Silver has a brother!

Our first stab at submitting registration paperwork to R.E.A.D. went astray, so we're trying again with another set of papers.

Meanwhile, Silver has gained a brother:


Clem (left) and Silver

His racing name was Flying Clemenza. He was one of seven pups in a Godfather litter, with all the littermates named after capos in the movie series. (Clemenza was the fat one who famously told a gunman, "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli" after a hit.) Clem's sire was the famous Flying Penske. I haven't tallied up how many races Clem ran--neither the Racing and Breeding Database nor Track Info shows all his numbers, so I'm going to have to count them both up--but he raced from at least October 2008 until September 2011. (Track Info has the earliest data, but it shows him at Grade D, and doesn't list maiden races. But in October 2008, Clem was 18 months old, and he wouldn't have started racing much before that.) There's video of a lovely come-from-behind race here.

Clem came to SEGA in February 2012 and was adopted in June 2012. But his owner's job changed and began to require a lot of traveling, and she surrendered both her dogs so they could be rehomed. Clem came home with me as a foster dog on Veteran's Day, and he's been here 10 weeks. He's a very sweet, calm, clingy, cuddly dog--with a monster case of separation anxiety. He's on meds now (clomipramine is working; fluoxetine didn't help), and it's finally possible to leave him at home and not come home to lots of poop. But it took all these weeks to get him to this point, and I dreaded the thought of him going through another big upheaval if he got adopted to another home. I didn't blog about him after the first post because I didn't want to frighten off a potential adopter by telling about the SA; on the other hand, I didn't want him to sound like a happy, ready-to-adopt dog and then surprise an adopter with the SA issue. It just seemed wiser to keep quiet about him until things were under control--and then that took longer than I expected.

But Clem fits what I was (eventually) looking for myself: an older (he'll be 7 in April), calmer dog that's easy to handle. In fact, he'll probably make a good therapy dog. The separation anxiety won't hamper him since the rule is that I never let my dog's leash out of my hand on a therapy session. He's not thunder-phobic or noise-phobic (didn't mind New Year's fireworks). He's small-dog tolerant. He's not cat-safe, but he's not crazy when he sees one. (He's just very, very focused.) He's tall and long, but weighs about what Sam weighed (mid-60s). He's very food motivated--he jumps with excitement over Kongs, but he doesn't jump on people. He just "pogos" in the middle of the kitchen. And he's an enthusiastic pill-taker when pills are wrapped in turkey lunchmeat. (Count your fingers afterwards.) He doesn't pull away when you get in his face, and he doesn't seem to object to a kiss or two, but he's a kissee, not a kisser. He's still very clingy--follows me from room to room and actually will walk away from a Kong to see where I've gone if I've gotten anywhere near the front door of the condo.

He doesn't challenge Silver, and he understands that she's the boss. When she growls, he stops what he's doing and looks at me. I'll reach over and block Silver if he's trying to lie down near her and she's being grumpy, and as soon as he sees I've got her, he'll carefully squeeze into the spot he wanted. Silver is far more patient about contact from Clem than she ever was from Sam, and she's actually playbowed to Clem, which is something she never did with Sam. (Sam would playbow to Silver, and she'd turn and playbow to me. Poor Sam!)



Things are busy and hectic:

• I finished a hat for Hats for Sailors. This was after I screwed up two hats I was trying to knit as Christmas presents. 
• Lots of freelance work. Lots. Hours and hours of it. Very nice. Expecting another 40-page file tomorrow.
• Knitting to get organized for the Ravellenics (knitting during the Olympics): a hat for Hats for Sailors, a baby sweater (see below), a WIP scarf to finish. Need to round up patterns, yarn, needles.
• Younger nephew got engaged. (There'll be some knitting and/or crocheting for wedding presents--wedding date unknown. But I already have plans--and yarn.) 
• Meet-and-greets this weekend at the Atlanta RV show in Jonesboro: Silver and I are going Friday. I might take Clem on Sunday since that will be a long session, and I hate to leave him alone at home for six hours or so. (He did some M&Gs with his first adopter, so he's not new to the game.)
• Therapy papers to get sent out--finally! (I hope.) Once the papers are accepted, Silver and I need to do a "shadow" visit (we do a R.E.A.D. session with an observer). Then, the library nearest me needs a fill-in therapy team for several months, as the handler of the current team has a baby. (When she comes back, we could stay at that same library as a second team--on a different Saturday.)
• Baby blanket to finish. (I'm really close--less than 50 rows to go--and I'd like to get it finished and blocked in the next week.)
• Baby sweater to make (probably during the Ravellenics). This boy was born in October, so I want to figure a size to get through this spring and perhaps next fall. I have pattern and yarn on-hand. Pattern gives instructions for 12-month size and 24-month size. I need to figure my gauge; since I'm rarely on gauge (and won't be using the recommended yarn), I just need to see which size will be best for whatever gauge I'm actually getting.
• New episodes of Downton Abbey and Sherlock every Sunday night. I think I'm going to order the DVDs and stop worrying about whether there's room on my DVR to squeeze on another episode--of anything!
• My favorite yarn shop is closing, and I've tried single-handedly to acquire much of their existing stock (which is why I'm pleased with all the freelancing work). I need to photograph all the yarn I've bought and get it listed in my stash on Ravelry. (Actually, there's lots of yarn around here that needs photographing and cataloging.)
• Got some work done on the family history. Absolutely cannot find my mother's family in the 1940 census, a search hampered by not knowing what names anyone was using: John or Johnny or J.W.? Mary or Dixie? Charles (or Chuck)? Catherine or Kay? Merilyn (spelled how?) or Peggy? And where--Georgia or Florida?
• Been doing lots of cooking--mostly meatloaf and chili. Had to buy a new food processor after my 30-year-old model developed a crack in the main spindle. The new one will make smoothies, which I might try once the local weather temps get above 50F or so.

