The Fair

The North Georgia State Fair. Here, you can read the name on the ribbon. :)



The shawl is Barbara Benson's Curiosity pattern. It's knitted in Malabrigo Rios, Fresco y Seco ("cool and dry") colorway. (Links in those two sentences go to Ravelry.)

The pattern is for a scarf or shawl, and it's designed to show off lovely variegated yarns. You start at the skinny end and just knit until you run out of yarn, increasing two stitches in width for every ten rows in length. My original photos of the shawl were taken with the shawl draped over my Sam.





This is the first time I've entered anything in the fair. This was entered in the Senior Needlework Division (stitchers are 60 or older), in the Knitted Article class. (One entry per person per class.) This fair has the following classes (potential knitting entries are in bold):

1- Afghan Throw, crocheted
2- Afghan Throw, knitted
3- Baby Blanket, knitted or crocheted
4- Crocheting, 12" x 12" and smaller
5- Crocheting, 13" x 13" up to 24" x 24"
6- Cross-stitch, any article 14 count or less
7- Cross-stitch, any article 16 - 18 count
8- Cross-stitch, any article 19 count or greater
9- Cross-stitch Hand Towel
10- Dressed Dolls - crocheted, knitted, or sewn
11- Embroidery
12- Knitted article
13- Needlepoint
14- Plastic Canvas
15- Scarves, wearable
16- Scarves, dresser
17- Miscellaneous, any article not listed above.

That #17 has got to be a beast to judge. It'll get overflow from #12, and it'll get any crochet (say, a sweater or tablecloth) larger than 24" x 24".

Entries were delivered to the fairgrounds last weekend (September 14-15), judging was Wednesday (September 18), and the fair opened Thursday (September 19). The fair closes at 6pm on Sunday, September 29, and needlework entries can be picked up that night between 6pm and 9pm.

Oh--and there's a cash prize: $4 for second place.

Lesson 1b--Making Progress

A happy girl: "Mom's not shooting that clicker at me!"

For a couple of days, I clicked while in the kitchen and waited for the dogs to come running. I did this just before lunch time or dinner time, when the dogs were doing their "Feed us--we're starving" routine. At first, if I clicked, Silver would flinch and draw back (and Sam would lean in for the treat--after all, he heard the clicker, too, and he knows what it means). Eventually, I stood there with a handful of treats, let Silver try to poke her tongue or teeth between my fingers to get the treats, and I just clicked away. Silver started ignoring the clicker.

This was a little risky. I don't want Silver to ignore the clicker. I just want her not to be afraid of it.

Today, before lunch, I took Silver out onto the patio and we worked on touch-the-cup. She still doesn't understand what she's supposed to do--and if she gets frustrated, she'll just lie down--but she has learned that she'll get a treat when she hears the click. If she touched the cup, I clicked and she turned toward me to get the treat. This is something she should have figured out last week, but at least we're on the right track.

So then I took her for a walk on a 30-foot lead so we could work on recalls. She came right away when called and I praised her a lot, but she was not so deeply involved in what she was sniffing at for this to be any indication that recall training is working.

So then I put her in the house and let Sam practice. He came out the door onto the patio and went and slammed his nose into the cup. Click-treat. He knows the drill, but at least this time he didn't lie down with his chin on the cup. After a few more click-treats, I took him for a walk on the 30-foot lead. He doesn't stick to my side the way Silver does, and if he's interested in sniffing at something when you call his name, well--you'll just have to wait your turn. We'll keep practicing, but his recall skills will never be reliable.

Both dogs have had their lunches and are sleeping now. Actually, Silver had about half of Sam's. (Some things never change.) They're sleeping soundly, as if they've actually worked hard. The training sessions were less than 5 minutes per dog. Greyhounds don't have a long attention span.

It's time to chop up more treats. Today they finished off the abundance I cut up before last week's class. Another class tomorrow morning, then we skip a week, so I hope Silver can catch up.

On the knitting front, there's not much to report. The long, orange triangle is still orange, still a triangle, and a bit longer. I'm more than two-thirds of the way through the yarn on this never-ending, knit-till-you-run-out project. I'm put in mind of Penelope, weaving her shroud by day, unraveling it again by night--except that I'm reasonably sure no one is unraveling this (except for those times I've had to frog a few rows to fix a glitch). Anyway, I really want to get this finished: I've figured out what pattern I want to use for my next project (a baby blanket), and I have the yarn, and I want to get it started!


