Tag Archive | puppies

New Yarn. Again.

I blame it on my friend. She was going to the yarn store near me and asked if I wanted to meet her there. Well, I didn’t want to risk hurting her feelings, and I do enjoy seeing her, so it was a risk I had to take. Then, the silly yarn store worked against me by putting one of my favorite yarns on sale, 50% off! It’s Manos del Uruguay Maxima, and they even had my favorite purple shade. I knew I had two at home, so I grabbed two more with the plan of making Purl Soho’s Moonstone Wrap, holding the Maxima double. They also had a beautiful Herb green so I grabbed a couple of those. I mean, you have to get it when the price is this good, right? Now, I want you to look at the yarn below the green. It is the exact same yarn as the yarns on the right side of the green. Same color way and everything. COMPLETELY different. That’s the Maxima I was planning to use for the wrap, and having one skein so different would not work at all. I had to go back to the yarn store. Had to. No other option. Plus, the owner had mentioned they were having a yarn tasting, and that sounded fun.

So I went back this morning. The yarn tasting was actually nothing exciting, just a trunk show of new Shibui yarns, which are beautiful but more expensive than I wanted, and none of them called my name anyway. But this Berroco Fiora did, in a big way. I kept coming back to this pewter color, and ended up taking two home. I’ve also had the urge to make something with brown and teal, so when I saw these colors in the Fiora, they ended up in my arms too. It’s an interesting blend of fibers: 40% cotton, 30% viscose, 15% alpaca, 10% nylon and 5% wool, and it’s 246 yards of DK weight. The two together should make a lovely lightweight scarf; I just need to find the right pattern. But it’ll be after I do the Moonstone. That’s my next project, and I’ll be casting on this morning.

I have no knitting to show you. Today is the girl’s birthday party so I spent ALL DAY yesterday cleaning. It was horrible. But now the house is as good as it’s going to get (can you believe it’s raining? I clean the floors and of course it starts raining) and I’m going to take a couple of hours to relax with my yarn before all the people show up at my house. I just hope the puppies behave themselves. Jack has a habit of being a bit of a jerk to visitors sometimes, and not all of our guests are comfortable with dogs. I’d put him outside but he freaks out and claws the heck out of the door and barks non-stop, so that’s not a good option. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll just get the vacuum back out. He loves that!

Enjoy your weekend, friends!

It’s MSWL Day!

Mar10

I am in a bit of a knitting lull, friends. This week has kept me busy and distracted enough that there’s just not a lot of yarn stuff going on. I did have some yesterday during flute lesson, and I cast on for something new because I’m so bored with all my current WIPs. I’ve got a blanket, a wrap, a scarf I’m not sure I’m liking, and the Because I Love You Wrap which is waiting to be cast on yet again. None of those sound like fun car knitting, do they? No, they do not. Ergo, a hat. It’s another Lace Ribbon Slouch hat like this aqua one, only this time in white cotton. I also went down in needle size, to 5s and 7s, since the first hat was a bit large.

Today is errand-free, so you’d think I’d have lots of knitting time, but it’s also #MSWL day on Twitter! That stands for manuscript wish list, and it’s when agents/editors post what kind of projects they’re looking for. It’s a fantastic resource for writers like me, looking for an agent, so I’ll be keeping track of that throughout the day and working on my queries at the same time.

My biggest struggle with MSWL is that memoir is a really difficult genre to break into (unless you’re a celebrity) so there’s very few MSWL requests for it. Many agents seem resistant to memoirs, many only want authors with an established platform, and those that do take on memoirs are *extremely* selective. With good reason, I’m sure: memoir isn’t a hot seller the same way commercial fiction, YA, or thrillers are, so the writing/premise/hook etc all have to be top-notch.

But there are memoir readers out there like me, who like reading memoirs by ordinary people. I know there’s at least one, because this article from bookriot.com popped up in my Facebook feed the other day, and it was the absolute perfect boost I needed. It’s called What Makes You Pick Up a Memoir, and this last bit summed up my thoughts exactly:

“I think people read memoirs by “non-famous” people to get a glimpse into someone else’s life. Readers, by nature, are curious people. What better way to satisfy that curiosity than losing yourself in someone else’s story for 200 pages? We read memoir for connection, to feel less alone, to know that someone else out there has struggled with something similar and lived to tell the tale. We read it for entertainment (I never laugh out loud at books, but Tina Fey’s Bossypants changed that), we read it for hope.”

