Inspirations

Things have been progressing slowly but steadily around here lately.

Tango is recovering from his surgery and will get his stitches out tomorrow. He has not been enjoying being confined to the house at all but it was necessary to keep his activity to a minimum in order for his knee to properly heal. Starting this weekend he will be allowed small walks around our complex, slowly building up to longer walks around the neighborhood. Hopefully it will help out his stir-craziness and improve his mood somewhat, lol!

I have been working ever so diligently on my Garnstudio sweater:

It has been slow going since the summer heat settled in on us. It has also been slow to progress due to being knit in very fine sport weight on 3.25mm needles. But the fabric is luxurious and drapey and the cable design really "pops". I am almost finished the front and then I have just one more sleeve to go.

Now on to the inspiration part of this blog post! A couple of weeks ago K. and I visited Mt. Vernon, WA on a little day trip and discovered a delightful yarn shop called Wild Fibers. It is a beautiful, well stocked and airy shop filled with all sorts of knitterly treasures. K. and I quickly scooped up some Hazel Knits Artisan sock yarn that we had never seen before:

I find the colors so rich and intense. Just the thing to revive mid-summer knitting blahs! Just before we were leaving I spotted a shop sample of this design by Knit Whits. The body is made up of Noro Kureyon and the ruffles of matching Kureyon sock. I tried it on and fell hard. I grabbed the pattern and spent pretty much the whole drive home contemplating which of my stashed Noro yarns to use for it. I finally settled on #255 - a fall blend of browns, oranges, golds and maroon. I didn't quite have enough skeins, but I managed (luckily) to find more in the same dye lot at couple of LYS's. By the time the matching sock yarn that I ordered on line arrives I should be finished with the Garnstudio pullover and ready to cast on. I can hardly wait..it was that awesome!

Tango Gets A Leg Up

I've been absent from blogging for the last week due to a little drama going on at the home front. Our dog, Tango, was diagnosed with Luxating Patellas in both back legs. Basically his kneecaps are genetically deformed and require surgery to correct. Tango is only a year and a half old and otherwise quite healthy and active. We suspected there might be a problem when we moved because he started randomly favoring one of his legs on and off. We were hoping it was just an injury due to running around on new-to-him slippery floors. Then when the other knee started acting up as well we knew there was trouble. I did some checking on the internet and found that this condition is quite common for small purebred dogs, especially his breed: Papillons. I also found out that the prospects are good for a full recovery but the surgery itself can be quite costly just for one leg, let alone two. So we had the talk that every pet owner facing expensive surgery for their pet faces. Its brutal and heartbreaking to put a price tag on your furry companion but, unless you are independently wealthy, a sad necessity. Then I took him to the vet for an assessment and quote, knowing full well that we might have to make a horrible choice. When the vet showed me the list of everything needed and the total cost for the first surgery I almost cried..it was less than half of what I was fearfully expecting! With the green light fully on, the vet did some x-rays and blood tests and we booked him in for surgery on Tuesday.

Leaving him at the vet on surgery day was probably the hardest thing I've done in a long time. He was so scared and there was no way I could comfort him. I found out the next day when we picked him up that he barked and tried to dig his way out of the cage basically the whole time he was there. When we got him back he was so sad looking with his bandaged up leg and his cone of shame. He didn't want to be left alone for a second even though he was obviously tired and stressed. Today he looks better even though he is still not eating as much as he should. He has meds for pain and antibiotics and we are only keeping the cone on him at night. He has the bandage on his leg for a week and the stitches stay in for another week after that. In 6-8 weeks, if all is well, he has to repeat the whole process with the other leg.

There is no way to tell how successful the surgery is until he is walking properly again. We can only hope that because he is such a young dog that it will be 100% and he will be back to running around in no time.

What's New

We are finally starting to relax into "summer mode" here. Staying up late, sleeping in and eating lots of fresh local fruit and veggies. The girls and I are reading "Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief" together (we will watch the movie once we are done) and they have swim lessons at the local rec center twice a week. The weather has not been very summery yet...cool and cloudy..but rumor has it that hot sunny days are due to roll in next week. In the meantime we are getting in lots of walks on the local trails and putting in a few flowers in the garden.

