Decisions, Decisions

I don't know if you've looked around in the last day or so, but it's November, my poppets. Where I grew up, November would mean we'd had our winter clothes out for over a month already, that the air smelled like cold, and that five months of slush were about to fall out of the sky. Not enough to make a white Christmas, mind you. Just enough to be miserable and make the roads treacherous when it got dark - which was between about 3pm and 8am.

Here in California, however, the cooler weather (a predicted high of 75 today) means that my tomatoes have found a new lease on life:

I sometimes think that this is too far south for me. There is definitely sweater-and-scarf weather here, but true jacket weather is something I don't encounter unless I go up to Lake Tahoe. Speaking of which, that's happening this weekend and I've discovered that with the exception of Cute Fall Boots and one pair of running shoes, I have no footwear that covers both my toes and the tops of my feet. My "winter" shoes are Doc Marten's Mary Janes, for goodness sake!

Ahh, how far the Alaskan has fallen. Unlike the leaves on the trees outside my window.

My October knitting was somewhat lackluster, but I do have some almost-finished objects to show you! When I did my Great Stash Cataloguing of 2011, I pulled out a couple of skeins of yarn that could make some good quick knits. I got around to one of them in the form of this:

Lace Ribbon Cowl, Karabella Yarns

A simple pattern that looks pretty impressive when it's finished is always nice! I knitted it flat and it just needs the ends sewn in and buttons. I don't think I'll even bother with buttonholes; instead I'll just tuck the buttons into the lace wherever is appropriate!

This will eventually be a baby sweater:

Even though at the moment it looks like nothing whatever, all it needs are sleeves and blocking. I was originally going to knit matching baby sweaters for my friends Piper and Kelly, but since Kelly isn't finding out the sex of her baby until December when her husband comes home from Afghanistan and Piper isn't the sort of person to put her baby girl in blue, I instead promised them sweaters after Kelly knows what she's having. Plus, this "newborn sweater" would probably fit Evelyn. Who is two.

Coconuts not included.

In the mean time, the OTHER sweater attempts have become something I haven't knitted in quite awhile:

Socks!

I only have one skein of that striped stuff, so I'm combining it with some Arucania sock yarn I got cheap from WEBS last year. It's a cheerful combination, non? And there will be enough left over in the green to make a whole pair of socks later.

I've also come to the border of my Tide Pool Pi shawl with just over 25% of my yarn left to go - right on target! Now I just need a border pattern. I'm actually going to dig through my collection today and see if I can find something suitable.

And lastly, it's National Sweater Knitting Month, that offshoot of National Novel Writing Month in which knitters try to knit a whole sweater in - you guessed it - a month. I'm waffling on this one; should I really start a new project with the end of my 11-Mile Quest looming on the horizon? You've all seen how terrible I am at finishing fitted garments. Perhaps instead I should tackle the too-tight sleeves on my Sacred Tempest sweater and finish the damn thing. But then there's the Vivian sweater, and the Blackberry Cabled Cardigan, and of course the fabled Central Park Hoodie.

What's a girl to do?