I've moved!

Actually, I moved years ago, but keep forgetting to put a note here.

My new blog address is www.knitswithcats.blog-city.com

Come on over and visit!

Thoughts on various topics:

42
KnitFlame, a wonderful group hosted at Yahoo, uses 42 as the answer to everything. Amusing, yes? As a believer since I first read the Hitchhiker books, it must be noted that I put that on this blog before I heard of KnitFlame.

Knitting
For some reason, it seemed I was making great progress on the various knitting projects I've started (see August 31 entry). I finished the shades of lime Fixation socks and the Fortissima Mexico socks, and am making great progress on the Opal Magic and Regia Linien socks. But (there's always a but, isn't there?) startitis struck!

In part, it's a good thing. I finally had the good sense to rip out the incredibly ugly-what-was-I-thinking Take5 vest (Knitters, sometime in the last couple of years). It was an ugly design to begin with, and it was clear that I didn't plan to finish the thing since it's been waiting for the shoulders to be bound off for more than a year. The yarn is a lovely lumpy bumpy shades of milk chocolate, cinnamon, teal, forest and dark chocolate (brand unknown) from the markdown bin somewhere. It is becoming that strange short poncho, long scarf thing knit it in the round from Sally Melville's _The Knit Stitch_.

I'm also starting Aimee from White Lies Designs, Cables After Whiskey from Lucy Neatby, and several others that are still in the thinking/planning/swatching/checking the stash stage.

Gardening
OK, so I've reached the point again this year where it's almost time to rip the tomatoes out by their little roots! Picked tomatoes Sunday, Romas, from the plants that grew their cages right out of the ground one weekend. 2 plants done and I have a laundry basket of sauce tomatoes. 4 Romas to go, 3 Mama Mias and 9 other eating tomatoes, and I'm sick of the little darlings.

The roses are really loving our sudden cool spell! The colors and fragrance are the best since early May.

The rest of the yard needs work. I'm into renovating and removing at the moment, but painting the fence is the first autumn project. Need to get that done before the rains set in.

Cats and Kittens
Full House kitten is 3 months old and weighs 4 pounds. Eats like a piglet, sucks on my nightgown neckline (is there a kitten pacifier?) and is finally getting control over those needle sharp claws. Eye infection is back, or he got swatted by a bigger cat, so he's getting the ointment in the eye again.

Updated Project List
Socks:
shades of red KPPPM waffle patterned socks (1 complete)
shades of lime green Fixation fast Florida footies (done!)
green Opal magic plain 3x1 ribbed socks (1 complete, 2nd started)
charcoal Regia linien plain 3x1 ribbed socks (1 complete, 2nd started)
petrol colors Match spiral ribbed socks (1 complete)
stained glass Kroy socks 2x2 ribbed socks (3/4 done)
Fortissima mexico 3x1 ribbed socks (done!)
apricot Opal Royal socks in waving lace pattern (1/2 done)
olive, coral, brown twisted rib Opal socks (1 complete)
Sockotta in zinnia colors, feather and fan pattern (1/2 done)
gold and brown Opal handpaint, ribbing done, pattern undecided
Sockenwolle olive green purl lace socks (1/2 done)

Other items on the needles:
Ken's afghan - 10 rows to go! It's huge and heavy, and very, very gray!
Viking Turid in purple Sensuwool for my sister, Marcia
Relationships sweater in coral Cotton Fleece for my s-i-l Jena
Bookworm vest in rust wool tweed (?) for me
Yellow Salsa and white cotton summer sweater for me
Angelina Jacket (whiteliesdesigns.com) in cream mohair - stuck on the ribbing - for me
Purples Rambling Rows afghan
Sage and cream Woolspun sweater, my design, stuck on the sleeves
Cotton Monterey and chenille sweater, Crystal Palace design, back done, front started
Best Friend Jacket in Hayfield Iceberg Chunky, barely started
Mohair and chenille argyle vest, needs armhole ribbings!
Citrus colors Shapely Tank (White Lies Designs) probably will be frogged as I've lost weight!
Peach angora seamans scarf
Assorted scarves and slippers and baby things for gifts

It's too darn hot! I left the desert on purpose, and it's totally uncalled for in the Bay Area!

OK, now I feel better.

Spent most of Labor Day watering the gardens. It's been hot for several days, and they were just parched. The purple fountain grass is taking over again; it needs to be divided this year. Ken wants it along the redwood fence, which means the fence should be watersealed before planting. Guess I know what's on my plate for the next weekend or 2.

The roses look like they've fried. The petals are crisp and burned. It seems only the tomatoes and beans are really happy. Oh, and the black ipmoea that the garden store said really preferred partial shade! If it grew any faster, I suspect it was a variant of kudzu, and that's in full sun.

Cat Notes
The new kitten, Full House, is making a great recovery and is growing like a weed. He gained a pound the first 2 weeks with us, and is feisty as he can be! He's now 8 weeks old and weighs 2.5 pounds. Complete control over his needle-sharp claws hasn't happened yet, however, and our legs look like scratching posts!
The other cats act as if Full House is the spawn of the devil, and are not yet sure they want to be friends. He's still mostly isolated until he completes his first round of shots in 3 weeks. He plays with Smokey a lot because she believes the bathroom where Full House spends most of his time is really hers. She would rather endure his being there than find another place she likes as much.