I have been puttering on the knitting front. I visited my local yarn store, 88 Stitches, and picked up this lovely little treat:

It is a skein of Silk Cashmere Fingering, hand dyed by Melissa from Yarn Candy-Sweet Fiber. The colors are rich and moody and the yarn is oh, so very soft and delightful.

I started the Garnstudio sweater out of some yarn I had sitting in my stash forever:

It is a positively decadent blend of extra-fine merino, silk and cashmere. It is fine sport weight so it will be slow knitting but the finished product will be more than worth it. I had actually started this sweater out of a different yarn but after a couple of inches I ruthlessly tore it out and restarted because everything about it was off...wrong color, texture, etc. Why work so hard and so long on something that I ultimately won't love? This yarn, on the other hand, is a clear winner and has been waiting patiently in my stash for the right project to come along.

I have been analyzing what type of sweaters I actually wear lately and realized that I don't knit things that I really enjoy wearing very often. My standard garment in the wintertime is definitely thin, clingy v-neck sweaters in basic colors yet I knit a lot of worsted-weight outerwear cardigans and jackets. I have to remember this whenever I'm picking out a new project to work on, lol, or I will forever be wearing crappy store-bought sweaters while my beautiful, carefully knitted items sit in the cupboard all winter!

Happy Canada Day!

What a great country to live in. Love ya, Canada!

Ten on Tuesday

Ten Things I Want To Accomplish This Summer:

1. Sort out the basement
2. Clean out the garage
3. Sew a garment for me
4. Finish Youngest's quilt
5. Knit at least 2 sweaters
6. Make 1 original art work
7. Start an exercise program
8. Go for a walk every day
9. Teach the girls some cooking
10. Learn to relax

Busy, Busy, Busy

Its finally the last few days of school! Just a full day today and a half day tomorrow and thats it. Its been so busy around here that I haven't had time or inclination to post anything. There's been so much last minute project finishing, end of year field trips, and special events at the school. I have had a stack of school notices sitting out in date order that I look at every day just to make sure I don't forget or miss anything. The main thing this week is Eldest's class play today. It is a Reader's Theater take on Harry Potter. Eldest has a narration role and a small character part. We went to Value Village to get all the costume pieces that she needed but I ended up sewing a cloak for her because we couldn't find anything even remotely suitable.

It turned out really well, if I do say so! The pattern is a kids costume pattern that was on sale at Fabricland for $2 and the fabric is some old cotton that I had in one of my fabric stash bins. I altered the length and a few of the details to suit her. I figure she and Youngest can use it for their dress-up games once the play is over.

Here's a shot with the hood up:

All in all, it took about 4 hours to make and really fueled my desire to get back into sewing. I used to sew clothing before I had kids and I also took a few garment making classes as well. I have all the supplies and *cough* a lot of fabric just sitting around. I'm hoping that I will be putting in some time with my machines this summer.

There has been a bit of knitting. I've been steadily working on the Xmas socks:

I should be finished up the last one today or tomorrow. After that I'm thinking a simple v-neck pullover done in the round, perhaps a Garnstudio design like this one.

FO: Vertigo Vest

My Vertigo vest is finished. Details, as always, are here on Ravelry.

Why yes, I did start this on Friday! We were doing bathroom renovations all weekend which stressed me to end so, rather than wring my hands and hover around, I chose to knit pretty much non-stop. It was a pleasant quick project that came together easily and used up some old stash yarn I had sitting around. Unfortunately, though, the noise and mess caused me to forget how to read a pattern, lol, so I ended up working the colorwork portion a little bit too high..whoops! Oh well, its a "design feature" now..

After all the ends were sewn in and the vest was blocking, I decided to start some basic man socks for the Xmas gift stash:

Whenever I see Regia, Fortissima, or OnLine sock yarn on deep discount I always scoop up several balls in neutral manly colors for future gift socks. I usually make several pairs every year and the recipients only like dull colors, nothing fun or exciting. It makes for boring knitting, but sometimes that is a good thing when everything else in life is going crazy.

The other exciting thing this weekend was my new glasses:

I decided to go out on a limb and get ones a little bit more "out there" rather than the safe, blend-in frames I've always chosen in the past. I figure now that I'm over 40 I can stop worrying about how I look and start expressing my inner creativity a bit more in my appearance.