Hanging in the OC

It's been a wonderful weekend hanging out in Orange County. We haven't been in San Clemente nearly enough lately, for my liking! This morning after our jog we headed over to the Farmer's Market for a lovely stroll amongst the stalls of fragrant fruits and vegetables. Steve, our official sampler, amuses me with how seriously he takes his role! But, we do end up with the best strawberries when he comes along! In contrast, I do not like to sample, preferring instead to purchase from those vendors that I know have good quality produce. I think it is because I'm too uncomfortable to say it's sour in front of the seller. Silly me.


This morning I'm sporting my new hat loosely based on the pattern "First Hat" in Knit 2 Together. While it's not quite cool enough for scarfs and sweaters, it is definately hat weather!



This is the first time I've used Malabrigo yarn and I loved knitting with it! It is as soft as everyone says and the colors are really beautiful.



I look very happy here because I'm about to go into Cafe Mimosa in San Clemente and buy one of their wonderful blueberry muffins for my morning cup of tea. They have the best baked goods in San Clemente and I find it delightful to sit on their patio and have lunch or coffee.

To show how versatile my new hat is, Mr Puffy has offered to model it for us. Doesn't he look cute. I could just grab and cuddle him - but have to resist that type of PDA as he's much too cool for that.



Specs: First Hat/Knit 2 Together; US 8 needles; Malabrigo yarn. I added the bobbles as an after thought, simply picking up a stitch and forming a bobble. I thought it needed a bit of texture to balance it out and I wasn't in the mood for the flower that the pattern suggested.



Some of you may have seen that California suffered through some wildfires last week. I awoke at 5:30 a.m. on Monday to the smell of smoke filling the house. I can't tell you how scary it is to be in the mountains during a wildfire. We live in the Santa Monica mountain range above Malibu and are constantly aware of the potential for fire during the late summer months. We are fortuante in Los Angeles to have some of the best firefighters in the country and they do a tremendous job at protecting us. But when the Santa Ana winds blow there simply isn't anything they, or anyone, can do. We were fortuante that the 70 mph winds that were forecast did not materialize. It was a long week in Southern California watching and holding our breath that the winds did not come. The above photo is a picture I took of the Malibu fire last year heading toward us. It was stopped roughly a mile or so from our home.