Knitting, with Dogs

Secret Pal

I've got my Secret Pal! Big ups to Heidi for organizing this. Now the fun begins!

The Last-Minute Baby Blanket is on the blocking board. I'll get a picture of it before I pack it up for the baby shower on Sunday. I haven't crocheted that much in YEARS.

I am committed to completing some projects SOON. I'm tired of having lots more WIPs than FOs. So why, you ask, am I sitting here at the computer instead of knitting? Well... because I like it here too. I'll go back to knitting as soon as I'm done here.

Aspirations:

Here are some things I want to do:

I want to come up with some designs for lace scarves with beads.

I want to go camping.

I want to do some organized bicycle rides. I picked up the August issue of Freewheelin', the magazine of the Southern Bicycle League. There are a LOT of rides coming up in the next couple of months, and I'd like to do a couple. I used to do a lot of rides before I met Dear Robert, but I haven't done many in the last 10 years or so. But I'm sure I can still do a 20 or 25 mile ride. I'm not fast, but I'm steady.

I want to go kayaking again. Soon.

I want to lose the 10 pounds I've gained in the last six or eight months.

Attainable goals, all.

Some Knitting Content

Daily Knitting Report:

I'll get the knitting content out of the way first!

Yesterday I got to visit a new LYS -- the Yarn Garden in Lawrenceville, just a ways up the road from me. It's a new shop, just off of downtown Lawrenceville, in a very nice space. She's got a pretty decent selection of yarns so far -- lots of Classic Elite yarns, some Blue Sky Alpaca, (including a wonderful soft THICK alpaca/wool blend that would be great for a teddybear), sock yarns, baby yarns, and a decent selection of cotton. It's a new shop, and she's expecting more stock shortly too. Right now she has a small collection of patterns organized by type (men's patterns, kid patterns, etc) set up in binders, but not too many books. She also has knitting and crochet classes. Anyone in the north Atlanta area interested in supporting a new LYS should check her out! NAYY, etc.

Of course I did not come away empty-handed. She had a skein of purple laceweight merino. I'm a fiend for purple. Unfortunately the picture makes the yarn look like it's dark blue. It's not -- it's a lovely dusky purple:

You'll notice the size 1 addi turbo. This is to replace the size 1 Plymouth bamboo that is Just.Not.Working. for knitting my doily. And besides, you can never have too many small circular needles, right? Right?

And I'm still frantically crocheting away on the baby blanket. It's your basic Giant Granny Square -- a safe and relatively quick thing to make. Here's the progress picture from yesterday afternoon:

I added some more rows to it last night while we were watching "Hellboy." I thought the movie was ok, but I really liked the character Hellboy. I dreamed about him last night too. Ron Perlman is da bomb. In a way I feel kinda bad for him that he frequently gets stuck under lots of latex makeup. But he handles it well. I always had a soft spot for the old "Beauty and the Beast" series too. Our Ron isn't a handsome fella, but he does good work.

Here endeth the knitting content.

Getting ready for fall:

I've been saving a Bass Pro gift card I got for Christmas last year, and yesterday was the day to spend some of it. Here's what I got:

A Coleman propane stove and a couple of propane cannisters:

I bought the propane stove a little against my better judgement. I've used a small Coleman fuel stove for many years and I know it's good and reliable even if it's a little quirky sometimes. I really wanted the dual fuel (Coleman fuel and unleaded gas) stove, but I thought Dear Robert might be more comfortable with propane. And the propane stove was a little cheaper. Hey, it'll probably work out ok. It's not like we'll be getting out THAT much with it, alas.

They also had a backpack hydration system on sale:

It holds 2 liters of water, on your back, out of the way. A lot of cyclists use variations of this. I'm sure I could this for bicycling. I'll just have to deal with the camo pattern in non-hunting circles.

I got a refill for my Thermacell too (sorry about the glare on the plastic cover):

If you live in mosquito country, a Thermacell is a wonderful device to have. You load in a little butane cartridge and a wafer of some stuff that's impregnated with mosquito repellent, click to light the butane, and bob's yer uncle! I'd never heard of them till last year. I went to coastal Georgia to bowhunt with a bunch of other ladies. The first day out, I didn't have one, and the mosquitos were so loud I couldn't have heard an elephant walk by. And I got absolutely eaten alive. The second day out, someone loaned me a Thermacell. I set it on the stand below me and was perfectly happy. The mosquitos stayed away! It was like a miracle. And in these days of West Nile Virus etc., keeping mosquitos away is generally considered to be A Very Good Thing.

