Category Archives: Animals and Nature

She’s here… she’s here!!  She’s on my lap as I type.

I brought Aggie home on Wednesday!  She’ll get to go back and visit her mom, sister and one brother  on Saturday when we go for a bbq.  Actually she’ll see at least her mom and sister quite often as they live down the road and we’re friends.

She’s been a great girl already. I have a big basket on my side of the bed.  She whimpers to go out at about 2am.  We do our business and she goes right back to sleep until 6am.  Even though the basket has been serving as her crate (just easier for me to sitck my hand down and reassure her at night) we’ll start real crate training on Monday.  We’re huge believers in this method after we crate trained Bailey and I have yet to meet a vet that doesn’t think it’s the way to go. I’ve already introduced her to it for a few naps but I wanted to her to feel comfortable with us and in her new home first.  She hasn’t had one accident in the house yet.  She went everywhere with me yesterday in a doggie tote bag.  She slept so much no one even knew she was there.  Good girl.

Our friends that we got Aggie from have a little girl named Lucy.  She looks adorable in hats so I’m making her the Fiber Trends Garden Party Hat.

It will be perfect on Lucy.  I started the brim the other night.  Here’s how far I’ve gotten:

I’m knitting it with none other than Elann’s Highland Wool.  Speaking of Elann… they have a great line up for the month of November.  I just got my knittable swatches yesterday.  The new Highland Silk is some gorgeous stuff.  It does have a sheen to it due to the silk content.

I’m also working on a V-neck sweater for Dan with Highland Wool in the darker denim color.   The exact name slips my mind at the moment.  I think this may end up being one of his favorite comfy sweaters to just hang out in.  It’s just a basic wide V-neck with a band of ribbing that will go up the sides and down the inside of the sleeves.  Of course, I’m knitting it in the round so it’s a pretty simple knit so far.  Kind of hard to make out the ribbing before it’s been blocked but here’s a picture for proof anyway:

I leave you with one more adorable shot of Aggie:

One thing that I’ve learned through blogging is that I know some knitting stuff that I just figure everyone knows.  I’ve also learned that other people know lots of knitting stuff that after I read it on their blog I feel like I should’ve known.  So… after writing yesterday about making my Hopeful a little longer after the fact, I got a few emails asking, “How’d you do dat?!”  I’ve done this on a couple of store bought sweaters to shorten them for Dan.  Of course, as with the Hopeful, it can also be used to make an item longer.  Once you’re finished you can not tell where you snipped and added as long as you make sure that your stitches aren’t twisted on your needle.  Look at the stitch as if it’s just a loop.  The right side of the loop (as you’re looking at it) should be on the front of the needle.  I don’t even want to admit to you how many years I’d been knitting before that light bulb went off in my head.

So my little sweater is too short… okay, so it has other problems too.  Forget those.  All that matters is it’s too short.  Or too long for you Hootchie Mamas.  Either way… here’s what you do.

Look at your knitting.  If you turn it upside down it looks the same doesn’t it?  That’s the magic of knitting and that’s why this works.  Now turn it back the right way and pick a spot where you want to put it back on the needles.  Carefully… OH so carefully… snip one side of a stitch.  I usually do this in the vertical center of the sweater.  It doesn’t really matter and honestly, now that I think about it, it’d probably be easier to start near an end.  At any rate after you snip that little stitch you will carefully pick the stitch out and you’ll see a little loop just sitting there ready for you to pick up.  So go ahead… save it.  Put it on a smaller needle than what you knit with.  This makes it easier and you can just transfer to the right sized needle once you get all the stitches on.  I started at the center and worked my way across.

After you pick out a couple of stitches it’ll look like this:

And then like this after I worked my way across the first half:

I pulled the needle through so that I could work the end through the other half of the stitches and here it is all ready to go:

Now you just knit down to the desired length.  Cool, huh?  You can not tell the difference once you are done.  Hope that helps.

