Tag Archive | dogs

Some Selfish Knitting

Thanks to a doctor’s appointment and a grocery story trip, I didn’t have much knitting time yesterday. But with the time I did have, I worked on two projects for ME! They’re both ones that have been hanging around for a while, and I’m getting eager to wear them. One is my black and white chevron infinity scarf. I met a fellow crafter for coffee on Monday night, and took this with me. I thought it would be easy enough to knit while talking, but I didn’t do well. Last night I had to frog back about 10 rows to get rid of stupid mistakes. I was going to try to live with it…but, no. So now it’s back where it was and I’ve got the pattern set in my head again. I should have taken this super simple mesh scarf I’m making with some Pima cotton. It’s just a YO, k2tog repeat. Hard to mess up, though of course I have. It doesn’t look like much here, but blocking will work wonders, I think. This was my waiting room knitting.I worked a little bit on a bag commission too. This was my “sit outside with the puppies in the afternoon” knitting. This is the one that will mostly be a secret, but since this is just the bottom of the bag and it doesn’t look like much, I don’t think I’m giving anything away.I’m getting to the good part now, where I can start working the nifty pattern and where I’m working in the round. Maybe it’ll go quickly!

And the puppies. Oh, the puppies. Bit of backstory: we have a large patch of dirt in our backyard. We’re in the process of getting it prepped to lay sod, but until then, we have a lot of dust and dirt being tracked in the house. It’s a mess. Add that to two puppies who like to get on the kitchen table, and I’m washing a table every day. Plus the dirt and puppy paws are hard on the table. Easy solution, I thought. I went to Big Lots, bought a cheap vinyl tablecloth, problem solved. Right. Here’s my tablecloth after the doctor appointment. Jack says it’s not HIS fault.And I tend to believe him. It’s this one who’s the troublemaker, and she was on a roll yesterday. Ate the plastic pulls off the kitchen window blinds, ate a long plastic straw out of the dish drainer, tried to eat the hose and sprinklers in the back yard (multiple times), dig dig dig in the peat moss and dirt, ate the hostas…sigh. Alex and I finally took them for a long walk after dinner and it was a good thing, because only then could I remember why I wanted puppies. They’re so much nicer when they’re calm and cuddly. So fine. I’ll try to walk some silly puppies today.

I’m a Winner! And: Who’s that Maker?

Apr27

Seriously, I won some prizes. Remember I told you about the Meet the Makers event at Ugly Glass & Company? I got to enter a drawing for a $20 gift certificate just for attending, and then I got entries for door prizes for making purchases. Well! I got a call a few days ago that I’d won the gift certificate AND a door prize! How cool is that? (Spoiler: Very.)

First up: the door prize. I got four entries. There were several door prizes to choose from, and each one had it’s own jar. I could put all my entries in one or split them up. I was torn between a lovely handsewn tote bag and a wonderful rainbow dotted cup, and ultimately decided I have a lot of tote bags (I think it’s a legitimate addiction) so I’d go for the cup. With four entries, I felt pretty good about my odds. And I won it! See how cute it is?I’m pretty sure each little dot is hand-painted. I can’t imagine how long that took. But I absolutely love it. It was made by PiCeramics, and she’s got a lot of beautiful cups, vases, pitchers and more.

Then it was time to spend my gift certificate. That was hard. I looked at GeekChic because I just love her nerdy handmade bags. She’s the one who made my awesome Doctor Who tote. And I looked at PiCeramics, but I needed to stay close to my budget, and her pieces had a deservedly higher price. But I kept going back to this booth of infinity scarves made with soft jersey-type fabric. I covet them every time we go to Ugly Glass, so it just seemed like destiny. I picked out two. I love them. I put the blue one on right away, and I wore the gray/black one yesterday. I’m already trying to figure out what else I can wear them with. Sadly, I didn’t pay enough attention to the name of the booth, and the tags were removed when I bought them, so I can’t tell you the name of the maker, and I hate that.

I think more makers need to consider what goes home with their items. My cup came home with a tag that had a pi symbol on it, but I still had to go to the Ugly Glass website to get more information. For the scarves, I came home with no tags whatsoever. There are several clothing/accessory vendors listed on the website, and I have no idea which is which. I bought an adorable bag for my niece’s birthday at the craft show on Saturday, and I have no clue what her business name is. I think it’s so neat how she has the little slots for crayons on the front, and it came with a Frozen coloring book. Plus there’s room for a few other things, so it’s perfect to take to church or out to dinner, things like that. I wish I could direct you to her, but I can’t because I forgot to get a business card and the tag only has a price.

So, a note to vendors: think about attaching a tag with your information on it. Or punch holes in your business cards and attach one of those. I put two tags on my items, one with a price and description, and one with my name, email, website, Facebook and Etsy. I want to make it as easy as possible for you to find me later.