Shawl to enter in the fair

The North Georgia State Fair runs 19-29 September. Fair entries in the craft divisions are due 14-15 September. I have one shawl I'm planning to enter, and I'd like to enter the baby blanket in the fair, too. (The shawl is the same pattern as the orange triangle I'm making now. The photo above doesn't do justice to the color, and the actual shawl is super-soft and very warm.) The baby is due 15 September, but the blanket could be delivered a bit later than that. If I remember correctly from past years, the fair gets lots of crocheted baby blankets entered, but not many knitted ones (and knitting doesn't usually compete against crocheting except for "best in show" awards).

The remodeling at my sister's house is nearly, nearly finished. Everyone is looking forward to the conclusion, and Mother will finally be able to get settled. She's been sleeping in my sister's guest room since early January, and she doesn't have her craft supplies or anything like that in places where she can get to them. (Half her stuff is still in the storage unit. The rest is piled in my sister's living room, dining room, and den.) Also, pollen counts (grass) have been really high lately, so Mother (and I) have been groggy and drowsy and prone to napping the days away. I think if she really had something to do, Mother would be a bit more mentally alert than she has been lately.

Turkey, Round 2

After Friday's experience with my dogs and turkey necks, I decided to try a different approach today.

First, I pulled all the bedding out of Silver's crate, put her inside, and dropped her turkey neck in her bowl. I latched the kennel and left her staring at the turkey neck. This time, she was drooling, but she still didn't launch into it.


The BSJ, through row 37

I took Sam outside. It was raining, so I couldn't hook him to his usual post in the carport. I held his leash and put down the bowl with his turkey neck in it. He picked it up firmly--and stood there. He wouldn't lie down. He wouldn't relax his grip on the neck long enough to actually eat it. He just stood there. I wanted to check on Silver--make sure she wasn't choking herself--so I fastened Sam's leash to the post I put Silver at the other day--out of the rain and close to the door. I stuck my head back inside to check on Silver and found her furiously crunching away on her turkey neck. Back outside--Sam still standing there.

Minutes went by. Silver finished her turkey neck (I kept ducking back to check on her), and Sam still stood there with the neck gripped between his jaws. I let Silver out of her crate. She'd come to the storm door and look at Sam, and he still just stood there. Finally, I took his leash and led him back inside, still holding his prize. I shooed Silver away from the front room, and I aimed Sam at her empty crate. He didn't want to go inside--I've never crated him in all the years he's been here--but I pushed him in and closed the door behind him.

He still stood there, holding his turkey neck. Silver started to come in the room and I shooed her back out. I draped one of the blankets Silver uses in the crate over the front of the kennel, so he couldn't see out in that direction. I stood where Sam could see my feet if he looked out the side of the crate, but he no longer knew if I was watching him, and he couldn't see Silver at all.

Finally. He finally started eating his turkey neck. I kept praising him, and I watched until I was sure he'd eaten it all. Then I let him out of the crate. He went through the kitchen to get to the living room. Silver came from the other direction to inspect the crate, but she wouldn't go back in there while Sam was out of her sight.

Honestly, food shouldn't be this difficult. I'm guessing that each dog is motivated to protect his/her high-value turkey neck, and that while in possession of the Precious, neither dog is willing to relax guard against the other. I'm not stupid enough to disregard their feelings. If they don't trust each other, I'm certainly not going to leave the two of them alone with a high-value prize. (The whole situation is complicated by the fact that while Sam's been off his feed, Silver's been eating whatever he's left in his dish. Often, I pick up his not-empty dish and put it away to keep little Porky from eating Sam's food. But I haven't always done that--and now I need to start.)

I need to figure out a way to feed them both safely. I don't like feeding her inside and him outside: the dog I'm not with is at risk of choking, and a dog tethered outside alone is at risk of a loose dog in the neighborhood. I could feed both dogs in Silver's crate (if Sam will cooperate with going in there), but they can't both eat there at the same time, and I'm hesitant to blatantly feed one dog in the crate while the other waits. I think that next time--weather permitting--I'll hook them both to carport posts again and try feeding them outside at the same time. That worked (eventually) for Sam on Friday, and now that Silver understands what a turkey neck is, she might be willing to eat it outside.

