Niece Socks

Finished a pair of socks for my Niece's birthday in March. Basic top down sock done with an interesting yarn as usual. My favourite. I do like this parifect yarn; although fraternal socks are also OK.

Pattern: basic sock
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Pairfect in 01731
Needle: 2.5mm
Gauge: 41 stitches and 46 rows = 10 cm

Other News
A friend let me run her dog so I played Scent Hurdle today. So much fun. I was saying to multiple people today that ever since Ahab retired from Scent Hurdle I have never been so busy at a tournament. People offer me dogs to run or I judge the tournament or something. So. Much. Fun.

Also went snowshoeing on Saturday with some friends; that was also fun but my calves keep reminding me that it would be helpful to be fitter when doing these things. Sigh.

Current Weather
-12C and mostly cloudy. Doesn't feel nearly this cold.

Ugly Christmas Vest

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's January; but, for some unknown reason, I truly do not understand my own thinking here, I started an Ugly Christmas Vest on Dec. 25, 2018 for Christmas 2019. I didn't really expect to finish it before the end of January. Well, it still needs a trip through the washing machine and buttons but the knitting is finished. And the buttons may have to wait since I suspect I won't find appropriately ugly Christmas buttons until November or December but I'll try to remember to check throughout the year to see if something strikes my fancy.

It's possible I may duplicate stitch a reindeer or a Santa or a tree or something onto it to make it even uglier. Will depend on how ambitious I am.

Pattern: Improvised
Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Holidays Stripes in Red Green White
Needle: 4.5mm & 5.0mm
Gauge: pending washing

Appropriately Ugly

Other Knitting
I'm selfish knitting for the most part at the moment, currently working on another vest for myself in addition to the Ugly Christmas Vest, this one's a sport weight with a nice pattern in it making it a TV watching project not a reading project (yes, I can read and knit at the same time but only stockinette or garter stitch). And a cotton blend fingering weight sweater with no pattern in it so I can knit and read while working on this one. I also have a pair of socks for my Niece on the go for her birthday in March. My sock frenzy seems to have slowed quite a lot after Christmas, from Oct. to Dec. I finished 8 pairs of adult sized socks. I hope I'm not burnt out. Things have also picked up a work so I'm limited to knitting at lunch only.

Oh, I almost forgot about the two baby blankets I'm (mostly not) working on. Maybe they're on a break?

Other News
The first Scent Hurdle race of the year was held yesterday and our team did great. I ran Tonka for a friend for the most part but also ran Snickers for her once in the last race when she wanted to switch dogs, both are super fun to play with. I think we might even have placed first over all in the tournament since I think we won every race we were in. Kinda cool. But more importantly there were a number of new dogs racing on other teams who earned the first points of their Scent Hurdle careers. Our two new dogs were not quite ready for this tournament but will likely be ready before the end of the year.

In one really cool race a dog called Honor earned her 4500th point earning her her SHDGMPCh title, the highest title possible in Scent Hurdle, and a new dog called Vivee earned her fist 5 points. I was the timer for this race and it was wonderful to see and celebrate this victory with both owners. It's possible there were tears but I'll never tell.

Current Weather
4C and partly cloudy. Feels more like March than January.

Cotton Vest Disaster and a Dragon

I made myself a cotton vest, just using some Bernat Cotton, nothing fancy no real pattern.

Then I put it in the wash.

I didn't realize the new sheets were going to shed this much purple/red dye.

It seriously looks like someone bled all over it. A lot. I've washed it a couple times to try to get the dye out but no luck so far. I can't even donate it since it looks like it was part of a murder spree.

The dragon came out much better. Another Tarragon, love this pattern so any excuse to make another one, in this case my boss is having a baby so I made a dragon for his daughter. Will also make one for the new baby, said to be a boy, in blue.

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in Iris and Watermelon
Pattern:  Tarragon the Gentle Dragon
Needle: 2.75mm & 4.0mm
Gauge: not critical but you want a firm fabric for stuffing

Pets
Everyone had their annual physical yesterday.