News from the Dog World:

Cammie was back to normal eating today. Ivan ate about half his breakfast. I'll try to get him to eat the other half later today.

Ivan loves Dear Robert:

And I love both of them.

A Parting Shot:

Ron Perlman as Hellboy.

I don't think he knits either. But he does like cats. :-)

Wednesday mutterings

News from the Dog World:

Well great. Now I've got TWO dogs that don't want to eat. (I almost typed "don't want to knit." Guess where my head is these days.) This morning Cammie turned up her nose at her food. She seemed to feel ok, unlike a couple of weeks ago when she was obviously not feeling well. But it's not at all like Cammie to turn up her nose at food. Luckily, I'd made a homemade frozen dog treat (recipe, such as it is, below) the other night. I got one of those out and fed it to her, and she ate her regular food (including her meds) after that. Maybe the cool stuff made her tummy feel better? She's outside now woofing at imaginary objects, so I hope she's feeling better.

I'm still trying to get some weight back on Ivan. Of course this is just the 3rd day since we got them back from boarding, but he's still being pretty picky. I'll cook up some more rice for them later today. Sometimes that seems to help settle old and sensitive tummies.

I hate it when my dogs don't feel good.

Anyway:

Frozen dog treats (a la "Frosty Paws":

1 large (32 oz) container of yogurt
about 1/4 cup peanut butter
about 1/4 cup honey

Blend together until smooth. Pour into individual containers. Freeze.

That's what I did the other night. I have little Gladware containers that I can reuse, but you could also pour it into small paper cups, set the cups in a baking tin, and freeze them. Or pour the mixture into an ice cube tray and freeze like that. Some folks like to puree the peanut butter and honey with a banana (or meat-based baby food) before adding the yogurt.

I pop the containers in a microwave for about 10 seconds to soften them up slightly. My dogs like them. Of course if your dogs are sensitive to dairy products, you won't want to use these.

Daily Knitting Report:

Knitting projects are temporarily on hold while I frantically try to crochet a baby blanket by this weekend.

Oh, and I'm off later today to check out a new LYS! Stay tuned for further developments.

Back from the Beach

We got back from Fripp Island last night. I think everyone had a pretty good time. The weather was good, though HOT.

As usual, there are large numbers of nearly tame deer evident. There were a couple of young bucks still in velvet who would come around for a handout in the evening:

It was difficult to discourage the young'uns from feeding these guys. Yes, they're very appealing. And yes, it's Very Cool to have a wild animal take food out of your hand. But it is a Bad Idea.

Me, I just wish I could get a deer like that in front of my arrows when I go hunting! (I'm a very bad hunter, but any excuse to get in the woods is a good one, I say.)

I did get some knitting done. I finished the front of the Crystal Cove pullover.

I love the pattern, I love the way it's constructed in wedges, but dammit, I'm having a VERY hard time getting it even! Some of it may be the yarn (Dale of Norway Svale). I like the yarn immensely, but it's soft and drapey. My tension seems to vary widely with it. I finally figured if I keep stopping and measuring one part against another part, I'll come close to getting everything to work together. I also started knitting the back of an Elsebeth Lavold pattern in Silky Wool. But there's not enough knitted of that to show yet! I took two socks with me, but didn't knit on either of them.

On the other hand, I did get a bit of bike riding done. I rode 60 miles over 3 days. Not too bad for me at this stage in my life. I got some kayaking research done as well. On Tuesday, I went to Beaufort and visited Lowcountry Paddlesports. (I thought they had a website, but I can't find it now, alas.) The folks there were very nice and helpful, though I told them upfront that I wasn't planning on buying today. They had a shop dog there, a lovely little schnauzer whose name I didn't get.
I got to paddle a kayak twice. On Wednesday I went down to the Beach Club and rented an Ocean Kayak Frenzy sit-on-top. I didn't go far, just out beyond where the waves were breaking, and paddled back and forth there, getting the feel of the thing. It's short and not too fast, but it was fun and stable. After I got more comfortable, I started trying to surf the waves in. That worked pretty well, except that I couldn't keep it going straight as I got close to the beach. It would invariably veer to the left, and I would end up with my left side to the breaking wave. And the breaking wave would obligingly tip me over! Since this happened in 2-3 feet of water, getting back on and paddling back out was no problem. But I got frustrated at not being able to figure out how to keep it straight. I'm sure if I'd stayed with it longer, I'd have come up with something, though.

