Knit My Dog

My nephew Timmy is turning 10 in a few weeks, so I figured I better get started on his sweater. My sister has 3 boys, and I usually knit one sweater a year for one of them. This year it's Timmy's turn. Information from sis and Timmy: He's always hot, wool might not be a good idea. I like my sweaters baggy, and long. Any color is fine. (His favorite color has always been yellow, but I just couldn't do a yellow sweater for him - not my fav color at all).

So this is what I have so far:

Info:
Pattern: Yankee Knnitter Designs Pattern #30, Easy Bulky Sweater.
I'm doing the ribbed cuff, cable front. (There are three choices for ribbing and neck. Cable or not)
Yarn:Arucania Natur Cotton, chunky, color #18. Purchased at LYS a few months ago, half off!
Needles: US 7 &9

A close up of the yarn, love the variation in color and yarn size. Wish you could feel how soft it is. Definitely the best cotton I've ever knit with.

Hopefully there will be plenty of knitting time this weekend. I'm having my bookgroup over for our annual "Bookgroup Away" weekend. Howie's off on his annual OGGA (Old Guy's Get Away) so we have the house to ourselves, two nights of knitting, talking, eating, drinking, shopping, and all that.

Posted by Brenda at 05:08 PM | Permalink

I finished my first pair of Jaywalkers late last night, had to try them on right away.

All in all, I like the fit. A little snug going on, but once on, they're comfy. I made the larger size, and had plenty of yarn for my size 10 feet. One skein of Sockotta Italian sock yarn, with a small amount to spare.

One more picture with Moebius checking them out:



For my next pair of Jaywalkers, (yes, I will be making more!) I think I'll try the Picot edge - they look so cute.

Posted by Brenda at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Howie works in Massachusetts. We live in Maine. That makes for a long commute. Today I got sucked into his commute to Mass.

He has a very complicated route. Drive to work Monday morn. Drive to the train station in Mass. Monday evening (there is no public transportation between his work and the train station). Take the train to Maine. Meet me at the train station, I drive him home. Repeat in reverse order on Tuesday and Wednesday. Drive home Wednesday evening, work from home Thursday and Friday. That's his reward at the end of the week!
Today started ok, for a rainy, dark, windy, icy winter morning:
Up at 6:00 am (Brenda), let the dog out, into the shower, make the coffee, get dressed. Forced out of bed at 6:30 am (Howie), no shower, brush teeth, get dressed, follow Brenda out to the car at 6:40 (kind of late for the train, but who's worried on this icy, rainy day? We can always speed into the lot just ahead of the trian).
A successful train drop off for the 7:00 train - the only one that travels south all morning, BTW, so if you miss it you're screwed. Then off to work for Brenda (another 20 minute drive south from the train station).
Imagine my surprise when Howie called me at work at 8:45. Here's how the conversation went:

Howie: Hey Baby
Brenda: Hey, are you at work yet?
H: Not exactly.
B: Stuck in traffic?
H: Not exactly. (We often play this 20 question thing, I need to ask just the right question to get the right answer.)
B: Well, where are you then? (The right question!)
H: Standing outside the car...
B: ...Without a key! (It all comes together so quickly now, Howie stuck in Mass, no key to the car, no way to get to work, needs to DRIVE the car home tonight, Brenda with a spare key in her purse.)
B: Well, what are you going to do?
H: I don't know.
B: Do you want me to bring you a key? (and for added effect): I might have to drive all the way home to get the spare... No wait, I have the spare in my purse! Remember when you asked me why I carry the spare key to the Prius in my purse? Now you have the answer!
H: You're the best! See you soon! (Happy, Happy)
So back out into the rain, into my car, and one hour later, Howie was introducing me to his new friends the parking attendants at the commuter lot. Back in the car, and one more hour later I was back at work.
Just one more day in the life of Brenda and Howie.
I did get to call my sister and chat on the way back to work, so the time passed quickly. Did I say that I had to leave work early and drive (another hour north) to the dentist? So with my commuting time, Howie travel time, and dentist time, I spent a grand total of 4.5 hours in the car today. Time that would have been much better spent knitting. Oh, on the knitting front, I hope to have a pic of completed Jaywalkers by tomorrow. I'm just about at the toe decrease on sock #2!
Now he's home, dinner has been eaten, and he's relaxing on the sofa with a kaleidoscope. All is well in Howie's world.

