Cal trannies and other oddities on a weekend

Last week as I was walking, I noticed a sign about volunteering for a neighbourhood clean up on Saturday. I phoned and when I found out that one of the meeting locations was literally right 'round the corner, I was in.

I figured that volunteering would motivate me to get moving sooner rather than later and help with the slide toward being a weekend slug. It worked. I test drove the water bottle cosy and joined roughly 70 volunteers showed up on Saturday morning, organised into teams of four each and set out with maps, brooms, dust bins and industrial sized trash containers.

The water bottle cosy handled a litre bottle of water, my sunscreen and several pairs of gloves. The open mesh design was also perfect for attaching my key chain. I daresay the positively painful pink and the Cal Trans orange T weren't exactly a good fashion statement but if you can't be flamboyant in Hillcrest just where can you be?

A combined project of the Hillcrest Town Council and the Hillcrest Clean T.E.A.M it was a very successful effort even if some people must have thought that we were all doing DUI community service.

Hillcrest, my 'hood, is/was San Diego's first suburb and it's turning 100 years old this year. I've lived here off and on for roughly half of the time I've lived in San Diego county so I guess I'm a bit attached.

Despite all the construction and the high pedestrian traffic, the neighbourhood isn't that trashed on any given day when there hasn't been a big event going through the streets. Per usual in a trash pick up it, butts were the big story.

Since our team overlapped with others we wrapped up a bit early, dropped off our supplies and I went home to turn into a people before joining up with other volunteers at Urban Mo's where drinks and snacks were awaiting as a reward for our efforts. A Cal Trans orange event tee being the ticket to join.

After getting more human than a sweat soaked volunteer, I packed up my knitting and headed out for round two of the day's events.

I got sidetracked from joining the volunteers (which in itself was a sidetrack from joining the San Diego Knit together in Balboa Park) when I accepted a neighbour's invite to have a glass of wine with her.

Finally got to the park, where knitting was still happening and even the visiting OC knit team of Twisted Knitster and Mrs Twisted were present.

So what was I knitting? That cheque book cover that I wasn't feeling confident about having enough stitches on the needles. As you can see from the photo, I had reason to be concerned.
It might stretch to fit but it also might stretch and shred which would not be a good thing especially not in a going to be a gift knit.

I was also worrying another rework of the pentagons last seen/discussed in the Time Flies posting. The goal is a cell phone cosy to co-ordinate with 2x twine. The method this time involved decreases in the twine segment of the knitting and it wasn't really happening.