Knitting, with Dogs

Happy Halloween!

It's been a busy time lately.  I've just recently got some time to knit, and here's what I made:

The hand-dyed yarn is from Patti, donated to the drawing for the Give a Little campaign for Katrina Relief.  The pattern is the Gauntlet pattern from the Not Just Socks book by Sandi Rosner.  I changed the pattern a little.  I cast on fewer stitches so the pattern would work with my yarn, and made the cuff shorter than the pattern called for, but that's it. 

I can't tell you how much I love these things.  I suffer from the cold even in our mild Georgia winters.  I know from past experience that fingerless mitts do help keep the cold achies out of my hands.  The pattern was dead easy.  I think it took me two nights of knitting to make them.  And Patti's yarn is WONDERFUL!  It's soft but also just crisp enough to make the details stand out.  And the color combination is Just. Freaking. GORGEOUS.  I'd be knitting along and periodically I'd just have to stop and admire the way the colors all went together.  So y'all go over to Patti's blog and say Hi!

Last Saturday I got to meet Charlene Schurch, author of Sensational Knitted Socks and other fun books.  What a nice lady!  She taught a sock workshop at the shop, and we had the pleasure of being able to go out to supper with her and her husband afterwards.  We ate at the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle.  (BTW, I think "Social Circle" is a lovely name for a town.)  And no, I don't have any pictures because I'm an idiot and left the camera at home.  D'oh!

Current knitting project is the Evergreen Gift Bag from Handknit Holidays.  (Savannahchik has a scan of the picture here.)  Actually, I'm embarrassed that I don't have a picture of a completed bag today.  The reason I don't is a lesson in being consistent in your knitting.

I've done just enough stranded colorwork to know what to do without always knowing  the best WAY to do it.  So I started out fine.  I was carrying the dark yarn in my right hand and the light yarn in my left hand.  This made weaving in the light color very easy.  So I did my first set of motifs that way.  It looked pretty good.  Some of the stitches were a little tight, though, so I thought "Maybe I should carry the light yarn in my RIGHT hand and see how that goes.  Well, it went fine.  I didn't have any more tight stitches.  But... (and you knew there was a but, right?) the second set of motifs didn't match the first set.  The light stitches (the little tree motifs) stood out TOO much.  It was Really Obvious.  I looked at it for a while and tried to pretend that it didn't matter.  But it did, so I frogged it back to the start of the first tree chart.  After that I was too discouraged to knit on it any more last night.  But it's a pretty quick knit.  Once I decide on the best way to knit the piece and work that way consistently, I should be able to get through it pretty quickly.  Like, in a day.  Or two.

In Other News:
Last weekend was my brother's 25th wedding anniversary.  Here he is with wife and daughter:

and here's their anniversary cake:

Awww.  I played the organ for their wedding.  I have never in my life seen anyone happier than my brother was that day.  He positively glowed.  His wife is a gem too, and we love her dearly.  And his daughter, who'll be getting married herself this December, is wonderful.  I'm really pretty blessed in my family.  And that's a good thing, ya know?

Speaking of family, my dad's doing well.  He says he's hardly sore at all now from his surgery.  He's lost a little weight (which he needed to do), but he's doing pretty much anything he wants to now.  Yay Dad!

News from the Dog World: 
Jasper and Bouncer continue to be healthy.  We are having some issues between the two of them, though.  Jasper has strong ideas about what Bouncer should and should not do sometimes, and sometimes this results in Jasper deciding to jump on Bouncer.  Usually these incidents are loud and scary, but don't result in anything but wet fur on Bouncer.  Last night, however, Bouncer suffered a little puncture wound in the top of his head.  We're taking care of it, and Jasper goes back on Nothing in Life is Free protocols.

He likes to eat coathangers.

Happy Halloween to all!  I think I'm going to be curmudgeonly tonight and sit out the evening in Starbucks or something.  We get many MANY trick-or-treaters, and sometimes it's just tiresome to deal with, not to mention expensive!  Dear Robert's working tonight, so I'll hang out elsewhere and knit or something.

Not as much as some, but more than some others...

My blog is worth $9,597.18.
How much is your blog worth?

It doesn't exist (yet), but I want one

From Business Week's Tokyo Motor Show Preview (click on the Slide show to see other cars):

The Honda WOW (Wonderful Openhearted Wagon) concept car, made especially for dog lovers:

The blurb says: 

"Intended to be 'enjoyable and dog-friendly for a mobile lifestyle', the interior is dominated by novel ways for owners to pamper their pets and prevent them becoming lethal projectiles in accidents."