Today--when I wasn't directing the lunchtime epic--I got a lot of knitting done. I finished the hat for the shop sample (still needs blocking and a good photo). I also knitted 14 rows of the BSJ (it's about 30% done). Tomorrow, I'm going shopping for a wig head I can use for blocking and for photographing knitted hats: stuffing a hat with wadded up shopping bags hasn't worked well, and I don't always have a nephew handy to model for me.



Trivia:
1--No upset stomachs from the turkey necks. Knock wood.
2--Lunch with Mother this Wednesday (probably)

Saturday

Silver and I did the meet and greet this morning in the Marietta Square. Silver has a fan club, and one little girl showed up about 8 o'clock looking for Silver.

I showed up at 9 o'clock.

We had a good crowd. Silver was her usual charming self, and she and Lily Moran have learned to get along. (Actually, Lily is much better mannered than she was last year.)

After that was WWKIP Day. We had a small turnout, and it was hot. I worked on my BSJ--and I got sunburned.



Lovin' Knit has started carrying Barbara Benson's patterns. Pat (store owner) wants some samples to display, but they need to be knitted with yarns she carries. That requirement rules out my Curiosity in Rios:



But my Golden Lion Throne in Classic Elite Bam Boo is okay:



And my No Mr Bond, I Expect You to Die will work--if I can get it finished. (I haven't pushed on this because it's going to be a Christmas present.)



But for the short-term, I'm going to knit a hat for the Hats for Sailors group. I'll use Barbara's Cross Stitch Mock Cable Hat pattern and a ball of Liberty Wool:



I'll loan the finished hat to Pat until November, when I'll need to send it off to the Hats for Sailors group.

Trivia:
1--Just 2.5 hours of freelancing tonight. I've now completed both the jobs due this weekend. More work, please.
2--Poop is good, so we'll try a second round of turkey necks tomorrow. I may just give Silver hers in her crate to start with (but take the bedding out first).
3--Red fingernails!

Mixed-up Thursday

I woke fairly early, checked emails and Facebook, got up, walked dogs, fed dogs, and went back to bed. The official pollen counts aren't too awful, but the grass pollen is wiping me out, and I knew I'd be in trouble since the landscapers were here yesterday.



By the time I woke up again, it was after noon, and I hadn't even thought about all the stuff I needed to do. I got dressed, fed and walked the dogs, then headed out. I got my hair cut. (I've added a reminder note to myself for six weeks from now. Maybe I won't wait until my hair is long enough to annoy me to get back to get it cut.) I did my grocery shopping, having violated the cardinal rule: I was starving. Potato chips, plantain chips, lots of microwavable breakfast stuff. (If someone had been standing there selling hot bacon-egg-and-cheese biscuits, I'd have gone broke. I had a real craving for breakfast--at 2:30 in the afternoon.) Diet Coke (an essential). Oh, and turkey necks for the dogs. I'll be giving half a neck to each dog at lunchtime tomorrow. (It's messy and definitely an outdoor dining event.) Home, unpack groceries, eat one of my microwavable breakfast things for lunch (I hadn't eaten since breakfast).

When I got up this morning, I had a message on Facebook from a friend who'd received the baby sweater I'd shipped to London. The baby's a girl, and it seems that green looks good on her. (I'd gone for a color that would look good if she'd had her mother's red hair. The baby's more blond than red, but mum says the color is perfect.) The baby's name is Nellina Wren Mann; I didn't know it, but her mum sometimes calls her Ladybug. Ladybugs, as they're called in the States, are a symbol of good luck, which is why I added the button. (In British countries, it's called a Ladybird.)



Last night, I got the BSJ to a good point for me to knit on it at Saturday's WWKIP event--except for two things. 1--I didn't like the sweater in a single color (bor-rinnng!), and 2--I didn't like the fabric on US5 needles. (It's a baby sweater, not a suit of armor.) I frogged the first try and hunted out a lighter blue yarn from stash. I wouldn't like these two colors together if I used them in big patches of color, but I'm planning to knit skinny stripes, and I think this will work. I've cast on with US6 and knitted just a couple of rows, and I'll work on it more tonight. The Braves are in LA, so it'll be late games tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday nights. There are also replays of golf action (PGA and Champions tours) on TV tonight. (The LPGA tournament got rained out today--standing water on the greens, although not as bad as the tournament in the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago.)



