Knit My Dog

Today being Saturday and the first time I've been home in daylight since Christmas, I thought I'd take some wonderfully lit photos of knitted items. Don't we all love doing that on a sunny day? Well, the sunshine never came. Instead, it started snowing. Where did that come from??? I had no idea it was supposed to snow today. Instead of artfully placed items photographed with natural light, I give you items on my kitchen table with the flash.

First, more felting. What, you thought I was done with that little fling? Not on your life. I love the magic that is felting. Throw a big, floppy, misshapen item in the washer, and pull out a thick, fuzzy, tiny thing. I love it.
A before and after shot (because I knit one and it was so cute I decided to do another):

It's some cheap wool that was on sale a Michael's. It's kind of scratchy when it's being knit, but felted, it is soft and thick and the cheesy varigations end up looking like water color. The best $4 I ever spent! The hats are for the Dulaan project. I have never knit for anyone other than myself, family or very close friends. I've had people want to pay me to knit an item, but I always say I only knit for love. After reading about Dulaan for about a year, I decided that it was a worthy project and I might as well break down and knit for others. So there it is, two warm hats. I'll probably make more when the felting fever strikes again.

I don't think the color is as true on this one, but I loved the image.

I've also been knitting on my Wavy Cable scarf from the Subway Knitter.

It's coming along pretty well, isn't it? Problem is, I'm using leftover yarn from Howie's last sweater, and I counted three balls before I started. I've finished two balls, got ready to start the third, and it's gone! I looked everywhere: In the stash, under the bed in the room with the stash, in and under every chair and sofa I knit on, on the bureau in the room with the stash. I tore apart my knitting bag. I even had Howie help me. It's gone!! And I'm not too excited about buying more yarn to complete it. The whole point was to use up some of my stash. I think I'll just put it aside until that third ball appears.

I'm also starting something new in 2007 - no unnecessary purchases. That means NO YARN! Good thing I have plenty of yarn to knit up just sitting in my house. We'll see how long it lasts, but I feel pretty strongly that I have more than enough in my life and I don't need more stuff. I don't need any clothes, coats, hats, gloves. I definitely don't need shoes. Books, I'll have to get them at the library or borrow them from a friend. Most people would look in my spare bedroom and declare that I do not need any yarn. Ever. But it will be difficult to not go out and buy whatever yarn I want for whichever project I fancy. We'll see how 2007 progresses...

Here's what our afternoon looked like:

Posted by Brenda at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

When it comes to a HOT tub that is.

We splurged and bought a hot tub this year. It's perfect. Set off our deck, just a few steps from the house, in our private back yard, we soak almost every night. While we love soaking in the tub under the stars, being practical New Englanders, we hate the fact that we're throwing electricity away keeping it warm all day. Why pay to heat it for 24 hours when we use if for 30 minutes? Our electric bill practically doubled since we've had it running.

So last month Howie schemed up this plan to turn the heat down every night, and the first person home from work each afternoon will turn it up again. Sounds reasonable. He would ask me every day: "Did you remember to turn the hot tub up?" Of course, I was remembering every day. One day he forgot. So we made a rule: When you come home and let the dog out, turn up the hot tub.

It was working great. Then one Saturday he wanted to soak in the middle of the afternoon. The hot tub was only warm. We had turned it down the night before. So we made a second rule: The hot tub stays hot all weekend. Just in case a morning or afternoon soak is warranted.

Again, things were going swimmingly for a few weeks. Then came Christmas. Our weekends and weekdays got all messed up. After our soak on Christmas night, Howie turned the tub down. Then yesterday (by his account, a weekday) I didn't work. It was still MY weekend. I came home first. I let the dog out. I didn't even think to turn up the tub. The house was cold. We talked about starting a fire, but it was late. We discussed the hot tub about three times, but not once did he ask me if I turned it up.
We both decided that we'd go to bed early after a nice soak in the hot tub. You see where this is leading, don't you?

That's right, no hot tub for us last night; it was only luke warm. And it takes about three hours to heat up. We climbed into a cold bed, both of us disgusted that we couldn't warm up with a nice soak. I promptly fell asleep. Howie fell asleep, woke up at 1 am, and went in the hot tub. He was NOT going miss out on his nightly soaking.

Today he announced that we will no longer be turning the hot tub down to save electricity.

Posted by Brenda at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This has been a busy week leading up to Christmas. We've been celebrating Hanukkah, and had a dinner last night on the final night. The potato latkes came out great. There have also been Solstice parties, holiday pot-lucks, office luncheons, shopping, grading papers, and a whole host of other things to keep me away from the blog, and to keep me from cleaning my house, doing laundry, and sleeping.

