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.

New Projects and Completed Projects

Whew, I'm still feeling the relief of completing the Traveling Shells Cardigan. It was a complicated project for me and I'm proud of myself for completing it, but I gotta tell ya, my next two projects are strictly for fun, usefulness, fun, ease, and fun. Enough of being a strict and serious knitter!



I wanted to wait for a sunny day to take pictures of my two new projects as the variegated yarn for both is so beautiful and a flash lit picture taken indoors at night just does not do justice to either yarn. It seems, however, the sun has deserted MN. We are in the middle of the 40 days and 40 nights of rain. Please God or Noah, send me a SAD lamp!

I started the Jacoby fingerless hand warmers. A nice, simple k2p2 pattern. I really need and use these hand warmers during the winter as I am too cheap frugal to heat my house much in the winter and my hands get cold as I'm on the keyboard all day. I'm making these out of Dream In Color Smooshy. This is the second Dream In Color yarn I've used and I love it. So easy to knit with, never wants to split, slides along the needle easily, Smooshy is a great yarn.





My second project is my Clapotis. I'm on the increase section of the pattern and enjoying this very much. It's an easy pattern to remember and fun to knit. I don't have to concentrate on it much, I can even knit it while I watch TV. Now that's nice! Unfortunately, this picture does not show off the beautiful autumnal colors of the Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb yarn I am using. The sun is suppose to shine on Saturday. If so, I'll try to get a better picture then.

Oops! I almost logged off without posting a picture of Fame. How could I forget?



Even worse, I forgot to post pictures of my new bathrooms! How could that happen? I'm so glad it's done. I highly recommend the folks who did my bathrooms (and kitchen, floors, woodwork and bedrooms). If you want their name, contact me privately. But I am SO GLAD they are done and gone. It is so nice to have my lovely "new" house to myself again. Guess I've lived too long by myself.