SEE? Isn’t that awesome? That’s me. That’s my audience, people like her. So this is my hope: that my story is interesting and written well enough to engage the right agent/editor so I can get my book into her hands!

Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods so everything is sunny and bright and optimistic. The puppies are full of spring fever and spend most of the morning romping outside before coming in and passing out like this. As much as I like to watch them play, I do love them when they’re all sleepy and peaceful.

Frogging and Query Letters

Mar7

Ugh. I need to frog my Because I Love You Wrap and start over. Okay, no, I don’t really *need* to, but I want to and won’t be happy with it if I don’t. Here’s what I’ve got so far: I love how it’s knitting up, and I even watched a video about intarsia and figured out the yarn-twisting bit so there’s no hole where I picked up the teal for the stripe. Great, right? Right! But then I looked at the pattern again and realized that in the second half of the shawl, the stockinette sections are much bigger because of how the shawl grows. I would much rather have the variegated yarn in the big sections of stockinette than the solid teal. Maybe it’s a minor thing, maybe it won’t make a huge difference, but in my mind right now, I’m thinking it will. The only downside is that I’ll lose those two lengths of teal yarn (unless I just use them and have even more ends to weave in). But at least I figured it out before I got even further into the wrap!

Here’s some good news though: remember my Duality hat from yesterday? The designer noticed my project page on Ravelry and asked to feature it on the pattern page!! I love when that happens! You can see it here, and remember, today’s the last day to get the pattern for free!

And more good news (maybe): I sent my first query letters to agents yesterday!! I don’t know if I’ll ever think my memoir manuscript is “done” but it feels done. It feels ready, although of course as soon as I sent the letters I was consumed with doubt and self-loathing. I only did three; they take longer than you’d think. You have to determine each agent’s requirements, tailor your query letter for each agent, then copy and paste the requested materials (and in my case, reformat it when it goes all wonky in the email). I also had to write a brief synopsis, since one agent requested it along with the query letter. Each one is so different, it seems like. And there’s so much pressure to be PERFECT with that one short letter.

Ugh. It’s hard hard hard. But also so exciting. It feels wonderful to move on to this step, to believe in myself enough to send my book out for others to judge. And they will, and most of them will reject it. I recognize that, and it’s okay. I know there are thousands of books written every year and agents have to turn down perfectly good books just because it didn’t call their name. I only need one, one fabulous agent who believes she can sell this book to a publisher. Until I find her, I’ll keep sending out queries and waiting patiently.

And I’ll knit of course, to calm my nerves while I’m pretending to be patient.

Okay, fine, you’re right. Yes, I’ll play with the puppies too.

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Mar2

I got complacent. Grace was being so good the last couple of months, not chewing things up when we were gone. I mean, yeah, she was stealing butcher knives, but whatever, right? Then yesterday I was gone for almost four hours and came home to stuffing on the floor. Now, she’s already destroyed our throw pillows, so at first I had no clue what it was from. Then I realized: we have an upholstered chair in the sitting room. It’s one of her favorite spots because it’s in front of a window, so she drapes herself over the back and watches the world go by. Not anymore, pup! Not anymore. Not after this: Oy. This dog. So yeah, she was in the doghouse (figuratively) for the rest of the day. At least until it was time for me to stretch out on the couch with my blanket. Then both puppies thought it was cuddle time with mom. Fine. They’re warm and snuggly. Fortunately, I did have some good to counteract the bad. The yarn store was indeed open yesterday and I did indeed find some yarn. More than I meant to find, honestly. (That’s always what happens, isn’t it?) Last night I hid in my craft room and wound yarn. It was lovely. Please note: not all of this is new yarn! Some of it was in the stash and I decided it needed to be wound. Mostly to make room for the new yarn. This is the new yarn. Yes, I have plenty of cotton now, in a nice variety of colors. The three on the left are Berroco Weekend, which my LYS has for 35% off. It’s a crispy yet soft cotton/acrylic blend and I’ve made several hats with it in the past. The two on the right are Universal Yarn Cotton Supreme, which is a deliciously soft yarn. I’m hoping to get one adult hat and one baby hat out of each skein. I don’t have patterns picked out yet, so some of today will be spent perusing Ravelry.

