Just A Little Knitting Content

These little preemie hats are all the knitting I accomplished so far in January. The hats themselves were quick and easy enough to make but I struggled over getting my pompoms to look nice. Finally, I just gave up on the pompoms. Besides, while searching the web for preemie hat patterns I found one site which stated NICUs prefer hats without pompoms so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! These aren't my best work, I thought I'd get many more finished and do a better job on them but January brought several interruptions and minor crises. Such is life.

I have been horribly remiss in posting puppy pictures - as I've been reminded in several emails. The pups are all doing great. The little tri has stayed quite small but she was never without strength and energy so I continued to supplement her. I was anxious to get her started on solid foods, or more correctly at this age, "puppy mush" so I started all of them yesterday when they turned 21 days old. This is a bit earlier than I normally like to, but it has paid off as Tri Girl has gained 3 ounces in the last two days.



The puppy at the top right is Two Spots and that's food stuck on the top of her head. Not at all unlike babies first learning to eat in their highchairs, a puppy's first meals are messy business. I must have snapped this picture before Shamrock had a chance to clean her up. Two Spots has her head draped over the smallest red girl, Fussy. And of course that's the little tri color girl in the center. Isn't she tiny compared to her sisters? Still, you can see she does know how to keep herself warm! Next is the puppy I call Necklace and on the bottom left is the biggest girl, Splats. Notice her lovely smile? She must be dreaming of the great meal she just finished. I had to spend some time teaching Tri Girl and Fussy how to eat off of a platter but there was no need to teach Splats how to eat.



This is a picture of the puppies at 17 days. They had just discovered each other and were biting on each others ears and barking for the first time. It's so funny when they make their first bark as they usually bark and then fall over. They aren't so steady on their feet yet at 17 days.



While her four sisters were learning to bark and play, Necklace was zonked out.



And finally, Shamrock spends less time in the whelping box these days and more time supervising from the leather chair in the puppy room. She thought it was rather insulting for the flash on the camera to disturb her nap here.


Did you survive the bitter cold weekend? I did, but barely. I'm very good at hibernating during the cold. My sister Rita came out on Sunday afternoon. Rita enjoys football just as much as I do not but I did want to sit down with her and watch at least 5 minutes of the Packer game simply because I had to see what kind of crazy fools would sit outdoors in -20 wind chill to watch football. I ended up watching the entire game and what a game it was. I'm sure it's the first entire football game I've watched in 10 years. I do know how to pick them don't I? My sister Rita has Down's so I don't think she quite understands the whole Packer mystique. I told her from the beginning I was cheering for the Green team so naturally Rita was cheering for the White team. Boy, did she have a good time razing me when her team won!

Sorry I don't have a current picture of Fame to post. Fame has been busy learning a few show dog lessons. I despair of ever training her to stand still and let a stranger examine her bite. My little Fame does have a stubborn streak.

No Knittng Content

It's a good thing this blog is not just a knitting blog as I've no new knitting progress to chat about. I am having to bottle feed my little tri-color girl every three hours and though I have it all down to an efficient system, I'm still longer for a full nights sleep. Whenever I find myself with a few minutes to knit, I find myself dozing off before I can even pick up my needles.



Here are the little treasures, all doing very well. Even the tri girl is strong and active as long as I keep up the feedings. They made it through the first week and we're into the second week now so hopefully everything will continue to be copacetic.



Look at Fame, she's getting so big. She's out grown her little dog bed. I left her at home today when we went to agility lessons. Oh my, was Fame unhappy about that!



And finally in this picture heavy blog, here's Percy, wondering where all his feathered food friends have gone. I've even neglected feeding my birds while I'm preoccupied feeding my puppy. I'll have to get out tomorrow and fill the feeders before the forecasted frigid weather comes.

Preemie Hat knitting

Jeanne and Chell over at k3tog have started up their annual January preemie hat knitting for the Children's Hospital of St. Paul. I wanted to contribute a few hats this year and I have quite a bit of baby yarn left over from various baby blankets I've made. The hats are so teeny tiny! It does not take long to make one and it takes very little yarn. Here's my first, sans a pompom on top because I've forgotten how to make pompoms so figure I'll knit up a few hats and then sit down one evening and make all the pompoms at once.



I so wanted Fame to model the hat for a picture but Fame was having no part of it and I feared for the survival of my newly knitted hat!

I have a bunch of green baby yarn and a whole bunch of blue I'd like to use up but I figure I best stick with the white and green so the hats can be worn by either boy or girl babies. I'm not sure how many I will finish but I will play around with these until the end of January. If you'd like to contribute just check out their web site for details.

I am starting to catch up on some of the sleep I lost while tending to puppies the last few days so am hoping to also finish up my Clapotis which seems to languish for long periods of time while I work on other projects.

I wanted to show a picture of the green traveling shells cardigan which took up so much of my 2007 knitting. My mom wore it at Christmas with a black blouse and black slacks and it really showed off the pattern.



It was so sweet of her to wear it on Christmas. Makes me want to fix all the mistakes I see in it -- or even consider making a second one since it would be better than the first. Eh, don't worry, I'm not about to tackle that project again!

Since I have no other knitting progress to talk about or display, here's some pictures of what has been taking up all my time the last few days.



Shamrock is looking rightly proud of her new brood.



From top, going clockwise is Necklace, Splat, Blackie, Two Spots and Fussy Mussy. Don't worry, these won't be their permanent names. (At least, they almost never become a puppy's permanent name.) These are their "weigh-in" names, names usually based on distinquishing markings I use to chart their weights for the first few weeks.

And of course Fame is still the delight of the house. She is getting so big and adult looking. For a while I thought Fame would not make it as a show dog but suddenly, she's looking rather nice. I think I might have to train her for the conformation ring in addition to obedience and agility. Here's a picture I caught of her being still. It's a bit out of focus but it is so difficult to get a picture of busy, constantly moving Fame. I managed to take this as she stalked watched the cat who was trying to get down from the kitchen counter.

Something new for the New Year

I know I've been ignoring my blog lately. There was the Holidays of course, a wonderful Christmas spent with all my family together, my parents home from AZ and my sister here from KY, along with all the rest of the family still living here in MN. It was a great Christmas.

Still, I ignored my blog even after Christmas. Here's the reason why:



These 5 beautiful girls (yes - all girls!) were born late last evening. I've been on pins and needles anticipating this litter since my last litter resulted in only a singleton. As wonderful as Fame is, a one puppy litter is still not a great success. Even when I had time to blog I couldn't. My mind was on nothing else but doing all I could to prepare for a successful litter. I was hoping for something a little bigger this time and it seems I've gotten my wish. So far at least. Everyone is healthy and fat. They have all nursed throughout the night and mama Shamrock is in good shape. The sire of the litter looks like this.

So wish us luck and good health.

Agility Trials

Dusty and I attended a weekend of NADAC agility trials after Christmas. It was So.Much.Fun. And Dusty did great besides having a blast. He even won his first class. I ordered a professional photo from the trial which won't arrive for 4-6 weeks so you'll have to be satisfied with this shot of Dusty taken while we practiced one frigid day after Christmas. Agility lessons are in an unheated building and I dress for the cold. It was strange to run agility indoors at the trials without at least 5 pounds of extra clothes on!



My sister took this picture along with several others of the dogs working and she took some beautiful family pictures during the Holiday get-togethers.

Knitting

I don't have any new knitting pictures to show. I'm finishing up some hand warmers in Dream In Color Smooshy and also my Clapotis. I can't wait to start something new but I am going to finish up these two projects first.