At odds with the day...

DH and I keep finding odd moments in our day where the absence of Sugar is a gaping, screaming hole. When we moved in to this house last fall, I noticed the sound of paws on berber, as if they were puppy paws, and it always made me smile. It's so quiet now. DH sat finishing a spoonful of peanut butter, and had just a smidge left on the spoon. He stared at it, and knew that no dog would clean the spoon. It's so still.

She was a good girl with a big personality. I stare at the dog-nose-level smudge on the back door's window, and realize I need to clean it. It occured to me more than once last night that if anything bumps that window now, I would probably die of fright.

I think about her face during the last days, where my dog was no longer herself, where she stopped responding to pets and chatter, and I have no doubt it was the right time. I think it was pain that I saw in her face, DH thinks it was dementia, and at the end of it all, it doesn't matter.

I looked on Craigslist and at the Texas Boxer Rescue pages already. Nothing serious, just browsing. I suck at being dogless. I bought Astro when I was in the depths of despair during my divorce, and that was 20 years ago this month. It was the best money I ever spent. I've owned a dog every day since then. Suddenly, there's no dog in my house.

When DH came back from the vet's, he 'scolded' me. "No strays, no dragging home a puppy!" Which is a big freaking joke, because he brought Sug home instead of my new dishwasher 13 years ago. "Best damned dishwasher you ever had!" Yeah, yeah. So I told him "Look, either a puppy, or you need to let me plan a trip. Your choice."

I started looking at air fares last night. We haven't traveled together since our good neighbors watched the dogs, and Lady Eve's dad has been dead two years. DH fussed "I want this if we are going to go..." He was surprised that I found the vacation of his dreams and a price we can afford, if we start now. He's been tasked to calculate his days off, and to find out how many SkyMiles he has. Hopefully, this Christmas will see suitcases and passports. And we'll get a dog after that.

I've suffered a creative lull lately. Enid found this clip, and I think it presents some interesting concepts. I will probably start working upstairs more often, because I won't notice the dog is missing.

Tattle tale!

A few minutes ago, DH yelled "Sug's on your knitting!"  I called back "Well, coax her off!"  He said "No, you gotta come see this."

She looks really snuggly, with good reason.  This is actually a pretty big project-at least 12 balls of yarn are already knit up.  I am nearing the end of the body...just 50 more rows, then it's on to the hem, button bands and collar.  This IS a never-ending gobstopper of a project!

Mistakes

Wow. That's what I thought when I walked into my LYS and saw this leaflet next to the sample garment. I snapped Noro 24 (the leaflet) right up. This weekend, it crawled out of the want pile, and wriggled over next to some Needful Yarns I got on a raging good sale at Elann. So I cast on.

Now, I am a competent knitter. I can follow instructions. On the pattern set up row (Row 8), it has you reaching back "4 rs" to make a loop. On subsequent pattern rows, it says do loop stitch.

I looked up loop stitch, which was [knit tog the next stitch and the corresponding purl loop form previous row on the right side of the work]


My work looked like this. It was totally kicking my ass, so I drove to LYS and looked at the sample garment. (40 miles, dontcha know)



Well, the 4s were the problem. The first row needs to go back MORE than '4 rs' and subsequent rows just reach back to the previous garter ridge.

Well just say so, already.

Need another opinion

I am trying hard to finish up UFOs. I ran across this, an entrelac sweater started last October, in Austermann Inverno. I figured out where I was, sat down, did a few squares, and really looked at it.

There is no way the front will match the back. Given entrelac's tendency to spread, the front is a good 5" wider than the back.

It's kind of....quiet. Misty. Do I really want such a serene sweater?

I was a little worried. I started the project based on yardage, and a little nervous, because I know I need to reknit the back to fit the front. I wasn't sure I had enough.

Then I saw my big ball of Berroco (mumble becauseIdon't remembertheyarn's name ..crap... Mosaic Iusedonthe cardi) Optik, that I salvaged from something else I frogged last week. And it just might look really good with the Inverno.

In order to do that and have it come out looking ok, I would have to take it back 2 tiers, and then add in a total of 2 tiers. I have 6 of 10 done.