And some of it will be spent on my manuscript. I have an idea for a new first chapter, so I’m going to play around with that. A fellow knitter/blogger/writer/reader has generously offered to be an extra set of eyes, so I’d like to get it as ready as possible before that happens. I thought it was, honestly, but then I started doubting myself again. There’s a blog I follow written by a literary agent, and she’s strongly anti-memoir. By that I mean, she seems to believe that unless you’re a celebrity or super funny, your memoir won’t sell (with a few obvious exceptions, and I don’t think I’m Cheryl Strayed either). And I know she has the experience to back that up. So yeah, I’ve got that in the back of my mind. But I’m still going to keep pushing forward. I haven’t hit a roadblock big enough to stop me yet!

Oh yeah, one last thing. Here’s the finished purple hat! Ravelry notes are here if you’re interested.

Until next time, happy Wednesday, friends! Go forth and create stuff!

One hat done, one hat begun

Mar1

Just as I thought, the Oscar Night hat was quick to finish yesterday. I love how it turned out, except it seems a little big. But this head is pretty slippery, plus it doesn’t have any hair to fill out the hat. Why not try it on a person, you say? What a novel idea! Nobody was around when I finished it, and somehow it didn’t occur to me to try it on myself. And right now it’s upstairs and I’m downstairs and it’s not worth it to go fetch it. It will fit someone, I’m sure. And it’s pretty and I had fun making it. You can find the details on the Ravelry page. You might remember I mentioned I was going to babysit my wee nephew yesterday, and I was afraid he’d be very cranky? Well, I did and he wasn’t!! Sure, he had a few fussy moments but overall we had a lovely time. He’s about 8 months old and desperately wants to be more mobile than he is, so he gets frustrated. But he seems to be warming up to me and has a perfectly charming grin.

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this: I was weak yesterday! I was running early so I decided I needed to stop by the yarn store. Spring is coming, and I want to make lots and lot of cotton hats. Thus, I need more cotton yarn. Green yarn, I decided. A bright, cheerful grass green. I could see the yarn in my mind’s eye and it was beautiful. I pulled into the parking lot…the empty parking lot…in front of the building with dark windows…it was CLOSED. The yarn store is closed on Mondays, darn it all. Well. Saved me some money, didn’t they? Instead I came home and picked out a pretty lavender cotton from the stash and cast on with that. Jack helped.Speaking of Jack: he’s pretty sneaky. Both pups sleep with the girl at night, but they think they want to sleep in my bed. Every night they sneak in when I’m getting ready for bed and jump up and make themselves all cute and comfy so we won’t have the heart to kick them out. (It never works. The husband is stern in this regard.) Last night Jack jumped up and promptly claimed my pillow.“Dis is pillow for me, right?” Ha. Right. (Actually if it weren’t for the husband, I would let him have it. Even though I don’t sleep well with puppies in the bed either. He’s just that cute.)

Okay, sorry, back to the knitting: the hat is going swimmingly, and I have some waiting room time this morning so I should make good progress on it today. I’ll also be driving right by the yarn store again today. And I’m pretty sure they’re open on Tuesdays.

What a Weekend!

Feb15

There was so much going on this weekend! I’m glad to finally have a quieter day. The kids have a long weekend, thanks to parent/teacher conferences and Washington’s birthday, so they had Friday off. I drove downtown to take the girl to a weekend-long honor band, and that was only a little stressful for my small-city-driver self. The fun bit was that we met a knitter from Vietnam! During our downtime, we hung out at the B&N cafe, and I was knitting a Yoda hat. An older woman came over and asked where she could get needles like mine (I was using my 12″ Addi Turbos). She lives in Vietnam and comes here to visit her son, who attends the local university, so she didn’t know the area well at all. She was really only familiar with Michaels stores, and didn’t seem to understand the concept of local yarn stores (so sad). We chatted a bit as best we could with the language barrier, and it was neat to share the love of knitting. It made me realize that’s really the only time people come up and talk to me, when I’m knitting. It must be a good ice-breaker! Either that or I suffer from RBF (Resting B*#@% Face) when I’m not knitting. We may never know.

Saturday morning was my craft show and it was a whirlwind five hours. I had some family visit me (and buy a couple of things) but I also had several real customers too! I focused on hats for this show, and I think I sold 6 or 7. The Yoda hats were a hit, of course, but so were the black hats. Note to self: make sure to have black hats at every show. My Knitting SIL was up there with me, and we had a grand time knitting and chatting between customers. Really, it went much better than I expected, and it makes me think that focusing on hats might be a good strategy. But…I LOVE cowls! Love making them, love wearing them. Why don’t people buy them? I just don’t know. Still, hats are good. I like hats.