Mouse (17 years old) kept trying to run away from home when we got back even though I told her we were not likely to go back to the vet for a while. Her blood pressure is high so she's going onto some blood pressure meds, hopefully she likes the taste of pill-pockets as she will need to take these for the rest of her life along with some pain killers for arthritis. Blood work shows her just starting to have kidney problems so she's moving to a kidney support diet. Other than that she is wonderfully healthy. Not bad for the feline equivalent of 84 years old.

Soccer (13 years old) is in the poorest health of us all. His kidneys are not doing well at all, but he has gained a couple of kilos over the past few months which is good news as he was terribly underweight earlier this year, to the point where I thought I was going to loose him; the improvement is a huge relief. Waiting for the blood work to see if his kidney values have improved. And will be increasing his daily dose of pain meds for arthritis, he walks with a zombie shuffle in the back end because his hips are failing badly. Getting old is not for the weak. The vet also said that he is one of her favorite dogs ever which is really nice to hear because Soccer is the only dog (so far anyway) that I've had that I needed to seek professional help to train, I guess we got it right in the end.

Ahab (12 years old) is now retired from Scent Hurdle, he needs pain killers for his arthritis to get through the day; sports are done. He's done more than enough for the sport of Scent Hurdle as any dog could as the first tri-pawed to compete (I had to get the rules changed so he could compete) he's earned his retirement. He had more teeth removed in July and his mouth has healed up nicely; we're working on tooth brushing. Other than the arthritis he's doing well.

Current Weather
16C and mostly cloudy. Yesterday the smoke cleared off for the most part, today it seems to be back. We've been chocking on smoke from the BC wild-fires for over two weeks now.

Canada Day

I'm late posting this, Canada Day was on Saturday, July 1. It was consumed with a Scent Hurdle tournament. Ahab had a great time but the sun was a bit intense. I did NOT get a sunburn this year mostly because I slathered on the sun screen four times over the course of the day.

Remember the hats?

These hats.

Well, my Calgary Sister and her family came over for dinner a few weeks ago when they were still sitting on the dining room table and they all decided they'd like a hat. So, four more found good homes. There are now just three waiting for a home. I think I'll hold onto them until my Scotland Sister comes to visit, my Wee Niece may like one. I don't think any of the ones left will fit an adult; they're more of a child's size. After that, the remainder will go into a clothing donation run.

It's always good to thing when your hand knits have gone to a good home.

Started working on a new double loom-knitting project, I have done one in the past, a blanket for my Wee Niece. And I quite like the technique, especially for some complex colour work on a blanket. I ran into a few things I didn't like though, one being gauge. They heavy worsted/aran yarn (number 5 on commercial acrylics) was almost heavy enough but not quite; I was never really satisfied with the gauge; it was just a bit too loose. I don't like things too loose, they snag and wear out quickly. Plus, with this technique you can see the strands that are being carried along if the fabric is too loose to hide them. There's a happy ending for the blanket though, my Scottish Sister likes it for my Wee Niece's pram ("stroller" in North America) so I guess that worked out in the end. But I wanted to try again.

It turns out there isn't a lot of information about loom knitting out there. I don't think it's nearly as popular as regular knitting, and what is out there did not cover much about gauge. I did learn that when double loom knitting gauge is determined by a combination of how far apart the two lines of pegs are and how far apart the pegs are from each other. I suspect how tightly you wrap the pegs will matter too but perhaps not as much as with regular knitting. But I, so far anyway, have not found out much about how to determine gauge. With regular knitting there's so much out there you can get lost in it.

So, I decided to experiment with gauge, this is never really a bad idea. The first blanket was a heavy worsted/aran weight yarn and the blanket is in Scotland so I don't have a sample, I do have more of the yarn so I may work up a sample up at a later date. In the meantime, I worked up a quick sample using a worsted weight (4) yarn and as you can see it's hideous:

It doesn't help that the picture is blurry but you get the idea.

You can see right through the fabric and the ends are pulling out even though it's done nothing but sit on the back of the couch and look ugly. I shudder to think what would happen if it was used for something. Urgh. 

