Knitting, with Dogs

This. On a tee shirt

From here.  (Via the Chum.)

My sister sent me this

I can't imagine why, though.

(via Rhymes with Orange.)

BTW, my spare bedroom (aka my stash room) locked me out yesterday all by itself.  I swear, I couldn't make this stuff up.  I had to take two doorknobs apart (a normal one so I could see how the mechanism worked and the broken one, so I could fix it) to get back in the room. 

I don't know if that means my stash is happy or unhappy. 

Post-election knitting spree

Hi kids!  Didja miss me?

/crickets chirping/

Oh well...

I've been making lots (for me) of small projects lately.  I decided to catch up and post photos today.
All pattern links are to Ravelry, so I hope everyone's on there so they can go see them.

Hats:
Raisin Beret  Sorry for the crappy picture.  It's a little big, but I'm a loose knitter.  I followed the directions as stated, and I probably should have gone down a needle size or two.  I'd knit this again, though, and I don't say that about many patterns.  Yarn is Lion Brand Fishermans' Wool, in BROWN.  I didn't know it came in brown, only in natural, so when I saw this at JoAnn's, I had to buy some.

(Yes, I buy yarn at JoAnn's.  Shut up.)

Yoga Socks: )with supplemental dog foot in frame.)
I also used the LB Fisherman's Wool for these.  Since I life in my own personal summer these days, sometimes I'm cold when I got to bed, so I wear socks.  Then I get hot in the middle of the night, and pull them off.  I figured if I had some "socks" without toes or heels, I could maybe avoid the pulling-off-in-the-middle-of-the-night trauma.  That's Bouncer's foot by my toes.
 
You didn't think I actually did YOGA, did you??  I wish.  I need to.

Sideways Hat from Not Just Socks.
I always thought this hat was cute in the book.  So I pulled out a stash skein of sock yarn and cast on Saturday night.  I finished at 3 am Monday morning.

I have an excuse for staying up so late, though.  I was listening to Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan.
Whoa.  It's a VERY good book if you like near-future science fiction.  But it's an adult book -- not adult=sex (though there is some sex) or adult=violent (though there IS violence), but adult in theme an attitude and in the way it looks unflinchingly at its world.  I recommend it highly, but it's probably not for everyone.

Mitts:  I had these described incorrectly on my Ravelry page, so I had to go back and delete a bunch of stuff. (D'oh!)  I'm pretty sure they're from 101 Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders, but it doesn't appear that the pattern's up in Ravelry yet.   They're a little on the narrow side, but they fit me (I have small wrists and hands), so I'll just keep them.  :)
    

I've got a lace fichu knitted up but not blocked, so that's yet to come.  Also coming:  pictures from our trip to N. GA to stay in a cabin.  Highlights:  me and Jasper in a canoe. 

Escalera Jacket

Apologies for the crappy bathroom mirror photo.  I'll get Dear Robert to take better pictures when he gets home.

Outside in the sun.  That's Bouncer's head shadow:

With dogs:

Pattern:  Escalera Jacket by Carol Lapin, from Simply Shetland 3: At Galiesteo.
Yarn:  Cascade 220, 8 skeins
Needles:  US size 6, and I was pretty much right on gauge for once
It took me 17 days to knit and finish.  This is the nice, roomy kind of sweater I might actually wear.

Retail therapy

So I thought maybe getting out of the house would help me to perk up some.  There are a number of LYS that I haven't visited because they're off my usual routes.  With the rate that LYS are closing lately, I figured I better go see some of them lest they close without my ever having visited them.

Today I headed over to Only Ewe and Cotton Too.  What a nice little shop!  That's what I'd always heard about it, and it was nice to find it was true.  They have a nice and eclectic collection of yarns and a few spinning fibers, and several Louet spinning wheels.  They share a space with a bead shop.  I looked around in there and resolutely turned my eyes away from it.  But I filed it away for future reference.

On the way over, I was listening to the Stash and Burn podcast.  Jenny mentioned buying some Cestari 2-ply wool.  I guess it was on my mind, because when I went into the store and saw some Cestari wool/cotton sock yarn, I bought it.  8 skeins of it.

It's a nice soft heathery green.  My favorite.

I also bought a new oiler for my spinning wheel (I managed to bork my old one somehow) and the latest IK.  Just because.

And when I stopped at the groc on the way home, a happy sight awaited me.

Scuppernongs are in season!

I loves me some scuppernongs.  They're seasonal, so you have to get them while you can. 