Friday we took a kayak trip with folks from The Kayak Farm. I got to paddle a Current Designs Whistler. I deliberately didn't put the rudder down, because I wanted to know if I could steer it well without one. No problems! We paddled into the wind on the way to the end of the lagoon, and that wasn't actually as hard as I thought it would be. But I did wonder what it would be like to try to paddle across the wind we were having, instead of directly into it, or with it directly at our backs.

And my arms and shoulders weren't even sore the next day.

I got to schmooze with the guides for a bit and pump them for ideas on good beginner sea kayaks. I also got to "talk dog" with one of them (Chip), who has Standard Poodles. I haven't known any standard poodles personally, but I understand they're wonderful dogs. And they don't HAVE to have the frou-frou haircuts.

I heard about another company near the coast: the Swamp Girls, but we didn't manage to hook up with them. But I'm definitely going to keep them in mind!

News from the Dog World:
I met two other dogs in South Carolina: Cleo, an Australian Shepherd/Bernese Mountain Dog mix, shop dog at the Coffee Cabana, just around the corner from Lowcountry Paddlesports. And the day I rode to the Hunting Island campground, I met a wonderfully social Golden Retriever named Sebastian. Sebastian's owner was walking him around, and you could see Sebastian wanted to say "Hello!" to EVERYONE. So of course I had to oblige.

Home dogs: We picked our pack up from the vet's yesterday afternoon. Ivan's not eating again. And I think he lost weight while boarding at the vet's. He's really thin, and I'm worried. But I'll have a little time here at home with him. I'll cook him up some turkey and rice and see if I can get some weight back on him. I may have to entice him with tidbits, but I'll have lots of times during the day when I can do that.

I worry a lot about losing another dog. I'd hate for Ivan to be the next to go. He's a real lover. :-(

Another FO!

Daily Knitting Report:

My grey shawl is done!

Here it is being blocked.

It's huge --67" across. It would be larger if I had had the room to block the border. But I didn't, and I'm not worrying about it. It's not really the kind of lace project that HAS to be blocked to death to show it off.
BTW, I was standing on a chair and STILL couldn't fit the whole thing in.

(I love the way the yo's spiral out. Heck, I just love spirals. Makes me thing of spiral galaxies and other such wonderful things. I've got a pattern for a spiral doily I'm probably going to make some day. I rarely make the same pattern more than once, but I loves me some spirals.)

Jeezopete, if I keep this up, I might have to consider myself slightly productive! Now I get to finish the Crystal Cove pullover and a couple of pairs of socks. I knitted a couple of rows on the Mommes doily for the Doily KnitAlong last night. I like doing the doily -- it's interesting and fun. But right now I've got it on a Plymoth bamboo #1 needle. Boy do I hate this needle. It was my first one of this brand in this size. The joins are (IMHO) horrible. There's a bump where the plastic cable goes into a brass ferrule, and then another bump where the brass ferrule meets the bamboo needle. Working my thread across those two bumps is Not Fun. But my other #1s are all tied up in pairs of socks. Hence the push to finish the socks and get my Addi back for the doily!

Oh, In a Minute Ago pointed me to a new (to me, at least) handspinning webzine. Check it out at Handspinners.com.

Dear Robert and I will be off to Fripp Island early Monday morning, so no updates for a week. But maybe I'll have at least one sock done by the time I get back! Y'all be good, now, and have fun.

SBQOTW

Or, Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week:

How do you choose a project? What “calls” to you the most?