I'll paint my fingernails and toenails tomorrow. (I'm thinking red to match Silver's new collar for Saturday's meet and greet.)

Trivia:
1--Fingers crossed that this isn't the last day of good poop from the dogs; turkey necks tomorrow.
2--The nearest Great Clips is pretty good, and if I take my receipt with me on my next visit, they'll knock $4 off the price.
3--Knitting can be hard on fingernail polish.

A quiet Wednesday

I finished the baby blanket this morning, then washed and dried it. (Acrylic yarn, and it'll get machine washed and dried its entire life, so might as well start now.) The final size was 35" x 33" because it draws up vertically. I should have gone longer, but I thought it would stretch on its own. (And it will if it's stored hanging up rather than laid flat.) But it's plenty large enough.



My next planned projects were 1--finishing the toy pink elephant I started over the weekend, and 2--starting another baby blanket. Instead, I immediately started on a Baby Surprise Jacket to match the baby blanket. (So much for planning.) The BSJ now becomes my most urgent project because I need it finished (including buttons and seams) by June 23. I don't need the elephant until the first Saturday in July, and the baby getting the second blanket isn't due until September. (I'm still debating which pattern to make for that blanket.)



Saturday is World Wide Knit in Public Day, so I need a fairly mindless project I can work on while I chat with other knitters at Lovin' Knit Studio on Saturday afternoon (1-3pm; bring a lawn chair--and a project). If I get this BSJ to the right point, it'll fit the bill. I'm using yarn leftover from the blue baby blanket. (And if you see knitters--or crocheters--stitching in public on Saturday, now you know why.)

While I knitted today, I watched Ciaran Hinds in Persuasion. Then I watched the Braves game. (Julio Teheran got 7 and 2/3 innings through a no-hitter. Braves beat the Pirates 5-0.) Now I'm watching Season Four of Doctor Who on DVD. This is my favorite season of Ten's stories. Catherine Tate was wonderful, and she got such great stories. (But lots of tearful ones.)



I think I'm going to watch some Firefly on Netflix tonight. I never watched it when it was on the air (I don't watch many TV series), but I have lots of friends who love it. I can watch and knit. (A BSJ is all garter stitch, with occasional decreases and increases.)

Trivia:
1--It's thundering nicely outside. Sam's sound asleep. Silver just got startled awake, but she'll go back to sleep. She's fine with the thunder as long as she's touching me.
2--Good, solid poop from the dogs. (I'm tracking this because I'm about to try raw turkey necks on them--as soon as I go shopping. I had trouble years ago with Sam and Jacey. But Jacey is gone and Sam is now on a maintenance dose of metronidazole, so we'll see if the dogs can handle the necks and thereby improve their teeth.)
3--Haven't redone the nails yet.

Not Catching Up

I'm not going to try to catch up on this blog. That would be silly. I'm going to try to jump back into blogging and pretend I haven't posted just 4 times in the last 18 months. I'm also going to start blogging absolute trivia. Trying to wait until I have something momentous to say is why I've posted just 4 times in the last 18 months.



Want to see some adorable greyhound puppies? Check out the live feed here. (The feed is live for two or three hours at a time, three times a day. Sign up on U-stream and officially "follow" the feed to get an email notice of when the feed is live.)

The mom is Carlee. On May 4 she arrived at a southern California greyhound rescue looking a wee bit pudgy. On May 31, she had five boys and one girl, delivered by c-section. At this point, the puppies are too young to do anything but nurse and sleep. (The white with black pup nurses like a fiend, falls asleep exhausted, then heads right back to the milk bar.) The puppies are cute, but they inspire no desire in me to adopt a puppy. At my house, mealtime lasts only moments, sleeping lasts hours, and that's the way I like it.

No freelance work today. I have some fill-in stuff I can do later, but today I took advantage of the quiet to get some knitting done. The baby blanket is nearly finished. When I finish the blanket, I'm either making a blue bunny (from the Craftsy pattern) or making a blue BSJ with the leftover yarn. It's been quite a while since I made a BSJ (finished my most recent one in January 2012). I worked on the baby blanket while watching Pride and Prejudice on my laptop and watching (muted) the Braves-Pirates game tonight. (Braves 5, Pirates 4 in 10 innings.) At present, the blanket is 36" x 31"; I'm aiming for approximately 36" x 36". I'm also aiming to not be knitting on this thing for the rest of my life.