Yesterday was the concert for the girl’s honor band, and though it was a struggle to get the boy awake (forget about happy) by 9 a.m., we managed. The concert was marvelous…and the lunch afterward was marvelous too… Look: the boy has a new hairdo! It was a bold move for him; we love it!And look: the girl has a new smile! She got her top braces off finally and is SO HAPPY!

Then we came home and I took a bunch of photos of my newer hats and updated my Etsy shop. It’s all current now, and I’m going to step back from Yoda hats and work on the rainbow cowl for my mom.

But now I have a question for you fellow sellers of knitted goods: I was invited to do a show in June. It’s a good show, well-advertised and popular, and the booth fee is very reasonable. BUT, that’s the middle of summer. It’s warm here then. How well do knitted things sell during the summer? In my experience, not that well. I can modify my inventory a bit, have more summer-weight hats, baby hats, cotton bags, etc, but I’m not sure I’d have enough for a show. Have any of you done well with summer shows? What advice do you have for me?

I will wait patiently for your replies, as patiently as Jack waits when it’s dinner time. (Sorry the photo is so bad; I had to take it quickly before he moved.) I just love how he sits!

A Greyhound Snood

Jan29

You’ve seen the photos, I’m sure, of the dogs wearing the hooded cowl-type things? Well, that’s called a snood and they’re popular for greyhounds because apparently they get cold more quickly than other breeds. I got a request for one the other day, and it’s been a fun project so far. It’s unusual and different, and I like the idea of keeping a puppy warm! I chose a machine-washable yarn since even though the dog is “reasonably clean dog” (what does that even mean? My dogs don’t speak that language!), she’s still a dog. I’m using the Pointy Greyhound Hood pattern. Most of the patterns were just the cowl/neckwarmer but she specifically wanted a hood, so a hood she’ll get! I cast on last night and it’s going quickly so far. It’s cool because you start with the ribbing in the round, which is what goes around her face, then you take part of the stitches and knit flat for a while, then you join in the round again for the pointy hat part. It was also interesting to see how much my tension differed from knitting flat on straights (lower portion) to knitting in the round on DPNs.Yep, I used the same size needles. Big difference, huh? Anyway, once I’m done with the pointy hat bit, I’ll go back to those open stitches (the ones at the bottom still on a circular needle), pick up some more, and knit in the round again for the neck portion. It’s a nifty design, and I can’t wait to see it on the pretty pup! Not my pretty pup, though. I’m afraid it wouldn’t last long. He may look docile but when he and Grace get going, they’re pretty crazy.

I wish you a happy Friday, and Jack wishes you happy napping!

A Cowl on a Puppy

Jan9

I didn’t go to Michaels yesterday. That feels like a triumph. I could have. I had the car, the freedom, the time, the coupons. But I didn’t. I didn’t need anything from there. I have yarn galore, better yarn than I’d get there. I have needles galore, better needles than they have. So I did my grocery shopping and went home, where after lunch I started a quickie project with yarn from my stash. I had an urge to make a chunky cowl that would work for older kids, so I grabbed two skeins of denim blue Knit Picks Brava Bulky and cast on for a simple cowl. I held two strands together and used size 17 needles, and a couple of hours later, I had a finished object. Jack was my first model. I can’t stand how cute he is here. Now I understand why people put their dogs in sweaters and snoods and things. I can’t, because Grace would chew this up in seconds. But oh, it was adorable while it lasted.This Christmas tree is coming in handy, since it’s right by the big bay windows. Good lighting. Too bad we’re finally going to take it down today!

That’s all the progress for today, kids. I think I need to take a short break from knitting. My elbow has been paining me the last few days, so I told myself last night that I would go a full week without knitting. Of course, in the light of day, I’m second guessing myself, and I don’t know if I’ll make it. But now that the foot is (mostly) healed, I’ve started taking some ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation, and I’m going to keep icing it because that seems to help a lot. So I’ll play it by ear, and let you know…maybe you’ll see knitting, maybe you won’t! But you’ll always see cute puppies. This is what happens whenever I sit on the couch. Puppy friends are the best of friends!

The Day of the Dogs

Dec4

Sometimes, not very often, I question my decision to have dogs.