Flowers and crocheting and yarn

My father's birthday is tomorrow. I went up to the farm today to see my parents and have an early-birthday/belated-father's-day celebration. We went out for BBQ at a place where the owners know my parents by name. (They holler out from the front counter when your order is ready--and they didn't have to ask what name to holler.)

I took lots of pictures of my mother's flowers on the back deck.



(The flowers are purple--not blue. The camera isn't good with purple. And the unusual flower in the lower picture is an African daisy. Or--so says my father. But when I Google "African Daisy" I don't get anything that looks like this.)

While I was there, we had some bird visitors:



(There are more Cardinal photos--plus a Wren and a Chickadee--and lots more flower photos on Flickr.)

The family is planning a 4th of July get-together at my parents', and I actually managed to get off work on that day. (The manager often gives me Friday off--and the 4th falls on Friday.) I'm planning to take Sam and Jacey with me that day.


I finished a doily for a birthday swap with other helpers on the Ravelry site. The woman I'm swapping with likes purple, so I made a purple doily and got her purple yarn:



The camera got the purple totally wrong, so I've faked it in Corel Paintshop to approximate the actual thread color, which is pretty accurately indicated by that color chip. I swear, I'm going to take this camera and a skein of purple yarn to Best Buy (where I bought the camera) and tell them I want the camera to get that color right. The camera is so far off--in every light, with every background color and every camera setting--and it's ridiculous. (Really, those blue flowers up there should be about the color of the color chip. And the correct color doesn't even show in the window before you snap the photo; it's obvious it's going to be wrong.)

Miscellany

Sam has been a bit better-behaved lately. He's raided the trash can, of course, and he sits and stares at me when I eat ice cream, but that's all normal.

When Oreo was the only dog I had, I bought a dog food container for her kibble. But then I acquired Sam, and we started going through 40-pound bags of kibble, which wouldn't fit in the storage bin I had. So I bought a new bin--one that holds more than 40 pounds at once--and put the old storage bin away. I've gotten it back out, though. The bin may be too small for storing dog food, but it's perfect for storing a bag of potatoes. Eat your heart out, Sam.


It's nice to have dogs that aren't thunder-phobic. I like to sit outside in a rainstorm and watch the rain, listen to the thunder. I sit in a sheltered corner of the carport and watch Nature's fireworks...and the dogs go out with me. They lie down, and Sam often falls asleep. We got to do that tonight, during a brief storm.


I've been yarn shopping, again.



That's a cotton self-striping yarn...probably going to be a baby jacket.



Those are cotton, too. Those are going to be the accent colors for a baby sweater, where the main color will be this:



That's a faked, severely color-adjusted photograph that really does come close to the yarn color. (The purple yarn photographs as if it's blue.) The sweater will be for my cousin Shari's baby (her seventh). I'm not sure when Shari's due; Mother just mentioned the pregnancy in a recent phone call. Meanwhile, I'm working on other baby sweaters, but there are no photos to show. :)


I finished a doily for my sister's 30th wedding anniversary:





Her dining room has this color on the wall below the chair rail. The doily measures about 13" square.

Yarn-y stuff

I finished the Mother's Day sweater I was making for my mother--finished with a week to spare.



I'm picturing mother maybe wearing this under her suit jackets on Sundays. (It isn't a vest, but it was easier to photograph if I put a dark shirt under it.) The yarn is a cotton-acrylic blend, and not too hot. Which side is the front? Well, that's just it. You can have a square neckline or a round one, whichever you choose.