(Wondering why the photo is at the top of this blog post? It's there so it will show on blog thumbnails that appear elsewhere--such as Ravelry.)

The dogs are well. Silver hates being on a diet, but she's really not starving to death. (Thank goodness she doesn't have her own blog to contradict me.) She's been eating too much of the food in Sam's dish. Sam is wobbly, but still able to get around on his own and is eating well. Lots of panting in the heat until he gets settled in front of the box fan.

Trivial notes (even more trivial than the above):
1--Nice weather. Not too hot.
2--Advantage Multi on both dogs today. Should be soaked into Silver's coat and invisible by Saturday.
3--Solid poop from both dogs ('cause you know you were dying to know).
4--I don't like this pale gold nail polish, but I'll change it another day.

Going to watch the second DVD of P&P again and stay up late knitting...

No! No! No! No!

No, this isn't another NoNoNoNo photo post.

I've totally botched the Ice Queen cowl I was making. I've frogged it, and I'm going to start it again. I'm inexplicably dropping stitches and not discovering it until 40+ rows later. The stitches weren't unraveling (thanks to my lifelines), but they were too far away--and there are yarnovers and knit-togethers--and it was just not possible to recover.


(This photo is about 20 rows in. I had 60+ rows when I ripped back.)

But I am not going to be defeated by simple yarnovers and knit-togethers. It's a simple feather-and-fan pattern(!), and I've done that before. I think the problem is just super-thin yarn on very slippery needles. Since the yarn sticks to itself a bit (it's alpaca), dropped stitches don't show up as such. I only noticed several unattached loops as I was looking back at the beginning section. I'm just going to have to be obsessive about counting stitches (there are 26 to 18 stitches in each pattern repeat); and if there's a stitch missing I've got to stop assuming that I skipped a yarnover and start looking for something that has been dropped.

NoNoNoNo 1-3

November is national novel-writing month--NaNoWriMo. Participants make themselves crazy trying to write a 50,000-word novel in one month.

But, as friends of mine realized, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then 50 pictures equal one novel...with a lot less pain. So several of us are celebrating Non-national Non-novel Non-writing Non-month--NoNoNoNo. Here are my first three entries.

Two knitting projects underway. Socks for my sister for Christmas:



The pattern is called Jaywalkers. The yarn is KnitPicks Felici in the Martinique colorway. (It politely stripes itself, thank you very much!) One sock is to the point where I'm ready to start the heel; the other has a few more rows to go to match the length of the first.

And a cowl/smoke-ring for my nephew's wife:



If you look closely, you can see the beads. (You can click through to the photo on Flickr.) The pattern is called Ice Queen. The yarn is Misti Baby Alpaca. The pattern calls for 80+ rows, and I've done a little more than 20. The white threads you see are lifelines: bits of thread run through the stitches so that if I drop stitches or run into some other problem, I can rip back to a point where all the stitches were correct and were captured on the lifeline. (There's also a provisional cast-on, which is all the white thread at the beginning edge.) Eventually, there will be a second cowl--in white with the same beads; that will be for the other nephew's girlfriend.

And an Owwie!:



The upper dark place you see is an old scar--one she had when she came to me. The red mark is, happily, a scratch rather than an actual cut--an angry scratch that didn't quite break the skin. I have no idea how she managed to do this, but my best guess is that it had something to do with Sam.

Doesn't it always?

They've got the uglies...

...for a little while more, at least.

I've got a few projects I've been working on this month. I managed to finish one doily:



I've been working on a BSJ and another doily, but they're moving slowly. Last week, I started having some tingling in my right hand, so I laid off the crocheting for a week. The knitting (the BSJ) gets worked on just half an hour a day during my lunch break, but I like the way it's going--like the way the increases are turning out.



I'm on row 75 (or so) on the sweater, and there are 114 rows total. This is a nice cotton yarn, and the finished sweater will fit a toddler rather than an infant.

