Catch Up Time

After a busy summer where I've been absent from my own and my friends' blogs, I decided it was time to do a short update.

Knitting and Sewing

I finished my Watershed shrug. It was a fun knit, a very different construction than I've done before which made this an interesting project. Watershed should be a quick knit, unfortunately my RA really flared up this summer and affected my wrists and fingers the most. I could only manage a few minutes of knitting a day before the pain was too much. What a bummer. I wanted to knit, it just hurt too much. Still, the sweater is finished, I enjoyed knitting it and it's something I will actually wear.

I used only two balls of Rowan Calmer in a purple-ish pink color. Knit on size 8 Addi Turbo needles.

I'm currently taking advantage of my good working fingers and wrists and working on small projects, a few hats and scarves for Christmas gifts.

Back in May I made a big purchase, an Elna 7300 sewing machine. Isn't it pretty? This machine is meant for someone with far better sewing skills than I have, but my reasoning is this, once I'm retired and have more time to sew and improve my skills, I won't be able to afford such a nice machine. So I bought it now while I'm still working. It was my contribution to the stimulus program too! I'm still learning all the features and there are many I haven't even read about yet, all in good time I figure.

I finished my Pink and Green quilt and am happy with it. It's a simple pattern which gave me lots of practice sewing straight seams and making my pieces fit properly. I wanted to quilt it myself so I split the quilt into three sections and created a "quilt as you go" project. I'm so happy I did this. It was much easier to quilt smaller sections rather than wrestling with a large quilt. Blind hem stitching the sections together by hand wasn't quite as much fun...

I love the back of this quilt. I have a bit of the fabric left over and think I'll make a few place mats out of it.

 

Here's a quilt top I worked on but is in hiatus for a while. I will quilt this in sections also and haven't decided yet on a quit pattern. Meanwhile, I am going to start on a few Christmas themed table runners. Time to work on a few smaller projects and concentrate on improving my skills.

Dogs

The dogs and I did many agility trials this summer and even a few (very few) obedience trials.

Happy boy JJ came through for me in the end and finished his AX (agility excellent) title which gave him his Versatile Corgi (VC) award. While I plan to continue to trial JJ in agility and chip away at his MX and MXJ (master agility titles) I am concentrating on his obedience training. JJ in obedience? I'm probably crazy but I do so enjoy working with this silly, happy dog, so obedience it is.

Fancy finished her Championship in 4 weekends in May. That went fast! She's so pretty though, I wasn't surprised.

Tinkerbelle started her agility career. I thought she'd breeze right through to the excellent level but we've hit a few snags. We're getting back on track now, still have a few teamwork issues to work out and some fears of strange contact equipment like the teeter and especially strange dog walks. That's what it's all about though, working together, spending time together training and having fun. The picture is proof at least Belle is having fun! This great picture was taken by Great Dane Photos.

Here's a picture of Tinkerbelle and Rumor aroo-roo-rooing together. Wish I had the sound to go with this picture. They start and stop together and stay in tune the whole time. It's so cute!

It's Back!

Knitting

I got my knitting mojo back! I don't know where it went or why it left, but it's back and I'm thrilled. I think it was seeing this pattern, Watershed. I ordered the pattern as soon as I saw it and then went digging through my stash and came up with more than enough Rowan Calmer in a bright purple/pink color. I'm not sure Calmer is a good yarn substitute, I don't see it used too often in lacy patterns, but it's the right gauge and so far I'm liking the look of it. Besides, I've been spending a lot of money on the dogs lately so it was nice to use yarn I already had.

Here is the beginning of the bottom lace edge. It's going quickly now but it took me about an hour to get started. I wanted to teach myself how to do a figure 8 cast on. There's plenty of videos and instructions on the web, but being a lefty, I have to struggle with thinking in mirror images.

In addition to starting something new, I also went through my unfinished projects. I'm determined to finish them.

I started this chevron scarf a long time ago. This is Lorna's Laces sock yarn. I love the yarn and the color. The reason I put the project on the back burner is because I'm not much of a scarf wearer. I'm trying to figure out what else I could use the yarn for instead of a scarf I'll never wear. Socks seem the likely candidate I know, but I'm not crazy about knitting socks. I have more than enough yarn for a shawl, but I'm not much of a shawl wearer either and these are bright colors for a shawl. Any ideas?

And this is my Cameo sweater from Custom Knits. All I have left are the button bands and the little capped sleeves. It should only be a few hours work. I'm having trouble getting it done though because the sweater is going to be too small. I'll finish it though, I hate leaving things undone.

Best of all, I finished my Mother's Day gift in plenty of time.


Dogs

Wait, isn't that a picture of a rabbit? Yes, it is. There's a family of rabbits living and copulating under my pine trees in an unfenced area of the yard I use for agility training. I'm not a fan of bunnies at all and I'd like them to move on. Cute as they may be, rabbits are covered in fleas and full of tape worms. I don't want my pets around rabbits.

Percy is a great rabbit killer, but I'm keeping him in the house until the 5 baby bluebirds leave their nest. I have several dogs who are excellent and experienced bunny killers. I'll omit their names to protect the guilty. I could send the dogs out to dispatch of the bunny family, but then they'd be covered with fleas.

My A-frame is sitting unused because, in addition to the rabbit family, the wheels on the A-frame mover broke and I can't move the A-frame myself without the A-frame mover. I'm afraid to move the tunnel because I'm thinking there will be nests of baby bunnies under it, or worse, snakes. Guess we'll do obedience training in the basement today.  Like Scarlett, I'll think about it tomorrow.