vacationing and knitting and flowers galore

I am on a writing roll, and am waiting for my salted caramel sauce to heat up for tonight's decadent dessert (ie, poured over vanilla ice cream) and uploading pictures from my camera; surely the slowest process in my life these days. Creep, creep, anticipation...just came back from knit night at Starbuck's, where I worked on the latest of my smalls - a pair of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Mitered Mittens.

Look, Ma! No thumbs! EZ suggests we knit these without thumbs, and then add an afterthought thumb by locating the location and snipping a stitch and unravelling a thumb-sized number of stitches and picking up and knitting on. I am trying to cultivate fearlessness and faith, in equal measures, so I am going for it. But not without a stiff drink in hand as I snip.

Isn't this Kureyon pretty?

We are enjoying the quiet aftermath of the holiday, with the tree still up for a couple days more and nice things being eaten, like salted caramel sauce, and bison flank steak, and a truly lovely Amador County Barbera to drink. Knitting and dog frisbee and the reading of Olive Kitteridge at a leisurely pace.

There were plenty o' flowers for the holiday, both the show-stopping amaryllis,

and the more subtle beauty of the white tulips contributed by my sister:

It's been so warm outside this fall that the paperwhite narcissus that I planted out in the backyard are starting to bloom, about 2 months early. Grrrr, what to do? Enjoy them, I suppose, as Winter is finally here, and our morning temperatures are in the 30's now, with frost on the ground. Brave narcissus.

My sis and I cast on for our long-planned knitalong of Aidez, which is the French word for "help" I think, which means we'll be helping each other along. It's a fun aran cardigan, knit up in plump Cascade Ecological Wool - mine in brown, my sis' in grey. I was quite stressed in the beginning of this project, as I ripped and re-knit the beginning cast on and the set up rows a couple of times before I got it right. I think I angst too much over cables, and how they play out in a left-handed knitting scenario. In the end, I decided not to reverse my cables, but to knit the whole thing as written, and just let it twist and fall where it may. I did drop a needle size, based just on "feel", as I cannot see this thing being knit on US 10 1/2, even though Brenda's looks great and plushy. We shall see how it comes out. Here is a bit of detail. Apologies for the washed out picture. The brown is a much richer, sable-y color. I think it's called Java, but I'm calling it Walnut.

I think this is product knitting, as opposed to process knitting, as I want this cozy cardigan very badly.