Today’s puppy photo is brought to you by Grace, who seems to think she must be higher than the rest of us and therefore claims tables.

Just keep making, just keep making!

Apr24

Well, tomorrow is craft show day! It’s a full day affair so I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s a good one. I just keep making new stuff to sell, like this red cotton tote.I like the shimmery gray buttons a lot. They’re just decorative of course, but they add a nice pop of style to the bag.Then I whipped up this mini market bag. It took all of an hour at the most, and it was a great way to use up the last ounce of Berroco Weekend left over from the slouchy hat. I have no idea what it’s good for. Little yarn bag to hang on your wrist, so you can knit while you’re out and about, I guess. Hang it in your bathroom and fill it with hair scrunchies and headbands. Put some bubble stuff and plastic sand toys in there for a child to carry to the beach. Heck, I don’t know. But it’s little and it’s cute and I like it.I’ve got one more hat to finish today and then I’m calling it quits on making all the things. I’ve got to get the car loaded up so I don’t have to do it early in the morning. I’m so grateful I’ve got a good friend helping me with this show! She’s got a great visual eye, so I’m thinking my table will look pretty darn good. I’ll be sure to take some photos for you.

Puppy photo: Jack loves to nap on the couch next to me, and I thought it was so cute, with his head on the pillow. See, they’re not destructive *all* the time!

Crazy for Crochet

Apr22

I can’t stop crocheting lately! Ever since I learned to knit, I’ve preferred it to crochet. Knitting is easier on my wrist and I love the fabric it creates. But I do still love the quickness of crochet, and it’s the perfect way to use all my cotton yarns. I made another small cross-body bag, just kind of made up my own pattern, and this one has a flap and a button closure. I debated between a dark silver button and a white flower. The flower was cute, but made the bag seem more appropriate for a young girl, and I wanted this to be more versatile. It’s something I would definitely carry. I’ve been working on a custom order through Etsy, but the other day I got a request for a couple of chemo caps. In my book, chemo caps always go to the top of the list. I used soft, washable acrylic and made them a small adult size so hopefully they’ll fit snugly. This is the Shelbi Hat pattern, and I’ve made it several times now. It’s very quick but looks intricate and interesting. I especially like that the pattern comes with four different sizes. It’s not a free one, but it’s absolutely worth the money for me.

Oh, and I had a wee knitting crisis the other day! You know I’m making a bag for my sister, right? Well, I picked it up and (GASP!) found this: I have no idea what happened. These are fixed-tip needles from Joann, so I’ve asked my handy hubby if he can fashion a new tip on it. Nothing to lose, right? In the meantime, I switched to my Knitter’s Pride Nova interchangeables, and actually the metal works much better with the cotton blend yarn anyway. Knits much faster. THIS is why I have so many needles! (Well, that and they’re really cool and I just like to buy them.)

Finally, puppies. We bought a fire pit last year and it sat outside all winter long. The puppies found it recently and Grace has fallen in love with the basin. She pushes and pulls it around the yard, tries to flip it, and especially loves to sit in it. I’m not sure we’ll get to use it again as a fire pit.

Spring Break in Photos

Apr3

Spring Break is almost over. It has been very quiet and casual, for the most part. Lots of sleeping in, hanging out in PJs and binge-watching Arrow and Sherlock, and quite a bit of knitting. Here are the highlights:

Lilac market bag in cotton/linen

My new fabric remnants for purse linings

Impromptu lunch at Steak ‘n’ Shake

Puppies got bored

I hate to end on a bad note, but that’s life sometimes, right? Two books escaped with just a few small gouges, one lost the dust jacket but is still a good reading copy, one is readable if I don’t mind a big missing corner, and two were destroyed completely. Sigh. At least they ignored the first edition of Cold Mountain. I’m trying to remind myself that we’ve gotten really lucky. Since we got the second dog, Grace, six weeks ago, we’ve left the two pups out in the house while we’re gone and for the most part they’ve been really good. I have no idea what brought on this little chew-fest, but it’s enough to make me decide they can stay in the kitchen while we’re gone!

My new favorite WIP

Mar10

Yesterday was kind of a rough day. I had errands to run and insensitive comments to absorb, and the latter was a bit difficult. It didn’t help that I didn’t get much knitting time, and what time I did get was spent mostly frogging and starting over.

My newest project is the Hogan Infinity Scarf, which is this really striking cowl done in dark pink and gray with a lovely lacy chevron pattern. I happened to have some Rowan DK in my stash in just the right colors, and supposedly the right amounts. I immediately cast on the 198 stitches and set about knitting. It has a border of pink on both sides, and I noticed as I finished the first pink border that my ball of yarn was awfully small. I weighed it and discovered I’d used 35 of the 50 grams on just one border. Clearly I wouldn’t have enough for the second. Well. I had to think about this.

