My fashion industry days may be far behind me, but I am still au currant enough to know that gray and yellow is a stunning combination. Yellow compliments and wakes up gray without being overly bold. Yellow perks up the gray day. Yellow put a small dent in my gray mood.

But yellow looks best with one gray tortoise shell kitty.


Prior to injuring her leg, our bed was off limits to Snickers. Last week, she started slinking her way onto the bed during the night, and neither Joe nor I could bear to make her scoot considering the monumental effort it must have taken with a lame leg. Now, as you can see, our bed is her bed. Not even the knitting, the fussing or the camera could rouse her from this afternoon snoozing spot.

In spite of days of neglect, Beryl has proven to be one of my faster-moving projects. There is still a fair amount of work to be done -- two sleeves, seaming, seed stitch collar, seed stitch button bands, not to mention finding the perfect buttons.

I have been in such a deep and vicious funk that I could give George Clinton some inspiration.

My displeasure with work has been building such that I was fighting back tears this morning. And not just small, soft tears trickling down my face, but the full onslaught of hyperventilating sobs. Work is just one small piece of the puzzle.

Last Friday, as I struggled with my luggage through the stinky and sticky maze of the NYC subway system, I was tears. Tears of longing. After five years, I still miss New York City and all of the wonderful and horrible things about it. As I wilted in the bowels of the city, waiting for the 7 train to Queens, I felt energized and alive. It might be crazy to miss the physical crush of sharing too small a space with too many people, but I do. I miss it desperately. I feel lost -- not me -- living outside of a city.

Until something shifts in my mental and physical state, things may be quiet around here.

I may not be the most sympathetic person, but I am surprisingly empathetic. I barely slept Thursday evening, worried about Alyssa's surgery. Alyssa, on the other hand, slept like a rock.

Her surgeon was touted as one of the most thorough, but one still worries about patient volume and surgical error. It never hurts to communicate clearly with the surgeon and the surgical staff.



Alyssa's surgery took longer than expected, which gave me ample knitting time.


I could have progressed further, but I ran a few errands while Alyssa was under the knife. And when I was sitting at the hospital, there were times when I was just too distracted, too tired or too achey to knit steadily.

My trip to The Point for buttons for Beryl and possibly some yarn for Annie Modesitt's Pinup Queen, was a disappointment. I have had a store credit there for ages, and I never seem to find what I need.

At one time, I had quite a few things lingering on the needles, but I tamed the situation. And by "tamed" I mean "gave up and ripped out". After receiving Knitting Daily's email poll about unfinished projects, I decided to do an inventory of what is still lingering on the needles and the almost finished projects as well. And while I am exposing myself for the knitting slacker that I am, I tossed in a small list of the projects that have been in my queue to knit for eons.

WIPs
Tubey has been marinating since July 2006.

Bella's one row striping looks like a dog's dinner at the seams. I'm waiting for the knitting pixies to fix this while I sleep.

Frilly Milly (aka Rebecca Silk Sweater with Frills) is awaiting trial.

Beryl and I started our love affair October 13, 2007. It's slow but good.

NEARLY THERE
Tank with 3-D Crochet Embellishments (Knitting Lingerie Style)
One round of single crochet around the armholes would make this wearable.
Making the 3-D crochet embellishments would make it 100% complete.

Basic Camisole (Knitting Lingerie Style)

IN THE QUEUE?
The 20 balls of Filatura di Crosa Elena for the Corset Pullover have become a souvenir of my first trip to Webs. I am second-guessing if this pattern is really "me".

The Cabaret Raglan is a cautionary tale of buying sale yarn for a project and waiting too long to cast on. After nearly two years, I have fallen out of love with the color (pewter) of Lang Viva I bought for this.

Pinup Queen is probably a perfect pattern for me, but I cannot seem to find a suitable yarn. Angora and I do not mix and mingle well.

What about you...do you have the courage to count?

Every year, I have reservations about attending the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival. Crowds make me agitated, hay makes me sneeze, the unpredictable weather makes me irritable and...horrors!...I tend to prefer commerically-produced yarn.

Joe's mother accompanied me to Rhinebeck my first year. I came home with one measely hank of yarn purchase at the last-minute. The following year, I attended with some friends from Yarn Central, and the purchase of edible goods exceeded that of to-be-knitted goods.

Last year, I was more confident about running up to other bloggers, and I even got swept up in a yarn frenzy with Mardel, resulting in the purchase of two giant hanks of Decadent Fibers Crème Puff for the ill-fated Twisty Turns.

There is no road to Rhinebeck for me this year. A very dear friend is having surgery, and I will be fluffing pillows and making tea for her this weekend. The fact that some hospital in Manhattan will release her into my care gives me giggle fits. I have to be one of the most non-maternal people on the planet. At least I'm no Annie Wilkes.

When I decided to further cull the stash, only the yellow Cascade superwash gave me pause. I was not 100% committed to selling it, but I decided to allow things to take their course. If someone wanted that yarn, then it was not meant to be mine.

As the week came to a close and the yarn sat unclaimed, I felt slightly burdened. I would have preferred the cash to the challenge of finding a use for it. I reasoned that such a yarn -- a worsted weight superwash wool -- would be fine in the stash. Something would come along eventually.

