Don’t you just love it when something just comes together?! The partially knitted sweater back I showed you yesterday worked out great for a sweater for Aggie! I snipped a thread inside two of the diamond cables, picked up stitches and did a couple rows of ribbing. Presto! Leg holes! I added ribbing around the top for a neck and stitched the sides together into a seam!
As you can see we got lots of snow yesterday. We did a little sledding today. The snow was a little deep in spots for Aggie so she got to ride in style:
I found this partially knitted sweater back in my stash when we moved here. It’s the big oversized cardigan from Knitting in America (republished as America Knits) knit in a Classic Elite silk/wool blend. The problem is that I saw this as one of those projects I’d never finish. I sold the leftover yarn on Ebay years ago. What a moron I am sometimes. I so know that I’d finish it now if I had the yarn. So. I think with just a little bit of work I have a great sweater for Aggie here. I’ll just make a little strap to go across her belly and start knitting a little ribbed neck in the round at the top. Stay tuned…
Next time Daniel goes in for dental care, and I know he’s getting laughing gas, I’m bringing a video camera! Dan said it was HILARIOUS. He’s a pretty serious kid most of the time and dentists make his nervous meter go way off the charts.
Evidently, all he needs is a little laughing gas. He started out hollering, “Houston! We HAVE a LANDING!” He went on to sing, “Up on the rooftops, click, click, click” and at the end when they turned off the gas and were bringing him down he started softly singing, “A weem o wip o weem o wip…” and gradually got louder and louder until he was hollering ” O WEEE-eeeee oh oh oh oh ooooooh….” I’d give anything to have seen that. I just don’t understand how they got into his mouth to do the filling with all that singing and hollering going on!
Finished the baby sweater up on Friday night. I still need to get some buttons to put at the shoulders. I’m telling you. If you haven’t done cables yet, this is a perfect first cable project! Trust me. The yarn I used was some German wool (sport weight) I’ve had in my stash for about eight years. I bought it at a yarn shop in Würzburg when it was going out of business. The pattern is in Knitting For Baby:
It’s quiet around our home tonight. Dan and Daniel took off for a post about two hours from here. Daniel has to see the dentist there in the morning so they took the opportunity to spend some time alone together and spend the night there. It’s left the house very quiet. Which is funny because Joe is normally the noisest person in the family. It’s just weird.
I managed to just about finish the baby sweater from Knitting For Baby. I just need to sew it together. This was a very easy and satisfying knit. I wish I could say the same for the photo. It’s tough to take good photos without good light and it’s hard to find good light in Germany in the Winter. I’ll take it outside tomorrow and take a good shot of it all finished up.
I’m happy to report Aggie’s doing much better today. She keeps forgetting that she’s sore and she’ll jump up and catch herself just wrong and yelp but she’s doing good.
You can see her little shaved leg in this photo from her IV.
I’m telling you, I’ve always been a dog lover. I have never fallen so hard for a dog in my life. There’s just something about her. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve watched her grow since she was three days old or what, but she’s the easiest dog I’ve ever had. She cocks that little head at me and I’m lost. I can’t believe she’s almost five months old already.
She really needs a playmate since Bailey died. I want another Cav but I think we’ll wait until we go back to the States. Dan said I could get a Black and Tan one because he thinks they’re hard to find and I won’t be able to. Bwwwaaahahahaha! Kim has two! Sign me up Kim!!! 😉 (Oh relax, Dan. I wouldn’t do that to you… I don’t think…)
Joe and Aggie enjoying a quiet evening in our casa.
As promised to Tracy (Wool Windings), I knit one preemie hat and one pair of booties last night (both from Bev’s Country Cottage and both of these things are QUICK!). Of course, I don’t read directions very well and made them from wool (merino super-wash that is oh-so-soft) but I’ll send them in anyway and stick to acrylics and cottons from now on.
Fun, cute, quick and for a very good cause. What more could you ask for in a project? So I’ll *have* to go back to the yarn shop and find some more appropriate yarns. Yea… like I’m not always looking for an excuse for that little trip.
I finished the back to the baby sweater from Knitting For Baby. It’s a very easy pattern as all the cable patterning is done on only two rows of the eight rows total. Very easy and quick. Perfect for those of you that haven’t tried your hand at cables. Really. Would I steer you wrong?
Did you all see this in the new Martha Stewart Kids magazine? Way cool little book that you can take out of the center. Lots of pictures of sheep and stories and then this very cool page. It’ll be perfect for using when I do demos at the elementary school.
Can’t sleep. It’s almost 4am here in Germany and I have to get up in four more hours to get ready for our flight. This happens every time we travel. I layed there for at least an hour trying to get back to sleep. Why fight it?
Checked the weather.
It’s London so it’s pretty much as we expected but it would have been nice to see one little sunshine in there. At least the temps are balmy compared to here in Bavaria where we’ve been freezing our patooties off all week. I wish I’d kept the cheap little plastic raincoats we had to buy the boys in Italy. Handy little things. Kept the boys bone dry without worrying about an umbrella.
