Status Report

My sister-in-laws socks are done. The fact that it only took me a week to knit the second sock makes the fact that it took me 6 months all that much more pathetic.

I have turned the hill on the first sock for my dad, hopefully I will finish it this week so I can get the second one done in time for Christmas.

I am watching the most depressing hockey game I have ever seen. The Blues are loosing 9-4 to the Avalanche. It an attempt to cheer myself up, here's a picture of Purl in her reindeer antlers. She kept them on for about 1 second before she decided they were evil.

I think she's stinkin cute in them.

Take me to the river...

I have made progress on Orangina. I have finished the first skein and have about 12 inches of lace knit.
Unfortunately I dropped a stitch about 2 inches ago. I picked the stitch up, but as you can see, it looks a little bit odd.

I really don't want to rip back, so I'm hoping that I will be able to either block the mistake out or I will learn to live with it. Maybe I will make this the back of the tank so I can't see it. Honestly, I had to be right on top of the pattern with my camera to have the mistake show up in a picture, so that gives me hope.

I ended up ripping the cuff of my Child's First Sock out. I have tiny ankles, so there was no way the cuff was going to fit me. I'm going to re-cast on with 8 fewer stitches so that it will fit.
Purl is at the groomer getting shaved today. She's going to look so funny, but she does not handle the heat well, so it needs to be done. I have to go pick her up in a half hour, then we're going to go play in the river!

The waiting game

Thanks for the comments, on both the socks and the pets! Princess (the kitty) insists on laying in the middle of the coffee table when I am using it, so she was originally laying right in front of my feet. Purl decided she needed to check out the socks, and in the process put her rather large head on top of the cat, which of course crushed the poor thing. Then Purl decided the cat needed a sniffing, so that's why the cat is running away with a look of sheer panic!

I have started a new pair of socks - the Child's First Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks in jitterbug. I think it's the Jay colorway, but I'm at work right now, so I can't tell for sure. I'm almost through with the cuff. It looks big to me, but I think it's too soon to tell. There might also be pooling, but again, with less then an inch done, it's too soon to tell. I'm just going to have to be patient and wait to see.

Catching up: super picture heavy

Hi. I haven't posted pictures in awhile, mostly because I've been too lazy to even get them off of my camera. So now that I'm finally getting around too it I have about a month's worth of pictures, mostly non-knitting related, to show.
This is my cousin at the zoo. Isn't she cute? She's standing in front of a giant fish tank inside a cave. I love how the fish looks like it's coming up to give her a giant kiss.

This is the baby elephant. I hadn't gotten to see her yet, so this is exciting. The matriarch of the pack died recently, so the pack is with out one right now. The zoo is wondering who will step up now that she's gone.

This is my cousin and I in front of the hippo tank. My cousin is only 17 so I'm thinking about making a shirt for her that says off limits. She kept getting whistled at while she was here.

I took her to my favorite place in St. Louis, Laumeier sculpture park. This is my dad's favorite piece, Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall! (sorry, RAC's website is down, and they have way better info on the sculpture's at Laumeier then Laumeier's website, so I can't link the actual piece. But it's there if you search. It also has all of the public art in St. Louis listed, so you should check it out). This guy in the picture was running across the top of the piece. Apparently Purl knew that this is not allowed, because she barked and growled at the guy. This may not seem odd to most of you, because that's what dogs do, but Purl does not bark, and she almost never acts aggressively. I always joke that as long as an attacker called her pretty and petted her she'd let someone come up and mug me. She's not very protective (most of the time, this is a very good thing. I don't want an aggressive dog. It would be nice if she was a bit more concerned with my well-being though. I mean, seriously. She's big. And while in most cases an 80lb rottweiler is more then enough of a deterrent, she's a big baby. Good thing I didn't get for anything other then a pet).

Still at the park. This is a picture of Chelsea taking a picture of me.

Actual knitting! This is the gauge swatch I did of Orangina. I finally cast on again yesterday, worked two repeats, and already am short a stitch. Lace does not like me.

