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!

So Happy With This

Knitting and Sewing

I finished my little hat. I'm not as happy with it as I was with the first hat I knit from this pattern. I think my choice of yarn was at fault. The Risata yarn is too stretchy for this pattern, thus the lace layer does not fit as well over the stockinette layer as it should. Still, I'll wear it. It is warm and the colors match my down jacket - a neccesity in Minnesota (the down jacket that is, not the matching hat). Still, I'm  disappointed in the results.

Finally had time to get back to quilting today. I have been waiting on batting ordered online to finish the green and pink quilt. The batting arrived a few weeks ago but between agility seminars and trials, finally had a free Saturday today.

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm quilting this in sections. After completing one section today, I'm so psyched about this method. It was much easier to quilt a small piece compared to trying to quilt an entire twin sized quilt on my little machine. Quilting one third of it at a time was not difficult at all and was actually fun! Above is the first completed section. I still have two more sections to go. I'll join them all together once they are all quilted. It will create a bit more bulk but these are not show quilts, they are just my playing around with my hobbies.

Here is the back of the quilt. I think it shows the quilting a bit more. Nothing fancy, I'm still a beginner, but so happy I found this method of quilting in sections. Someday, when I piece together an intricate, beautiful quilt top, I'll send it out to be professionally quilted. Meanwhile, I am very happy with pieceing together my simple quilts.

I have two more sections to sandwich, pin and quilt. I'd like to think I'll get them done tomorrow but tomorrow I need to accomplish so much of my spring work, washing windows, putting on window screens, moving all the agility equipment outside, putting up the bird houses, feeders and fountains, I'll be very lucky to get even an hour for sewing or knitting.

Dogs

I've ignored the dogs in my  last few posts.

We've been doing many agility trials and even an agility seminar or two. It's been fun and a great way to ignore the long, snowy winter. The two pictures below are not the greatest quality but are of my little girl Tinkerbelle. Perhaps you remember her from my last litter? Tinkerbelle is 16 pounds of hard driving, "I can't go fast enough" agility dog . She is the love of my life - please don't tell the other dogs - and very much in love with life herself!

Above she is slamming through the weaves.

And here she is about to slam the teeter. Belle is so much fun. Tinkerbelle seems to understand she's not just running for herself but also for her old friend Fame, another "I just can't run fast enough" agility dog. It's a lot of weight for sixteen pound Belle to carry yet she does it so well.  For you Minnesotans, yep, that's the big Gopher "M" in the background. These classes were held at the livestock arena on the St. Paul campus of the U of MN. The classes are over for the season now. We look forward to next fall when they start up again.

I have devoted much time to agility in the past two years yet do not want to give up on obedience training. I read an article recently in Front And Finish about training a dog for 5 minutes a day for a year and being able to get a Utility Dog title. Hum...I don't know, that is a big goal if you ask me. Still, a very intriguing goal. So I'm going to try it. No, not necessarily getting a Utility Dog title, but I'm going to try training Dusty for 5 minutes a day for a year and see where we end up. So far, I've stuck to my goal for a whopping 3 days! I'll try to keep my blog updated on my progress.

It was way past time to get rid of the flannel Christmas themed dog throws I had over the dogs' beds. Today I splurged at Wally World and bought new dog throws to put over their raised bed. Doesn't Dusty look regal on his new royal blue blanket? He is the the king!

And please excuse the X-rated picture of Shamrock. She not only knows how to relax, she deserves it!