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Green-Tea Cupcake

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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... 

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. 

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!   

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.)   

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!

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!

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!