'Tis The Season

I started getting ready for the Holiday Season on Thanksgiving weekend. Decorations up, online shopping completed, some knitting and sewing projects completed and others started, but then I fell behind. Finally mailed my packages last week with fingers crossed they will arrive by Christmas. I'm doing Christmas cards while I wait for pictures to be uploaded to blogger.

(Dear Santa, Could you please bring me a faster internet connection for Christmas?
"Only if you move to a better neighborhood Mary where such things actually exist."
Okay Santa, I figured there was no harm in asking.)

Knitting and Sewing

I've finished knitting several small projects and still have one more hat to complete before Christmas.

Here's a scarf knit in Misty Alpaca Chunky. I think I've made at least half a dozen of these over the years. It's quick knit and the yarn, 100% baby alpaca, is so soft and luxurious. I finished this on Thanksgiving and stuff it in a plastic bag! Good thing I got it out today to take a picture of it as it needs a good washing and blocking now.  And there's ends to sew in also.

I made another reversible hat of one of my brothers. It's much more attractive on than it looks here.

When completed, it looks like a closed tube.

But once shaped, it becomes a reversible hat. This is knit in Elann's Sock It To Me yarn on size 3 needles. Miles and miles of mindless stockinette knitting. I did a lot of this over a three day agility trial and yes, I still need to wash the dog hair out of this hat and block it.

One last hat, this one done in Cascade Cloud Nine with a pattern from The Rainey Sisters. Yet another hat I need to wash and block yet.

My quilting skills are improving bit by bit. I finished this table runner and am very proud of it. My blocks fit together almost perfectly and my quilting stitches are very nice. Still struggling with the binding though. This was made from a kit by Connecting Threads in fabric "Wrap It Up".

I received a Kindle as a Christmas present (yes I open my presents early!) so made a cover for the Kindle. This pattern is loosely based on The Bookeeper pattern I found in the Moda Bake Shop. I loved it and was proud of the job I did - right up until the binding. Still struggling. Oh well, practice makes perfect right?

Birds

We've had so much snow this year feeding the birds has become somewhat of a chore these days what with having to wade through all the deep snow. It's a lot of fun though to watch the birds from inside a warm house.

The pheasants are back.

And of course the turkeys.

I buy cheap, mostly corn based, bird seed for the pheasants and turkeys because they eat me out of house and home. However, cheaper seed attracts the house sparrows who then compete with and kill the bluebirds in the spring for housing. It's a dilemma for sure.

Dogs

I had a successful year with my dogs.

Ch Kantishna Make Believe
Fancy finished her championship in 4 weekends in May making up my 26th champion. She's already entered in agility trials in January and starting to work on her heeling and retrieving. She is a fun, fun girl.

Ch Busy B's Dakota's Bright Sunshine UD RE AX AXJ VC
Dak completed his OAJ, AX and AXJ. Dak should finish up his MX and MXJ in early 2011 and we'll see where we go after that.

Ch Kantishna Star Kissed CDX RE AX AXJ AXP AJP VC
Dot finished her OAP, AXP and AJP this year. She will soon be 10 years old so is retired - I think, might go back and do some Rally with her as she hates being left out of all the activities. In addition to her own accomplishments, Dot has produced several wonderful working dogs. Thank you Dot!

Ch Kantishna Jump For Joy PT AX AXJ VC
My wonderful JJ. With a lot of hard work and I'm sure every jumping exercise ever known to the world of agility, JJ managed to keep the bars up long enough to finish his Excellent titles. I'm pretty sure he's retired now from agility. However, JJ's back taking herding lessons and doing very well with his obedience training.

Kantishna Keep'n A Secret MX MXJ
Whisper finished her MX and MXJ this year. She's very consistent in agility but not very fast. I've yet to decide what goals to set for Whisper next year. Perhaps some obedience...

Kantishna Keep'n In Motion CD RN
Shy little Bunny held it together long enough to capture her CD. This is a huge accomplishment for Bunny. I will continue to torture :) her in 2011 with more obedience training and trials

Ch Busy B's Dakota's Moon Dust CD PT MX MXJ VC
There was a new CD title for Dusty in 2010 and definitely more obedience planned for Dusty in 2011. Dusty produced two litters of puppies this year and we have high hopes for successful conformation and performance Pembrokes for these puppies. One already has her TD!

Ch Busy B's St. Patricks Day Parade CD RN
Shamrock also finished her CD title this year and should be starting on her open title in early 2011.

Kantishna Believe In Me OA OAJ
I sure do believe in you Tinkerbelle! After a rough start where Belle and I had to work through some injury issues, team work and training issues, I think we're back on track for a successful 2011. In addition to agility, Belle is also doing lots of obedience training.

Whew, I think that's everyone!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

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!

March Already

It's March already. I set a goal to blog at least twice a month and I failed as early as February. I also set a goal to obedience train certain of my dogs for 5 minutes a day and I haven't come close to reaching that goal either.

My work life's been a bit of a hassle lately. The company I worked for was acquired by another company and I suddenly find myself a day one employee with no vacation working for a company I can't imagine I would have ever wanted to work for. Oh well, in this economy and at my age, a job is a job.

Knitting and Sewing

I finished my first quilt. It's not just my first quilt, I also taught myself to sew by doing this quilt. Despite all the mistakes, I'm very happy with it. The pattern is from Easy Quilts, Fall 2009.

Next I tackled another basic project, a "Peppers" table runner to match the new rugs in my kitchen. This was really fun and came together quickly. My flying geese are not very "pointy" but I'm cutting myself some slack. I'm still learning. Here the material is from my local Wal-Mart.