The doily is on round 28 of 33. This pattern doesn't get all lacy and open at the edges; it gets very dense there, with lots of stitches. 240 sc (and other stitches) on round 28; 520 sc (and other stitches) on round 32, then lots of picot stuff on round 33. And the doily is going to need some serious blocking; at present, it ripples and waves all over the place:



I'm going to push a little to see if I can get these two projects finished by the end of February so they can lose their "uglies." The doily may be getting "denser," but the stitches are a bit easier--not so many wrist-wrenching double-crochet stitches. (In another demonstration of how Anglo-English and American-English differ, British double-crochet stitches are American single-crochet stitches; the American double-crochet stitches I was doing are British treble-crochet--I think.)

I'm waiting for my pregnant coworker to decide whether she wants traditional pastel colors or bright, nontraditional colors. I've got a BSJ in mind in red with a coffee-brown button band, and red, heart-shaped buttons. If my coworker wants something more traditionally colored, I might still make the red and brown one for another baby.

Backtracking

I seem to have skipped posting about a November BSJ (that's "Baby Surprise Jacket").

I made a sweater for a coworker who had a boy in November. She asked if she could pay me to make a larger-size sweater for her boy, a sweater he could grow into. Well, I didn't take payment for it, but I made the boy this:



Here's a close-up of the buttons:



And with some leftover yarn I made baby washcloths:



I've now made seven sweaters from the BSJ pattern, and I'm working on the eighth...and I have yarn for more. It's a lovely pattern, pure garter stitch, which is sort of mindless knitting, easy to do during my lunch break.

Playing catch-up

I need to catch up on some craft stuff.

My sister was at a craft fair and bought me two balls of this:



She didn't see anything she wanted for herself, she wanted to buy something to benefit the fair's hosts, so she said, "Yarn! Kathy!"--even though it's a strange "yarn" to work with. I paired the Tiki with Bernat Satin yarn in pale yellow and made a scarf for my sister's mother-in-law for Christmas:



It measured 62" x 5", and the Tiki made an interesting texture:




I used the same stitch pattern--but a more conventional yarn--to make a scarf for my sister (6" x 66"). This is a hand-dyed yarn that I had a hard time finding a workable pattern for; the yarn just worked up in such a busy-looking batch of colors (nice colors, but busy) that I tried half-a-dozen patterns before I found one where the yarn and the stitches weren't absolutely at war with each other.






Currently, I'm working on a BSJ in sage-green cotton yarn and on a coin-lace clapotis in Kraemer Sterling Silk & Silver.

Another Nathan

This one was only a few days early: Nathan Cole Q., cousin Shari's 7th child (5th son). He was due 4 January but arrived on 30 December 2008. His daddy will be able to claim him as a dependent (on his tax return) for 2008. Nice timing, kid! He'll be getting this.



What's funny is that 40+ years ago, I remember Shari's father hoping she'd be born in December so he could claim her on his tax return for that year...and Shari wasn't born until 8 January.

Making progress

The two baby-sized BSJs are finished. They're worked in Lion Brand Cotton-Ease on size 7 needles. They'll fit 18-month-old babies (19" chest):





The grown-up sized BSJ is nearly finished. (It's just been too warm to hold a lapful of yarn.)



I've started a doily in variegated nylon thread. I'm planning to try to "kill the nylon" after I finish the doily, to see if that activity makes a permanently-blocked doily. I'll document my results. I've worked 24 of the 29 rounds. This picture is just through the first 10 or so rounds.



Believe it or not, the thread is even brighter than it shows in the photograph. And it's shiny, too. (Ooooo, shiny!)

I ordered some DPNs from Knitpicks and some laceweight yarn. The DPNs were a set on sale (sizes 0-3, for socks) and a set of #5s I need for another project. I ordered 880 yards of laceweight merino yarn in white; 3 skeins (440 yards each) of Knitpicks Shadow, Oregon Coast Heather (greys, greens, and light tans); and 5 skeins (440 yards each) of Knitpicks Shadow, Midnight Heather (dark blue). That was just enough to put me over $50 to get free shipping.

I found gas today, at the 8th station I checked. This means I have enough to get me safely through the weekend.

Jacey copies her mom.

I'm on the sofa, knitting a baby sweater. Jacey is lying on the dog bed at my feet. (Sam is asleep next to me.)

As I try to pull out more yarn from the skein, there's a snag. Literally. The yarn doesn't move freely.

I look down and find Jacey, chin and forefoot resting on my ball of yarn.

When I ask her to move, she looks up, then rolls over on her side...and clutches my ball of yarn between her front feet.