Posted by Brenda at 07:07 PM | Permalink

Attention: this is a non-knitting entry.
Howie decided about a week ago that he would rip all of our CD's to iTunes on our server. Then, we will be able to access all of our music for our iPods and, more importantly, we can play music through our laptops to the stereo wirelessly. He's VERY excited about this. Never use the CD player again. Never even use our CD's again. This is not the most exciting thing to me, I don't 100% understand how it all happens wirelessly, but it has been our mission to rip every CD this weekend. The reason I'm involved in this event is that Howie's CD burner is acting up, not reading every CD. So he brings piles of CD's to me to rip on my laptop. This has seriously cut in to knitting time. It's hard to concentrate when I have to stop and stick another CD in the drive when the last one dings. I volunteered to park my laptop next to his so he could use them both. Multitasking isn't his strong point, so he declined my offer.

So we have three computers going, about 700 or 800 CD's to rip, and we've both been sucked into this project. I have a feeling we won't be going to sleep until the last one is ripped. Good thing we're up to U2 and Lucinda Williams. I think we're almost there!

The only knitting news is that I my knitted rug is blocking, and the heel is successfully turned on jaywalker sock #2.

Updated at 12:10 am, Sunday morning. I'm now on Neil Young, and Howie successfully turned his back on ripping long enough to add my "100 things" in the column to the right. Isn't he the sweetest?
Soon it's off to bed - just 4 CD's left!

Posted by Brenda at 11:32 PM | Permalink

The woolen rug is done!
All I need to do is block and weave in ends. Happy to be done with it, my hands are killing me from wrestling with three strands at a time of bulky rug wool.


I also have some other FO's to show. About 2 months ago, I made this iPod cozy. Not nearly as elaborate as some of them I've seen with windows to see the screen, etc. Just something to keep it from being scratched in my purse. Well, my bookgroup members loved it, so I made them each one for Christmas. Some of them wanted to put their cellphones in them, and Kelsey who doesn't have an iPod, and who's cell was too big to fit in, decided it would work to hold her tampons. Well, we all decided that it was a great use - no tampons falling to the bottom of the purse, wrappers opening, etc. So I made two more, one for me and one for my sis. Completed them last night. Found some cool buttons to add to them. Check out the photos!

Posted by Brenda at 09:17 PM | Permalink

So on our way home from a wonderful New Year's weekend in Bar Harbor, ME, Howie and I stopped at our local knitting Mecca. I've lived within 40 miles of Halcyon Yarn for about 10 years and have never been there. Not until last week anyway. So I was drooling over the shelves upon shelves of yarn, deciding exactly what I would buy that I really didn't need but had to have, and Howie saw a cool knitted rug right next to stacks upon stacks of rug wool. Why don't you knit a rug for our new bathroom? he says. Sounds boring, expensive and nothing I can wear, I thought. But he prevailed, laying the rug down on the floor, taking off his shoes and socks, and determining that he would love to step out of the shower and onto THIS rug. So $95.00 worth of supplies later, this is what I have so far:

Notice the US size 13 circulars, three ply extra thick wool, three balls being worked at once. This is tough on the hands. I can only knit about 4 or 5 rows then have to stop for a rest. But it does work up pretty darn fast, being that the guage is 1.5 stitches to the inch!
I figured Moebius should be in one of the pictures too since he was lurking outside the bathroom door during the photo shoot.


So I'm working my Jaywalkers on US 1's and my rug on US 13's. Macro and Micro knitting for sure!
The good news on the rug wool purchase is that I'm making it 18" wide instead of 24", so I will end up making it a little shorter than the 36" called for in the pattern and I will be able to return at least 4 or 5 skeins. They probably only take store credit so I'll have to buy something else instead :-)

Posted by Brenda at 09:29 PM | Permalink

So I discovered the world of knitting blogs a month or so ago, have been reading and learning from them(sometimes even obsessed with the goings-on on certain blogs). My sweet husband Howie set up this blog for me for a Hannukah present. Well, it's finally up and ready to roll. Soon I'll post a short bio or "100 things about me", but let's just say that I'm a knitter from way-back, obsessed with yarn, and have a huge stash (I didn't even know to call it a stash until a few weeks ago).



Jaywalkers in progress, my first pair.


Since I started these Jaywalkers in December, then put them down to finish holiday knitting, I'm back at it again. I'm trying using two circulars instead of double pointeds for this sock, and I think I like them! I might even join the jaywalker knit-a-long at januaryone.

Posted by Brenda at 09:26 PM | Permalink