, but not on her (supposedly) grown adult mother.

What do you think? Should I send them back to the Birki store, and get the blue or purple or maroon suede ones?
What is the price of familial harmony?
Oh, do go on over and see how the Fairy is growing!

A Very Harlot Saturday

Long-awaited, much anticipated:


We gathered at the impressive Los Angeles Downtown Library. Newly reopened after extensive renovation, there's a delightful atrium with sea critters and a fascinating sculptural piece. Something to look at while we all lined up patiently waiting our turn to go in.


Knitters of all shapes, sizes, genders, ethnicities, waiting waiting waiting. That line is actually wrapped around itself and everyone is standing there knitting. If you have sharp eyes, you can spot Wendy, MJ and Carolyn down there in line. (I'll add MJ's blog link when I can find it--must be leftover Harlot-fumes fogging my brain!) (Edited: found it, added her link! Go over and say hi to Bella, too!)
Once we got seated, Wendy organized us all for photos. As you can probably tell from the size of that lens, Wendy is a pro and takes some really great pictures. She's promised to send us all some, and I hope that she'll also post some on her blog.

I did smile nicely and hopefully didn't crack the lens.

I won't name the owner of that hair, just because. She knows who she is!
Ellen got to do the introduction. Go Ellen!! Then Stephanie came out, took her "usual" photos of the crowd with her traveling sock. Then she spent the next hour and a half keeping us in stitches (tee hee, I made a knitter pun!) and giving us lots to think about.

Have I ever mentioned that I love Stephanie?? Yeah, I admit it, I'm a Harlot groupie.

Then she signed books. And signed books. And even when she got to the end of the line, she still had a smile and a couple of comments for everyone.

Here's an example. And we were at the tail end of the line, too!

She signed Barbara's book, and mine, and even got very excited with us over Annette's first sock. (As she should, in fact, since it's a lovely thing and very well done!) That's Annette over there, waiting her turn, while Wendy keeps the camera handy.

She even climbed up on the desk to get a peek at Patty's darling shoes. I won't tell you what Mary said, but I hope she repeats it on her blog.
All of this wonderfulness was made possible by the indefatigable efforts of our own Madgik-worker, who made the reservations, organized the carpool, and generally herded cats to make sure we got there on time, with cameras, knitting, and enthusiasm.

I don't seem to have caught any pictures of Madge or Jillian or Zoe or Mary, and that's not the best shot of Patty, either. Now that I think about it, I could have photographed those cute shoes myself so you could see them. Sigh. It's that Heat Wave Hangover again--I sure hope I get my brain back soon!

So there you have it. Please do check out my traveling companions' blogs for more pics and more comments. And if the Harlot comes to your town, let me know--I'll be on the next flight over there!