Wonder if she wants to go to the LYS with me on my next trip. Clutching yarn, squeezing yarn, petting yarn...

She'd probably enjoy it.

Start-itis

Monday was my day off. I was up late Sunday night working on a proofreading job. Then I got up early Monday to work on files for the greyhound group (premium lists for upcoming lure coursing events...I've got one page of forms left to create). I worked on the files all day, but by evening I was itching to get my hands on some yarn.

I've been asked to test a dog sweater pattern. The pattern is for a crocheted sweater. The pattern comes in 16 sizes (or something like that). I've looked at the pattern, and I don't like it. Crocheting to the gauge given is going to create a very stiff sweater that nearly could stand up on its own (armor-plated winter wear, anyone?). Crochet doesn't stretch the way knitted fabrics do, and this pattern is going to require you to haul the dog's feet through armholes, something that's do-able on a knitted sweater, but not-so-much on a crocheted one. And because greyhounds are such big dogs, making the sweater would take a lot of time. I don't want to invest that kind of time on a sweater I'll never force Sam into. So I think I'm going to bail on testing the pattern. I know the designer will be disappointed, but I'm not going to feel guilty about this.

So, of course, having been all-kinds-of-disappointed with this crocheted sweater project, I started a new sweater for Sam--a knitted one. I got some lovely Lion Brand Wool-Ease (80% acrylic, 20% wool, and machine washable and dryable) in a blue heather:



There's forest green heather for Jacey:




The pattern is a side-buttoning sweater designed specifically for greyhounds. It has a turtleneck that can be folded down or left unfolded for better protection for the dog's ears. Rather than forcing the dog's legs through armholes, there's a chest-flap that goes under the dog's chest and buttons at the side (no fumbling for buttons under the dog, where you can't see them). It's a very simple rib-stitch pattern, but there are nice finishing features that make this a very professional pattern. The pattern is available as a free PDF.

At this point, I now have three sweaters on needles: a tank top and an adult BSJ for me, and the sweater for Sam. I don't have any crochet projects in the works right now, although I need to make a Kitty Squid for a coworker's cats. I finally got photos of the Square Flair doily once the blocking was finished:



That's 21" square, in ecru thread.

Wednesday night I'll try to finish the greyhound files so I can email the PDFs to the event field chairman. I work an early shift on Thursday, and after work I want to go to the Hobby Lobby in Austell. (I've never shopped at that one; among other things, I want to get aluminum size 8 DPNs if I can find them.) I'm off work on Friday, and I hope to get some knitting done. The weather forecast this week calls for thunderstorms, and I hope we'll get some nice rain. But, in the usual way of forecasts, today's "60% chance of thunderstorms" translated into overcast skies--and no rain.

The dogs are fine. And lazy. Jacey's weight may finally be starting to budge...in the right direction.

Tonight

Today, I worked some more on my tank top as I listened to a Mansfield Park audiobook:



Now I've also started on a complicated doily: three charts, complicated instructions--the works! And I'm watching Notorious, with the original mother-in-law from hell, who sits and stitches neatly as her daughter-in-law drinks poison. Back to work tomorrow.

2008 Ravelympics

A week ago I posted about Ravelry and the upcoming 2008 Ravelympics, where knitters and crocheters will be pushing as many projects as possible across the finish lines by the end of Beijing's closing ceremonies. Last week, there were nearly 400 Ravelers signed up and nearly 1000 projects lined up. A week later, 3,253 Ravelers have 7,764 projects lined up. And projects can be added to the competition through Thursday.

Did I sign up? Of course I did. And, lacking brakes, commonsense, and any self-control, I've signed up for 19 projects (so far). That's more Olympic projects than there are Olympic days. I can console myself that these are projects I'd intended to make, anyway--at some point. And I haven't spent any money on yarn or thread: almost all of these projects will be using materials I already had on hand. I did buy some crochet thread on sale, but it was a surprisingly low price for some excellent thread. And I had to buy buttons for a sweater, ribbon for a pair of booties. I still need to buy one large button and several small black buttons (the black ones will be eyes on "critters").