By the way, the watering can and the "GO" patterns came from a book called "Tapestry Crochet, 64 Playful Patterns for Children" by Renate Kirkpatrick.

So next I tried using two strands of worsted held together. This was much better, the carried strands are hidden for the most part, although the high contrast of the colours I used does still mean you can see them a bit. This is a bit of the nature of this technique, I suspect that unless your fabric is so thick it can stand up on it's own you will always be able to see high contrast colours behind the fabric. With two strands of worsted the fabric was a little too stiff for a blanket; although it might make a nice floor rug or pet mat. (Yes, I switched to yellow when I ran out of cream. Bite me. This was about gauge and I wasn't about to run out and buy more of a yarn I was trying to get rid of, I was stash-bustin' for this experiment.)

Given that two strands of worsted produced a fabric that was just a little too stiff for a blanket I decided to try two strands of DK weight (number 3 on commercial acrylics) held together. This turned out to be my Goldilocks gauge for loom-knitted blankets on this loom. Not to tight, not too loose; just right. I love how this fabric is turning out.

I did have to buy more yarn for this part of the experiment and I was not at all sure how to calculate how much I'd need (not much on that out there either) so I decided to get (I hoped) enough to make up a baby blanket. In the end I think I bought about twice what I'll end up needing. Oh well, it was on sale and I can always make another blanket.

At some point I will try with a bulky weight yarn, number 6 on commercial acrylics, and see what happens with it. But that won't happen until I finish the current blanket. The pattern for this blanket is mine(ish), I took some free snowflake patterns and combined them, then added some chevrons and a border, to make the blanket.

The next issue is that the knitting loom I have, a Martha Stewart Knitting Loom is not wide enough for an afghan or a bedspread or something like that. In the picture above the blanket is about 25 inches wide, that's just barely wide enough for a small baby blanket. I bought a second loom (Micheal's sent me a coupon) and will try combining the two to make a wider board but I'm a bit worried about doing that. This board is only meant to be about 2 feet wide so making it wider may make it too awkward to use and there are no stands available for these, or the plastic may not be strong enough over that distance. Combining two looms will still only give me about 4 feet of width and I'd like to be able to do something 5-7 feet wide to make a blanket you can really cuddle up with or put on a bed as a bedspread.

Another option would be to make panels and sew them together. While this is certainly an option I like the idea of one single, wide panel to make the entire blanket. I will try the combined length and see how/if it works before I come to my final conclusion.

There are longer looms out there which are bent into a figure 8 shape but they're not really intended for double-knitting. I have found some videos on YouTube on adapting them for double knitting but the one's I've looked at have the pegs spaced further apart than my current loom so I'd need to check the gauge all over again. And I may end up with something too thick or heavy to really use.

I fear that, in the end, I may have to try my hand at making a knitting loom. This would be way, way outside my usual skill set so I'm not at all sure it would or could happen. I suppose I could always ask my Dad for help... I'd need to borrow his tools for something like that anyway.

Scent Hurdle
There was a Scent Hurdle tournament on Saturday. Ahab ran with our regular team in the morning and with another team in the afternoon. He did fantastically well. I even managed to talk him through picking up one of his barbells (another dog picked up the wrong one and dropped it in the race lane) and taking it to the box, he didn't really need to do this but he had picked up the barbell and wouldn't drop it, then dropping it and picking up his other barbell (which the boxloader had placed in the box after the other dog removed his) and bringing back the correct barbell. Wow. I know he's smart, but just; wow. I'm still amazed I was able to get him to do that. I really wish someone had been taking video of that race.

Easter
Not much happened for Easter around here, my Red Deere Sister and her husband came for dinner and we had ham on Saturday. That's about it.

Current Weather
Mostly cloudy, 10C.

A Scent Hurdle Day

Ahab rocked the Sent Hurdling on Saturday afternoon. He struggled a lot in the morning but that was not unexpected by me or anyone else on the team due to the fact that we were running outside on grass and he's never done that before.

We tried to schedule some outdoor practices this summer but every time we ended up cancelling due to a thunderstorm. Not unusual for summer in this part of the world but frustrating never the less. Unfortunately, this did mean that Ahab never got a chance to learn to play Scent Hurdle on grass. Wonderful, distracting grass; it has so many lovely smells......