Worked on Dan’s V-neck last night while we watched TV. I’ll take it along for the three-hour car ride to the airport but I doubt I’ll risk trying to take it with me since we aren’t checking any luggage and the flight is only about an hour and a half anyway.
The bucket hat for Ann at Elann is finished. It’s Elann’s own Pure Alpaca in color #3727 (the name escapes me). The alpaca felted just as nicely as the Highland Wool always does.
Here it is before I felted it. The color is much more accurate in the felted photo:
I also cast on this little beauty from Knitting For Baby:
I had some German wool that I bought about six years ago when a store in Würzburg was going out of business. A friend/neighbor that works in the office at the school is due next month.
I think the Sandman is calling my name. Maybe I can get a few winks in before it’s too late. I leave you with a picture of Daniel and Aggie. She has definitely helped all of us with the loss of Bailey. An update for those that I didn’t tell via email… the final diagnosis was a tumor in Bailey’s spleen. It was about the size of my fist. One thing we learned is that if your dog starts drinking ridiculous amounts of water… get her to the vet. It wouldn’t have mattered for Bailey, but in a lot of cases it could help. See you when we get back from England next week!
How is it that it’s already January 2006? For our family it means we’re just a few weeks from Dan’s deployment. Counting the time he’ll be away for training, we have about three weeks left. I’m trying to stay positive but I gotta admit… it ain’t easy. I’ve had a couple of breakdowns. Usually when I wake up in the middle of the night and have nothing else to think about. This too shall pass. We’ve been through it before, we’ll get through it this time. It’s just not an easy thing and I’m looking forward to it about as much as someone looks forward to a root canal. In fact, I’d rather have a root canal. 😉 Pfft. I jinxed myself.
Like I said, we’re trying to remain positive and make the best of the time we have. How do we do that? By cramming 2 1/2 years worth of travel into a few weeks. We came home a few days after Christmas. Look what was waiting in the mail for me from my friend, Jessica!
Isn’t it beautiful? I wish you could feel how soft it is. Thank you so much, Jess! There was also a Texas A&M fleece blanket from my Elann pal, Bets. Thank you, Bets!! I’ve met some wonderful friends via the net.
Speaking of A&M… I haven’t shown you a picture of Aggie lately. Here she is at 15 weeks. Tell me how anyone could not love that face? I think you can tell a lot about a person, dog lover or not, who doesn’t at least smile at that. Seriously.
Please say a little prayer for Bailey. She isn’t doing very well. She’s going to the vet today. She’s been really out of it and throwing up for the past two days and today doesn’t seem to be any better. Hopefully it’s nothing a little antibiotics won’t take care of and she’ll be rolling around the floor with Aggie again soon.
Okay… I know you’re dying to hear about our trips. I’ll start with Ireland. Dublin was fun, but it was very busy with the Christmas shoppers and all. I was feeling guilty about not bringing the boys at first, but we would have lost them for sure in all the crowds. They had much more fun staying with our long-time friends than they would have had being dragged around Dublin anyway.
The hotel, The Westbury, was FANTASTIC! We felt very pampered. Everyone should treat themselves to this kind of hotel once in a while. Evening turn-down service complete with complimentary slippers, robes and Godiva chocolates… Aveda (my personal fave) products in the bathroom, beautiful warm decor and a fantastic full Irish breakfast on china and silver with waiters in uniform ready to whisk away your empty plates so you can have room for more. Pure luxury. If you get on-line you can get some great deals. We paid about the same price for this as we are going to pay to stay at a budget hotel in London! Yes… I said London. I’ll get to that later….
The highlight of the trip for Dan was the Guinness Brewery tour and the bus trip to the Wicklow Mountains. Dan’s been a long time fan of Guinness so it was great for him, but I have to admit, I enjoyed the tour also. Very interesting. My favorite part of the trip was the visit to Avoca Handweavers:
You can’t see it in the shot above, but the weaver’s sweater is beautiful. Of course I knew you’d all like to see it so I took a close up.
It’s Ireland so we saw a lot of sheep. I managed to get a few good shots. Even had some made into pretty note cards by Shutterfly. On the last day I got to meet up with my friends, Janet and Ian, from the Spinning Retreat in Scotland a couple of years ago. I wish we could have spent more time together but I’m glad we got to at least meet over coffee at Bewley’s Cafe.
If you’re ever in Dublin and want the best scones ever… just around the corner from the main tourist info in the old church… go to the Keogh’s Cafe on Trinity St (almost on the corner of Dame St). It’s right across the street from the Banker’s Pub. We went back a few times and even grabbed a couple to take on the plane ride back to Germany.
Okay… before I bore you all to death, that’s enough for today. In the next post I’ll tell you about our awesome Christmas surprise in Rome and our upcoming trip to London.
UPDATE: Dan just called from the vet. It’s Bailey’s liver. They took some blood tests but they won’t be back for about a week. They think it’s either cancer or hepititis. My poor girl. Please say a little prayer for her.
