Knits With Cats
I'm a senior technical project manager at work, a knit project starter at home and a list-maker everywhere! I'm married and have too many cats, lots of books, almost enough rose bushes, and way too much yarn!
Green Theme
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Green-Tea Cupcake
38% Green-Tea
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This continues the green theme that's developed completely by accident this week, and because I've got nothing else except a whine because it's too hot to think here. It's almost 9 pm and it's still 86* outside - normally by this time it would be in the 60s - and 80* in the house (which actually feels cool; that's rather frightening!) It was 100 on the patio at 5 pm today. The weather guessers say tomorrow should be in the 80s and it should be seasonal Saturday. Hallelujah!
There are more finished objects to show. Maybe tomorrow...
Random Greenery
Jade Queen Sunflower (more chartreuse than jade; perhaps that will change as it opens)
Limelight Artemesia
Limelight Nicotiana (and a frog prince)
Lime Licorice Plant
Green section of the Roy G. Biv garden, a work in progress.
Knitted FO Alert!
For the gift box:
Hat and scarf set knitted from stash and leftover yarn. The breen (between brown and olive green) is a mohair blend bought in 1993 or so from I-don't-remember-where. There were 2 skeins, and I used every last inch of it.
The lilac and blue are Wendy Peter Pan Velvet Touch; lilac is left over from a chemo hat I knit in 2000 for a co-worker, the blue was going to be a chemo cap for another co-worker who luckily didn't need it. This makes the softest chemo caps (I'm told); I know I want a sweater of it, but it's so light and soft I might never take it off!
The pattern for the hat is Janet Szabo's Chemo Toque, free from Patternworks with the purchase of Berocco Chinchilla in 2000. I've made a couple of modifications for gauge. Scarf is a basic girl-scout scarf pattern found by browsing.
Here's close-up (fuzzy, my apologies) of the yarn, lest you wonder why I added blue and lilac!
Must Have Cardi Revisited
This is the beginning of the new, improved Must Have Cardigan. I love the flecks of color, especially in natural light. There are bits of red, purple, blue, lilac, orange and perhaps other colors. It's a bit scratchy, but should soften when washed, and if it doesn't, I'm not planning to wear it next to my skin.
And did I mention that I've had a skirt for a couple of years that is exactly the darker shade of green? I couldn't have done that if I'd tried!
Now I must chart the pattern or find charts already done. I am so not going to knit from the written directions. (Don't laugh at me. It's not that long since I complained on KnitU that some of us just can't follow charts, and it's not fair that we had to convert charts to words.)
Arbor (Satur) Day (photo alert! new camera works!)
All summer - since April, in fact, I've been working on an arbor for the entrance to the patio. When we moved here, I planted a Climbing Joseph's Coat rose and didn't realize how much it really likes to climb.
(Now that I think about it, I believe there may have been a rickety lattice trellis and gate thing there before. If so, it was low enough that even I felt close to the roof, and at 5'3" that doesn't happen often!)
Anyway, as weather permitted, I've painted the pieces (primed and 2 coats of paint), built and measured. The weather and life have conspired to make it take this long. First if was too cold to paint until afternoon, but the gardeners and their "mow and blow" stuff would come in the afternoon - it only took one time of getting stuff blown into fresh paint to learn that lesson. I ran out of paint at inopportune times. The wind blew when the temperature was right - all reasons that painting took a long time.
A couple of weeks I was ready to put the thing together and realized that I needed some additional muscle. Saturday evening Ken and I worked together, built the last sections, and put it up. He even found a hole in the brick that probably held the old, trellis to the house, so we were able to secure the arbor rather permanently to the house.
The rose and hibiscus look terrible at the moment. I had to severely prune the rose; it was climbing through the little trellis and covering the hibiscus (which has never looked like much, but does have pretty blooms - apparently it was damaged by frost before we moved in, and was thought to be dead) weighing it down. I've fertilized and watered, and will put down new mulch next weekend. By then the rose will have new leaves, I'm sure.
There's a bonus too! Because this is an old house there have been many additions and changes over the years. There are two cable conduits to the shop from the house which carry electrical, telephone and computer lines. They are overhead at the entrance to the patio - the new arbor (and the rose, once it gets growing) will hide them!
RIP Must Have Cardigan
Remember this?
It's the beginnings of the Must Have Cardigan. I love the pattern, and love the color of the yarn. Together? Not so much. It's been frogged, and I'm swatching with some lovely green tweed Irish wool, bought on eBay years ago. It's a heavier weight yarn, and needs much larger needles. That's a good thing, because I have less of it and no way to get any more.
