Dressed-up Dogs on Thursday

Here's Mom with my three granddogs. The dogs aren't too thrilled, buy Mom is. Why?





Doggie Dress-up Day!!! We started decorating for Christmas & found most of the dog outfits.

My Angel

Don't be scared, Santa.

You are invited to Lora's 3rd Annual

Christmas Cookie Exchange Party

Thursday December 13, 2007

6:00pm - 9:00pm

Bring 6 dozen of one type of Christmas cookie. Bring another container to fill with an assortment of 6 dozen of our cookies during the swap.

Hearty Refreshments will be served.

Children & spouses welcome.

R.S.V.P. if possible

Infant & Toddler Legwarmers

Here is a toddler-sized leg warmer. Puddin's leg is too skinny, but you get the idea.


I just cast on 28 stitches,
worked k2,p2 around for 8 rows,
knit around until long enough,
& finished with a matching rib at the other end.
The yarn is Caron Simply Soft with size 8 dpn.




Same deal with these baby-sized legwarmers. "Cast on 24" and "stop sooner" are the only differences. For full scrunchie up the calf effect, these fit nb-12mo. And, no, Trixie wasn't happy with this modeling gig.

Starting another sock at the source

Sister Jill & Lora gleaning a cotton field for spinning fibers.

Going home to the bootheel of MO for Thanksgiving, I was hoping to find a cotton field that hadn't already had it's stalks chopped. I read about spinning cotton from the boll, that is, without ginning out the seeds first. It said that you got less fiber breakage and therefore longer fibers this way. You also sidestep the awful task of picking out the seeds. My grandma told that when her mother was a child they still picked the seeds by hand. Each evening all the children had to fill one of their own shoes with seeds before bed. Small child, small shoe, less seeds. Seems fair.

The universe sensed my need for cotton. This field was next door to cousin Sabrina's house. It was the only standing field of stalks that we saw, and the last few rows had been skipped on the final picking. Sure... it was wet and the bolls were stringing out a bit. But hey, if you ask for cotton and the universe answers, ya don't look the gift horse in the mouth.

Eatin' good in the neighborhood.

Some of the girls took me out to celebrate the fact that I quit my job with them and left them hanging at the busiest time of the year.

From the left: Paula, Gloria, me, & Traci.

Guess which one of us is suffering from alcohol flush.

They gave me this.

Check out the business name on the right. I got so excited when I saw that. If I ever get a yarn shop I will name it that...with the extra "pe" at the end & everything.

Another hat

I am a slow knitter. After 10 minutes, my fingers get numb and have to rest. Socks take forever and a sweater...forgetaboutit. So I got this book "knitting workshop" which tells me to knit a hat on a 16" circular needle. For whatever reason, I can knit all night on the darn thing. I can't express how freakin' exciting this is for me. So here's another hat made entirely from my handspun.

Bad dog-hair day on Thursday

They are either too embarrassed or too annoyed to look at me. "Save a couple of bucks" I thought. The inevitable mom sin: the home hair cut. Of course I decided to try it right before the holidays. My only recourse is to shamefacedly return to their groomer. Her only available time between now and Christmas is...the day after Thanksgiving. I guess nobody else wanted it.

I must be sleepy, 'cause I can't stop yarning.

Did you yawn when you read the post title? How about now? Amazing isn't it?

I found these sock yarns in the bottom of a basket. Totally forgot I had them.

Some new sock yarns that I bought. At yarn shops. Which I visited for the first time this YEAR.

The kicker is that I only want to knit socks for myself and I'm woefully behind on my Christmas knitting. Which means that I can't touch this for another MONTH AND A HALF. But I can pet it.

Dog on Thurs & 1st attempt at earflap hat

Puddin posing nicely with a decorative pumpkin. Her worried expression is from being posed on a couch that it not "hers".
Getting caught up now... a while back I swapped some yarn with Holly from knitwithsnotforyou and received these tweedy tan and beige yarns. Before I could get a picture of them, they leaped onto my needles and attempted to become a chullo. For a bit of color I added some of my blue handspun. It is chunkier than the tweed so it is mostly separate. The pattern is loosely based on the hat in "Knitting Workshop". Being as I am, I started the matching fingerless mitts before going back to add the earflaps and cords. Katie specifically requested braids for the cords so I still have to find how to do that somewhere. Simply braiding the yarn doesn't seem durable. A knitted braid? Anyone? The fingerless mittens are a K4, P2 rib with a touch of cabling. No decision yet on whether to have a thumb.

I hunt the elusive Chullo

My friend Katie asked me to knit her fingerless mittens and an earflap hat. I lost the picture she sent me, and so searched world (wide web) far and wide for inspiration. Here are some towards whom I am leaning.

#1 Lose the pom pon, keep the textured rim.

# 2 Like the color work, too loose around base.

#3 rims good, crazy ears & pointy top...no.

#4 I like

#5 I really like.

# 6 Katie the Kitty?

Much too busy...and Dog on Thursday

Brain addled from... what was I talking about? Breif synopsis of my week:

Get off work Saturday night at 10:30. Drive to Kansas City (sister in car accident). Arrive @ 5:00am. Baby snot, baby poop, cook, clean, city traffic. Drive home Wednesday, pick up mail, go to work until 10:30pm. This morning: pay tax, oil change, car inspection, register car, work 2-10:30. Tomorrow work @ 6am. (that's right- the best I can do is 5 hours sleep) Constantly remind myself that next Thursday is my last day at this job.

Too busy to take pictures, so here's an oldy but goody. Puddin, Bitsy(my first Shih tzu), and me on the 4th of July.