Here is more than you want to know--and lots of pictures:

First name on my injured/disabled list? My Sony Cybershot camera. I'm through with the Sony's blue photographs of purple yarn, so I took the camera to Best Buy today--along with some spare purple yarn, so they'll know what I'm trying to photograph. If the camera cannot be repaired and they decide to give me a new one, I should get word in about a week. If the camera can be repaired, it may be two to three weeks before the camera is back. In the meantime, I've resurrected my old Gateway digital. It turns purples to blue, too. And it gets other things wrong. But it'll do for now.

Entered in "WIPs Wrestling" (i.e., wrestling your WIPs--works in progress--into completion), I have two items:
A Baby Surprise Jacket for baby number 7 for my cousin Shari (due in January). The color is off, here (should be dark purple, bright green, bright turquoise, and bright green buttons):



The other WIP is a vintage doily:



Both of these WIPs are virtually complete. The jacket needs shoulder seams shown, neck crocheted (in green), and buttons added. The doily needs a border row of green, then needs to be blocked.

Entered in "Baby Dressage" and "Gift Knits Pentathlon" are two pairs of crocheted booties: one for Shari's baby and one for coworker Trina's baby boy (due in November). These will be made using yarn left from the BSJs:



I don't think these will take too long.

I've queued up three doilies (also Gift Knits Pentathlon as well as Homestuff Hammerthrow). One uses DMC Cebelia in ecru. The other two, both using the same pattern, will be multicolored doilies. The ecru doily will take several days--or even a week. The multicolored doilies are from a book entitled "Easy One-Day Doilies," but I've made two other designs from this book and they took longer than a day, so I'm not expecting too much.


(I'm still debating which green to use.)

I've also queued up two thread bookmarks (Gift Knits Pentathlon), one in light blue and one in mauve:



I've queued up the Mermaid scarf pattern (Gift Knits Pentathlon and Scarf Stroke), set to use up some mango-colored Microspun yarn:



And, by way of a triple-whammy entry (Amigurumi 'n Toy Toss, Pets Pommel Horse, and Gift Knits Pentathlon), I've queued up four versions of a pattern called Kitty Squid. It's a cat toy that will use up odd bits of leftover yarn.



Once my wrist starts to crack from all the crocheting, I'll be ready to change over to knitting (uses different muscles):

There's the adorable Sheldon (Amigurumi 'n Toy Toss and Gift Knits Pentathlon), in Mango and Buttercup Microspun:



There's the Paw Cozy (designed to warm my paw when I'm leash-walking the dogs on a cold day). This qualifies as Cable Steeplechase (there is a cable stitch in there) and Pets Pommel Horse:



There's a tank top for me in Mocha Microspun (Vest Vault):



And I've queued up a pair of BSJs: one in "almond," with "lake" and "lime" trim, and the other in "maize" with "lake" and "lime" trim (Baby Dressage again and Gift Knits Pentathlon):



The projects I'm counting on getting through are the two WIPs and the doily in ecru. Any of the others that get finished will be "gravy." I queued up plenty of small items (the squid pattern supposedly only takes a couple of hours) so I could fill in between the bigger pieces, or have something easy to work on at lunch. The official start time on 8 August is 8 pm Friday in Beijing (8 am Friday my time). The official ending time is about midnight (Beijing time) on 24 August, which would be noon Sunday for me; since I have to work that day, my official ending time will be whatever time on Saturday the 23rd I finally crash (and I'll work until 9 that night, anyway). And I might start one or more projects before the official start time; if I do, they just become WIPs Wrestling projects instead of whatever they're entered as now.

There's no prize for completing projects--no penalty for failing to complete them. Knitters and crocheters are just competing for themselves. Well--there are "teams" but they're not by nationality (there's Team Hogwarts or Team Editors--which I'm on...I edit patterns on the Ravelry site). Folks who get a project across the finish line get a badge for their blog. Ravelry's "Olympians" will be cheering each other on, admiring each other's performances, and having fun. But not, necessarily, watching the Olympics. I'm not a sports fan in general, and I'm fonder of winter sports than summer ones. I'll probably be watching Turner Classic Movies' Summer Under the Stars. (Don't miss 84 Charing Cross Road at 4am on 6 August. It's wonderful!)

Finally, today--as I wound balls of yarn, printed out patterns, bagged things up, and got my Olympic competitors outfitted and ready to go--two starving dogs laid there and stared reproachfully at me:


(They also--deliberately--raked up the carpet with their feet so the carpet looks dirty. Thanks, guys.)