Springtime

I've been absent from my blog (and yours too!) for a bit. Busy with job work, springtime yard and house work, agility trials (definitely not work), and having to travel for work. Ugh to the traveling. It's not that I object to traveling so much as I objected to the reason for my latest trip, and it's not like there's a lot new to see in Silicon Valley. It is what it is. Though I will say there seemed to be less traffic and far more office space for lease then my last visit to the Mecca Of High Tech. A not so good sign of the times I'm afraid.

While I was gone I left my numerous dogs in the very capable hands of Heidi, who did the most amazing job. She not only took great care of the dogs, and Percy, but left me a nice paragraph or two on each day describing who got their required meds, if Percy was in or out, who had loose stool, who didn't eat all their food, but she also left many great pictures of the dogs. My dogs not only survived without me, they also seemed to have a great time while I was gone. If you're in the area and looking for a dog sitter, I highly recommend Heidi. And I don't do that lightly or often.

Knitting

I do have a new finished object. It's the baby blanket I have been knitting for my nephew's new son. I think it turned out quite nice. This blanket was very simple and quick to knit. This is the Eyelet Squares Blanket from Vogue Knitting On The Go Baby Blankets Two. This is a reverse stockinette pattern so here's the wrong side of baby blanket:



And this is the "right" side:



I think either way looks just as nice, an important aspect for a baby blanket if you ask me.

The blanket was knit in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. I enjoyed working with this yarn as much as I did not enjoy working with the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran for my Amelia sweater.

Here's another picture of Amelia, all block and already worn once or twice.



My current project is a pair of Dropping Elm socks for my mom for Mother's Day. Yes, I know Mother's Day was a bit ago. My gift is late, what can I say. Worse yet, this is not the second sock, this is only the first sock. I have some catching up to do.



Dogs

I think I last showed a picture of Dusty after his neuter surgery. Well, Dusty managed to pull his stitches out not once, not twice, but three times! It took forever for his incision to heal. I guess he let me know what he thought about being neutered. Here is Dusty with the huge E-collar he wore for almost three weeks. He was not too happy about it, then again, I was not too happy about the 3 extra trips to the vet - nor the three extra vet bills.



I'm happy to say Dusty is all healed now and running in agility again. He's also frozen for posterity too. I love science. I now have the best of both worlds, all neutered males in my house and their sperm in the bank for future use. Life is good.

Percy

Last fall I hired a tree company to do a bunch of clean up around here. It really needed to be done but I was worried my birds might not return to nest this spring as they have in the past. All those old, storm blown trees in the fence rows and those weedy trees along the driveway might not look too pretty but they make excellent bird habitat. I'm happy to report I have an abundance of birds again this spring. Grosbeaks, orioles, larks, warblers, blue birds, they're all here.

The blue birds are not in the nesting boxes I have set out for them, but they are all over my yard each day, perching on the agility equipment before they swoop down to catch their meals. Since they are not in their boxes, I decide I could let Percy continue to be an indoor/outdoor cat. That is, until I found a dead Indigo Bunting this morning. I'm not sure Percy killed it, in his defense I will say Percy eats his prey and this bird was not mutilated. Still, I decided Percy will stay in the house now until mid-July. It's torture for him and torture for me too. He howls and whines and scratches to get out. It's close to intolerable for me to listen to him. Here is Percy finally catching a nap in his favorite old bed in the basement. It's not a very good picture but the sound of the camera was starting to wake him and I was not ready for that, I needed a few more minutes of peace and quiet. It will be a long 6-8 weeks for Percy and me. Wish us luck!

Amelia Is Finished

Knitting

I finished Amelia. Here is a picture before blocking. It looks much better after blocking but the picture I took after blocking makes the color look a very dull gray. Definitely not this sweater!



I thought this was a great pattern, easy to follow, no mistakes, fun to knit. I've been wanting to try this type of sweater construction and Amelia was a very nice pattern to do it with. The sweater fits almost perfectly. The sleeves are a little wide but this is my mistake. I knit the second size up for the body and meant to knit the smaller size for the sleeves but I forgot. Still, it's not a big deal. I love the sweater and am sure I'll wear it often.

I'm not as crazy about the yarn, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I found the yarn not at all forgiving of being reknit. There's lots of mistakes in this sweater and normally I would have corrected these. I actually enjoy the process of dropping stitches and using knitting and crochet needles to pick all the stitches back up correctly. It's like magic to me! However, after doing it a few times with this yarn, I realized the yarn didn't hold up to being reknit and it looked much better to just leave the mistakes in. I'll try to get a better picture in the daylight tomorrow. Overall, I'm very happy with the project.

I've known all winter I wanted to knit a baby blanket for my nephew's new son, due in early May. Early May, it seemed so far away. Now it's just a few weeks away. And to make matters worse, I'm in the midst of the most awful rheumatoid arthritis flare. I think I've mentioned before on this blog I have RA. I've gone almost two years with barely a hint of symptoms. Just 10-11 days ago I ran 3 dogs at two days of agility trials. Now, I'm almost bed/couch ridden. I'll get better, we'll have to tweak medicines and amounts, but sooner or later, this too will pass. I do hope it's sooner.

Meanwhile, I had to completely change my plans for the baby blanket. My stiff, aching fingers and wrists are not up to the lovely, lacy, heirloom of a baby blanket I had planned. However, I found this tumbling block pattern in Vogue Knitting On The Go Baby Blankets Two and immediately realized it's the perfect pattern for sore hands. This construction will only require me to knit the full blanket size for one 16 row pattern repeat. Too nice! Besides, I think it's an attractive pattern, not to mention very easy. Here's the right side of the pattern:



I think the wrong side looks just as nice, a good feature in a baby blanket as babies are known for kicking their blankies about.



I'm knitting this on size 5 Addis using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Baby in a bright turquoise color.

Dogs

Let's see, JJ completed his Open Standard agility title. Whisper finished her Novice Standard and Novice Jumpers with Weaves. Dusty's making fast progress towards his MX and MXJ and sweet, shy little Bunny has two legs towards the three she needs to complete her Rally Novice title. Bunny even won first place for one the legs. She and Dak are entered in Rally and Obedience trials respectively this coming weekend and I'm hoping to be well enough to show them.

I couldn't manage a walk to the mailbox this past Saturday but did manage it on Easter Sunday. There I found the results from Dusty and JJ's DM tests. JJ is a carrier - that's good, it means he cannot get the disease himself, though he could pass it on, and Dusty, Dusty is CLEAR! Hurray! So far there's turning out to be few Pembrokes testing Clear of DM. It's great news for Dusty himself and for all his offspring. I'm still waiting for the results of several of the girls I tested.

Despite his good news, Dusty was neutered today. He's six, going on seven years old and starting to have some minor prostrate problems. I figure best to "nip" (if you'll excuse the pun) these prostrate problems early. Dusty also has a sore shoulder and is on strict crate/leash rest for four weeks (absolutely no agility, bummer!) so it seemed like the perfect time to do the deed. Luckily, I had Dusty collected and frozen almost four years ago and we were able to collect and freeze 5 more samples today before his surgery. Dusty's swan song I guess :-)



Dusty's feeling a bit under the weather tonight, but he'll be good as new in a few days.