And

The Honda WOW emphatically demonstrates the brand's 'Feel FINE!' theme for the show, features including a 'flexible outlet which invites the refreshing wind', and a glovebox designed to accommodate more petite breeds. Honda has clearly given the Wonderful Openhearted Wagon true doggy style.

Heh.  Wouldn't work for those of us with larger dogs, but the "dog in the glovebox" made me smile.

(Thanks Boingboing!  Y'all, if you aren't reading BoingBoing, you're missing out on some nifty stuff.)

Just a little update

I've got several knitting projects in the works right now.  Lessee:

a) a baby sweater
b) sock 1 of 2 done
c) I started a shrug pattern last night that I may end up having to frog
d) some other stuff I can't remember right now. 

Working in a yarn shop is really bad if you suffer from startitis.  I do, alas.  So I'm trying to rein myself in a bit and actually get some stuff completed.  The baby sweater would be a good start, since the shower is next Sunday.  I've got about half of it done.  But I really need a shrug, since it's starting to get cool here, and the part of me that always gets cold first is my upper arms.  Weird, I know, but there it is.  I need to have lots of warm stuff to wear this winter because we're going to be keeping the house cool to save on gas heating expense.*  So shrugs and mitts and wrist warmers are going to be on my plate Real Soon Now.

News from the Dog World: 
How you can tell that your favorite Destructo-Dog is feeling much better:

Two balls of yarn have been eviscerated
Your cell phone charger wire has been chewed in half
Your cable modem internet connection went out because he managed to pull the coax cable out of the wall and chew the end off it.

Dear Robert's out of town for a couple of days at a manager meeting, so it's just me and the dogs till Wednesday.

And in case you haven't seen it already:
Knitted Zombies Reenact Dawn of the Dead

*BTW, anybody else worrying about the economy???

Look who's home!

And he's even clean, thanks to a little bit of confusion between my Jasper (who was in the hospital) and another Jasper, who was boarding there.   Jasper was so excited to get home, he was pawing at the door to get in.  He hadn't pooped before he left the vet, but he pooped right after he got home.  All I'll say about that is, so far, so good! 

He's got meds and a special diet for a week, but if that goes well, he should be ok.  He's definitely full of energy today.  He's a Wild and Crazy Dog, but that's what we love about him.

Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes for both Jasper and Bouncer.  They really mean a lot to us.  I'll never meet most of the folks I know in the blogiverse in real life.  That doesn't mean I don't consider y'all friends.

Thanks, friends.

Jasper update

So far, so good.  He hasn't had any vomiting or diarrhea since early yesterday.  They're going to try him on some solid food today to see how he does with that.  If that goes well, we may be able to get him home tomorrow.

Keep your good thoughts coming to us -- they're much appreciated!

If it ain't one dog...

it's another. Dog content only: It's 3 am. We just got back from taking Jasper to the emergency vet. He had no appetite, was vomiting and was having bloody diarrhea. The doctor checked for parvo, just in case, and luckily THAT test was negative. So he's being treated for hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, which is apparently something that can come on suddenly like this and produce the same symptoms we're seeing in Jasper. He'll be on antibiotics and other assorted drugs as well as fluids for the next day or two, and hopefully he can pull through this. He may be in the hospital for a couple of days. Positive/healing thoughts would be most welcome. We're pretty worried right now.

Awww..

Cast your eyes over to the left sidebar and see the button that Beth made for me!  Awww, that's so sweet!  Thanks, Beth!

I spent most of my knitting time yesterday working on a Dale of Norway baby sweater.  It's garter stitch -- easy-peasy, right?  So how come I keep finding bogus single stitches that are just WRONG, 16 rows down in the knitting???? Grrrr...  it's fairly fine gauge garter st that seems to slip of the sharp ends of the needles pretty easily.  I must be remounting a stitch incorrectly or something.  I did try to ladder down and fix it, but honestly, in fine gauge garter st, it's easier just to rip and re-do.  But I've had to do that 3 times now.  I know, I know -- watch what I'm doing and check more frequently.   I just didn't know garter st was so fraught with peril.

Anyway, it looks like I may get to teach my first beginning knitting class tonight.  Wish me luck!

News from the Dog World: 

Bouncer seems to be feeling better.  I spent all day at my home yesterday, and I took him with me when I made my rounds.  Thanks for all the good wishes for him!

