There's this tank-ish top made of teal tweed that just needs the finishing touches and I can wear it. Of course, the finishing touches involve crochet so there no telling when it will be wearable.

There's the mystery project I teased a couple of weeks ago.  That's just looking for an appropriate model.

There's the hat and scarf set made from oddballs.  The ends are woven in and it's blocked - ready for the holiday gift box.

I'm anticipating time very soon to take and upload photos of these Finished Objects. 

And, there have been a couple of new projects started!  Imagine that! 

Friday we stayed home and puttered around.  I replanted one of the raised beds with lettuce, romaine, peppers and one more tomato, and harvested the first tomatoes, more beans, figs, plums, apricots and herbs.  I knitted and we watched a few fireworks from the patio.  

This was a departure from July 4ths past.  Mr. Ken is quite a good photographer, and loves to capture fireworks.  Usually we head up to Alameda and he photographs the Jack London Square fireworks, but this year he decided we'd stay home and be close to the water hoses if another wild fire or fireworks fire broke out near us.  It's been a scary summer already, fire-wise.

Saturday Joan and I knitted while Mr. Ken and Will waxed their new-to-them gorgeous plum-purple PT Cruiser.  How nice to have knitting-with-a-friend time!  There was even some finishing of knitting objects:

This is W, from Knitty.  It's knitted from very well-aged stash yarn - I don't remember when I bought it, but probably the first year or so I knitted, so 1994 or there abouts.  The yarn is Mink Cancun, from Anglotexti in Mexico, and is an acrylic-cotton blend.  W used 3 skeins, or about 550 yards.  I added borders to the neckline and armholes, and created a front and a back.  It was an easy knit - 2 weeks for the 2 pieces, and almost that long for the borders!  It's also the first item I've knitted that Mr. Ken volunteered an opinion for - and he likes it!

Sunday while Mr. Ken put in a full day of Niles Canyon Railway volunteering, I puttered some more.  A little shopping, a little cleaning, and then more knitting-with-friends!  Joan and Roseann came over, and we knitted for several hours.  No photos; I seem to have camnesia anytime there are other knitters present!

Mr. Ken, Joan and Will went off to more Will's daughter, Kathryn, to her new apartment, and I made dinner (well, mostly - Mr. Ken grilled the burgers when they got back).  We ate, we laughed and the Yankees won.  It was a lovely ending to a lovey weekend!

1.  The last couple of days I've realized that a case of the blahs has had me in its grip for part of April and most of May.  I didn't get a lot done, I was grumpy and grouchy, and it was hard to get started on anything.  My energy level was lower than it's been in years too.  We had very hot weather, which always gives me the blahs; we had cooler than normal weather too.  At any rate, this weekend everything started looking normal and rosy, I had energy to burn, I got things done and I'm happier for it.

2.  My knitting UFOs and other UFFOs have not gotten as badly out of control as I feared - yet!  Now that the blahs are gone, I'm feeling a serious case of startitis coming on.  As was pointed out in KnitTalk, startitis can be defined as Hatikah , which is Hebrew for Hope.  That's how I'm viewing startitis this time around.  I even started and finished the knitting on W from Knitty in May!

3.  I'm an introvert and I need quiet and solitude to recharge my batteries.  I know this, and yet there are times when I want to be social and life gives me chances to do things and be with people and my social batteries get completely drained.  (Interestingly enough, at least to me, the last time I did the Myers-Briggs assessment, my scores had changed a bit.  I'm still INFJ, but my scores in most areas are very close.  Only 2 points separate Extrovert and Introvert, Thinking and Feeling, and Judging and Perceiving.  Sensing and Intuition, however, are very clear and separated by 16 points.)

4.  Joan came over today and we spent some time on the back porch, knitting and chatting.  She checked out the raised beds, and says I need to post photos because they've grown a lot since she last saw them perhaps a month ago.  Noted, and I will do that this week.