Here's how I eat a scuppernong:

• Pick out a scuppernong and pop it in your mouth 
• Crunch down on the firm skin just hard enough to pop it open and squirt out the pulpy center
• Reach into the center of the pulpy bit with your tongue and find the seeds.  Spit them out.
• Eat the pulp and enjoy the texture.  That's my favorite thing about scuppernongs.  They don't really taste like any other grapes, and the texture is also different and yummy.
• You can either eat the skin or spit it out.  The skin is definitely not as tasty as the pulp, but it's eatable.  I eat it.

Scuppernongs - nom nom nom.  I've already eaten about 1/3 of this package.

And Mouse is right -- "I"m feeling MUCH better" is the line that Buddy (John Astin) used to say on Night Court.

Buddy spent lots of years in the loony bin, btw. 

Bark in the Park, and Knitting (picture heavy post)

On Saturday Jun 12, we leashed up the dogs and headed out to the Dog Days of Duluth celebration.  You know those cities that have decorated cows and mermaids and stuff, where they parcel out the figurines to artists and the artists decorate them?  It was kinda like that.  Though honestly, the dog figures were kinda small and hard to find.  I don't even think we saw all of them.  There were also dog-related businesses and rescue groups set up on the green.  (Lots of freebies and samples!) 

Some of the dog sculptures we saw looked like these:

or this (that's a butterfly on his nose):

Or this (Bouncer got in the picture):

Or this:

Surprisingly, Jasper didn't try to steal the tennis ball.  :)

It was a hot, sunny day.  Jasper kept heading for shade and flopping down.  We thought he might like to get wet in the fountain, but her really wasn't interested:

Dear Robert and I laughed while we thought about our Sasha.  When she got hot, she'd flop down in ANY available water to cool her belly.  Whether we wanted her to or not.

This was my favorite dog sculpture.  Those are 1's and 0's all over it.  Its title is "Computer Lab."  :D

That's my elbow, but I looked so hag-like I cropped the rest of myself out.

Knitting new -- a FO!

No, not a serious moth attack, just a bunch of holes on purpose.  It's the Full of Holes Triangle Shawl (Ravelry link) from Etsy seller Yummy Yarn.  (She's not showing the pattern in her shop right now, but I'm sure a quick email could get you a copy.) 

I probably over-blocked a little (I'm an aggressive blocker), but I still like the way it came out.  And it's  a GREAT pattern for variegated yarns.  I used 1 skein plus a little bit of another of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn.

Obligatory bathroom mirror shot:

Tour de Fleece report:  I'm still spinning cotton.  I got Eileen Hallmans' video and her tips on getting the charkha set up were worth the price of the dvd by themselves.  My creaky old Indian charkha is now purring along much more happily.  I ordered directly from Eileen via email, and I think the dvd was in my mailbox before the money was out of my Paypal account.  She's that fast.  :)

I'll leave you with a last shot of Dear Robert and the dogs before I go off to do battle with laundry and housework.

Second chart finished

Snowflakes on Cedarwoods, Chart B plus a couple of rows of chart C, finished Saturday night:

And a gratuitous Jasper headshot:

I was watching Tarzan on TCM this afternoon.  Jasper was watching all the motion on the screen and doing his cute head tilt at Tarzan's yell and Jane's screams and the apes' screeches.  He was as entertaining as the movie.

Eponymous

Knitting:
Snowflakes in Cedarswoods, chart A complete:

with dogs:

And so we begin

First off, thanks to all who commiserated with me over my stolen Christmas presents.  No, I don't think anything will be recovered.  The dollar value of the items lost was pretty low, really.  I've already replaced my phone (the new one's a RED one!), and the kind folks at the Needle Nook are on the lookout for anyone claiming to be me with a gift certificate.  :)

I don't do old year wrap-up posts, or New Year's resolutions, really.  There are some things I want to DO this year, though.  Here they are:

• Finish more knits (using up stash as I go), especially lace projects
• Walk in the woods more
• Keep the house neater
• Read out loud more
• Play more music.  I've got half a dozen instruments languishing in my "music room"

Modest wishes, eh?  :)  However, I reserve the right to add to my list as the year moves on.

In the meanwhile, I've finished Clue 1 of the Spring Shawl Surprise:

The color is pretty true on my monitor.  It's some yarn from handpaintedyarns.com that I got in a yarn swap a while back.  It's a pretty orchid (pinky-purple) color single with a little color variation.  The yarn's a little splitty, and I just kinda sorta pinned it out, because I hate pinning out WIPs. 

So far, so good!  It's an easy pattern.  I think I've signed up for about 20* of these mystery shawls so far this year.

*slight exaggeration

Completed Projects

I've finished a couple more things. 

There's a little project (Fuzzy Feet):

This is their unfelted state, with my foot for comparison.  They're felted, but they need to be felted a little more, so no felted state pictures yet.

Then there's the Big Project that took me WAY to long to finish:

Peacock Feathers on my styrofoam blocking boards.