Yesterday morning I was coming downstairs on my crutches. Through the window at the landing, I saw the neighbor’s dog running freely down the street. Knowing I couldn’t run after her, or call our neighbor (I don’t have their number), I made it down the rest of the stairs and to the front door, thinking maybe I could call her and get her to come inside. Then what, I had no idea. Fortunately, my husband was outside cleaning frost off the car, so he let the neighbor know and helped look for the dog. And within ten minutes, another friendly neighbor had managed to get her on a leash and returned home. Whew, good news, crisis averted. Right? Right.

Or not.

Ever since we got our fence finished, the puppies love to be outside. Grace especially will spend hours out there if we let her. Our morning routine is for me to let them out while I have breakfast, Jack will come in after half an hour or so, and Grace stays out for another hour or so. Well, it got to be longer than that and I figured I better get her in. I opened the door and hollered at her. Usually she’ll pop up right away, even if she doesn’t come in easily. But not yesterday. I found my crutches and hopped out to the back deck and hollered again, and after a minute I saw here…on the other side of the fence. Seriously. She’d broken a picket and gotten out and thought it would be fun to go frolic with the neighbor’s dog. Yep, same neighbor. They have an invisible fence so Grace could just pop over and say hey, and she thought that was fantastic.

Still with the crutches, I hopped down the steep stairs to the yard. Neighbor came outside, put his dog inside and tried to catch Grace. She’s a wily little thing, though, and thought it was all a fun game so she ran all around his yard and toward the street and back toward our yard and then around again. With just a sock on my good foot, I hopped to the gate and opened it, keeping Jack inside at the same time, calling for Grace so she could ignore me. Poor Neighbor kept chasing the darn dog until I asked her if she wanted a carrot (they love their carrot treats), and somehow she ended up going back through her hole into the yarn. Neighbor put two big rocks in front of the hole and I herded both dogs up the stairs and into the house. I locked the door and collapsed into my rolling chair. My sock was damp and muddy , my foot was freezing, and I was shaking with adrenalin.

So remind my: why do I have dogs?? Oh yeah. This is why. Darn those dogs anyway. As near as we can tell, Grace was digging under the fence and broke the picket forcing her way under. The picket has been replaced and her two big holes have cement blocks in them. I know she’ll dig more if she can. So yeah, now I guess we’re going to look into getting an invisible fence as a second layer of protection. Until then, her time outside will be limited and have frequent supervision.

As for me, I recovered by knitting along to a Harry Potter movie marathon, and today will be more of the same, with a fervent hope that it will be a much less eventful day!

p.s. I had a knitting photo from yesterday to share but it’s not loading and I don’t want to fight with it. Maybe tomorrow.

A little bit of knitting progress

Nov11

I wish I had more exciting stuff to share. I mean, I’ve had a week now of extra knitting time while I rest my foot, and I’ve got almost nothing. I’m working on that mermaid blanket but it’s still just more of the same. And I’m working on my third candy cane scarf; it’s going pretty quickly.I should be able to finish that soon and beg my husband to mail it for me. I’m just really eager to be working on FUN stuff. Sure, all knitting is fun, but these two projects aren’t using my creative energies. I want to be playing with my pretty yarns, finding new and interesting projects. I want to make a Doodler. I want to make baby hats. I want to make cowls. And I will, soon. As soon as I finish these two commissioned pieces.

I did manage to take photos of the two completed Sarah beanies. Granted, they’re not great photos. In fact, they suck a little, but my mobility is limited so this is what you get for now. It’s a really fun pattern, and the hats are much cuter than my photos make them look. You can find the free pattern here. I would say that it comes out a little big as written. The purple-ish one I cast on the 100 stitches, and with worsted weight, it’s just a looser brim than I like. The turquoise one I went down to…80? stitches, I think. Either that or 88. And then I increased to 100(ish) stitches for the body.

I also learned the downfall to knitting while under the influence of pain meds. The other night I forgot and accidentally took an extra pill, and then I tried to knit a second Yoda ear. It didn’t end well. Those don’t match. In case you can’t tell, the one on the right is the result of the doped knitting. Sigh. Guess I’ll frog that one and try again!

That’s all the knitting to report. I’ve been reading After You by JoJo Moyes, which is great. I finished Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner, and while I enjoyed it, I don’t think it was her best. While knitting, I’ve started watching My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and it’s hysterical. Just quirky and strange and delightful. And of course cuddling with the puppies. I’m so glad I have the pups for company!