First views of fires

Most of the post Cleveland knitting has been on Abby's leg warmers. I'd started them while still in Cleveland but I wasn't totally sure beyond the colour mix and measurements which way I was going with them. By the time I was assembling stuff to walk over to the Whistlestop yesterday (running late as usual), I had the first leg warmer done and was making good progress on the 2nd.

I had hoped to have the Breast Cancer water bottle cosy knitted up and/or the pattern written up before heading out to the Whistlestop yesterday but I had to settle for outlining it and making notes. I took the original and the promised loaner head lamp along and delivered them as promised.

Tina was standing in for Jen & Tony and there was a good turn out. In a who knew moment, there were 3 day walkers in the mix both been there done that (like me) and getting ready for the first. So there was plenty of talk about that.

As usual, the television was on and the news started showing footage of fires. We gathered that there was one near Ramona/Santa Ysabel and another near Potrero. With the furst fire, we couldn't make out where from the graphic they kept showing. With the Potreo fire the discussion turned to the recent outcry over Blackwater's designs on that community.

As I walked home around 6pm, the smoke from the fire was showing itself in the sunset. Once a photographer, always a photographer, I stopped to snap these pictures as I crossed the canyon and later by Pershing. I wasn't the only one shooting from the canyon overlook.

By the time I took the second snap, (and yes that small spire toward the centre of the picture is the California Tower), my eyes were dry and burning a bit.

To tell the truth, I was more concerned about the outcome of the Sox/Tribe game -- curse foiled again -- than I was with the fire most of Sunday.

I had some concerns as I have plenty of friends in Ramona/Santa Ysabel/Julian and, as the Cedar fire brought home clearly, any fire can go from distant and not dangerous to imminent threat very rapidly. And I've lived here long enough to remember the Normal Heights fire so even my proximity to down town is not a guarantee of safety.

When I woke up this morning, I was relieved to see that I wasn't looking at the nuclear Winter sky that I saw with the Cedar fire. That gave me enough comfort to make coffee and plan to drive into Rancho Bernardo although I had some concerns about what I was hearing about Poway.

As I checked my email, the news was getting more dire. Had I gone North, I would have been stuck. As it was, I was stuck/glued to the news, the phone and the internet so I knit while hearing worse and worse news about evacuations, winds and more.

That's how the leg warmers got finished.

I mixed the green Cotton Rich left over from Libby's leg warmers, some of the pink Cotton Rich I'd originally purchased of Abby's and the Noro Sakura I bought at Fine Points

Not having the lady herself to consult with, I had couple of design ideas on the needles at the same time.

I abandoned the idea of starting with a ruffle. There's nothing wrong with the ruffle but the more I thought about it the more I felt it was a bit too much like a ruffle on the bottom of a clown costume.

I also had to tear back the original stripe choice when it became clear that when the pink was right next to the Sakura, the green in the Sakura had a bluer tone to it that worked against the spring green of the Cotton Rich.

I found that I had a bit of pink ribbon yarn and pink Fixation (left over from the girls' shadow knit headbands of a few years back) to add to the mix. The pink ribbon was a nice pop feature but it was too inelastic to work the bind off even using larger needles and the stretchiest method I know so the Fixation was another happy find. Ends need to be woven in and I'm trying hard not to revisit and work more ribbing.









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