I had to modify the pattern. The original stitch pattern for the yoke of the sweater was destroying my wrist--and taking forever to do. So I ripped it back and substituted a different stitch pattern, one that was kinder to my wrists and worked up faster. (Four rows/inch instead of six.)




I have two of three baby sweaters knitted, but not stitched up. That will happen...soonish. Sweater 3 is underway. No pictures here. So there.


I went shopping for yarn Friday. I wasn't particularly looking for sock yarn, but three different kinds shoved themselves at me. One, in fact, leapt into my hands and refused to leave. Oh, boy!





My next crochet project will be a doily for my sister. In June, she and her husband will be celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. There's an unusual doily pattern I have, and I have garnet-colored thread to use (the lower part of the wall in their dining room is that color). I alternate crochet with knitting to give my wrists a break.

I'm in love with the new camera

I played around with it some the first day (pictures of yarn), more today.









(P.S. The yarn is Plymouth's Happy Feet.)

Finished "Fetching"

The pattern is called "Fetching," and it's knitted with Red Heart SuperSaver (acrylic) yarn in Piñata:



I've finished the knitting on my Tiger Eye Lace Scarf. I really, really liked the yarn, dyed by Lisa Souza. I need to finish the blocking and weave in a few ends. Pictures when that's done.

I went up to my mother's and helped her clean out her basement by taking away yarn she didn't want any more. There isn't any truly gorgeous yarn here, but the potential for a scrap afghan is here. I've always wanted to make one, but I generally find myself with scraps in about three colors, which is not enough. Now I have colors. And weights. And textures.

Stuff...

I frogged that hat. P2, K2, forever. Can you say boring? Besides, I found a neat crochet pattern after someone in the crochet community posted on LJ. She was using the same yarn--even same color--as the hat I was making, and I love the way hers looks. So I guess I'm going to crochet a hat.

(The hat I frogged)

I got more Kraemer Sterling Silk & Silver in black (I had one skein of it, shown below) to use for a cabled scarf. I also bought some in white to use for the Charlotte's Web scarf.

(Silk & Silver)

Several Ravelry Helpers proposed doing a knit-along for a lace scarf pattern called Tiger Eye. I've been plugging away a little almost every day since 15 January, but several of the other Ravelers have abandoned the project. The pattern is just a 16-row repeat. Sometimes it goes like clockwork. More often, though, I wind up frogging the repeat and redoing it. And re-redoing it. I've finally finished the 13th repeat (10 repeats are shown in the photo, with lots of lifelines), and the unblocked scarf measures about 6" x 24". I'm aiming for 6" x 60" unblocked, which probably will block to 72", but I may wind up going shorter for the sake of my sanity.

(Tiger Eye Scarf in Lisa Souza's Pumpkin fingering)

I bought a set of Addi Turbo Lace circular needles, 47-inch size 3 needles, from another Raveler. Along with the needles, she sent a bottle of coffee syrup and a skein of lovely sock yarn.


The dogs are fine. So is the family. Mother wants me to come help her clean out her basement, where she has too much yarn stored. I can help with that. ;)

Craft-y stuff

Sam has a leash burn on one thigh. He did it to himself a week ago. Saturday, he licked and worried at it and made it bleed. He's muzzled when I'm not home, so he can't mess with the sore place while I'm at away. But I'm making him wear his muzzle when I'm home, since that's the only way to get him to leave the thing alone. I'll try to get him to leave it alone tonight; I don't relish the idea of sleeping with a dog wearing a hard, plastic muzzle.

The custom-dyed yarn I ordered arrive, as did my new ball winder. The results:



I even managed to tame the purple tumbleweed. Before and after:



I didn't much like the doily I made my sister's mother-in-law. So Thursday I suddenly decided to make her a different one. This one is 17" x 28", 34 rounds, and is the biggest doily I've ever done. In two days of work, I've done 18 of the 34 rounds (each round gets bigger than the previous one). This one is going so well it's a bit scary...

I just ordered some hand-dyed yarn from Lisa Souza. It's a lot of yarn for about $30...a fingering-weight wool to be used for a scarf, and other things. It's nearly 1800 yards (8 ounces) in a color called Pumpkin (center of the third row), a sort of milky orange. The scarf only requires about 350 yards, so there'll be enough yarn left for socks...and other things. I'm also going to order an inexpensive ball winder. The idea of winding that much yarn without a winder is daunting, and I have all kinds of partial skeins--collapsed Red Heart pull skeins--that could benefit from being wound into sensible, compact little balls/cakes.