The pattern makes a rather long scarf, and it’s done in multiples of 9. I did some math that made sense at the time (but seems suspicious now) and decided I would start over with 144 stitches. So I frogged the 11 completed rows and now have 5 rows with the new stitch count. The nice thing is that it knits up quickly, so if I get more done and it doesn’t seem long enough, I won’t mind too much starting over again.So yeah, this bit of knitting didn’t do much to improve my state of mind. After dinner I decided to go to Joann for retail therapy. It failed miserably. They didn’t have the handles I want for my blue/pink silk bag. They’d sold out of the clearance yarn I wanted to get more of. And none of the full-price yarn called my name. I tried. I picked up skein after skein and nothing happened. I didn’t want to buy yarn just to buy yarn. I left the store empty-handed…but with the understanding that I would visit my LYS today. Good solution, isn’t it? I’ll let you know tomorrow what comes home with me.

I’ll finish by sharing some beauty shots. Puppies had a photo shoot the other day and they posed wonderfully.

Jack

Grace

We had a knitting casualty

Mar4

Yesterday was a sad day in my house. I had to bid farewell to a Knitter’s Pride knitting needle. These are the size 7 14″ needles from the big set I got as a gift last year. I love these needles. But if you’ll remember, I have two puppies.They’re both around a year old, between 60 and 70 pounds, and they love to play. I was sitting on the couch yesterday, knitting along while chatting with my SIL who’d come over for a crafternoon, and the puppies started roughhousing. They love to chase each other around the house, nipping and chewing and falling and bumping. They jumped on the couch where I was sitting, and rammed into me. I was irritated at first because they made me drop a few stitches. I pushed the dogs off, picked up the stitches, and knit on to the end of the row. As I turned the work to start the next, I noticed the needle was bent. My dogs have more power than I realized. (My mother’s reaction: “Do you realize you could have been seriously hurt?”) Anyway, fortunately I have another set of metal size 7s, just not the fancy Knitter’s Pride, and I was able to continue on my Gradient Cowl.That’s the extent of my knitting yesterday. It was not a good yarn today. I do hope today is better. But I will share the photo of my finished Heartbeat Cowl.The pattern is called River Deep, Mountain High but the red made me think of heartbeats. It still needs blocking and will look much better after that, but I adore this color. Makes me want to start wearing red so I can keep it for myself!

Mojo, where are you?

Feb24

I seem to have misplaced my knitting mojo. No, no, don’t fret, it will be okay. I’m not anti-knitting, I’m just finding other things more appealing at the moment. I think partly I got absorbed with the puppy-finding process and then I lost momentum. I didn’t knit *at all* while I watched the Oscars. Four hours of TV time with no knitting. I just watched it. It was kind of weird, but also a little nice. And last night I read a magazine. Cover to cover in one sitting. I haven’t done that in ages either. Maybe I need a break to restore some balance to my life. It can’t be all knitting *all* the time, apparently.

I do have some yarn-stuff going on; my waiting-room knitting still travels with me, and I’m crocheting a hat/boot cuff set for a Poker for Puppies fundraiser.One more boot cuff to make and then I’ll get them shipped off. After that, I might just go up and paw through my stash to see what inspires me. There’s a lot of gorgeous yarn waiting for me. Something’s bound to call my name.

Our new pup Gracie is settling in wonderfully. I truly feel like we won the puppy lottery both times. We had a couple of puddles the first two days but since then nothing. They sleep great together overnight. They were alone yesterday for over two hours and I came home to two happy puppies but no puddles, nothing destroyed. They rough-house and wrestle a lot, and fight over toys, but not in a mean way. Usually they’re just devious, stealing a toy when the other one’s not looking. The two dogs are really starting to bond, and yesterday they even sat together peacefully on the couch.Gracie is a snuggle-puppy lapdog, which I love. It’s just delightful. I’m really enjoying having two dogs. I haven’t been brave enough to walk them by myself yet, since they’re still pretty wild on a walk together, and I can see myself getting all tangled up in leashes. Hopefully it won’t take long. Of course, I’d like to do it in slightly warmer weather! Until then, we might just hang out right here.

