The bitch is. . . a surprisingly good wine

The grenache grape is not one that is familiar to me and the Barossa Valley wineries of Oz are mostly either off my grid or long distant memories. I'm getting more familiar with both. During a recent foray into the wine section of Baron's Marketplace, a wine called Bitch caught my eye.

Like a lot of people, I thought gag gift or conversation bottle. I even considered buying it and using it as the "bottle of scope" karma check for the person who left me hanging on, of all days, International Women's Day last week.

Then I did a Google search and found that not only does this grenache have panache, but this particular wine has some good wine reviews and people trying to find it to purchase and in . So if you're looking in the San Diego area, Barons Marketplace in Point Loma and Rancho Bernardo have it in stock. Both markets are a good place to find wines that get a nod from Winewaves.

Today was one of those major milestone anniversary markers (5, 10, 20 whatever) that could could go either way on the emotional response day. Mostly, being just such a day, it didn't register with me except as a potential problem. But I always approach anniversary dates with caution. I don't like to have melt downs and I really don't like to have them in public.

Any plans to be super gentle to self by working at home went right off track as I scheduled some quality database simulations to get screen captures for the major under deadline projects. So I dragged myself North to the office only to have the plan for the day go South. Projects and priorities juggled and not a lot of knitting happened but I did make progress on other projects so there's a possibility that next week's race to the deadline won't be as bad as the one before SWest

I was more than half expecting a couple of phone calls -- one from high and dryer and another from either of the other two divas who dine on the outside chance I could connect up for lunch today so when I checked my phone I was surprised to find that either by intention or mistake I'd missed a call from my "twin" drinking buddy. He's in town and that means dinner and lots of catch up talking which will doubtless drive wait staff to distraction.

Throw in a phone call from Hawaii and it makes for a pretty good day that could have been pretty bad.

Ides and ideas

Yesterday during a conflicts resolution seminar, I sewed one of the side seams of the pentagon sleeves project. I finished the other seam this morning and polished off the neckline while grazing the Thursday night television lineup.

All that's left is the inevitable make sure every loose thread isn't loose and laundering. The sleeve, being more the size large than the size small/medium does have some issues as worn before full tilt blocking but overall I'm quite pleased with it and delighted to note that I probably have enough yarn left over to make another with the "now I know" adjustments.

But just to be safe, I think I'd rather work it in the denim yarn that started this walk on the weird side. Now that I know, I can usually knock out a garment in two weeks or less.

The girlie girl sleeve is demanding to be part of a more close fitting garment than the original inspiration piece. I'm futzing around with Mary Thomas's knitted filet lace and ruffles at the moment.

The Fixation/Sedona project is taking a rest as I decide which of the fibres will be the front/back and which will be the sides. If the Fixation is tagged for front/back I'll do the next round of ribbing differently. If it is Sedona to the front, then the ribbing will have to be the same.

I also charted out some star themed lace for yet another off shoot project. Photos on the weekend

Briefly back to the bias & musical mystery solved

Last September I was on a bias knitting kick and launched about three different projects. One of the projects combines some "seasoned" STASH Sedona (Reynolds/JCA, Egyptian cotton) and Fixation (Cascade, 98.3/1.7 cotton/spandex).

This project has been sitting in the bottom of my current knitting project bag for several months now and came to the front of the queue yesterday.

The Sedona sides were done but I started on the Fixation short row ribbing yesterday. I'm up to almost 7 inches of centre ribbing over about 170 stitches.

Back then, I was thinking that the form fitting design was not going to be gracing my form but things change. A garment that could run to 334 stitches in Fixation on size 3US needles at about 8-10 spi is a bit much for a friend.

I know I can be my own worst enemy I'm thinking that I might also be my own best friend and worthy of the effort even though I know that dubbing it as a heather project will probably relegate it to the back of the queue yet again.

Today's supposed to be the last day of the current Santa Ana condition and my sinuses sure hope that's true. I weathered most of the weekend reasonably well although I was a walking slug on Saturday spending my day not in Balboa Park with fellow knitters but putting the sleeves on the pentagon sleeves project.

It is a true prototype and that was the mantra I recited to keep myself from redoing the sleeves yet again. It really is quite remarkable when I consider that I was knitting it based on the size I hoped to be rather than the size I was and I have a good grasp of the full range of sizing options and off shoot variations (girlie girl is on the needles). That said, I still haven't finished the last of the finishing which is sewing the side seams and knitting the rolled neckline. Maybe tonight.

