Knit My Dog

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch this year. It was calm, easy and fun. No traveling involved, we went to my sister's house about 40 minutes away. My parents and all of my brothers and sisters were there, as were most of the neices and nephews. About 16 people total. Howie and I were assigned appetizers and told to keep it simple - no stuffed mushrooms, hot crabmeat dip, etc, etc this year. Just cheese and crackers and other simple fare. My shopping was done last weekend, except for one last minute trip to the local market for milk and fruit on Wednesday.

My parents stayed with us for two nights and it was a great visit. Not too stressful, easy meals to prepare (they even took us out to dinner on Wednesday evening), and plenty of time to visit. The first night after dinner, my dad saw these on the coffee table:

and proceeded to put them on. I have cold hands and feet all winter so I wear these all the time. Knitting, typing, reading. My dad LOVED them. He didn't take them off for two hours. He told me that the medication that he's on makes his hands and feet cold. So it's wool socks every day. But the hands get cold when he's on his computer, reading the paper, doing the crossword puzzle (he's a New York Times Crossword fanatic). Of course, I had to knit him a pair. So up to the stash I went. Found the leftover yarn from Howie's most recent sweater, and started knitting. I didn't really use a pattern, just modified my pair and made them to fit my dad. He tried them on as I went. He wanted longer cuffs, a longer thumb and a little longer in the hand.

This is what I got:

I finished the second one on Thanksgiving night before bed, had all the ends tucked in, and gave them to him right away. My parents go to Florida in the winter, so he only has about 6 more weeks before he leaves. I figured if I waited until Christmas to give them to him, he'd only get to wear them for a week or so.

I think he likes them! He packed them right away in his suitcase. Didn't want to leave them behind. I was so happy to be able to give my dad something he will actually use that he needs.

A little housekeeping.... I've been getting boatloads of spam, and Howie (my technical support) was trying to clean up the blog by deleting the spam comments. In doing so, he deleted the four real comments I've actually gotten recently. So thanks for commenting and sorry if you don't see any previous ones.