It was clear from the beginning that Ahab was having a hard time understanding that he was there to play Scent Hurdle and not to sniff the grass. However, as a team we decided to let him keep trying. There are not many sports you can play with your dog that will tolerate, much less encourage, you to train your dog during an event, this is just another reason to love Scent Hurdle. This did mean that everyone else on my team had to sacrifice the chance at points for their dogs and I'm very grateful that they did because after a few runs with me going with him to the box it suddenly clicked for him. Ahab is like that, when he "gets" something it's like a switch goes off in his brain.

The first time he managed a clean run everyone; and I mean everyone on my team, on the other team we were racing against (they had finished their run), and all the spectators watching gave him a big cheer. It was extremely touching. There might have been a tear in my eye; it could have been the wind.

Knitting
Not much to report on the knitting front. Progress continues on the Cotton Hoodie, a blue sweater, a pair of socks, and a vest. But, not enough for interesting pictures.

Current Weather
15C and mostly cloudy. Fall is in the air and all the leaves are turning. Soon it will be winter again.

Canada

Well, I missed posting on Canada Day. But that's OK because The Yarn Harlot did such a lovely job there's just no way for me to compete anyway.

For myself, I spent Canada Day at an outdoor Scent Hurdle tournament getting sunburned. I wore a hat with a wide brim all around my head and still managed to sunburn my neck and face. We won't even talk about my poor forearms where my t-shirt ended. What can I say, I'm just a special kind of Pale.

Ahab didn't do well at this tournament. It was his first time running on grass, we haven't even practiced on grass, and he decided that the tree at the end of the yard was far more interesting than playing Scent Hurdle. I pulled him after that. The team has an outdoor practice coming up so he can work on his focus while on grass.

Soccer went with us to the tournament as otherwise he'd have been stuck at home alone for many, many hours. There was a pond at the site so there was no way I was going home with a dry dog, he was in and out of the pond every time I let him run around. At one point I saw Ahab climbing out of the pond too, he must have slipped and fallen in as he'd never voluntarily jump into a pond. He didn't look impressed with the situation.

Knitting

Everything continues, joined the final ball of yarn for Hazelnut last night and I'm in a slight panic that I won't have enough even though all the math says I should. Nothing for it but to soldier on. And hope. Maybe I should email KnitPicks and see if they have any left in that dye lot......

Gave my sister her birthday socks. She's not a big sock wearer but she does plan to take them with her on vacation to Scotland so I'm calling that a win.

Current Weather
Mostly cloudy, 22C.

Generally, it's been hot with a thunderstorm in the evening. Typical for summer in this part of the world.

Sleeve

Today the plan was to finish knitting the sleeve for my Wee Niece's Seamless Purple sweater.

Which I did.

Figured it would be best to pick up the stitches for the second sleeve at the same time so I wouldn't do something silly like use the needle for another project when this one's not yet finished.

Then I just started knitting the second sleeve and before I knew it I was finished the sweater. I was reading a book at the same time, e-books are great for this, maybe that explains it. Made this one solid with no second colour. Other than that it's exactly as the pattern is written; ummm, perhaps a bit longer. Hope it fits.

Pattern: Seamless Blue by Felicia Semple
Yarn: Easy Knit Tricot Facile (Marotex) Bébé Luv Baby Georga in Grape
Needle: 3.0mm & 2.5mm
Gauge: 26 stitches X 35 rows = 10cm

This is one of the nicest acrylics I've ever worked with, nice and soft.

Squish
Squish has been sick. He's not using the litterbox which is very upsetting. Took him to the vet yesterday and he clearly has some pain in his abdomen. He's got some painkillers and Mom will take him back to the vet on Tuesday so they can collect a urine sample to see if he has an infection.