Hmmm. Most of the projects that "call" to me are things that look interesting to do. "Interesting" in this context may mean that the construction technique is unusual (e.g. modular knitting) or the pattern itself looks challenging enough to make me think "That would be FUN to learn!" I like to try things I haven't done before. The top-down raglan sweater and the Faroese shawl I did last year fall into that category. I had never actually knit a raglan sweater before. I'm just not that crazy about how they look. (I'm more of a set-in or drop-shoulder sleeve kind of gal.) But I wanted to know how to do one, and I wanted to knit a sweater from the top down, so I did. The Faroese-style shawl was a pattern from an old Knitter's magazine. I'd been wanting to make one for ages. I also knew I wanted to knit something lacy for my wedding. This shawl became a "warm-up" project for me. It let me practice counting yo's and dec's (and error corrections) while I was learning about Faroe shawl shaping and style.

Sometimes serendipity is a factor in the projects I pick. When I decided to make a wedding shawl, I looked in books and on the internet for a pattern that spoke to me. When I found Hazel Carter's Song of Hiawatha
Lace Stole, I knew I'd found my pattern. The description says:

"The patterns represent elements of the story such as the pine trees, arrows, Minnehaha's namesake waterfall and the wedding song of Chibiabos."

I'm an archer (arrows), I love woods and waterfalls, and there's a wedding reference. I ask you, what could be more perfect?

I almost never pick a pattern just because of the yarn it calls for. The yarns are often not easily available locally, and when they are, they frequently cost more than I'm willing to pay. I pick a pattern and then try to find a yarn that will work with it. Sorry, yarn companies. When I buy fiber for spinning, I do just the opposite. I see a fiber that appeals to me (color, texture, etc.) and fall in love. I figure I'll find something to do with it after I spin it. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I end up with lots of lovely skeins of yarn.

Whether I can actually wear or use the item is, alas, of secondary consideration to me. What this means is that I've made things that frequently end up sitting in the closet or a drawer somewhere. For me, it's a lot more about the process than it is about the product. Oh well. That's how I do things, and I've learned to live with it.

Daily Knitting Report:

I'm getting close to finishing the edging for my spiral shawl. I'm going to put on a blaze of activity and try to finish it before we head off to Fripp. I wanted it to be big, and it is! Unblocked, it's about 60" across. Wow. It'll be warm and snuggly this winter!

Being Bad(Ass)

Daily Knitting Report:

I was going to post today about Being Bad at the LYS, but I remembered:

Rule 2: Buy as much yarn (and books and needles etc.) as you want, whenever the hell you want.

In that spirit, here' what I brought home from Cast On Cottage :

The latest issue of Interweave Knits:

INKnitters magazine:

A book of patterns for Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool. I love her designs:

Two size 1 circular needles (not pictured), because you can never have too many small circulars.

And some sock yarn in the exciting new "bumblebee" colorway:

Isn't that fabulous? Or at least striking. Ok, it's eye-hurting. But fun!

I started the second pattern of the Six Sox KAL last night. I got through 3 repeats of the pattern:

And I tried -- I really tried to do the cables without a cable needle. But I had so much trouble getting the needles into the second pair of stitches that I finally just gave up and grabbed a spare sock needle to do the cables with. Things went much better after that, and fewer curse words were spoken.

Awww...

Daily Knitting Report:

A little bitty FO:

My step-niece is having a baby, and the shower is on 8/1. So I figured I'd better get in gear! Here's a little pair of booties based on a pattern from Knitter's Socks, Socks, Socks. I just didn't put little ties in them because I figured that's just something else to get lost, right? Now I need to get some coordinating stuff done -- hat, sweater, etc.

At least these projects are small!

And the next Six Sox pattern is up! And it's a cabled pattern! The pattern is set up in both .doc and .pdf formats -- great idea! The pattern chart is also available as a bitmap.

This should be fun, but I'm a little worried about the listers who had problems with the Cloverleaf. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion about it on list!

I may have to do this pattern one sock at a time. I don't anticipate any problems with the pattern, and I may try cables without a cable needle technique. I hate fussing with cable needles. It's way too fiddly for me.

I've also heard the the new Interweave Knits is nice. Just what I need -- an excuse to visit the LYS.

News from the Dog World:

Everybody's fine. Cammie's cough went away. I went to Eckerd yesterday and got one of those pill keepers that you can use to keep track of your medications when you have multiple pills to take at different times of the day. I figure maybe that will be easier for the folks to use when they're boarded at the vet's next week. I got some little pill bags too. I may pre-measure Bouncer's Prozyme and Viokase into them. Or I may not.