Today is my birthday! My parents came up with my nephews yesterday to buy me new running shoes! Both of my parents ended up getting a pair, as well. This place really knows its stuff. My mom and I both have messed up feet. Mom's had surgery twice this past year due to hers, and I have arthritis, so we both need special fits. We found them here. My dad's an avid runner, so he was due for a new pair.

When my oldest neph got out of the car he was so excited to see me. The first words out of his mouth were "Aunt Becca, we got you a cake with your name on it!" My mom tried to remind him that that was a surprise, but he proceeded to tell me all about the cake. He's so cute. The youngest just discover smell, so he likes to tell everyone about it. He will come up to me and say "Aunt Becca, I smell!" while sniffing. He just means that he sniffed, but this cracks me up every time. The first time he did it I told him to go find his daddy, because I don't take care of smelly diapers.
After we got the shoes my dad took me to the opera. This was SO.MUCH.FUN! We saw The Mikado, which was so funny. We also did the pre-show picnic, which was a lot of fun. Next time I go I'm going to bring my own food, though. The provided stuff was really good, but the people who brought there own stuff looked like they had more fun. People brought in these really nice baskets with wine and really great looking food. The people sitting next to us had Red Lobster! There were some crazy looking outfits there. The man we sat next to in the show had on orange pants! And there were so many bow ties! I'm trying to get my friends together to just go to the picnic before hand. We can get dressed up and buy our own wine and just sit out and people watch.
Finally, here is a shot of the Cabo Halter in progress.

Apparently I need to clean my mirror. I now have the bottom section attached. All I need to do is attach the zipper and do the hem. Yeah!
And just in case anyone thought I would pay more attention to what I was doing while sewing then I do while knitting, don't worry. I don't.

I didn't have a seam ripper, either. I got to pick that seam out with a pin. I'd even gone over the stitch a few times, due to tension issues with the machine. Shiny. My mom gave me a seam ripper for my birthday. She thinks she's funny.

Belated Pictures

I finally figured out how to get the pictures off of my cell phone. It only took me four days. Not bad.

This is Purl with Jackie from Saturday. It's fun to see her with a bigger dog. It doesn't happen often.This is one of the MANY wheels owned by the exes mom. It is double treadle, and there are all sorts of other special things I am supposed to know about it, but I don't. The wheel I have that is currently never being used is a loaner from the mom.

And finally...

This is the homespun. It will soon be joining my stash. The mom (sorry, don't want to use real names, but don't really know how to refer to his family anymore) loves to spin, but doesn't knit. She's had surgery on both wrists for carpal tunnel, so she really can't anymore. Luckily she likes to give the yarn away, so after I left a note saying how pretty it was I was told I could have the yarn. Yeah!

In other knitting news, I got several rows into Orangina when I noticed that it looked huge. I normally wear a medium, so that's what I cast on for. When I looked at the pattern I realized I should be knitting a size small, so I frogged what I had. I'll start again tomorrow. Also, my cousin is coming to stay with me for a few days while our mother's go to the quilt show in Paducah KY. She has already shown an interest in yarn and knitting the last few times I saw her, so I'm hoping I can further that habit in her!

When the elephants come marching in...

The exes parents have a big dog. She's a St. Burmese Mountain Dog that they got when Purl was 1 because they loved Purl. (Purl's a rottweiler / St. Bernard mix, Burmese are in the same family as both breeds. Supposedly both breeds come from Burmese). Anyway, his parents went out of town for the day and are going to be gone for over 12 hours, so they asked if I could come let Jackie out for a bit. I get to do laundry and bring Purl, so I said sure. Purl and Jackie love each other, because neither dog gets to play with other dogs their size often (his parents also have two small poodles. Jackie's head is bigger then these dogs bodies). Purl is not used to be outside by herself, so she keeps coming to the glass window and looking for me. Getting her here was also a problem - she does not like the PT cruiser. She refused to come near the car once she realized I was going to make her get in it, then slipped out of her collar when I tried to drag her over the the car. I even through treats in! Eventually I just picked her up (she weighs 80 + lbs. this is not easy to do) and put her in the back. I haven't figured out how I will get her home yet.
I am swathing for orangina in the blue king tut while I'm here (and looking at all gorgeous home spun his mom as made in the past few months. I do miss the home spun. I forgot my camera, so no pictures unless I can figure out how to get pictures from cell phone onto my laptop).