But now, it's all over except Christmas dinner at my brother's house. We are in the middle of two whole days of no responsibilities. Howie even took a nap on the sofa this afternoon!

So far, I have gotten many knitting related Hanukkah gifts. The best being this:

A hank of hand painted sock yarn from Pippi! Howie communicated with her by email, set up the whole thing, got her to dye the yarn for me, and even bugged her to get it done in time to give it to me for Hanukkah. She totally came through!!! And included some treats: a card from the yarn museum and some great stickers. I love the yarn!

Look, here it is along with some yarn I purchased from her a couple of months ago:

Don't you just love the colors????? They're almost too beautiful to knit with. But I will be making socks as soon as the current pair is off the needles. Now I just need to figure out which one to use first.

Howie also game me this calendar. He's doing real well with the knit-related-presents.

And this is what my coworker bought me for my secret santa present:

Do you think she knows me well?

In other news, I have been working on Ribby...and she's done! Oh yeah, about two weeks of knitting and two months of finishing. Not bad, considering how crazy my life has been. I love the sweater and everything about it. The fit is great, I didn't have a heart attack putting the zipper in and it actually works, and I love the colors. I know it will be a favorite. Howie took the photos in this little series, can you tell he likes to get artistic in his photo-taking?

I used Cascade 220 - black and some grey color (I always loose the bands, and NEVER write anything down). I made it longer than the pattern, and didn't rib the sleeves completely. I had heard that they can be tight, so after the increases, I knit in stockinette, and it's mostly under the arm so it's hidden.
I was really happy with this knit and with the finished product. I'm already thinking about the color of the next one I want to knit!

I wonder what I'll get in my Christmas stocking!

Posted by Brenda at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

With all of the craziness this time of year, it's a wonder I've had time to knit anything that isn't on the Christmas knitting list. But yes, I've been knitting for myself. Over the last week or so, I've been knitting the Rainbow Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I used two different luscious colors of Noro Kureyon.

Here it is on our shrinking wood pile:

I haven't even blocked it yet and I wore it yesterday. I'm so glad I took the time to make it.

This weekend has been crazy with holidays and their trappings. Friday night was the first night of Hanukkah AND the neighborhood Christmas party. Yesterday we went and got our Christmas tree. Howie was raised Jewish and I was raised Catholic, so we each have our ideas of holiday celebrations. I love a Christmas tree for the lights and so I can pull out all of my homemade decorations. The tree itself doesn't matter too much. So we went out to the back of our land with the lopping shears, and I found a small, spindly tree that was being crowded out by another tree. A little bit of clearing of the land doesn't hurt. And it was the freshest tree ever. We weighed it down with tons of lights, and the ornaments never looked better. The tree makes me happy :-)

On today's holiday agenda is the Christmas pagent at my sister's church. Her boys are in the pagent every year, starting as baby Jesus and working their way up to sheep, shephard, wise man, Joseph, etc, etc. Oh, how I love the holiday rituals!

During the photo shoot, Howie thought Moebius would do a great job of modeling the scarf. He sat still and posed, but he was not happy about it. Check out the look on his face!

Posted by Brenda at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I know I've blogged about this before, but I have to have one final post about my felting experiments and love for all things felted.

This summer I started by felting a bowl. A small, unassuming bowl. Then I made another one. Then I bought tons of yarn in all sorts of colors and just went at it. In between the bowl knitting I made felted slippers, felted head bands and other felted items. But it was the bowls that had me hooked. I started them because I needed a small, easy handmade gift for the four other women in my bookgroup. These fit the bill.

Howie would inspect each one as it dried after the felting was done. Of the four or five I would make in each batch, he would declare that he wanted to keep about three of them. "I like these three." he'd declare. After he had claimed about 5 or 6 of them, I kept asking him what the hell he was going to do with all of those felted bowls. He just smiled and said they were too nice to give away. Of course, he doesn't have the final say about which ones go where. I'll let him pick two or three for himself, then the rest are going to be wrapped up!

Two weeks ago I finally finished my last batch and I put the big needles and feltable yarn away! I can't have it near me or I keep casting on for one more bowl.
The last three I made were kind of big. Here they are pre-felting:

OK, it was late night and I was getting kind of giddy.

Here are those three after felting:

Too bad I didn't put my head in there for scale.

And here is the whole collection (minus the two bowls that are already around our house doing their job of holding handy items).