After doing some reading on-line I also decided to replace the litterboxes. Not just the litter but the actual litterboxes. They're almost 15 years old (both the litterboxes and the cats) and accumulated odors could be a problem. Just bought the cheapest pans I could find since that's what my old kitties seem to want, no covers or anything. The litterboxes are in a storage room with a cat door for them to come and go through (this is so Ahab won't snack on cat poo which is totally gross), it's lit by a night-light and unsurprisingly they're using the one closest to the light the most. Go figure. I actually replaced the light recently too in case the poor old things are having a hard time seeing in the dark. Age y'know.

Ahab
Ahab earned his second Scent Hurdle title on May 7. Total surprise, I though he was still 20 or more points away from earning it.

Current Weather
5C and raining.
It has been raining all day, except for a few hours this morning when it snowed. We desperately needed the moisture so it's not a bad rain. But did it have to happen on the long weekend?

Scent Hurdle

Judged my first Scent Hurdle tournament yesterday and no one cried, screamed, or cursed my family unto the ninth generation so I'm calling it a win. Now to send the results to the Statistician. Hope I recorded everything right.....

Ahab wasn't running last night as this was a CKC tournament and he can only run in independent tournaments. Meant I got to try my hand at judging. It's a lot harder than you think.

The tournament didn't start until later than expected so I made some progress on my sister's socks. It's a good thing I don't need these until July.

Another Scent Hurdler was there working up some socks in Felici Time Traveler. Doesn't look like Knit Picks has this in stock right now. I have some of this in my stash but I think I might just delay using it until my sister goes back to Scotland, otherwise there is a serious risk I could loose the socks. I'm sure it would be a total accident that would land them in her suitcase..... ;-)

Other Knitting

There hasn't been a lot of sock knitting going on lately because I've been focusing on a light weight sweater for myself. At the moment I have partial sleeves (I usually work sleeves two at a time), mostly because I had to frog them and restart when I realized the increases weren't working right. This time is going much better.

And there is another vest on the go, a cardigan this time. I'm not sure if I like this one though so it might get frogged yet.

Finally my toy kick continues with a rabbit. This one's a bit more complicated that the bunny I did at Easter although it's from the same designer. At the moment it looks like a blob. I'm working my way up to knitting a Loch Ness Monster so I'm knitting up some practice toys first. My Wee Niece will benefit immensely from this.

Rabbit blob.

Current Weather
Mostly cloudy 10C.

The weather has been crazy warm since about mid January and shows no signs of stopping. I do wish it would rain though as it's been so dry I'm having problems wearing contact lenses. I took eye drops with me to Red Deer for the Scent Hurdle tournament yesterday and did not regret it as I had to drop my eyes several times throughout the evening. And the farmers are going to start doom and glooming if we don't get some rain soon. Hard to believe we had severe flooding only three years ago in June of 2013. By "severe flooding" I mean downtown Calgary was evacuated due to being submerged in several meters of water for five days and it took weeks, in some cases months, for all the businesses to recover and re-open. The Calgary Stampede went on as scheduled though; they had to completely replace the track for the chuck wagon races, a project that was expected to take months and was completed in weeks instead. Says something about the "git 'er done" attitude around here I suspect.

Scent Hurdle

It took a while before anything interesting happened again.

Ahab did fantastically well at another Scent Hurdle tournament on Saturday. Terrible picture but here he is waiting for his next turn to run.

I also have video; no video of Ahab because I was busy when he was running but this is my team on a race when he was the backup dog. As you can see we didn't win but a good time was had by all. Ahab and I were both beat when we got home. Still waiting for points but he will not have earned a new title yet, he's going to need a few more tournaments for that.

Much lack of knitting lately as I've been so tied up with Scent Hurdle stuff. This is what I get for volunteering for the Board of Directors I'm afraid.

Current Weather
Partly cloudy, 7C. There was a bit of a wind when I was out earlier.

Throwback Thursday

Kittens

Update on Ahab's Scent Hurdle points; he did earn his first title on Saturday. So proud of him. I suppose I can now introduce him as "Captain Ahab, SHD". Wait, that means he's got more letters after his name than I do. Figures. ;-)

Current Weather
Mostly cloudy, 7C.

Honestly, I thought this segment would be more interesting but the weather's been strangely predictable lately. I'm sure it'll pick up once the summer storm season hits. Or, maybe we'll get some wild spring snow soon.