Grace Kelly*

I started a new job yesterday. I still work for the old company, but part time just doesn't cover enough. I could fit more hours in there, which would mean I would still have nights and weekends off, so I am considering it. But the new place as benefits for pt employees. I figure I'll give it another day or two and then decide. I really like having weekends off for fun stuff, like art openings, yarn crawls, and traveling!

It is freezing here now. Hard to imagine that just last Sunday I walked on the KT trail and took all those pictures! Speaking of...

On the right side of the trail there is a little waterfall. Since it always has water in it, even when there has been no rain for month, I'm a little dubious of its orgins, but it is still pretty to look at. I don't worry about the source too much, it's not like I'm going to drink from it or go for a swim.

Across from the water fall there is a memorial bench. It always has fresh flowers.
Purl found a stick on the trail. She does so much better on walks when she has something to carry. It keeps her from smelling everything there is to smell.
She's so proud!

I keep fight the urge to go back to the new yarn store. I really want to go get more of the cascade Jewell - maybe a sweaters worth? I should probably finish the one I'm working on first!

*The title has nothing to do with this post, but the song has been stuck in my head all day

For such a big dog....

Purl is a big weeny. I took her for a walk yesterday. It was our normal route, so just around the blog. It totals two miles, and normally is not long enough to put even a dent in Purl's energy levels. Yesterday, about half way through, Purl found a nice tree with lots of shade and laid down. She was done. Today, she refused to go out in the rain. Granted, it was a torrential down pour, but still. Weeny.

This is the view at the bottom of the hill from the parking lot to the trail. Usually there is a nice breeze from the river, which keeps it from being too hot.

She's Crafty

My mom is a quilter. The first quilt she ever made was for me - the Ohio Rose - and was beautiful. When I graduated from high school she made graduation quilts for me and my my two best friends (I am still friends with both of these girls. We graduated almost 7 years ago, and have were friends in middle school in one case, and in preschool in the other. This is something I take both pride and joy in). In my opinion my mother is very talented, and has created some very beautiful and useful quilts, including this one, which now hangs on my wall.

She also made a wall hanging of Purl.

I have had this one for almost a year and just now got around to hanging it! When mom made it Purl had a collar with rhinestones on it, so mom used silver and black material for the collar! (I am very upset by the fact that I can't find a sparkle color big enough for her anymore! Big dogs need bling too!)

She made the quilt I use on my bed out of flannel material. It is so comfy!

Really, this one is just an excuse to show how Purl sleeps. This cracks me up!

I love that I finally have stuff on my walls that are not prints! I have had the same art prints up since I was a sophomore in college. It was defiantly time for a change. I'm hoping that I will be able to start saving a little bit of money each pay check to buy real art to hang up.

In knitting news, I finished the first sleeve on something Red. I know this is a bad picture, but none of my neighbors were home and I wanted to show it off!

This,

Has become this.

I got tired of unknitting rows only to find more mistakes. I still love the pattern, and plan to start over again as soon as I finish Something Red. The weather is perfect right now for a light-weight shawl worn over a tank top.

Finally, Purl and I went for a hike on the KT trail today, and I took lots of pictures. I will save those for now. Maybe I will use them in later posts so I have pictures to share for a while. It was a beautiful day, and the KT trail is gorgeous this time of year. Here is a picture of Purl has we leave the apartment. It's her first time in the cruiser, and she is not too sure about it. I had to help lift her in!

She the tail tucked? Poor girl.

DO you want cheese with that?

It's been rather eventful here this week. Purl has a life threatening disease a cold. She has a really gross cough that acts up if I take her for a walk of more then 2 feet. I think she's starting to do better, which is good. Maybe I can take her for a walk today.
My check engine light is still on. I've already paid way to much money to have it fixed, but the light won't go off! Now I am told it is an electrical problem.
My transmission stopped working yesterday. The car just refused to move forward any more. Luckily I had just left my apartment parking lot, so one of my neighbors took me to work. My car is now sitting in service shop parking lot while I drive a rental.
None of this is fun.