Back to Work
The Labor Day holiday was much needed and much appreciated. I got some sleep, organized some knitting and made progress on a couple of socks too! The gardens and yard don't look as dry, the tomatoes are ripening nicely, and there was even time for reading the current murder mystery.

Life is good!

As usual this time of year, the sheer number of things on the needles starts making me antsy! Why, you probably don't ask? I think it's because of the sudden influx of knitting magazines to the mail box and book stores, the fact that I love autumn and sweaters and am just brimming over with ideas for using part of my stash, and yet, there are all these already-started projects that really do need to be completed before I start anything else.

Here's the current list of things on the needles:

Socks:

• shades of red KPPPM waffle patterned socks (1 complete)
• shades of lime green Fixation fast Florida footies (1 1/2 complete)
• green Opal magic plain 3x1 ribbed socks (1 complete)
• charcoal Regia linien plain 3x1 ribbed socks (1 complete)
• petrol colors Match spiral ribbed socks (1 complete)
• stained glass Kroy socks 2x2 ribbed socks (1/2 done)
• unknown (for now) mexico-type colors 3x1 ribbed socks (1 done)
• apricot Opal Royal socks in waving lace pattern (1/2 done)
• olive, coral, brown twisted rib Opal socks (1 complete)
• Sockotta in zinnia colors, feather and fan pattern (1/2 done)
• gold and brown Opal handpaint, ribbing done, pattern undecided

I think that's it for socks!

Other items on the needles:

• Ken's afghan - 10 rows to go! It's huge and heavy, and very, very gray!
• Viking Turid in purple Sensuwool for my sister, Marcia
• Relationships sweater in coral Cotton Fleece for my s-i-l Jena
• Bookworm vest in rust wool tweed (?) for me
• Yellow Salsa and white cotton summer sweater for me
• Angelina Jacket (whiteliesdesigns.com) in cream mohair - stuck on the ribbing - for me

There's probably more. This is what I remember, off the top of my head.

It was a marginally good knitting long weekend! Much hotter than normal here: our average summer high is 78, it was 90 Monday, and that was the coolest of the 3 days. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Willows, at Thunderhill Raceway for AFM Motorcycle races, and it was even hotter there. About 2 pm it's just too hot to knit because the yarn sticks to sweaty hands. Still, I made some good progress on 3 of the socks.

A QUESTION:

Why don't the major knitting magazines show their designs on real people models? Everything looks good on a tall slender figure, but for those of us who are height challenged and getting rubensesque too boot, it can be a real guessing game. I'd love to know where the hem hits on a shorter model; my size 0 (yes, that's zero) sister who is also short would like to know if the proportions of sleeves, collars and such are going to overpower her, and it's often impossible to tell from the perfect picture.

Inspired by the wonderful blogs I've read recently (The Knitting Curmudgeon and Queer Joe specifically), I hereby resolve to update this mess I call my blog on a regular basis - at least twice a week.

No knitting news to report.

Going back to work in an office sure has put a crimp in my knitting! At night, instead of knitting there's laundry and on weekends, the shopping that was previously done on the way to pick up Ken at the train station takes precedence. There's not even been good knitting time at the motorcycle races this summer.

Kitten news! We have yet another cat - as if we were short a few (brain cells, maybe)! Last week we found a tiny, yowling, dirty, flea-infested, sick, hungry, dehytrated furball hiding in the landscaping outside a favorite restaurant. $264 dollars later, the vet pronounced him basically healthy, and we apparently are re-kittened. Turns out he's white with grey spots, not all grey as we thought; he has a kitty cold and an eye infection; he's really tired of being cooped up in a bathroom, but cooped up he will be for another week.

Other news: We've been hoping to do a little minor remodeling on the house for quite a while, and now that I'm back to work we're in the planning stages with our favorite contractor. This has prompted Ken to destruct like it's going out of style! So far, he's taken out the front yard picket fence, part of the lattice work at the front of the shop, 3 of 5 gates and no telling what else! He's counting down until he can take the Sawz-All to the patio cover, but we have a couple of parties planned for the early autumn and he'll have to wait a bit!

Apparently I've been distracted longer than I thought! Sure have added to the palette, stash, yarn closet, whatever you want to call it. So much lovely yarn, so easy to win eBay auctions...

More tomorrow. Got the urge to post after reading a couple of other blogs, and realizing I miss droning on about whatever...

I've been a little bit distracted for the last month or so, since I found yarn on eBAY!

That makes me:
a) the last knitter on earth to find yarn on eBAY
b) a conspicuous consumer
c) have too many ideas and too many WIPs and UFOs
d) all of the above.

The correct answer is d.

But what lovely yarns I've found, and knitting needles and yarn totes and other knitterly things! Hand spun, hand dyed, wonderful things! Commercially available wonderful things for much less than at my not so LYS or on line. Long discontinued yarn, some in the same dye lots as yarn I bought years ago as ones and twos for swatching.

It all started when DH asked me to search for a motorcycle part. Found that, and wandered over and tried a search for yarn. The first page of results offered 10 skeins of Hayfield Iceberg Chunky in the color and dyelot that I'd been searching for, ever since I started the Best Friend Jacket from stash yarn and realized that I either entered the wrong number of skeins in my database, or carefully put away half of the bag in a new hiding place. Snapped that up for a fraction of the price I paid originally! From that point on, there was no stopping me.

More tomorrow. Right now, it's time to ride the exercise bike and mindlessly knit on a scarf.