Puppy Time

Feb22

We got our new puppy yesterday! I got tired of waiting to hear from the volunteer-run rescue shelter place, so we drove out to the Great Plains SPCA just to see if anyone caught our eye. We made it all the way through before this little black Lab looked up at us. All the other dogs were barking and she was just watching us. She had this pretty white streak on her chest and little white socks on her back paws. She was a little over nine months old, young like we were looking for, and seemed friendly enough. We arranged for a meeting and she was bouncy and playful and affectionate, and it didn’t take long for us to decide we needed to bring Jack up to meet her. The meeting went well, though they didn’t play immediately like I was expecting. She was a little more aggressive than he was, and he didn’t appreciate her nose going where it went. But they didn’t dislike each other, little growling, no hackles raised, so we figured what the heck, and brought her home.Her name is Grace, and she’s 59 pounds of sweet sass. She’s not quite 10 months old yet so they expect her to get a little bigger. Right now she’s about as tall and long as Jack is, but he’s much stockier. She seems lean and streamlined compared to him.As soon as we got them in the backyard together, they started wrestling, and pretty much haven’t stopped. They’ll take a five-minute break and then they’re back at it. I love that they’re getting along so well, but I had no idea how much space two crazy puppies would take up! Three dogs? Fuhgeddaboudit! But these two seem to be having a ball, so I can handle it. I kind of wish they’d chill out a little bit now and then, but it’ll happen eventually.The best news for me was that they did fine overnight together. Jack has a bed in the kitchen, so we put another bed in there for Gracie, and after a few thumps, it was quiet all night. I woke up to two very bouncy, happy puppies. And a puddle too, but hopefully that won’t last long. She grasps the concept; I think Jack just needs to leave her alone long enough to let her pee when they’re outside.

Really, it’s going better than I expected. I know there’ll be some tension over toys and sticks, but they had breakfast in the same room without too much trouble. The only sad part is that I seem to have lost my cuddle puppy. He won’t lie on the couch with me and when I got up, he didn’t even roll over and ask for his ten-minute belly rub. That’ll come back, right? I sure hope so!

And they do wear each other out, that’s for sure! This is Jack last night after three hours of almost non-stop wrestling:It’s been an adventure already, and I think we’re in for a lot more. I’ve got more dirt and noise than I had before, but I’ve also got a lot of sweet moments.

If you’re thinking about a new furry friend, please check out your local animal shelters first. There are a lot of wonderful dogs out there, and mixed-breeds can be just as fantastic (if not more so) than a pure-bred with papers. In the Kansas City Metro Area we have three big ones: Wayside Waifs, Great Plains SPCA and the KC Pet Project.

Puppy Love

Feb17

I have been distracted from my knitting the last few days. The only thing I’ve completed is a simple ribbed hat that my son requested. I do have a new project on the needles and another that I’m about ready to cast on, but it hasn’t been in the front of my mind.

See, I want a dog. Another dog. I have a fabulous puppy named Captain Jack. He’s a shepherd mix, just a little over a year old, and he loves to play. Of course we like to play with him, but we’ve decided we’d like him to have a sibling. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine decided she needed to rehome her Siberian Husky, and I got all excited. I love huskies; I think they’re gorgeous and sweet. So I talked my husband into meeting her. (And it was HARD too! He really thought he wasn’t ready for another dog. He was wrong.) We went out there with Jack … and it was a failure. She was bossy and aggressive with him, guarded her water and wouldn’t let him drink, and he wanted nothing to do with her. I’ve seen him with lots of other dogs and he’s never responded that way before. He always tries to get the other dog to play with him. My gut said she wasn’t the right dog for us.

I started browsing the local shelter websites and it didn’t take long before I fell in love with the picture of a goofy-looking Chow mix. I wasn’t sure whether my husband had come to terms with the fact that he wanted another dog, so I didn’t do anything for a week. By the time we went to visit this dog on Valentine’s Day, he was on hold. Oh, we met him, and he was fabulous. Gorgeous and sweet and funny-looking, and so strong and playful. We put our name next on the list, but he was adopted that night.

Moving on, I found a shepherd/Shar Pei mix at a smaller shelter. I filled out the application and waited, only to find out that he too had JUST been adopted after having been at the shelter for over a year. Okay. There were two fun, young dogs at yet another shelter, and one was another Shar Pei mix with a delightful squishy face. Another application filled out, and another reply that both the dogs I liked had applications pending. Not quite a firm No, but not too optimistic either. I let them know I’d love to be second on the list.

Now I’m waiting. This morning I found two beautiful gray/black shepherd mixes at a volunteer-run shelter right by my house. They’re both male, around 8 months old, and they’re litter mates. I showed them to my husband and he really likes them too, which never happens. He usually has to meet them before expressing any interest. This was another extensive application, and they do a vet reference check before contacting you, so I’m waiting. And I think while I’m waiting I would do well to stop looking at dogs. I would really love one (or both??) of these dogs to be Jack’s new playmate. So if you feel like it, send me some good juju, okay? I would appreciate it! And next time I’ll share some knitting-type stuff too.