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):

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.