5.  Back to UFOs: if you'd asked, I would have said there were at least 40 of them and probably more.  I counted and there are actually fewer than 30!  If I can get really busy this week, I might be able to get 4 or 5 more off the list!  The knitting is done and only finishing remains on them; in fact, Kenobi just needs to have the sleeves set in!  That would be really good!

6.  We've had our first salads from the garden already, and our first zucchini (Roly Poly or Eight Ball variety).  This week I'll need to pick Romano (Italian) beans, and snow peas (again).  Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers are setting fruit, and the corn is almost 3 feet tall.  I still want to plant pumpkins and gourds, and there's still time for that.  

7.  This crop of lettuce and chard will be finished this week.  I'm going to replant that raised bed with New Zealand spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes and herbs.  We will need to buy lettuces at the Farmer's Market for a few weeks, but that's OK.

8.  Going through yarn in the attic was a surprise in several ways.  I found yarn that I'd forgotten about (even though it's on my 14 page spreadsheet) and found enough of several yarns to make sweaters that just rose to the top of my list.  In fact, I found enough of 21 different yarns to make 1 sweater (West Side Raglan from Oat Couture) which may make it my next mindless commute and open mic project.  It's the sort of thing I wear for work year round, with slacks or skirts, with or without a jacket.  And it would be a great use for some of the "interesting" yarn I bought with no clear plan in mind.  The pattern is long sleeved, but short sleeves or 3/4 sleeves would be easy to do as well.   And it would certainly showcase the "interesting" yarn.

9.  I also found enough of the specified yarn (!) for several patterns just earmarked.  Based on a couple of blog entries by Bonne Marie Burns of ChicKnits, I revisited several issues of Vogue Knitting, from about 2001 to 2004.  What a treasure trove!  Not only was the Shirley Paden sweater Bonne Marie did on my list (but the turtleneck and pullover aspects had me convinced it would never work), but now I know how to convert it into something I'll actually wear.  There are several other wonderful sweaters in the 2 issues I chose to work with for now, and I'll highlight those in the next few entries.

10.  Notice the wonderful clips holding W together?  They're little hair clips from the Dollar Tree, 24 for a buck (I think that's right, it might be 48).  Whatever!  It's a lot cheaper than the special ones sold in knitting stores and catalogs.  I'm finally learning to embrace my inner thriftyness!  (I'd like to take credit for this, but Ann of SheepShots found and blogged this several months ago.)

This unassuming pile of unblocked knitting is the beginning section of Dramatic Drape, a shawl pattern designed by Lily Chin and published in the wonderful Fall 2000 issue of Knitter's magazine.  This is, by far, my favorite issue ever of Knitter's; this is the 4th item knitted from that issue and there are several more on my list.

I started this project about April 5 and completed it (including blocking) April 28, however, this was at least my 3rd attempt to follow the incredibly easy pattern and count!  See the notepad?  That was how I finally managed to keep track of the increases -- and then it was easy.

The yarn is long-discontinued, very well-aged stash, probably bought before 2000 at Straw Into Gold in Berkeley.  It's Crystal Palace "Martinique", made in Italy in 40 gram (1.4 oz) balls of approximately 110 yards.  It's a blend of 48% super kid mohair, 20% silk, 17% nylon, 8% linen and 7% viscose rayon.  It's as light as a feather, and should be perfect for San Francisco summers, cool evenings and layering over a sweater or jacket.

My version blocked out to about 80"  by 31"; the pattern measurements were 72" x 31".  The color is a mix of bright red, creamy white and a bit of sunflower yellow.  I didn't add the fringe as the pattern suggested (I'm so NOT a fringe person) but might change my mind.  It would add a bit of heft to the lower edge of the shawl.  And there's plenty of yarn left over: I had 1100 yards and used about 550.

I'll enlist Mr. Ken's assistance to get a decent photo - I'm not very good at the old "photo in the mirror" trick!

But I am knitting when I can.  Here's proof:

This is the left sleeve and back of the Serape sweater of Noro Kureyon, colorway88.  The design is based on the Garter Side to Side Solid Jacket from Saturday Sweaters.  I love the colors, the design is working well so far, but isn't this just the funniest looking thing ever?  It reminds me of whatever Audrey Hepburn is knitting in Breakfast At Tiffany's!