Scent Hurdle

HE DID IT!!!!

Ahab did extremely well yesterday at Scent Hurdle. He struggled in his first couple of races and I had to go with him to the box to remind him of what he needed to do. So we took a break for a couple of races. Then we tried again near the end of the morning tournament and this time he did it! So proud of my boy.

In the afternoon we ran with a different team because my team only wanted to enter for the morning but I wanted to get some more exposure for Ahab and run in the afternoon too. Another team was willing to take the risk on a green dog so this time he was racing with dogs he didn't know and he still did awesome. He even had another dog cross into his lane which threw him off a bit but other than keeping a close eye on the dog in the other lane on his next run he was fine. I don't have any video because I was so busy with Ahab and I never thought to ask someone else to take some for me. I never thought to take pictures either. Ah, well; next time.

I don't think he earned his Scent Hurdle Dog (SHD) title because we just weren't fast enough to get 10 points in each run. He needs 50 points to earn that first title and he had 10 from last year before he had to stop running until the rules were changed to allow him to run again. I think he earned another 20 yesterday, we had a lot of runs that I'm pretty sure took too long to earn any points. I could be wrong though so I'll wait until the Statistician has posted the official results to be sure. But he took some big steps towards earning that title and I couldn't be happier with how he did. In any event points, titles, and such are for the human; all he cares about is that I was really happy about what he did on the race course.

And the buffet that was the floor; he cared about that a lot. We were racing in a horse barn so there were traces of horse poo in the dirt. He thought it was a great smorgasbord. Urgh, poo-eating hound. Fortunately Garbage Guts didn't get sick.

After getting home from Scent Hurdling

In other dog news, Soccer behaved himself when Mom took him for a walk. It was clearly a good dog day.

Knitting
With all the Scent Hurdling yesterday all I manged to knit was another fish for the Fishie Blankie. I was pretty tired when I got home.

Current Weather
Sunny and 3C.

A little bit of progress

Another Knubbelchen is progressing nicely.

And my Niece's socks are coming along as well. Let's hope these don't come down to the wire as badly as my Nephew's did last week.

My Nephew liked his socks, or at least he was too polite to say otherwise. Actually, I think he liked them. Mind you, he's pretty accustomed to getting socks from me. His comment when he pulled them out of the bag; "gee, I wonder who these might be from?" Cheeky kid.

Scent Hurdle
Tomorrow Ahab is going to try for his Scent Hurdle Dog title. He has 10 points from last year before it was discovered that he was in violation of the rules for missing a paw. Have now got the rules changed so he can play again. I just hope he remembers what he's supposed to do; he's only been doing it at our practice facility for quite a while now. Oh well, if it's a disaster so be it. He needs 15 more points for his title. Fingers crossed.

I think I've got all the documents printed off for the tournaments tomorrow. It's my job to bring all the score sheets and stuff. There will be two tournaments, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Ahab is running in both, in the morning with our team and in the afternoon with another team since the rest of my team only wanted to come for the morning and I wanted to try for the whole day. Although, if Ahab can't make it all day I'll pull him.

Current Weather
Mostly cloudy, 3C.

A New Day

Volunteered for the CSHRA executive yesterday. Should be interesting.

Nothing finished to talk about.

Got some new yarn from Scotland. C Rennie Chunky Lambswool Should make a lovely cozy sweater.

Wheeeeee

It was party time at work this Saturday. There were fireworks. I left before the cops showed up.

Also did some practicing with Soccer; he's still struggling.

Knitting

So close to being done my UKBiL's socks. It's amazing how fast sport weight yarn knits up when you're making socks.

Progress

Scent Hurdle tournament was cancelled yesterday due to thunder and lightening. Just as well as I forgot to write it down and didn't show up.

Did an on-line typing test just for shits and giggles. Turns out I type about 50 words per minute these days. Not too shabby really.

Knitting

Progress continues on the Ugly Christmas Sweater. It doesn't seem ugly enough to win any prizes but I suspect I'll manage to find a few places to wear it. Both sleeves are done and the body is progressing. Decided to make it a cardigan after all. Guess that means I'll need to find buttons for it.