Every day a new adventure. :-)

Miscellaneous stuff:

I'm still researching kayaks. I'm getting some good advice on the SDMB , I think. (How weird is it when you ask for information from a group of total strangers AND GET IT? I love the internet.) I'm thinking that when I get to Fripp, there should be more than one opportunity to look at/try out various kayaks there. I'll get to do some hands-on research! W00t!!

Taking it easy

Miscellaneous Ramblings:

Boy, I feel like I'm in a holding pattern right now. We're leaving for Fripp early next Monday, and somehow I don't feel like I can really commit to anything when I have another trip over my head. I know, it's a personal fault. But we've been gone so much this year (relatively speaking) that I just haven't gotten much done. And I don't feel like things will settle down till next week is over.

I'm still researching kayaks. I'm now officially in Information Overload. The latest question: sit-on-top or sit-inside? Most of my admittedly limited experience with kayaks has been with sit-inside models. That's the model that really says "kayak" to me. We did rent a sit-on-top kayak in Hawaii. It was fine, but I confess to being a little nervous about not having a shell around me. But for the type of kayaking I'm most likely to do (warm weather/warm water, calm water) it may make sense. And sometimes I'd like to take a dog with me. That may be more practical with a sit-on-top. But they're not much more affordable than the plastic sit-inside models. Bummer.

I need to stop thinking about this stuff for a while and let it all gel together in my brain. I also need to find a venue where I can try some different models out and find out what I like better.

I'm writing all this like I can actually AFFORD one of these things -- HA!

Oh, and since it's Dear Robert's day off, we'll probably go see Spiderman 2 today.

Daily Knitting Report:

I made it down to one of the intown SnB meetings last night. Yay! It was nice to see some of the folks I know, and to meet some other folks I don't. And I've finished knitting the edging for another swirl on my grey shawl. Only three more swirl-sections (240 sts/480 rows, but who's counting?) to go!

News from the Dog World:

Cammie seems to have stopped coughing, and appears to be feeling MUCH better. Yay for the Bot!

Not Much Happenin' Here

I didn't knit a stitch yesterday. I didn't do much of anything. Well, we did go to the pool with Robert's family. We've been trying to help his nephew get over his fear of the water. He's making slow progress (he'll voluntarily put his whole head under now, to try to pick things up of the bottom of the pool) but he still gets panicky sometimes when he thinks he's in water that's over his head. (I saw "thinks" because we almost never take him to areas of the pool where he can't stand up by himself.) He gets panicky and cries. He's almost six now, and is a pretty sturdy little guy. Being kid-less myself, I don't really understand how all this kid stuff works. I just try to jolly him along, sometimes with this little call and response routine:

Me: What happens if your head goes under water?
Him: My face gets wet.

Me: What DOESN'T happen if your head goes under water?
Him: I don't drown!

Stuff like that. Don't laugh, it seems to help. I sometimes have to walk away from him when he gets too whiny so that behavior doesn't get reinforced, and so my patience doesn't wear too thin.

But I was a timid child, and remain a somewhat timid adult. I figure if these things work for me (and they do) maybe they'll work for him too. What he probably needs is a bunch of kid buddies to play with in the pool, with no adults around that he can run to. He'd probably figure out what to do to keep up with them and have fun. I have vague memories of learning to swim at the public pool mumblety-mumble years ago. We had some lessons that I barely remember, but more than that, we had lots of time to play together. We dove for rocks at the bottom of the pool, and had races to see who could swim farthest underwater -- stuff like that. But I don't think he's had anything like that, so I try to cut the kid some slack. He's a good kid, just a little timid here. I figure he'll grow out of it, if nothing else.

Something else altogether:

I'm researching kayaks. I've decided that I like being out in boats in general, and in kayaks in particular. Not the scary white-water stuff -- the river/lake/coast water of sea kayaking territory. We've been out on several guided sea kayaking trips. We'll probably go again next week at Fripp. A good quality inflatable kayak (e.g., Innova brand) may be the way to go. Inflatable boats have the advantage of being able to be UNinflated -- smaller storage needed, no need to buy a car rack, etc. But they're still fairly expensive, and I'm still unemployed. So we'll see. I can dream, can't I?