I guess there are enough for my whole bookgroup, my mom (who saw them and requested one), and a number of other people who I have on my list. My Christmas knitting is done! And it was so much fun. Addictive even. So addictive that after I took all of these pictures, put the yarn and needles away, and started another project, I picked it up once more and made another one. Just because.

Posted by Brenda at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I know I haven't posted about it in a while, but I have been working on Ribby Cardi. I finally blocked it, let it sit while I had my romance with felting (pictures and post to come), and last night I went to sew it up. Then I noticed that the raglan sleeve decreases were about 4 inches shorter than the body's decreases. What did I do wrong? On reading the pattern, I missed a little direction. Woops! The one about decreasing every other RS row for a certain number of rows. That doesn't mean every other row... it means every fourth row! So rip they went, back to the error spot. I reworked the sleeve decreases and they looked much better.

Then it was time for the zipper band. I think I picked up too few stitches because it's kind of pulling in. I'm freaked out enough about putting the zipper in, I want the band to be perfect. So those will get ripped as well.

Here's how it looked today, with the too-short zipper bands:

Of course, because of the ribbing on the sleeves, it also looks like there is no room for shoulders. Not to worry, my shoulders fit in it just fine :-) And the color! It's BLACK and grey, not dark grey and light grey. I guess my camera didn't know what to do in the bright sunshine.

So next on the agenda is ripping the bands and reworking them. Then it'll be onto the neck. Hopefully no problems there. Why is it that I'm making so many errors on this sweater? I've knit at least 30-40 sweaters, you'd think I would know what I was doing by now. It's ok though, I'm loving the sweater.

The one thing I'm dreading is the sewing in of the zipper. I am NOT a sewer. I basically suck at sewing. I own a very simple machine, and will sew straight lines if necessary, but nothing as complicated as a zipper. I think my quilter sister and her Bernina will do a much better job of sewing the zipper when the time comes. I'll just have to bribe her with something, chocolate maybe. Or babysitting.

Here's Moebius outside with me during the photo shoot. Can you believe it's December in Maine? The grass looks like it's the middle of the summer, all lush and green.

We broke his Chuckit today :-(
That thing is the best for flinging tennis balls really far. It was leaning on the deck, and Moebius was not very patient about me not chucking the next ball because I was busy shooting pictures, so he jumped on it. And that's what happened - no more Chuckit. I guess it's ok, the thing is about three years old and it used to be red. I just went to their website, maybe we'll get a purple one next. See, it's the simple things that make me happy!

Posted by Brenda at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Along with every single person in America, I went shopping. One thing about me you may not know: I'm not a shopper. Sure, I go to the store if I need something. I find what I need and I leave. Every once in a while I find a bargain or something else I can't live without and I buy that too. But usually, I have no desire to go shopping. Especially malls and big box stores. I walk around in a haze, looking at everything, and get so disoriented that I don't buy a thing. You should hear me whine if Howie says he has to go INTO the mall to buy something and wants me to go along. I make him promise to take me out to lunch or something special afterwards just so I feel justified for actually stepping into the mall.

So today.... Howie had to go into work from 8-12 today. Not fun on a Saturday morning, but necessary to be a "team player". He works near Freeport: Outlet Shopping Capital of the Universe. So to be a good wife, and to share in his misery (and also to get some dreaded Christmas shopping done) I volunteered to drop him at work, then shop for four hours and pick him up again.

So, with one giant cup of coffee in me, I made my way to L.L. Bean. The original, the flagship store, the one that never closes. That's right, no locks on the doors. It was crowded at 8:15 am! Lines at the registers and all. So I bought something real quick and checked out. Next stop, the Bean's outlet store. But that didn't open until 9. So I waited in line with about a million other crazy people. (I can't believe I just typed that.) Again, couldn't stand the crowds, didn't find anything I wanted (oh wait, I bought a pair of Keen's for myself - they were cheap and I couldn't resist).

That's how it went all morning, in and out of outlet stores. I did end up buying a few gifts, but mostly walked around and just looked at all of the stuff! I know this isn't very Christmassy of me, but the shopping part really gets me down. I love the holiday spirit of giving, and I love giving gifts, especially when it's something I know the person really wants or needs. It's just the shopping part that is a chore for me. Know any personal shoppers? That's what I need.

Anyway, I was out of there before 11 am. I just couldn't stand it anymore. And when I was leaving, there wasn't a parking space left in any of the lots. I think I escaped just in time! I got back to Howie's work early, hung out for a few minutes, and then we were free!

And of course, he took me out to lunch on the way home.

Posted by Brenda at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)