I went to visit the pups today!  Two weeks old today. I can’t believe how much they’ve changed in only ten days.  Incredible.  Fat and happy.  Meet Aggie:

She was squirmy.  I interrupted her breakfast for this photo because I had to leave for a meeting.  I think you get the idea of how cute she is though.  Her eyes just opened yesterday so they’re still a little cloudy.  We’re going back with the boys on Sunday after church.  You can bet you’ll be seeing plenty more of her.  I’m remembering what it’s like to have a baby in the house again before she even gets here.  We’d had plans to go to Belgium for Thanksgiving with friends, but it’s just too far to take her at ten weeks.  Ahh… the sacrifices we make for our kids.  😉

Contrary to popular belief, I have not been snatched by aliens nor did I hit the lottery and head out on a world-wide tour (don’t I wish though).  I’ve just been busy… plain ol’ busy.

I think a little blog-burnout is at play here also.  It’s nobody’s fault but my own.  I stress myself out with looking for blog fodder. I always want to have knitting content, but let’s be realistic.  As much as I’d love to, I don’t knit every day.  Especially not during the Spring and Summer.  That said, I think Fall is upon us.  We keep telling the kids to go out and play before there’s no more nice weather.   I think they’re beginning to think we’re lying.  lol. 

I’ve  been working on Daniel’s Halloween costume.  Two guesses as to who he’s going to be and the first one doesn’t count.  Why… oh … why did I ever sell my LK150 knitting machine?!

I have been working on the Hopeful.  You might think that I’m knitting it from the top down by looking at the photo.  Nope.  This is a clingy little number.  It’s also a bit short for my longish torso.  Clingy and short on a 42-year old woman looks like she’s trying to dress like a hootchie mama.  So I snipped, picked up and am adding some legnth to the bottom.  I’ll probably add about two inches total.  Let’s just say I won’t be wearing this one to church without a jacket over it.

The Elann Esprit is PERFECT for this sweater. 

Nice and soft and S-T-R-E-T-C-H-Y.

On the neckband, I did a ssk instead of the K2tog called for in the pattern and on the reverse I just slipped that stitch.  I think it gave it a much crisper seam.  The color is a little more lavender than the photo is showing.   I love it.

We took the boys to see the pups last week.  These are the two girls:

Still don’t know which one is Aggie, but I think it’s a win-win situation, don’t you agree?  And Aggie is the perfect name for an almost maroon and white pup.  I found a Texas A&M dog collar on the web yesterday but I need to measure the mama’s neck and see about how big (or should I say small) I need it. This photo was taken ten days ago.  They’ll be two weeks old tomorrow and their eyes opened today.  Hopefully I can go for a visit and get some more pictures tomorrow.

Old business to take care of…  I still have the Latvian Mittens book for the Red Cross drawing.  Katie’s mom (Knittish)has several copies so she passed on it.  I had Joe do another drawing.  The new winner is Rossanna So e me your address, Rossanna, and the book will be flinging it’s way over the Atlantic to you.

I know Bailey girl doesn’t look very happy. I think that’s because I recruited her to join me in my workout routine of walking for an hour every morning starting this past Tuesday. She’s done in. I only have to move two legs and I’m beat. I can only imagine how she feels with four! How cute is she though? We rescued her from the pound in Clarksville, TN about 4 1/2 years ago and she’s been a great addition to the family. Her only flaw is that she doesn’t get along with other dogs. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. I think it’s Napoleon complex. She’s much worse with dogs that are bigger than her. I guess it’s too much to ask for looks and brains too. I love the colors of this yarn. It’s Lamb’s Pride Superwash that I bought in white to dye. It actually has a blip of brown all through it. I hadn’t heated it enough (afraid I’d turn it into plastic – gotta be careful with superwash) and couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. Finally wrapped it up in saran wrap and stuck it in to steam with an autumn colors batch that was dyeing. Oops. Didn’t seal it well enough. You can’t even tell though. I alternated the four skeins all the way through and can’t even find the brown now. She’s gonna need a thicker one. This isn’t going to get her through the winter here come another month or so. That means I’ll have to buy some more yarn. I have a responsibility to take good care of her, right?