Since that one will be a cardigan I started another sweater. This one will be a pullover. Blue this time, it's surprising how few blue things I knit for myself; especially considering that blue is my favorite colour. Was thinking of doing this in Moss Stitch but I think I'll change my mind and do just the cuffs in pattern, the increases and decreases just don't seem to work right when worked in the pattern. If I do decide to do an entire sweater in Moss Stitch I suspect it'll have to be done in pieces and sewed together. Not my favorite way to make a sweater. No pics yet.

Also started a baby hat with the last of the baby overalls leftover yarn. Anything left once this is done will go into the Granny Square Blanket. It's just one enormous granny square that I keep adding all the leftover bits of sock yarn too.

Reading

Been re-reading my way through Mercedes Lackey's stories about Tarma and Kethry. Always worth revisiting those two; they're a couple of the best characters she's ever created.

Also discovered a new (to me) TV show long since cancelled of course but the library has copies of the DVDs. Sanctuary it's called; saw Amanda Tapping's name on it and figured I had to try it. Enjoying it so far.

Flu

Not feeling at all well today. We had an outdoor Scent Hurdle practice scheduled too and I had to miss it. Really sorry Ahab didn't get to try running outside. Next time.

Still managed a few rounds on my Ugly Christmas Sweater. Working on the sleeves still. I may change my mind yet and make it a pullover instead of a cardigan. Need to decide soon as the sleeves are almost finished.

Father's Day Update

Practiced a bit of Scent Hurdle with Soccer and he's still struggling with the idea of bringing back a specific barbell. He's always been a slow learner so this is no surprise to me.

Knitting

Father's Day Socks seem to have been well received as per usual. This is why I keep making socks, they seem to be appreciated by the recipients.

Made some progress on the Sideways Vest yesterday. About half way done now.

Still nothing on the small blanket but maybe I'll pick it up this week since I'm done the latest set of Baby Booties for Wee Bairn. Picture is all blurry but I'm too lazy to try again.

Pattern: Baby Boots by Frankie Brown
Yarn: Patons North America Kroy Socks FX
Needle: 2.75mm
Gauge: not critical babies grow so fast it hardly matters.

A Hail of a Tale

Passed my three month anniversary at work last week and got business cards. Never had business cards before.

Dog Sports

I almost missed practice last night due to hail and when I called to say I might be late it was sunny in the south end of the city. Weather here is so bizarre. Did make it to practice in the end although the hail storm seemed to follow me there but it only dropped water down south, the hail stayed in the north end of the city. There were still piles of it lying around when I got home from practice. It's a good thing I made it too since I had half the team's Scent Hurdle equipment with me.

This week I brought the peg board home with me to help Soccer learn to scent discriminate and not just retrieve a barbell.

Knitting

Finished one leg and started the second for the little overalls. Just need to finish the second leg and knit the straps. Had to get more yarn, seem to be using a lot more this time, probably because the gauge is so much looser. For a miracle though Micheal's actually had the same dye lot!!! Doesn't look like I started the final ball in sync with the first leg though. Meh, it'll look cute no matter what happens. Also still need to find a couple of buttons; think I'll check the multi-generation-button-bin (it was my grandmother's and now my mother's and I've added a few to it too), they may not match exactly but I suspect I can find something that'll work.

Progress

Or, lack thereof in Soccer's case. I've taken a step back with him because he's still struggling badly with scent discrimination so I'm getting him to search for the barbell again. He seems to enjoy that part a lot.

Knitting

On to the fiber stuff!

Selfie with the grey tank top is much better than I expected. Further proof that nothing is done until it's blocked. If I do something similar again I'll make the shoulders narrower I think, they sort of look like they're falling off me. Not too bad for a first try though I guess. I've done enough raglan style sweaters that I've got the hang of them for myself but the tank top was new.

Split for the legs for the overalls. I'm going to lengthen the legs a bit; there is a strong possibility that Wee Bairn will be long and lean.

And finished the second heel and instep of the Father's Day Socks.