I started yet another basic quilt in pink and green, one of my favorite color combinations. Here it is laid out on the floor. A simple pattern of squares to see if I can make the seams match. The fabric is Nicey Jane by Heather Bailey. I have it partially pieced together now while I wait for more batting to arrive. I am going to try quilting this in pieces using directions from Marti Michell's Machine Quilting In Sections.

I'm knitting this hat from Lace Style. It's the second time I've made this hat, this time out of Risata from Knit Picks. I'm a bit further along than the picture shows. I had high hopes of finishing it this afternoon until my day was rudely interrupted by a stray, somewhat vicious dog who refused to leave...a long story.

Dogs

Shame on me! I have no recent pictures of the dogs to share. My training time today was taken up dealing with the stray dog who managed to get his foot caught in my fence. In the end, the sheriff had to be called. The dog will be at the humane society tomorrow. I wonder if his owners are looking for him? Or even know he is gone?

So I'll leave you today with a picture of the grapefruit sandwich cookies I made from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I love making sandwich cookies and I'm a big Martha fan. These are very good.

Mr. Shyness And My First Quilt

Birds

So often people say to me, "You can tell we have a heavy snow cover when the pheasants and turkeys come up to eat the bird seed". Ah, hello? You can't already tell we have a heavy snow cover? It's like the people who say "Oh look at the sun dogs, must be a cold morning". Seriously, if you need sun dogs to tell you it's way below -20 F, I  think you need to live somewhere besides the Northern Plains.

Okay, sorry, being this cold for so long makes me crabby. I've been trying to get pictures of Mr. Shyness for a few days. This rooster has been very camera shy. I guess he was finally cold and hungry enough to hang around for a few pictures. 

Isn't he pretty? My pheasant family this winter consists of Mr. Shyness and his two ladies. They are living out under my pine trees. One of the females appears to be younger than the other. She's quite a bit smaller and has a little tuft, or cowlick, on the top of her head. So cute! The girls hang around through the dog barking and camera clicking so I haven't been as determined to catch them on film (film? I guess I should say "bits and bytes") as I have been Mr. Shyness. I'll try to post pictures of the cowlick tufted female next.

I've finally given in and purchased corn and other cheap bird seed for the pheasants and turkeys. I really don't like to do this. Not because I don't love my pheasants and turkeys, and birds of course, but because it seems I'm only spending my own money so next autumn trespassers can come and shoot the birds I've fed all winter and have a human feast of their own, never offering me a single bird and certainly never an apology for trespassing all over my property. I'm not anti-hunting, but I've sure become anti-hunter in the last few years. These folks need to learn manners and a whole lot about property rights. Don't even get me started on the snowmobilers and ATVers. Argh!

First Quilt

I needed another hobby like I needed a hole in my head, so I started my first quilt a few weeks ago. Here it is ready to to be pieced together.

And here with painters tape ready to be quilted.

The actual machine quilting is not going too well. I have a lot to learn yet and am finding machine quilting difficult. Still, I'm enjoying it tremendously. I might not be good yet, but I'm learning and having a lot of fun.

Dogs

One of the few New Year's resolutions I made this year was to spend more time obedience training my dogs. So far I've done alright with this resolution, not nearly as much time as I would like to, but at least I'm thinking about it.

Dusty is doing great on his heeling work. He is still "butt out" in his heeling, something I find so typical in new-to-heeling dogs. I'm using the two leash method and also doing lots of heeling against a wall to help fix this. Dusty is reaching well for his dumb bell. I'm very pleased with this progress, but he's not holding the dumb bell well, lots of rolling of the dumb bell and nervous "chewing" of it. I have come to realize these days I'm a bit old fashion in teaching a "hold", but I think it is imperative to a good retrieve. I want a dog to hold the dumb bell, glove, article, whatever, still in his mouth, be able to heel and also execute a finish with the dumb bell held still in the mouth. Only then will I move on to the actual retrieve exercises. We're getting there, Dusty is so willing to learn and happy to co-operate, it's just a matter of more time and work on my part.

Shamrock needs more work on the broad jump. She doesn't quite understand the jumping through the middle of the jump yet, she figures it's just as well to jump over the corner of the jump and come to me. I'm using lots of props to get her past this in addition to having her jump with me on both the left and right side of the broad jump. We're working on the Utility hand signals and go-outs. My basement is too narrow to do much with the directed jumping so that will have to wait a few months yet. So far, I'm very pleased with her progress.

Bunny is in a holding pattern at the moment on her retrieve, go-outs and automatic sits. There's nothing wrong with her automatic sits on heeling, it's just that they are so darn fast, I need to learn to adjust to her. Or, better yet, she needs to learn to adjust to my foot work - now there's an idea! As for retrieving, and her go-outs too, Bunny does that herding dog thing of making a WIDE arch to get to her dumb bell or go-out spot. I'm not concentrating on the go-outs with her yet, as for the retrieves, I've tried a thin ribbon slipped under her collar to keep her "in" when I send her for the dumb bell, but Bunny is so shy and worried, she stops and freezes up as soon as she feels the "pressure" (such as it is (not!)) from the ribbon. I'm back to kneeling beside her for the retrieves and go-outs. This is working. I'm not however, looking forward to my aching knees as I slowly work my way up to a standing position. I'm thinking on a better way to change this behaviour...  Bunny doesn't like props, she's afraid of everything and anything that seems out of place, so I haven't tried props yet, but I'm thinking hard on this...

Bookends Dak and Dot