The Scottish Lamb

Ice, Ice, Baby

We got hit by quite an ice storm last night here in New York.  The boys had a two-hour delay.  Too bad we didn't know about it before everyone was up and ready.  Lucky slipped when Dan took him outside this morning so that's how we knew to check the roads.  It was some nasty stuff but made for some pretty pictures!  Of course the rest of the week calls for rain.  blech.

I keep forgetting to post the picture of  the socks I finished with Kim's yarns.  I think this colorway was called Boysenberry?  Kim??  I know it was some kind of berry.  Gorgeous stuff all the way around.

Also finished another gift for my grandfather.  A nice warm hat.  I used Elann's Uros and that same sock yarn that I used in his socks (trying to be thrifty, couldn't use the sock yarn for anything else). You can get the free pattern by clicking here.  It's very basic but I figured I'd save someone else doing the math.  I did the decreases at the crown by alternating ssk and K2tog so that there wouldn't be swirls.  My grandfather just doesn't strike me as a swirly kinda guy.

Jeremy comes for Christmas in a couple of weeks.  I CAN'T WAIT!!  We haven't seen him since he came home on R&R from Iraq almost three years ago.  He's doing so great in colleg that we're treating him to a night at a great B&B in the Catskills and two days of lift tickets.  I can't wait to see his face when he opens his stocking on Christmas morning.  He loves to snowboard and I told him I didn't know if we'd be able to make it up there or not but to bring his snowboard because there's actually a small slope right on West Point.  Bwahahaha.  I love surprising people.   Just hate being surprised.

Mountain Man Socks

Need a quick Christmas gift?  I have an idea for you.

This is a very basic, simple pattern that I came up with for my grandfather that I'm calling Quick & Thick Mountain Man Socks.  You can download the pattern by clicking here.

I used two strands of yarn together.  One strand of Elann's Peruvian Pure Alpaca in Black and one strand of a very fine German sock yarn.  It came out to 5.5 sts per inch.

We put our tree up on the first and I forgot to share my favorite ornament with you:

It's my little knitting lady from my favorite Christmas Store in Germany.

Joe is quite the crafter.  It was his favorite part of German Kindergarten.  He's always coming and asking me for the stapler and tape.  Last night I found this on the tree:

For as ornery as that kid can be... I think he just may be the one of my four boys that ends up a priest.  He can be very sweet when he wants to be and he's always the one that says grace at meals and worries about what time it is when it's almost time to go to Mass.  I found these pictures on an old website I used to keep.  This was Joe at about six months old in late 1999.  I knit it from Debbie Bliss' Nursery Knits.  I found the teddy bear buttons in a shop in Germany.

Knitter's Advent Calendar

A friend, Kelly, from the Elann chat site passed this gem on. THANK YOU, KELLY!

You've GOT to check it out:

Very Cool Knitter's Advent Calendar CLICK HERE

I just updated Lucky's progress website with new photos and a new video for the Rescue Group:
http://scottishlamb.typepad.com/casa_flores

Color Me Softly

About 12 minutes cost me the color I wanted in today's offering at Elann.

I've been on such a fiber diet since we moved back to the States due to the storage situation... or lack of... in this house.  I couldn't pass up on Jaeger Roma though.  I tried.  I really did but I love this sweater and the yarn is such a bargain I just couldn't resist.

The same thing that makes me walk away from bread while it's in the oven made me walk away from the computer just minutes before the bell went off.  Six minutes too late I ran back to the computer only to find that there already wasn't enough Fern left to make the lace sweater sample that's up with the yarn.  Bummer.  I also was bogged up because my credit card had expired and my mailing address was still the one in Germany!  Let this be a lesson for us all.  If I hadn't stopped buying yarn, my information on Elann would have been correct and maybe, just maybe, I'd have Fern.

That said, all is not lost.  After about five minutes of trying to decide between Denim and Sage I went for the Denim before I lost out completely.   I walked away completely drained and decided after all of that I deserved the Sage just in case I liked it better.  After all, Sage is my favorite color and not much different than the Fern.  I can never really picture stuff in my head so I played around in Photoshop.  Here's what I came up with:

Original in Fern:

in Sage:

in Denim:

I think I won either way, don't you?

No Place Better than New England for Tday

Lots to catch up on!  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We made the six-hour trek to New Hampshire.  We did pretty good traffic-wise.  Hit it in a few spots in Connecticut on the way there but pretty much smooth sailing other than that.

As if getting to live this close to my family isn't great enough already, it's even better because I get to visit with Kim and her hubby who live a very short drive from my family.   I was especially looking forward to her meeting Lucky since we both have a love for the Cavalier breed.  We met them for dinner on Friday night and she surprised me with this:

Gorgeous, no?  The pattern is Delicato Mitts from Anne Hanson at KnitSpot and the yarn is Kim's.  I'm telling you, the girl's got an eye for color and she seems to have my favorites down pat.

I've been working on socks with the yarn Kim gave me when we went up over Labor Day.  I guess it's only fitting that I show them in progress... I wasn't hiding them, Kim, I promise!