In Other News:

Have you ever had your at-home hair color come out not quite like you expected?  I think the worst one I had was the hair color that gave me unintended purple highlights.  (I lost the right side mirror off my car because of that -- don't ask.)  The color I put on my hair yesterday may be a fairly close second, though.  It's much darker than I intended it to be.  Dear Robert says I remind him of Evil Willow (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), only without the blue veins.

Also, I hasten to add, without the youth, cuteness and leather bustier.  :)

Finally! Some pictures!!

Here are the things I've been knitting lately.  Most of them are for the shop, but some of them will live in the shop for a while and then go home with me.  w00t!

First, some wrist warmers from Dale of Norway:

The picture shows the two sides of the mitt.  The flower is on the back of the hand, the checkerboard is on the palm side.  These were pretty fun to knit.  It's good to be practicing color work again.

This is a little lacy scarf made out of variegated mohair yarn.  It's a really easy pattern.  It comes as a kit in a lovely little velvet and tulle (I think it's tulle) bag with beads on the bottom.  And you can knit it up in a couple of evenings.  Fun and easy.

This is the double-thick cap from the most recent issue of Spin-Off magazine.  It's made out of my current favorite yarn, Malabrigo merino wool.  It has a pretty nifty construction technique:  you knit a garter stitch piece, graft the ends together, then pick up from one edge and knit a crown.  Finish that side off and then do the same to the other side.  I like the bright colors in the yarn.

I don't know if you've seen the books Knitted Babes:  Five Dolls and Their Wardrobes to Knit and Stitch.  Now, I'm not a doll person.  I wasn't as a kid either.  But I was a little curious about how one of these dolls would look knitted up, so I made one.

I call her Fiona.  However, I really think I should have gone with my original instinct and made her a Goth babe - black hair, dead-white skin, black lips, etc., etc.  But since I was making her for the shop, I figured I should go for a more conventional look.  The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I used yarn left-over from the mitts for her dress and hat. 

I also took considerable liberties with the patterns as written.  The doll is supposed to be knit flat in two pieces.  The arms and legs are also knitted flat in stockinette stitch, taking advantage of stst's tendency to curl in on itself.  Well, I sez to my self, heck with that stuff!  I knitted the doll in the round (it's easy) and made the arms and legs of I-cord.  (Aside:  is there anything in the world more BORING than knitting quantities of I-cord???  I didn't think so.)  I also made the dress and the hat in the round.  I have GOT to get over my dislike of sewing garments together.  I can do it, but I hate it, and thus avoid it whenever possible. 

Anyway, the doll came out rather better than I thought it would.  After you put some hair and clothes on her, she looks much less like a monster from the original Outer Limits tv show.  If I were a doll-loving person, I might could see how it would be fun to do this.

Speaking of new books, has anyone else seen this book?  Handknit Holidays:  Knitting Year-Round for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Winter Solstice?  I really like this book.  I found it at Borders.  It's edited by Melanie Falick of Weekend Knitting (and other books) fame.  I love this book.  I must have bookmarked about 8 patterns in it, from a ruffly scarf that ends up with 1600 or 3200 sts (depending on which version you make) on the needles to a kid's hat that looks like a Hershey's Kiss to a couple of lovely shawls.  Highly recommended.  I'm working on the ruffly scarf now (only 800 sts on the needles at this point).  I'll report back on how long it takes to knit a row containing 1600 sts in the near future.

In Other News: 

For anyone curious about my dad, he's recovering well from his surgery.  We had some really creepy moments in the hospital when he was really out of it.  He scared us to death then, but once he got off the pain meds and got home, he settled down to his ornery old self again.  He goes back to the doctor tomorrow to get his staples out.  31 staples.  Ouch.

I got home last night to find that Bouncer, the sweetest dog in the world, was having serious diarrhea with blood clots in it.  He went to the vet today.  He's on a course of  Metronidazole with a bland diet for a few days.  We're hoping it's all just been caused by a fairly recent change of food coupled with the schedule disruption of me being away from home for most of the past 2 weeks.  Wish us luck!  Here's Bouncer:

He's my sweet little boy.

And we saw the Firefly movie Serenity last night.  I thought it was pretty good.  I would probably have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been worried sick about Bouncer.  But if you're a science-fiction fan, you'll probably like it.  I did, and I had a LOT of other stuff on my mind.

One last thing:  once I get to be home more often, I'm thinking about starting a podcast.  I've got some technical issues to work out, but I think it would be hella fun to do.  Anyone else podcasting these days?