I've been working on Jacey's sweater. The yarn is frustrating--lovely color and texture, but boucle yarns are hard to knit on. There's no stitch definition: you can accidentally knit a purl row (or vice versa) and not even be able to tell. (When you're knitting in stockinette stitch and can't tell the difference between the front and the back: that's "no stitch definition.") I need to do about 6 more inches on the "tail" of the sweater, then the border band and the arm bands. (The bands were supposed to be ribbing, but there's no point in ribbing when you can't see the stitches.) Then it's on to Sam's sweater. I'm going to experiment with doing his sweater on larger needles. (I dropped two needle sizes from the pattern recommendation to get gauge on Jacey's sweater.) Sam's sweater--knit at the same gauge at Jacey's--would require another 33 stitches in the chest area (153 stitches on his vs 120 stitches on hers), and since he's so much longer, too, I'd be knitting forever. If I use larger needles, I can work fewer stitches per inch, and get his sweater done in about as many stitches as her sweater. I hope. Since I have to invent a pattern for Sam's sweater (the pattern book doesn't have a size large enough for a dog with a 31.5" chest), I might as well invent one with fewer stitches.

Craft-y Stuff

I finished the red booties for Havefaith1's godson's baby. (The red is less orange than what you see in the photo.) The baby will be a Christmas baby, so there are two sets of ribbons in the booties. After the holidays, the parents can pull out the green ribbons and have red booties with white ribbons.



I finished the doily for Caro (my sister's mother-in-law). I've got to remember that certain doilies are not recommended for the spatially challenged--10-point doilies, just for starters. The doily is in cream-colored thread and measures just over 12 inches.



I've bought a bit of yarn lately. First, there's the yarn I bought for dog sweaters. Here are the dogs--with their sweaters-to-be.



Here's the Misti International "Pretty in Pink" and the Kraemer Silk and Sterling.



And I got some garnet DMC Cebelia for a fancy doily for my sister and her husband's next anniversary (their 30th in June). The pattern specified two balls of white, 400 yards per ball. I doubt the doily will use all that; it'll just need something more than 400 yards. But since the Cebelia balls are 282 yards each, I ordered three balls. (The color is off in these photographs.) The pattern is a really unsual design, and I'm looking forward to that one.



And I bought some yarn for my Secret Santa on Ravelry, and made a doily for her, too. The yarn is Malabrigo Merino Kettle-Dyed Worsted Weight in the Verde colorway. The doily pattern is "Audrey." The doily measures nearly 20 inches.

Stop me before I shop again!

Michael's is getting rid of some of its crochet thread line. The stuff leaving (DMC Cebelia in anything but white size 10, 20, and 30, I think) is all on sale. Balls of thread that normally go for $4.49 each for $3. Royale size 20 and size 30 thread for $1.50. (I resisted the size 30.) A few colors of discontinued Cameo thread for $1.50 a ball. Two 12-ounce skeins of Lily Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn in Faded Denim for $2 each.

And three pattern books...'cause I really don't have enough of those. *eep!*

I'm heading over to the Ravelry site to enter my stash into my inventory there. Maybe if I see the list in front of me I'll embarrass myself.

Or maybe not.

There but for the grace of god...

From today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on-line version:

Alleged serial yarn thief leaves owners tangled

By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 05/12/06

There are a million yarns in the big city.

This one comes with knitting needles.

A 68-year-old woman, described as a serial yarn thief, is facing a felony shoplifting charge in Fulton County Superior Court after what yarn store owners claim has been a long skein of stealing from knitting stores from Cherokee County to Dunwoody to Buckhead.

Audrey Yandel pulled the wool over shopkeepers' eyes for so long because she looked exactly like the average yarn store customer: "A sweet old lady — harmless," said Julie Elledge, the owner of the Dunwoody Yarn Shop who collared Yandel and turned her into police May 1.

She said she recognized Yandel from a photo another shop owner had circulated on the Internet the week before. "I saw her sticking knitting needles in her Louis Vuitton bag," said Elledge.

"They were all double point needles. I guess she planned to knit socks."

Monica Champion, the owner of Why Knot Knit in Buckhead, circulated the photograph of Yandel after Champion said she caught her on April 23 shoplifting $150 worth of ebony wood needles and skeins of hand-dyed wool from her store.

"It's outrageous," said Champion. "I think she has about $2,000 worth of knitting goods from my store alone. She told me 'I have them stacked up to the wall at home.' But police haven't gotten a warrant to search the place."

Yandel's court date has not been scheduled, according to Erik Friedly, spokesman for the Fulton County district attorney's office, who said she was charged with a felony because there's more than one incident.

Yandel could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Elledge said she's not certain what a search of Yandel's home will prove because the woman — whom she described as "looking like my entire client base" — was not just a shoplifter, she was also a devoted customer to her store, and others.

"How will we know what she stole, and what she bought?" asked Elledge.