This is the beautiful snowy morning I woke up to last Sunday. I cancelled all the dog activities planned for the day and saw endless hours of knitting stretched out in front of me.
The day started out nicely. I made this pretty decent pan of brownies (and yes, I ate that many in a morning). I have forgotten where I picked up this particular recipe. I'm forever trying out new brownie recipes and I don't know why. Without a doubt my all time favorite is the brownie recipe found in Baking With Julia. No cake-like brownies for me thank-you very much. Yet I keep trying out different recipes. Obviously, this one was not half bad.

Unfortunately my day of knitting was interrupted by a call from a work customer. How he had acquired my home phone number I don't know but I imagine it's now written on more than one reseller's cubicle wall. As he explained his dire situation, he was working in an Islamic country and their weekend was Thursday-Friday so the customer was losing costly production time as I was enjoying my country's Saturday-Sunday weekend. Ok, it was not a big deal. I'd completed the code he needed on Friday and only had to move it to an accessible server so it could be downloaded and I do love my job and don't mean to complain but somehow my joy at thoughts of endless hours of knitting stretching out in front of me disappeared like melting snowflakes.


Can you see my mistake here? I messed up and started doing rows of seed stitch instead of purl and twisted cable stitches. It was frogging time for sure. I guess you could say I had a "rip" roaring weekend! I spent a few hours trying to correct my mistake.
This is what I ended up with. The mistake is almost invisible. I know it's there yet I didn't want to frog all those rows of knitting to fix it perfectly. I decided it's good enough. I'm a little disappointed in myself. One reason I like knitting so much is you can actually go back and redo all your mistakes. You do not get this opportunity in real life. Still, I decided my knitting, like my life, is hardly perfect and sometimes a lot of character is built into my mistakes.


My socks would be further along had I not spent so much time fretting over the Nantucket Jacket mistake. These have been fun. I had hoped to complete them in time for my mom's birthday (hi mom!) but I won't quite make it. Still, I'm happy with the way they are turning out and it's fun to knit them.

Puckered Sleeves

I said I wouldn't blog again until I completed the bi-color cable sweater and you can see it's not finished yet. Something has gone wrong with the sleeves and I've putzed and putzed over them until I'm sick of the whole project. The sleeves do not fit in the arm hole, no way, no how. Normally I would simply frog (rip it rip it) back to the beginning of the arm hole shaping but I've counted rows and stitches and re-read directions and can't figure out where I went wrong. I'm a bit hesitant to start ripping only to knit the sleeves incorrectly again. I did make the sleeves shorter in length than the pattern size but I'm a short person with short arms and I've shortened the sleeves on almost every sweater I've ever knit. I've checked the Interweave web site for corrections to this pattern and there are none. I'm sure it's something I've done wrong. So this afternoon I tried to work with what I had before I frogged both sleeves.



I made a puckered sleeve. I only did one so far. I'm not at all fond of puckered sleeves and though no one could accuse me of being a slave to fashion, I'm sure puckered sleeves are not in style these days. Still, I tried it on and it doesn't look half bad. I'm thinking I will pucker up the other sleeve and just finish the darn thing. This project has gone on long enough.



I realized the sleeve problem a few days ago and rather than deal with it at the time, I did what all good knitters have done now and again - I set the project aside and started on new projects. Yippee! Nothing like getting a new project or two going to motivate me to go back and finish old projects. I don't know why this is but it works for me. I started a pair of socks using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn, colorway River. The pattern is Vine Lace Socks from the book Socks Socks Socks. I hope to gift these so need to complete them by the end of the month. We'll see how that goes. They are fun to knit and the four row repeat pattern should be quite easy but so far I've managed to goof up row 3 each time I've done it. Too many distractions while knitting I think.



And here's the start of my Nantucket Jacket. After completing the two set-up rows I have found this easier to knit with distractions than the socks. So far the sweater looks more complicated than I've found it to be. Of course, all that may change when I get to the sleeves!