….Sweaters!! We went to see Narnia on Friday night. In a word… AWESOME!! I knew it was going to be a good movie when the opening scenes had gorgeous handknit sweaters in them. I loved these books as a kid and was not disappointed in the movie. I bought Daniel a set of the books a few months ago hoping he’d read them before the movie come out. Now I want to read them again. Dan had never read them and thought it was one of the best movies he’d ever seen. Joe faked that he didn’t like it because he wanted to see King Kong (yeah… that’s why he was so engrossed in it for the entire 2 1/2 hours).
Last year I shared Joe’s engineering talents with your and here’s this year’s efforts towards Habitat For Gingerbreadmanity:
I also shared a mini stocking pattern last year that Nilda (Waltzing Natilda) thought everyone might like to see again. If you click here and scroll down to October 26th, you’ll find the free pattern for a great little stocking. Some friends and I made a bunch of these to send down to Iraq when their husbands were deployed last year. They are the perfect size for putting a chocolate bar or a few small treats into. I think I was down to about an hour each after I had the pattern memorized.
And lastly I have a FO to share. It’s just a simple dropped garter stitch scarf using a strand of purple mohair and a strand of Knit Picks sock yarn. I knit three rows and on the forth row, I knit but wrapped the yarn around the needle twice instead of just once before pulling it through. Added a little fringe and you have a scarf perfect for any teenager:
Eight-month old Daniel in his first of many EZ sweaters and hats:
Ahhh… the start of it all. This wasn’t my first sweater. I’d already been knitting for about five years… sort of. I’d knit something small and then not touch the needles for months or more. It was, however, my beginning of the knitter I am today. I was on a little group called the Knitlist around 1995. That’s where I heard of Elizabeth Zimmermann and ordered Knitting Around. And that’s where my love for all things wool began. The kind of wool that’s rustic and warm and lovely. This little sweater was done in Shetland Jumper weight that I ordered from Schoolhouse Press. This pattern is also in The Opinionated Knitter.
I took Aggie in for her 12-week vet appointment yesterday. Last week I noticed a bump inside her left leg. My fears were confirmed by our vet. It’s an Inguinal Hernia. She also has a hernia on her belly button which we knew about. That wasn’t a big deal but the Inguinal one is hereditary and it just wouldn’t be responsible of us to breed her though we were really looking forward to letting her have one litter when she was old enough. Oddly, the one who’s most disappointed is Daniel. She’ll have surgery in about a month to repair the two hernias and to be spayed. My poor puppy.
I hope all my American friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went to visit friends in Belgium. They used to live across the street. They’re in a wonderful old Belgian farmhouse that’s huge but very cozy. It took us six hours to drive there but almost twice that to get back because we hit a huge snowstorm in Belgium.
I don’t know about you all, but I’ve found myself without much sit-down time over the past month. It’s just crazy how much there seems to be to do these days. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever catch up. The big time-stealing culprit has been the play that the boys are in at our community theater. They play rats and kids in the Pied Piper. Really cute. Dan and I really got into it. I helped with the sewing of the costumes, keeping all the kids in line back-stage and we even ran the concession stand at the last showing. Tonight is the last rehearsal (to remember everything everyone might have forgotten over the holiday) and then three more shows this weekend and we’re done. I’ll take photos and video tonight during the full-run rehearsal. Joe is the smallest and not the least worried about what the audience thinks when he’s picking his nose or playing with his pants.
During the trip I worked on a few knitting projects. I finished the hat for my little friend, Lucy. I’ll see if I can get a photo of her wearing it. Until then, my dining room chair will have to model it.
This was a fun little knit. It seemed to take forever during the brim knitting. Once that was finished it flew by. The flower only took about half an hour to knit. I can’t wait to see her in it. She has the most beautiful blonde curls and pursed little lips.
The beginning of December means we have about two short months left with Dan before he leaves for Afghanistan. We are making the most of it. He and I are going to Dublin in a couple of weeks for some alone time. We’ll be there three days so if anyone knows of some great wooly things to see, let me know. I’ll get to visit with my friend, Janet. I met her on the Scotland knitting retreat.
For Christmas we are going to Italy. We’ll get to celebrate Midnight Mass with the Pope. It’s a bus trip arranged through the post. It will be a long ride, but we get to do all the Italy traveling we’ve been putting off. We’ll be stopping in Pisa, Florence and Venice with a possible side trip to Capri or Pompeii. The hightlight will be the three days in Rome though. Dan and I have both been before but not together and it was something we really wanted the boys to see before we leave Europe.
For you Aggie lovers (and seriously… who isn’t?), I’m slipping in a couple of photos here. I’m so in love with this dog is ridiculous. She takes my breath away when she just sits and looks up at me. She turned 11 weeks old on Tuesday. She’s already been sitting on command for a couple of weeks now and she started going into her crate when told last night. I was working on “lay down” today. She’s the smartest little thing. Spunky too. She and Bailey love to fight over the felted wool ball I made for Bailey last year (look how Bailey has her “arms” around her puppy. All together now… Awwwww… lol):