I've changed the pattern somewhat to fit my gauge and my preferences on the striping, and the fact that the garter stitch was eating yarn at an alarming rate.  I have 20 skeins which were bought on eBay eons ago, and have already used 7!  The back section in stockinette took 2+, so I wouldn't have had enough if I did everything but the sleeves in garter stitch.

The yarn is, um, interesting.  Thick and thin, lots of straw and stuff, not really soft (although I understand it softens nicely when washed) and every skein so far has had a least one knot.  The colors are out of this world fabulous, at least as far as I'm concerned. 

This week already seems like another long week, and it's only Monday!  

I was in a training class today, and had to drive to get there!  It was a reverse commute, and I was reminded how much I hate commuting even when there's no traffic.  It's almost 10 pm, and I just finished reading my work email and getting a little bet caught up.  There's still more to do, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

This was the first sunny day after 15 days of rain!

I have been knitting, but not as much as I want.  To prove it, here are photos of two projects started just before the new year (more about these later): 

The Super Bowl was wild!  It may have been the best Super Bowl since Super Bowl 3 and the New York Jets!  It made no difference to me who won, I just wanted a good game, and it was! 

I'm sure there's more, but my brain is refusing to cooperate.

G'night all. 

When we prepared to ship it, as luck would have it, shipping charges for the slowest possible UPS delivery were more than the cost of the tool kit.

Daddy got ties instead.  (When we were at his birthday party in October I finally gave him the tool kit; his local hardware store finally had one in stock.)

This weekend, the original tool kit started  morphing into my new knitting tote for around the house.

Sorry for the washed out colors; that was the only way to show the cool features!

I don't have one favorite knitting spot in the house, so knitting stuff ends up all over.  This, while it seems like overkill, should keep supplies together better.  As I move projects into the storage sections, I'm cataloging them for Ravelry (finally).

Obviously, there's more to come where this new tote is concerned! 

While I was feeling rather sorry for myself, I zipped open the enormous DayTimer notebook that goes everywhere at work with me, and took out my current knitting project.  (You'll get to see it in a day or so, when I have time to download photos).  I put it on the chair with my coat - not really expecting to be able to knit on it, but just having it close enough to touch makes meetings tolerable - and was immediately accosted by someone I'd not yet met.

She squealed and petted my yarn, she recognized it as Noro Kureyon and wanted to know which colorway, she professed an undying love for ArtFibers.  Before the meeting was over, we had 3 more folks interested in either knitting or learning to knit, and  will be scheduling some knitting lunches.

Life is good. 

Both fronts are knitted, although in the interests of full disclosure I admit that the 4 stitch border on each front that is knitted and sewn to the back neck remains on stitch holders until I know the actual length each side should be.

It’s all a bit lumpy and bumpy and obviously needs to be blocked, but I’m happy with the results so far.

The cuffs are knitted as a 4” wide by 10 to 12” wide piece, and stitches are picked up for the sleeves.  (Somehow, this completely doesn’t register when looking at the photo, but sometimes I can be a regular Cleopatra*.)

Here’s a progress photo of the right sleeve (yes, there is a right sleeve and a left sleeve, depending on which way the cable crosses just like on the fronts):

I’ve patted it as flat as possible, but you can see that the sideways cuff , actually the moss stitch, really needs to be blocked.

It’s still quick knitting and I’m really enjoying the process.  There’s just enough going on that it doesn’t get boring or cause me to doze off or glaze over, and not so much that it’s not easily remembered for each section, with the help of stitch markers.

I am really excited about being able to wear this very soon!

* Cleopatra = Queen of Denial

Thanksgiving Day was very low key.  Friends joined us for dinner when the turkey was ready, not at a specific time.  Everyone did something: Mr. Ken made garlic mashed potatoes and apple pies, Geoff made the gravy and lima beans.  We had Caesar salad, cornbread and sage dressing, sweet potatoes with cinnamon, and the infamous green bean casserole.  