Dog Show Weekend

This weekend was the big Land O'Lakes Kennel Club dog shows at the River Centre in St. Paul, MN. I tried to remember to bring my camera but managed to forget it all three days so no pictures for the blog. These shows are always held the first full weekend in January and for the past 27 years have been a part of my Holiday Season. First there's Christmas, then New Years and always closing out the end of the Holidays is the Land O'Lakes KC dog shows. The shows are over and thus ends my 2006-2007 Holidays. Now my calendar stretchs out with little but work days ahead and the long wait for spring to arrive.

The dogs and I had some success this weekend. I showed two males, Moby and JJ, and Moby won 4 points on Friday. I co-own Moby with a good friend from Des Moines, IA and calling her and relaying the news about Moby's win was more fun than the winning itself. I wish Moby could have won more over the weekend since I only have him to show on a limited basis but a 4 point major win is still something to bark about and I'm very excited for him and his owner.

Pembrokes showed at 8:00 a.m. all three mornings which meant a 3:30 a.m. wake up time for me. Ugh. Show sites as nice as the River Centre are expensive and hard to come by for kennel clubs and I'm certainly appreciative as it makes it possible to hold a dog show during the winter in MN, but downtown show sites are not particularly convenient for exhibitors. Every day there's a cycle of unloading, parking, exercising dogs, grooming, getting the vehicle and loading up again. By the third day it can feel more like a death march than a fun event. Moby's win first thing Friday morning helped to keep spirits up during the endless cycles of unloading, exercising, grooming, loading, driving and the dreadful alarm so very early each morning.

Somehow during this weekend I managed to finish the sleeves on my bi-color cable sweater. Honest! I can hardly believe it myself. I will block them tonight and start on the collar. I also need to hem the sweater body and sleeves once the sleeves are sewn in. Lots of finishing work left but the end is in sight. I'm holding off on any pictures until it's complete. I think this is definitely my longest running project ever.

Oh, I just remembered, I have to re-teach myself to crochet in order to make the buttons for the sweater. I don't crochet often enough to remember how without looking in my trusty book of left handed crochet instructions. Guess there's still more work on the sweater than I realized...Sigh.

2007 Is Here

I hope every one had a wonderful Holiday season. Here's hoping for a peaceful and joyful 2007. I for one love the New Year Holiday. Though not one for making resolutions per se, I'm a big list maker and goal setter so I find the New Year a great time for taking stock, prioritizing and rearranging, possibly re-invigorating yourself on some goals and hopefully giving yourself a pat on the back for other goals accomplished. All in all, a time for stopping and reflecting.

This is my last finished object for 2006 - yet another headband. This one is done in Rowan Polar leftovers found in my stash, size 10.5 Addi turbos. It did not turn out as well as I envisioned (a common lament around here). There are three sheep around the headband. The headband itself is in reverse stockinette stitch, the sheep bodies in blackberry stitch, their faces and legs in plain knit and they each have 3-D ears. I 'borrowed' the design from Vogue Knitting On The Go Baby Blankets. I've always wanted to try the baby blanket in this book with the blackberry-stitch sheep so I tried it on this headband. I think a smaller gauge would have made the sheep look better.

As for THE CAR, it ran great on Saturday taking family to the airport, great on Sunday driving to herding lessons and back and good today driving to Iowa and back. Perhaps the work done in Waterloo, IA has finally fixed it. Meanwhile, I have a Customer Reference number from VW and a promise someone will contact me on Tuesday or Wednesday regarding my unhappiness and extreme displeasure with the vehicle.

Guinifer as well as a few others have warned me about the cost of maintenance on a Volkswagen and I had purchased the extended warranty since I usually drive a vehicle until it's on its very last few miles. However, I no longer have any such plans for the Passat and the dealer allowed me to cancel the extended warranty. So there's a little money back on this fiasco. Meanwhile, I wait to see what Volkswagen has to say/offer. Honestly, I'm sick and tired of the whole mess.