I tried the Sherman Heel on the heel and toe.  I love the way it looks but...  Dear. God!  If I don't have my mind completely on it I lose track and have to rip back.  I am getting the hang of it though and getting better at figuring out where I am without counting.  I've never had to rip back so many times.  I think it was worth it though.  NO GAPS!!!  Can I hear an AMEN?!

And then when we got home I found this little gem from Claudia in my mailbox:

Thank you so much, Claudia.  It was a fun little challenge.  And thanks, La, for telling me about it!

My grandparents gave me a great gift as well.  A photo album put together by my great-grandmother on Gram's side.  I've promised to scan every page and photo and make CD's for everyone.  I couldn't wait to get it home to compare to my family history notes.  This is my great-grandmother x3, Christiana Lewis (Soule) Chick (left). 

Her sister, Judith Thomas Soule, is on the right.  Christiana is my favorite person in our history because through census reports I've been able to get the most information on her.  She is my link to all my Mayflower ancestors.

It's getting very cold and grey here in the Hudson Valley.  This is the view my boys have on their way to/from school each day and every weekend when we attend Mass.  This is taken from the Catholic Chapel here at West Point.

Yeah! I can still Stricken with the best of them...

I loves me a challenge.  Especially a quick little one that's not too hard.  ;-)

I saw La's post yesterday and thought it looked like fun so I looked up the pattern. 

When we did our first tour in Germany I did a lot of lace knitting and the German Lace Knitting mags were awesome and plentiful.  I couldn't believe how it all came back to me.  I did this swatch and only had to look up the definition for the SL2 K PSSO.  Not bad for a girl who's best phrase in German was, "Noch ein Beir, bitte" after living in Germany most of her adult life.

Thanks for the fun, Claudia!

Hot Diggity Dog

As you can see, Lucky is coming along nicely.  Since he's still a little lacking in the hair department, he needed a sweater for our daily walks that help build his muscle tone and confidence.  Isn't he handsome?  He's even sweeter than he looks if you can believe it.   For you dog lovers I did a cute little video to show the Rescue Group how much he's come out of his shell.  You can see by clicking here:

Pattern:  Fiber Trends Dandy Dog Sweaters (with some adjustments).

Yarn: Elann's Highland Wool in Claret (#2020)

I'm one of those people that never follows a recipe exactly (and then wonder why it doesn't taste the same) and I rarely follow a pattern exactly.  Instead of knitting the chest piece I just knit a band in garter stitch to go around his belly and then I knit a little triangular gusset to fill in where the polo neck pulled apart under the front of the collar.

Work it, Lucky!

Thank A Veteran Today

Thank a vet today.  It's quick, easy and they really appreciate it.

Click HERE

I blame aging eyes...

It seems that I made a huge error in my last post.  Ann wrote a comment that these were not sweaters on the women in Greenland, but part of their National Costume.  Not wool at all but large collars made of BEADS!  Get out!  Of course I didn't believe her, I'm stubborn like that, and Googled it....

Holy smokes, my eyes have really been getting worse in the last couple of years, but I REALLY thought those were knit sweaters.    Ann was completely correct.  Click here and check it out.  I wondered why I hadn't heard of this type of knitting since my first love is color knitting.  It looked very much like the Lopi sweaters of Iceland so I just assumed it was knitting.  In my research I found that there's actually some backing to my assumption:  Click here. Thank you, Ann!  Very interesting.

Knits in the News

Did anyone catch the Today Show on Tuesday?  I was walking by the TV and caught site of these knits:

Very cool knits.  I love the simplicity of the baby hats.  The gorgeous yoke sweaters were on members of a choir group on the steps of a beautiful red church.

Thanks for all the kind notes about Lucky. He's a sweetheart and improving constantly.  I started them both on Biotin, Vitacaps and Cetyl M last week.  If anyone has any tips for feeding powder supplements please share.  I've been mixing it in with a little wet dog food and then putting the vitacap in the middle and giving it to them as a treat.  Aggie's ears get in it (and Lucky's will when his coat comes in) and it's a big mess.

I wish Aggie would learn some of his great manners.  He walks beautifully on a leash - no pulling at all, he doesn't jump on people and he has yet to bark (not that Aggie is a constant barker but she she goes off when a chipmunk comes on the back patio).  Each day he gets a little bolder, a little stronger, a little fatter and grows a little more hair.  It's hard to believe that a couple of months ago he was bald and starving.  He's almost lost his naked baboon butt. lol.

I cast a sweater on for him from Fiber Trends (Dandy Dog Sweaters) with Elann Highland Wool in a Claret (2020).  I should be finished with it by the weekend.  Good thing because it's getting COLD here in the Hudson Valley.

When Aggie first started to play with him he would just run for the safety of the sofa and then lay on his back.  Now he's running across the room at her and pouncing on her.  It's so good to see.  The "fight" for the bag continues.  This bag is barely big enough for him but somehow they both get in there:

There is almost constant puppy play in our house now and it's very good.