The Scottish Lamb

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.

Fitting In

I can't believe that I keep forgetting to tell you guys about this....  Last year I mentioned in one of my posts about a surprise but it was hush hush at the time.  One of the Elannites, Michelle Ciccariello, was working on a possible book deal and asked if any of us would volunteer to test knit for her.  This is the sweater that I knit.  I sent it in unfinished because I was under a time crunch with Dan coming home from Afghanistan and we were getting ready for the move back to the States.   A bunch of us on the Elann chat site decided to give it to one of our own who is going through Chemo.  I sent it off last week with cards from some of us.  I'm getting kind of nervous because I haven't heard yet if she got it.  I'm sure it'll catch up with her.  I hope I'm not letting the cat out of the bag but I don't think she reads my blog so I'm feeling pretty safe about having a big mouth.  :-)

Especially gorgeous on Margaux, the daughter of wonderful Ann, owner of Elann.  Click here for the pattern.   It's knit in Highland Wool.  Thank you Ann, for giving me permission to use the photo here!

I'd say Lucky's getting comfortable around here.  This morning he decided that his new favorite place is Aggie's bag.  She isn't too happy about it.  I'm going to go out to our storage place to get one of the larger crates we have so they can share.

The woman that actually rescued him from the mill wrote to me and told me that the conditions were awful and they weren't sure he was going to make it.  He most likely spent all of his life (he'll be three in February) in a cage of some sort just being used for breeding.  There was a special on Entertainment Tonight last night about puppy mills.  I was a little disappointed in how little they said but there's a second part on tonight so I'm hoping that it has more detail.  Click here to see the clip.

He's doing really well considering what he came from.  He doesn't walk hunched down anymore and comes running to me a lot when he sees me.  He and Aggie have actually played... sort of.  It's more like she's playing and he's laying on his back swatting every now and then.  He also tried to play with her ball yesterday but he got scared when it moved and ran for the sofa (where he felt safe until he took over Aggie's bag). 

It's really hard to get used to the fact that he can't hear us.  I still call him and then slap myself on the forehead and think, "Oh yea... that's right... he can't hear..."  Kim told me about a supplement to try to help his joints and an added benefit is that it might reduce any swelling in his ears and help him hear better.  Here's hoping!  I've also ordered some things to help with his coat from Fosters & Smith.

Lucky

We have some huge new family news but first a little knitting.  I finished the scarf for my Gram.  This is the yarn and pattern that I bought at Morehouse Farms when I went to meet Jennifer.  Simple Feather & Fan but I can't tell you how many times I had to frog back several (once it was about six inches) rows to fix an error.  I even tried once to just drop down the stitches where the repeat error was but I made a bigger mess of it.  Click on the pic for a bigger view.  This merino yarn was SO soft and the colors are beautiful.  Because I used two skeins, I did two rows and then switched skeins so that the color variation would be more even.  There was quite a difference which gives it that striped effect.

Now the big news...

We'd been toying with the idea of getting a companion for Aggie.  We thought about a puppy and then thought we'd look into rescue.  Cavs are such a great dog that there aren't a lot of them in rescue (well, one is too many, but compared to other breeds there aren't a lot of them) but I looked anyway.  And then we saw this guy who was rescued by Lucky Star Cavalier Rescues from a Missouri puppy mill.  These two photo were taken after he'd been in rescue care for about a month.

When he was rescued he had a terrible case of mange.  You've seen Aggie and other healthy Cavs on Kim's blog, so you can see how badly he was treated.  He's also deaf, which no doubt in my mind, is due to ear infection, I could be wrong but it wouldn't surprise me at all. 

So I wrote to his foster mom and told her we'd love to bring him home and give him the love he needs.  Sadly, she wrote back that he was already being adopted.  We wrote back and forth a few more times and last Thursday morning must have been our lucky day because I got an email from his foster mom saying that the adoption had fallen through and if we were serious we could have him!  I would have left right then and there but we had Joe's parent/teacher conference Friday morning.  As soon as that was over I hit the road for the twelve-hour drive through NY, NJ, WV, PA, OH to IN to pick him up.  About halfway there I was thinking, "What the hell am I doing"... do you have any idea how wide PA is?!  It was 730 miles each way... at least 400 of that was PA! lol.

The second I saw him I knew it was worth every single mile and every gallon of gas.  He is the sweetest dog I've ever met.  It was a pretty full weekend getting him accustomed to our home but he's fitting right in.  He's very skittish.  It's hard to remember that he's deaf.  He can hear a loud whistle, shout or when Aggie barks but that's about it.  Aggie, the priss that she is, growled at him as soon as I brought him in the house but we layed her on her back and let him smell her and she's been fine since.  Here's the proof:

We toyed with Texas A&M names like "Bear" for Bear Bryant (a great A&M coach), Kyle for Kyle Field and Sarge for Old Sarge but we couldn't really name him anything other than "Lucky", now could we?

His birthday is listed as 2/1/2005 so he's six months older than Aggie.

I'll keep you posted on Lucky's progress. He's going to be absolutely gorgeous when his coat comes back in and he gains some weight but it doesn't matter.  He's such a sweetheart and cuddler I'm completely in love with him already.  Who couldn't be?

If you don't know about pet shop dogs or puppy mills, please go here:

http://www.nopuppymills.com/

http://stoppuppymills.org/

Everything I'd hoped For....