Pour Me

I decided, at 9:15pm., that I was going to take Purl for a walk tonight. I had planned on skipping a day, but since it is so close to April 1st, and I have a ways to go before hitting the goal, I can't really skip a day. It's been raining off an on all day, but I thought it was pretty much done with. I got about 1/2 a block away from my apartment when it started to pour. Lots and Lots of rain.

Honestly, it was Purl that decided to turn back. She has a cold.

A day at the park

I've gotten a lot done on my sweater. After a little bit of confusion over how I was supposed to do a make 1 increase (there are seriously 3 completely different ways to do this. I eventually gave up and asked the author for clarification. She got back to me within 1/2 hour - I love the internet), I am down to the last bit of ribbing on the body. I still have several inches left to go, but it's getting close.

Something Red by Wendy Bernard

I just started ball number 6 of 10. This leaves me with at least 2 for the body, 2 for the sleeves, and 1 for the button band. I think I will be ok. (Now watch me run out of yarn completely with only one sleeve done. This yarn has been in my stash for so long there's no way I will find more. I really should know better then to say things like this).
I took Purl to a dog park on Friday (and managed to talk Deb into coming with me - what a good friend). It was a lot of fun, although it rained. Purl was covered in mud. She spent the entire time tackling other dogs and rolling around in the mud.

Before

See how dirty she is? Because I know how my dog rolls, I knew she would head strait for my bed as soon as we got home, so I took her to get a bath.

After - look how tired!

Doesn't she look so pretty now? (That nasty looking green plaid thing next to her? It's her blanky. It used to be one big piece of fleece, now it's several small pieces)

Finito!

At least for now. I officially get one whole week off in between classes. I almost had a complete melt down tonight - my computer decided to temporarily eat the paper I'd spent the last four hours working on. Luckily, I found it pretty quickly, so as soon as my heart beat returned to normal I was able to finish and turn the thing in. It's nice to be finished.
I took Purl to a friends house today. The friend has a fenced in yard and two small dogs, so Purl got to go play. My 80 lb rottweiler/st. bernard got beat up by a 10 lb rat terrier. It was pretty funny, but good for Purl. She normally doesn't understand aggression from other dogs, and I think this time she was just being well behaved because the dog was so much smaller then her. It was cute. Maggy (the dog) would put a toy in front of Purl's face, than jump all over her if Purl so much as looked at the toy. It helped me get my homework done, though, because otherwise Purl would not have left me alone long enough to write tonight. She was working on a good hyper this afternoon, which is why we went to play with the other dogs.
I think I'm going to go pour myself a glass of wine and pick up some knitting.

Scarf? What scarf?

Nope, still haven't gathered the courage to finish grafting the seaman's scarf. I'm pretty sure that will have to wait until Thursday night stitch and bitch. If I attempt to do it while I'm at home I'll just end up yelling at Purl, or drinking, and neither one accomplishes anything. I have, however made a bit of progress on Something Red. This yarn is determined to not be photographed accurately. Out of 10 photos, this is the best one. I am loving it, though. Sooooo soft.

I finally made it to the doctor. I figured I might as well use the insurance while I have it, right? Turns out I have an ear infection, which explains the never-ending headache.

These have nothing what so ever to do with yarn, but they are cute. My cat looks a little concerned, doesn't she?

The tale of the Lorna's Lace

Shortly after photographing the mess that my green sock yarn had become, Purl struck again. My own fault, really. I should know better then to leave yarn, especially yarn she has already shown interest in, sitting out on the sofa where she can get. Honestly, though, this interest in yarn of hers is a new thing. Normally she ignores it because she knows she will get yelled at if she so much as sniffs my yarn. But once she decides she wants something there is no hope. She is a very determined dog, and will stop and nothing to get "her" toy. So she attacked my yarn again. This time she ate the needles, so there was no saving the sock I had started. Luckily I had only knit the toe. Unfortunately, the yarn was one giant knot.

So this,

Became this...

Which became this (this part used to be the toe).

Which has become this (Cat included for scale - also, she refused to move).

The yarn is currently soaking in citrus Soak in order to remove all traces of doggy drool. Once they are done soaking I will hang the yarn up to dry, then turn them into 3 minny center pull balls!