In this case, "eventually" was a few hours! When I saw Bonne Marie's latest pattern, Beryl, I was suddenly delighted that Cascade had not sold. Two hours of work and a 30-minute commute were all that stood between me and casting on for Beryl. I toyed with the idea of feigning sick, but my conscience intervened.

Thus far, it is a quick and straightforward knit -- just be certain to track your increase rows -- and this could well be a Rhinebeck sweater...if I were going.

I do not know what sort of sleeper I was as a child, however, much of my adult life, I have suffered from bouts of insomnia. For the entire summer of 2003, I slept in increments of 30-40 minutes with long intervals of waking between each sleep interval. By late July, I was so sleep-deprived that how I kept my job is still a complete mystery.

The past several evenings have been marathons of unrest. I awoke this morning at 2:23, and at 3:36 I stopped the charade of lying in bed with my eyes closed. Somewhere around 4:50, I began to flag, and I made the grave error of lying down. I slept through the alarm, and those two hours just wrecked me. I think I feel worse than if I had just soldiered on without another wink.

Thankfully, using my digital camera and my internet connection are quiet endeavors, thus I am able to use those wide-awake hours to do a bit more streamlining without waking anyone but Snickers.

The non-resonating teapots are listed on eBay, and the stash has been thinned. The cacophonous riot of unhappy and unloved yarn could be the root of my current insomnia. Before my unwanted yarn goes to eBay, perhaps someone would like to give some of it a happy home?

3 balls of Rowan Big Wool + French Girl Knits Fantine
100% wool
87 yards, 2 stitches = 1”, US15-17 needle
#018 Latte (darkish tan)
Fantine is a quick-to-knit, feminine, top-down bolero/cardigan, and 3 balls will knit 6 of the 7 sizes of the cap-sleeved version and 5 of the 7 sizes in the ¾-length sleeves version.
$30.00 (MSRP $14.95)


5 hanks of Rowan Rowanspun Chunky

100% wool
#983 Caradmom (light heathery green)
100 grams, 142 yards, 3-3.5=1"
$30.00

5 balls of Cascade 220 Superwash
100% superwash wool
#824 Yellow
100 grams, 220 yards, 4.5 - 5=1"
$25.00 (MSRP $10.00)

8 hanks of Catalina Yarns Baby Pima
60% baby alpaca, 40% Pima cotton
#0958 Apricot
100 grams, 218 yards, 5=1"
$45.00 (MSRP $11.95)

10 hanks of Classic Elite Premiere (courtesy of Anneliese for Snickers)
50% Pima cotton, 50% tencel
#2593 Cornflower (blue)
50 grams, 108 yards, 5.25=1"
$30.00 (MSRP $5.95)

The fine print
Add $5.00 for shipping within the United States.
Our home is non-smoking, and Snickers keeps her paws (and fur) off the yarn. Please email lumay1966ATgmailDOTcom with the subject Yarn Adoption, and I will contact you with availability and PayPal information.

While getting my oil changed last week, I popped into Borders to pass the time. I nosed through a new makeover/style book Brenda Kinsel's Fashion Makeover: 30 Days to Diva Style!.

The book is not a "must-have" for me, but something in it really struck me. Resonance. When creating personal style, colors, fabrics and garments must resonate with you. This idea of personal resonance can be applied it to your curtains, your relationship and your job.

Since it takes me longer than a weekend to find a new job, I figured the next best thing would be to focus on another round of bookcase and armoire purging and reorganizing.

Anything without resonance was purged, leaving me with three empty bookshelves. Finally, I could display my three Chinese teapots and see my stash! Granted, it is not Purl Soho, but I needed to look my stash in the eye, so to speak.

Guess what? The Chinese teapots that I have owned for over half of a decade?

No resonance. Zero.

Even more disturbing is that there is very little in the stash, in spite of the smallness of it, that resonates. Maybe I am moving out of my orange phase. Most likely, it is simply a matter of wanting to own less and to own that which truly resonates.

Evidence that I still knit, thank you.

Ever since watching The Secret Garden, have been hankering for a semi-slouchy beret. On a recent trip to NYC, I very nearly went in for The Point's August yarn of the month (August was Nature Cotton) because the free pattern was a very slouchy beret. Perhaps too slouchy on me, as I was not entirely convinced when I tried on the store sample.

The Secret Garden aired earlier this week, and a second viewing reignited my craving for some slouch. I should have checked Craftster.org, the home of ingenious knitters knocking off runway and movie knits, but I had Mary Jane's Pithy Hat in my pattern stash.

A Hug for Snickers

One of the reasons I so knit from patterns is because I am lazy. I like the simple fact that someone else had done all of the figuring, calculating, etc for me. All I have to do is get down to the business of selecting yarn and casting on.

The very gracious and very generous Laura and Jen of JenLa/Knotty Girls, have done all of the work, so all you have to do is cast on and know that you have a great gift scarf in the making. The pattern was designed and donated as a fund-raiser for Snickers' veterinary and surgical costs.

A Hug for Snickers

Laura and Jen have "created a scarf to celebrate all those wonderful things that make our cats the adored and treasured creatures they are".

This scarf pattern uses approximately 800 yards of worsted weight yarn, and it features Jen's original design of cat's face lace and cat's paw lace, highlighted by a border of a hugs & kisses cable.

For a PayPal payment of $5.50 to SnickersPaw (gmail), the pattern will be sent in PDF format to the email address supplied with your PayPal payment.