Knitting Content!

It's been a loooooong time since I published any knitting content on the blog. I scrolled back looking for anything knitting related, and the blog is all dogs, dogs, dogs. Humans and geese are interspersed here and there, but it's mostly dogs. No apologies for all-dogs-all-the-time, but knitting content is long overdue.

So, what have I been knitting? Socks. 95% of my knitting is socks. Pretty boring, I admit, so I'm lumping all of the socks that I finished over the weekend into one photo.


Nine pair! Count 'em...nine pair! Of course, when I say I "finished" them over the weekend, it just means I finally got around to tackling the basket where I throw all of the socks that are done except for the weaving in of all of the loose ends. Can you tell that weaving ends is not my favorite part of sock knitting? Detailed information will be on my projects page on Ravelry in the near future, for all who care.

So, if 95% of my knitting has been socks, what about the other 5%? Over the winter I worked on Wendy Johnson's Order to Chaos Shawl. Big project. Scary-big for someone who has never attempted a lace project that large, but I kept plugging along, and I am so happy with the results. The most fun had to be the blocking. OK, it was a tiny bit tedious, but what a transformation! Here is a shot of it before pinning:


And here is a shot after pinning!


What a difference, right? I should have included tape measures in the photos, 'cause this sucker is huge! Here a detail shot of the center. That neat little hole in the center makes me so happy!

Detail shot of the edging. So cool!

Here is a shot of it draped over a bench at work.


I did the blocking on the floor of the museum. I spread a tablecloth out over the carpet, dampened the shawl, and stretched and pinned the heck out of that sucker. I left it like that for a few days. This was when we were closed to visitors, of course. Although I guess I could have just put up barriers and labeled the whole thing as an art installation... Just a thought...

I know some of you might be wondering why I didn't do the blocking at home. Well, there are three certain somebodies at home who would LOVE to be helpers in blocking a lace shawl, but that kind of help I don't need. I can just picture these little hooligans walking all over the lace, digging at the knitting, eating the pins...horrors! I certainly wouldn't point fingers or name names, you understand...



Then again, maybe I would.

Dogs on Thursday

It's me, Emma, taking over this week's Dogs on Thursday. I like to think that I'm as tolerant as the next dog, but these stray cats around here are getting my knickers in a twist! It's one thing for them to hang around OUTSIDE of the fenced-in yard, but when they venture INTO the yard, that's another thing altogether. Take a look at what we saw this morning:



Mom took that picture of me (in the middle) with Cooper and Tara. Outside on the ramp to our deck...do you see what that is??? A cat! An evil cat!

I begged mom to let us out into the back yard so we could teach that evil cat a lesson. She refused! She let us out into the side yard, but there was a stupid fence between us and the evil cat.


Wait a minute... Look a little closer... There are TWO evil cats on the ramp!


Mom calls the gray one Lizzie and the black one Joanie. I call them both evil. Mom says we have to be good to the strays because they're hungry and have no place else to go. I've got news for her... I can tell them where to go!

I'm still alive...

I can't believe it's been so long since my last blog post. It's been since July? How can that be? I haven't even read anyone else's blog in weeks. I am so behind! In my last post I said I ...have lots of excuses... and ...just need to get my act together. Clearly, that did not happen. This has been a month of ups and downs.



Seriously, totally, incredibly high "ups". But you know what they say... "What goes up must come down," and boy did I come down. So here is the question, is it worth it? Who can say? More on that later.

Where to begin? Everyone knows I have been yearning to buy a house in Fortescue. You remember... this tiny, totally adorable, impractical one:



Well, on one of my weekly "visits" to the house, which I of course refer to as "my house", we found this house:



It's not so tiny, with 3 bedrooms and a bath and a half. As an added bonus, you can actually fit a double size bed in two of the bedrooms, unlike "MY" house where you can just (barely) fit a twin bed. This not-so-tiny house also happens to be for sale, but as an added bonus it is also available for rent. I have come to the realization that the only way I will ever live in Fortescue is on a rental basis, since the only house I can afford to buy looks something like this:



Anyway, we got permission for the dogs to stay at the rental house, and just like that, we were going on vacation! Even though it was only about 30 minutes from home, this was the first time since 1997 that we planned a week's vacation, so it totally counts as a bona fide vacation.

As it turns out, the dogs are much happier in their own fenced-in-yard. Especially Emma. She views the leash as a punishment. Here is a shot of the babes on the beach at Fortescue.



The dog clinging to my sister's leg? That's Emma. She is never on a leash unless she's going to the Vet, and nothing could convince her that being on a leash on the beach was supposed to be an enjoyable experience. Most nights we just stayed at home and then drove to Fortescue during the day. It was great to have the house to store the boat and kayaks so we didn't have to trailer them back and forth each day.

So back to the ups and downs.... One day last August, I answered the phone at work, and had the shock of my life--it was a really great guy who I last saw the day before he left to join the army in 1987. He found me thanks to the museum's website. (God Bless the Internet!)

The seriously high "up" is that he flew to New Jersey and spent 5 days here.

The seriously low "down" is that he left to go back home.