We were watching Rear Window (the Hitchcock version) when the turkey and trimmings were all ready, so we continued to watch.  It was followed by The Birds, which none of us had ever seen, so we watched that too.  I drew the line at Psycho, but it was late by then.  Lovely day!

Oh, I finally finished the left front to Sensational Shirttail; cuffs and sleeves next! 

Black Friday found us doing a little shopping in Niles, but nothing outside of our little town.  We found a possible Christmas gift for my mother and some ornaments shaped like pomegranates and figs.  We also stopped in the local yarn store Color Me Quilts and More , and I bought more yarn for the Wonderful Wallaby I'm starting for my SIL.  Diana also had some new Online sock yarn and I bought some of that too. Photos to follow (later this week).

Friday evening we joined Joan and Will (and other friends of theirs) for the annual Christmas parade. It's fun and a little hokey, and totally Niles!  The lead-off group is always the Harley motorcycle dudes and dudettes that make The Florence their home away from home.  There are bands, horses, people- and  dog-powered floats and balloons.  We were getting cold - Mr. Ken was wearing a sweatshirt (no coat) and no gloves, so we left a little early and had dinner and listened to live music on the  patio at Essanay Cafe.  It was a great way to end a  lovely day. 

Tonight I planned to post photos of the completed fronts of Sensational Shirttail.  I laid them out side by side, and did a major double-take.

They weren't the same!

In fact, they were different by about 2 inches.  My inability to count has reared its ugly head again.   I started the neckline decreases 1 cable  to soon; ditto the armhole decreases. 

Apparently when I counted the cable crossings, which just happened to coincide with the point at which I started the neckline decreases and armhole decreases, I managed to "forget" to count the very first one, just above the bottom of the piece.

I'm frogging at least 4 inches of cable and moss stitch tonight when I'd planned to cast on for the sleeves.  Ah well - I am really getting my money's worth of enjoyment out of this yarn.

I didn't have a  post for 11-11, but in the days around then I was knitting this:

In the post closest to 11-11, I mentioned knitting the 2nd sleeve.

As it turns out, I love this sweater and wear if often.  It's perfect with black slacks or a black skirt, a white blouse and black boots or clogs for work, or with jeans for weekend wear.  It's not my best green, but the threats I've made to overdye it have come to nothing so far!

Thanks, KitKatKnits, for this little walk  down memory lane! 

For complete info and before and after pics of Joan's hats, check out her blog .  

This is my hat before felting, regular ruler for scale:

It is enormous!  I put it on, and it completely covered my face and hung to my shoulders! (No photos of that, thank goodnes!)

We used my top-loading washer, set to hot wash / cold rinse and a small amount of detergent.  The hats were put in a pillowcase cover that closes with a zipper.  That was a very good thing.  These hats were incredibly sheddy.   Every time we checked them, we also pulled out bunches of  fuzz.  I'm glad that didn't go into my old pipes.  Half way through the first wash cycle,  I threw in a couple of old  towels because the felting didn't seem to be happening.

At the end of the first wash and rinse cycle, Joan's pink-toned hat was done.

Cute!  There's a photo of her wearing this hat on her blog.

The other hats were beginning to shrink some, but not at the alarming rate we'd been warned  to expect.  I let them complete another complete round of hot and cold in the washer, and they were perfect!

Here's the first "glamour shot" of my completed hat:

Looks pretty good!  This is a good representation of the colors too.

This is the almost complete version. I've made the brim a bit wider and smoothed out some of the bumpy areas.

Stats:  We used the Fiber Trends Felt Hats with Brim Variations leaflet, AC-1.  We used the wide brim variation for Joan's blue hat and my hat.  Joan used the narrow rolled brim for her pink hat.  The wool yarn for the blue and gold hats is MartiFil Stripe; Joan used a MartiFil mohair for her blue hat and I used some stash mohair for mine.

Now it just needs to get dry so  I can wear it!

While waiting for felting to happen, Joan took this lovely photo of GreyGuy.

He's helping me decorate the mantel for Thanksgiving!