Yesterday I got in a 6+ mile walk to the Shepherdess and home before heading South to Bonita for pig. glorious pig at DaKine's and social knit at Bonita Knitting Store. Not only did I get to see Tania but, in an added bonus, Susan was there on a rare Sunday appearance.

Susan had the Vogue Knitting issue that I was sure I had purchased but can't find and she also had some Alpaca with a Twist Punch in some vivid blue, green and orange that just demanded to come home with me and become something. I was wearing orange most of the weekend so that could have been a factor.

Today the sinus situation is not so great so I'm taking a precautionary day off before the next mad sprint to deliverables and deadlines.

On Thursday night I went to the San Diego Museum of Art for the Annie Leibovitz exhibit. I was, of course, knitting. I was working on something that I'd hoped to have done the day before for the Lily Chin knitting class. The knitting in this case is one of my lilies but worked in reverse.

On my way out, I got into a conversation with one of the radio station (FM 94.9 was co-hosting) staffers about a musical mystery or why I wish they would if not always back announce, try to do the web page last six hours thing that KPRI does.

A currently on the airwaves song that is evocative of Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and I've been hearing snippets and never catching the artist and it has been bugging the hades out of me.

The staffer knew exactly what I was talking about but also drew a blank -- nice to know the madness is shared right? Today, having awoken to the song at o-dark-30, Google and I finally have the answer -- Phantom Limb by The Shins.

My current brain blockage is over whether the Mel Bochner piece that I have a visual of three vapid blondes pondering (galleries are great people watching venues) was called Shallow or Superficial. IMO, that mental vision is a sweet conceptual art piece in the private gallery of my memory.

Saint David's day and a SWest recap

The subtitle should read yo bitch, blog already. I've been blogging in my head again and even the leave a trail of draft breadcrumbs is not working as planned.

Draft version left on Saint David's day (1 March for the not-in-the-know) but today's the 6th. For the really not in the know readers, David (Daffyd) is the patron saint of Wales.

Dreams of sashaying about Santa Clara in a completed pentagon sleeves project disappeared in a puff of oops when, after driving the 500-some miles North, I found that this little bag of sleeve had decided to hide and stay home in San Diego.

Fortunately, I had a few more things in my knitting bag of tricks or why multiple projects is a boon and not a burden.

Although I brought all the bits of the Milanese Lace mohair smoke ring in the hopes that I'd discover where I'd gone wrong (yet again) I'm enough of a Stitches veteran to know that troubleshooting lace gone wrong is not a good project for what can often be a sensory overload experience.

Most of my SWest knitting involved casting on and knitting a pink silk 5 petal flower that I had promised to try to deliver during the event. Which is to say, yes, I was the woman knitting the damned small pink thing on the tiny needles while walking around the event on Saturday. I finished it on Saturday night and delivered it to a proxy (aka Karen of Rug & Yarn Hut) on Sunday so no pictures on this blog. Recipient, yes, you have my permission to show or not on your blog. It was a gift and I don't control gifts after they leave my custody.

When the market opened, I made a beeline (well, as much of a beeline as I could given the congested market layout) for the air and the back of the hall. Fortunately for me, that back aisle row was home to the Lacy Knitter's Guild booth which was manned by the doubly delightful duo of Gene Beugler & Lew DeYong.

Karen's booth was just a few ticks over and I got the usual; heat for being so unobtrusive on the scene. After some of our usual, why don't you come North, how come you come visit South stuff, Karen directed me to Joan M-M's booth aka White Lies Designs where I showed sleeve and chattered not nearly long enough with darling Joan herself. As I mentioned before, her upcoming book is on my must have book -- two in fact one for me and one for gift.

The rest of the pre-class market run involved Habu and Carolina Homespun. At Habu I had a few moments to speak with Takako and Darlene (aka Hand Jive Knits) before I restocked pine paper yarn
which, despite her threats is not yet renamed heather, and I think is in a smaller put-up these days. I also couldn't resist the pineapple family fibre (yes, pineapple/Hawaii is a catch my attention thing) in lime green and turqoiuse
and the cotton tape that reminds me of the discontinued Ganpi Abaka without the wrap.
At Carolina Homespun, not only was I surprised and delighted to reconnect with former San Diego fibre junkie Maat, I scored my much lusted after GoKo swift which has already proven itself to be an excellant investment.

I would/could/should write more but if I don't finally publish I'll fritter away another day without an update.