In a word... FABulous!   I have to say that I wasn't near as overwhelmed as I thought I'd be but it was grand.  I did wear the Must Have but Holy Smokes... it was HOT!  I thought it was October when I checked the calendar.

I know that I don't need any more wool but you can't go to Rhinebeck and not buy *anything*!  I'm pretty sure there's some rule against that.  I bought some GORGEOUS Duet Yarn from Brooks Farm.  I bought it for a Clapotis (which I saw quite a few of) but we'll see....  I think the color way I bought was Santa Fe, but I'm not really sure and it doesn't say on the label.  I love it though.  It'll go great with jeans.

Here's the rest of my loot (the Duet Yarn is in this photo as well and it's a little more true in color):

I'm a sucker for all things Scottish so how could I go wrong with the picture of Scottish Black face sheep with a Scottish castle in the background?  There's a Fiber Trends pattern for a special little dog and two bags of Bluefaced Leicester roving.  After all, it was the featured breed and I'm pretty sure there's another rule about going to the wool fest and not buying the *featured* breed.  Am I right?  Dan bought it and that's all that matters.

I printed out my banner on some ink jet fabric and ironed it on to a black tote bag.  I figured this would help anyone give a shout out to me. 

I got to see Kim again and she introduced me to quite a few bloggers during the meet up.  I failed to get any photos at the meet up but I'm sure they'll be all over blogland.  I especially enjoyed meeting Diane, Carol and Chris ( and no, none of those butt shots are mine).  There were others, but I told you, I'm horrible with names!  I really enjoyed meeting everyone.

FINALLY!! Rhinebeck!

I've waited for this moment since I first heard about Rhinebeck.  I think that was at least seven years ago.  I never really thought I'd get to go and now here I am... living only an hour away in the beautiful Hudson River Valley!  You might remember my somewhat bitter post three years ago and then the big tease when I thought I'd get to go last year but Dan had that little detour to Afghanistan...  Well it's finally my turn, Baby!

I missed the whole Blogger Bingo thing so I won't get to play but please holler howdy if you see me and my clan (they'll be with me on Saturday but I'll probably be flying solo on Sunday).  Is there some big blogger meet-up or something?  I don't want to miss out on that for snoozing too!

Here's what I looked like today and am pretty sure I'll look about the same this weekend:

Say HI!  I'm terrible with names and faces so if I don't recognize or remember you right away, I'm not a snob, just a bad memory.

Major Fun!

Okay.  I know it's been two weeks but that's not to say I didn't have a blast meeting up with Jennifer!  I did.  In fact, I hope there are many meet-ups now that we're only an hour and a half apart.  Plenty of knitterly joints in between and around us both.  We've been web pals for quite a while.  It's so funny to walk into the coffee shop and spot her immediately.  I got to see her beautiful sample of the Dale baby sweater class she's going to.  So fun to be with people who understand your passion.  It's even funnier when people are looking with a crooked eyebrow trying to figure out what's going on.  lol.   Just as many of you promised, Morehouse was FABulous!  It's very dangerous that it's only an hour and twenty minutes from my door.  As you can see, Jennifer did some damage:

I put myself on a small budget after the shock of the move and finding out exactly how much wool I already have.   I bought some gorgeous soft pink merino for a hat and booties for my neighbor (due with her 5th in a week) and two different varigateds for scarves.  One for me and one for my Gram.  The one for Gram is a simple Feather and Fan pattern but it's kicking my butt.  I've had to rip back about five inches once already and last night I found another big mistake about the same distance down.  Tried to just rip down the stitches that were messed up.... yeah... made a bigger mess.  I finished the hat and booties within a couple of days of getting home.  I forgot to take a photo before giving it to my neighbor so I'll try to remedy that by the next post.  I'll hopefully have Gram's scarf done by then to show that to you as well.

I think my favorite part of the visit with Jennifer was sitting down and really getting to chat over lunch.  It's fun being around all that wool but a little distracting and SO overwhelming.  What the heck am I going to do at Rhinebeck in two weeks?  I still can't believe I get to go finally.  I've wanted to for years and now I'm so close to it I can drive each day to visit.  Wheee!!!  I'm not going to buy much (really) but I just can't wait for the experience.

Have I mentioned that I love the Hudson Valley?  It's gorgeous here.  The leaves are really starting to change.  I went apple picking here with my neighbor.  So much fun.

Speaking of my neighbor... she has these flowers in her flower bed:

You all came through for me so I thought I'd give it a shot for her.  Anyone know what these are?  She wants to find out if they are perennials or not so she doesn't yank up something she shouldn't.   I planted over 350 bulbs the other day.  After all that work and the blisters on my hands now, our flower border better look like the Keukenhof next year!! lol.

I hope you all have a great Columbus Day weekend!  Dan has tomorrow off so we're going to head to lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.  I've gotten very into Puerto Rican cooking (been watching Daisy Cooks on PBS) and I want to hit some of the Latino markets down there.  Then we're taking the boys camping right near our home for a couple of nights.  Sunday night we have a camp cabin mini reunion for Daniel in Connecticut.  He can't wait to see his pals again.  He's been having a pretty hard time here at school so far but the school is wonderful!  They have a great team working with him and helping him through things and most importantly, keeping in constant contact with me to let me know what's going on.  Have a great long weekend!