Tadich Grill opened in 1849, and has operated almost continuously since.  It's listed as the oldest restaurant in SF, and while it has become somewhat of a tourist attraction, it is also a standby of the financial district workers.  I've eaten there a few times over the years, and while it isn't exciting or unusual food, it's good basic food done well.

They loved it!

Rolph said that the cruise ship meals have been beautiful, fancy and not to his liking.  Margo said there are too many sauces covering boring foods.  Both ate everything offered to them, and tried our entrees as well!

It was also a knitting ego-booster evening!   Another diner noticed my jacket and mentioned how beautiful it was, and how lovely it looked with my otherwise all-black outfit. I was thrilled, because it was a sweater I knitted last year, and I love it.  This is the  back of the sweater (fortunately I have saved photos,  because the digital camera and computer are still squabbling like siblings).

It's adapted from a Vogue Knitting  pattern. The original was cropped; I lengthened the body and reversed the cable crossings on the fronts and added cable borders  rather than ribbing to the fronts.  The yarn is Gedifra Donatella, most likely discontinued because I bought it at Tuesday Morning.

How productive was I?

• Worked 8 hours, and got so much done
• Walked 3 miles
• Lunched with Joan and Will
• Had my hair colored back to it's redder natural color (the photo of me as a blonde pushed me over the edge - I knew it bleached out in the sun, but wow!)
• Got a pedicure
• Washed, dried and put away 5 loads of laundry
• Washed and laid out 2 loads of handwash
• Scheduled a couple of group meetings for work
• Bought a carburetor on EBay for my Nash
• Photographed knitting progress for the week
• Removed 2 bags of recyclable paper from the home office
• Found a bag of vitamins, herbs and supplements I knew I'd bought - 8 bottles!

Wanna see some knitting?

This is the right front of Sensational Shirttail.  Those are armhole decreases on the left and the neckline decreases (very subtle) on the right.  This is a fairly quick knit!

The first sleeve (a.k.a. "swatch") for the members-only ribbed sweater from the Debbie Bliss Club.  One more set of increases, then knit a couple more inches to the armhole decreases.  The yarn is Alpaca Silk - one of the rare times I'm using the yarn called for - and it is lush.

My Fiber Trends felted hat-in-progress.  

I tried to use stash mohair, and ran out. 

No more was to be found anywhere, so I bought this on EBay.  

(That's not purple at all, it's really a chocolate brown. )  It's close but it's missing the rust colors, so I may just knit a new hat since I have 500 yards of the new yarn.  I can rip the old yarn later and reuse it or pet it or something!

By the way, here's Joan's chosen yarn for her hat.  Those are such Joan colors, and mine are such Diann colors. (It's the last photo in her post.)

Joan's hat is knit in Joan colors: purples and blues, with black. 

Mine is being knit in Diann colors: golds and rusts, with brown.

We're both really like the colors of both hats.  I think we're both done with the brims and are working on the crown already!  This is a fast and fun knit - much more that we thought it would be.

Again, there will be photos once I fix the network connection on the computer where photos reside! 

I left the office before 11 this morning, and telecommuted the rest of the day.  I'm planning a large multi-year project and need to concentrate. The rest of the folks in my wing are in the final stages of testing a new product, and they are noisy!  Lots of talking over the tops of cubicles and calling someone to "look at this" and such.  I just shut down the laptop and it's 8 pm.  Oh well.  I worked 3 hours longer at home (and much more productively) than I would have in the office.

Sometime before the end of the weekend I have newly started projects, a finished pair of Waving Lace socks, progress on Sensational Shirttail, and a sit 'n' knit session on my patio to show you.  That post will be worth waiting for!

This is the Sensational Shirttail from the Best of Knitter’s Arans and Celtics. This is the third time I’ve started this project, and it seems finally to work.  For some reason, the specified increases just didn’t work for me, so this time I converted them to lifted or invisible increases and I’m happy with the outcome.  It’s an easy pattern to memorize, and works quickly in heavy worsted yarn.