Oh the excitement here at Chez PG13!

The Big 4

Wow. It has been a week since my last post. So sorry. I have absolutly no knitting content to share. I spent the weekend in Rolla for my nieces slumber party. I ended up staying for neph#1's birthday party. He turned 4 on Sunday, and since he told me he wanted to share his cake with me, I couldn't resist. By the time I got home I was beat. I went straight to bed.

I had brought a sock to work on, but Purl decided she was mad at me.

So she played with my yarn. Pretty, isn't it. I did finally cast on for the second half of my Seaman's Scarf. I won't put pictures up of the last bit, because, really, the only thing different from the last time I showed it is rows and rows of ribbing. Not very exciting.

Hey there

Just thought I'd drop in and say hi. Real posting will continue tomorrow.

Wicked, Wicked Dog

First - I added a button to my side bar about fun fur killing Muppet's. It is a evil and horrible practice that needs to stop. I stole the button from JenLa Knits (actually, I stole it from someone else, but they stole it from JenLa).
Second - I have a very stubborn dog, who is bad a hiding things. Yesterday on our walk she picked up a piece of trash that she absolutely refused to drop. Instead of dropping when I yelled at her, she laid down on the sidewalk and would not walk, or make eye contact with me (which is usually how I catch her with something in her mouth - she will not look at me, because if she does not look at me, obviously I can't see her). A lovely, wonderful driver by drove past me, then turned around and came back because she was worried that my dog was hurt. I had to explain that, no, she is not hurt, just wicked.
Also, on the same walk, I saw kids PRETENDING to beat up each other. They were on the side of a busy road trying to get attention from the cars driving by. I was very disturbed.
That is all.

Purl and I go to the park!

Warning: This is a picture heavy post!

Purl and I went to Laumeier Sculpture Park today. Ms. Needle and Distaff was supposed to join us, but unfortunately, she was not feeling well. If you are in the St. Louis area I highly recommend that you go there. It is a beautiful place that believes in combing art, nature, and people. Plus, you can bring your dog! It is the only American Association of Museums member where dogs are welcome. Here, we are on our way to the park. Clearly, Purl is very excited.

I really loved this piece. Unfortunatly, I can't find the name or artist online. (Since I failed to write the names down, I used this site to find the information).

One of the great thing that the park has is braille descriptions of several of their sculptures. They also have scale models of the pieces. Here Purl is inspecting the description of one of the pieces.

Here is the full size sculpture. It is Laumier Project 1981 by Jackie Ferrara.Here, Purl is inspecting the work. It is part of an untitled piece by Ursula von Rydingsvard.

This is one of my favorite pieces, called Triangular Bridge Over Water, by Dan Graham. When I was here last year this piece had been damaged during a storm. A branch fell and broke one of the panes of glass. I am really pleased that it has been repaired.I actually know the name of this piece! It is Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall! by Donald Lipski. It is another one of my favorites. Both of these have been here at the park for as long as I can remember. So has this one, titled The Way 1972-80, by Alexandar Liberman. It always makes me thing of a swing set.

And just to prove that I do knit, here is a picture of my sock with Sugabus by Robert Chambers.

It is a sugar molecule. The name is a mix of sugar and Cerberus, the three headed dog that guarded the underworld.

I grew up taking day trips from Rolla to come here to hike and look at the art work. Several works were featured in the text books I used for my art history courses in school. Laumier has pieces done by internationally known artists. Yet many people in St. Louis don't know anything about the park. He who shall not be named grew up in the town neighboring the park, yet he had never been there until I took him.

Baby, your mine.

I had Purl spayed when she was almost a year old. I had meant to do it sooner, but the day I made the first appointment to have it done, she went into heat. The vet said she had systs on her overies, which caused her to go into a false pregnacy. She had a stuffed duck for her baby, and she took it with her everywhere. If either I or the other touched her "baby" she would start crying frantically. It was heartbreaking to watch. Things were made worse by the fact that she caught broncitis at the vets, so the duck's fibers were making her cough. We eventually had to hide the duck until she got over the broncitis, and eventually it stopped being her baby and became a toy.

Today at Pet Smart I bought her a little honking moose. I think I made a mistake.