In the meantime, more Inverno has surfaced. So running out of yarn is no longer an issue.

What do you think? I am standing by to listen. (Actually, I am sewing buttons on that last cardi, but you know...)

What would genius do?

I found a whale of a sale on this yarn. The reviews said it was WONDERFUL yarn. The price was great. I couldn't quite make out the color. I didn't think it could be THAT bad.

The yarn came in today~all the reviews were spot on. I, on the other hand, was WRONG. The yarn is every pastel under the sun, and they all cancel each other out, leaving a murky, muddy mess.

I could dye it. There's a fair amount of rayon tucked in with the animal fibers. I could add another strand and carry along. Either way, this yarn needs a personality makeover. (For a lazy woman.) Right now, I have two possible solutions: stb or pra. I abbreviated them, because I want to hear what other people think.

Colors in the yarn: mid orange, pastel yellow, blue, green, lilac, pink.

What is your solution?

ETA: Be specific! Please tell me what color would you use!

(swearing)

Remember that I wrote about buying a new, ungodly expensive repeater for my new iphone that I bought from the evil Apple store? The phone that wouldn't work at the house UNTIL I bought the repeater? The phone receipt is still on my fridge, dated Feb 3.

Dh called me while I was at the store yesterday afternoon about 3, and that was the last call I took. My phone's had a "no service" message on it since about 7. I spent a whopping 45 minutes on the phone with lovely Angela from ATT, and hopefully, someone will work on it today. I R-E-A-L-L-Y don't want to drive 70 miles to the Apple store, aka "hellonearth". So I am pissy about that.

I stash organized yesterday. I found this be-yootiful wool and silk in an abandoned project, so I frogged it, and tested it. It's Mystical Creations-my last wool and silk yarn turned from brilliant kelly and lime to um, sage and lime. The kelly green kept bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. I finally decided (at the third washing, when the water in the basin was DARK green) that it wasn't my fault! Apparently, this is a pretty common problem, and many of their yarns are poorly set. I wrote the company, and she replaced the yarn, but once you knit a garment that goes to hell like THAT, you are kind of careful.


I figured I should test this. The purple bled. A lot! I took pictures, but THEY ARE TRAPPED ON MY IPHONE. Hmmmph! Anyhow, look at the deep dark wavy purple. Notice how everything on the washed part doesn't look quiet as dark? I will probably bite the bullet and pitch this.



Note: Called Apple, phone ok, here's bleeding yarn photo. Water is from about 3 yards of yarn-soak one and soak 2.

Hat Attack 2008 Hat

is done. The pattern's been out less than 24 hours, so I wonder if the hat was difficult enough; there are a number of people (I guesstimate more than 10%) of the participants who are already done.

About the pattern-eh. My project looks like it's supposed to but there's a few bits of weirdness going on in the pattern. I know it's not easy to write one, but if things gave ME pause, I know they really goofed up jeep knitters.

The pattern is based on binary code sequence (01100 and such). I wish it were more balanced. Yarn is Soft Angora, 80%merino, 20% angora, about 130 yards (1.25 balls), color raspberry

Swatched and started

I'm afraid my intended yarn combination won't work. That's the 2/6 yarn (reads as light grey) at the bottom of the swatch. The bluer portion is 2/9 wool carried with my Kauni. That's a lot closer to the required gauge, and the yarns are balanced, so nothing jockeys for position. This swatch was knit on a 4 mm needle.

Of course, I couldn't stand it anymore, and had to cast on. (Never mind that I have two sleeves on the needles now from my 'current project'. That's kind of a problem, because sleeves are SOOO boring.) But I wanted to see what it would look like, and how the colors go.

This pattern isn't all that hot. The sleeves have little "wings" (yeah, like maxi-pads) to give them shaping. That's good design right there, I'll tell ya. (Insert eye-rolling here.)

I am sorely disappointed with this yarn. The texture is as expected, the weight is as expected, but I feel like I could have done the color mixing on my own. With color runs 100 yards long, I could just spit splice entire balls of yarn together, and knit them up. Look at the freaking joins on Noro Kureyon, and tell me that's not so.

Boo-hoo, yeah, I know. I wasn't expecting any sympathy.