The replacement camera just arrived, so there should be photos tomorrow!
TGIF
It's been one of those weeks: long, frustrating for no apparent reason, and just meh.
On the plus side, I did find a new doctor whose philosophies agree with mine. The weather has been lovely all week. Fifty-two of the 62 roses in the front yard have been heavily trimmed and fertilized, so beautiful blooms should burst forth in the next couple of weeks.
On the minus side, the replacement camera has not arrived, so no photos today. (The old camera is playing with me again.) The weather is predicted to start warming over the weekend, and to continue that trend until Thursday or Friday - getting near 100* again.
Tomorrow is Saturday. SuperSlow weight training at 9, then a visit to OSH for new perennials. That sounds like a good start to the weekend!
Love Thursday
Following Barb's lead, here's my Love Thursday list of things that inspire a rush of joy for me.
1. Opening the door and walking into our home every night. Sometimes it's a mess, and as long as cats and I live here it will never be decorator-perfect, but it's home. It's my refuge from the world, and the place this introvert goes to recharge her social batteries.
2. Driving through the small town where we live. Yes, I know it's really a district of a somewhat charmless suburb, but it's small and isolated enough from the rest of the city that it reminds me of visiting my grandmother in the tiny west Texas town where she still lives.
3. Picking dinner - at least part of it - from my garden.
I've been so fixated on getting tomatoes to set blooms that I sort of totally missed the Rond De Nice zucchini that were ripening already.
4. Telstar by The Ventures. I realize that The Ventures were just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I rediscovered this old favorite last summer. I can't get motivated for my weight training sessions without playing Telstar at top volume all the way to the weight studio.
Heck, let's list just about anything by The Ventures. At our wedding not yet 8 years ago, Mr. Ken walked down the aisle to Walk, Don't Run by The Ventures. It was the most moving challenge I've ever seen and I was reduced to tears just watching him. Someday I'll tell the back story that this bit of joy deserves.
5. 
Cat stories with happy endings: Rachel and Digit, Rae and Floozie, Barb and Edward to name a few. I'm such a mushball that these stories make me cry, no matter where I am when I read them.
6. Waking next to Mr. Ken gives me such a rush of joy that sometimes I'm almost frightened by it. I am so lucky, and I know it. He's an inspiration and a wonderful man, a good friend and a truly kind person.
7. Walking on the beach just before, or maybe during, a winter storm. The sky is leaden, the ocean is almost the same, the wind is blowing and the beach is deserted. The smell is salty and raw, primeval. No one else is about and the tide pools are full of starfish. When it's stormy dolphins frolic next to the beach, and whales can often be seen near shore as they migrate to Baja Mexico.
8. Scents: Roses and jasmine in the evening. Citrus blossoms in the morning. Lime slices in gin and tonic.
9. Knitting socks. Knitting sweaters. Knitting swatches. Startitis. Having a yarn stash larger than some yarn stores so I can always find something to knit. Teaching myself to knit and knowing no fear of difficult patterns. Going to Stitches West to see what's new. That first glimpse of the market every year just about takes my breath away.
10. Color. I love color.
11. Old fashioned stationary and envelopes for writing letters. My grandmother is 97, and she loves getting mail. I keep a collection of cards and paper for letters, and send them to people I love. My ex-mother-in-law is a wonderful woman, and even though her son and I have been divorced for 14 years, she still has a letter I wrote to her stuck on her refrigerator with a magnet.
12. Live music gives me chills. We live in a fairly artsy area, and local restaurants have live music by local artists 3 or 4 nights weekly. There are 2 local open mics, and occasional concerts. I love a good orchestra, and can be transported to another plane by a live musical or concert - remember The Boss last month?
13. My collection of books, mostly mysteries. They transport me to another world and let me try on other lives. Words written by Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, Dick Francis, and a host of others.
14. Reading or knitting on the patio when it's just warm enough outside and the air is so soft that you doze between paragraphs or stitches.
15. Listening to baseball on the radio - preferably a transistor radio - while working in the vegetable garden in the summer. Baseball is the perfect summer game: it doesn't move too fast, and once you understand the game you don't need to watch it to know what's happening.
16. A well-build and well-insulated house makes me smile. It's over 100* today (thank goodness that's rare for us - 78* is the average summer high) but it's 78* in the house - without any sort of air conditioning. Cross-ventilation and window fans keep it pleasant.