And a word about the yarn…it was purchased off EBay a couple of years ago (true stash yarn) from Helvetia Shepherds.  Much of the lanolin (and some VM) remains in the yarn; a first for me, and I like it very much. 

Here’s a progress photo of the Entrelac Bag from KnitPicks:

It doesn’t really look like much yet, other than enormous, but it’s great fun to knit and the finished product should be pretty and useful.  (That's a standard 16 ounce bottle, for scale.)

Only 1 of the yarns is actually from KnitPicks (the grassy green rectangle) but all are from aged stash.  Yarns represented include Brown Sheep Country Classic, Brown Sheep Lambs Pride Worsted, Sears (yes, that Sears! – not only is this well-aged in my stash, it was well-aged in a prior stash too) Petal Designer Yarn and Paton’s Classic Wool.  This is an experiment (and my 2^nd felted project), and I hope they all felt at somewhat the same rate!

I'd planned to work on the UFO projects tonight while Mr. Ken made cookies.  Instead, we had an impromptu dinner party, so no cookies and no knitting tonight.  Perhaps tomorrow!

By the way, I did purchase yarn this weekend, after giving myself permission to do so.  Photos and descriptions tomorrow!

1.  Maya is doing well again.  I don't know how many of her 9 lives she's used (at least 3, I think) but once again she's eating her pumpkin glop like a piglet and has regained enough muscle, fat and strength to jump up to the kitchen counter again.  (Yes, I try to keep cats off the counter, but you and I both know that cats do whatever they want when we're at work.)

2.  Mr. Ken and I played all weekend.  We rode BART to San Francisco to pick up some stereo equipment he bought on Craig's List, then decided to find the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory Outlet Store that I see twice daily on my BART rides.  We found it and bought lots of wonderful chocolate at seriously discounted prices.  My kind of outlet store!

3.  I have to be in Sacramento tomorrow for a series of meetings and I'm taking Amtrak.  I love taking the train!  Unfortunately, I just finished the front of the Shapely Tee, which means all my current knitting projects are too bulky or unwieldy to take with me.  I'll be forced to start a new project or unearth a UFO that's portable; I cannot waste that 5 hours of travel time.  Stay tuned!

4.  We had a lovely dinner last night at a favorite bistro-cafe-type place.   The food was good, the service excellent, and we closed the place down even though we weren't drinking!  Nice...

I'm off to help Mr. Ken make cookies for his office.   Will there be knitting updates tomorrow?  Who knows! 

  That's 3 hats and 3 pairs of mittens.  Also in the box will be 2 sweaters: a lovely Ralph  Lauren sweater bought for Mr. Ken and never worn and a lovely sweater I bought on sale, ignoring the fact that I look awful in light blue.  They're wool and I'm sure someone will appreciate them more than we do.

Inspired by Erica and others, I present photos of other knitting, nothing completely ready to wear: 

Multicolore

Kenobi

Cable Eights

Wire and stone or bead bracelets

What do all these things have in common? 

They’re finished, completely knitted, ready to be assembled.  Not yet stick-a-fork-in-it done, because they aren’t yet usable.  Some of it is pretty obvious.

Multicolore needs sewn-in sleeves, sewn side seams, buttons sewn on, and ribbon to cover the steek edges sewn in.  Maybe 4 hours work, although much of it needs to be uninterrupted by cats, as mattress stitch on black isn’t really my friend.

Kenobi needs all its seams sewn and a collar knitted.

Cable Eights has been waiting for 2 years for me to learn single crochet so I can crochet around the pieces as directed before sewing the seams.

I don’t even remember when I finished knitting the wire and stone bracelets – probably 3 or 4 years ago.  They need magnetic clasps, which have been stored with them for as long as the knitting has been done.

There are also assorted scarves and such just need ends woven in and perhaps blocking or steaming.

I’d love to be wearing / using / giving away all these items, and it wouldn’t take that long to get most of them done, complete, finished.  So – a challenge to myself: finish all these items in June.  I have 18 days, evenings really, and the only really difficult task may be learning single crochet.  Do you think I can do it?