Octomom times two!

Had you going there, didn't I???

In Feb of 1993 our dog Truffle had 16 puppies!!! That's twice as many as the Octomom and here is the picture as proof. You can click on this picture to make it bigger and try to count the little wigglers. It was a lot of work and no one gave us free stuff. The press was interested, though. The Californian did a front page article on the happy event with a nice photo. (which I am too lazy to go get, scan and post...sorry)

I think Truffle looked WAY better in her pregnancy photo than that other Octomom.
We found good homes for all of Truffle's babies. One of them stayed with us ...Cocoa. Our brother Greg had one and the rest went far and wide to loving families.

Both Truffle and Cocoa are chasing cats in heaven now.

Oh....in case you were wondering...Truffle got preggers the old fashioned way. She went on a "honeymoon" with a Chocolate Lab named Bachelor. That is what we said to our kids, who were 7 & 10 then.

Just a little dog-gone shenanigans.

Stocking down, hat to go

The Christmas stocking is finished except for the little loop to hang it with. I think I am going to leave the name off of it.
Hmmmm As I am looking at this photo, I see that I also need to add the duplicate stitch red berries on the wreaths and the red nose on one reindeer.
I will be scheduling a class to make stockings soon.

The coolest thing I have to pass on to you is that I found a new way to do the grafting on the toe (and heel) of this project. The Techknitting blog is a massive resource and she came up with a great way to graft. Give it a try on your next sock. I really liked it. I emailed this brilliant lady and she gave me (limited) permission to reproduce her pics etc for a handout. No more Kitchner, gotta love that!

I love Fair Isle (or stranded knitting for those that like to split hairs). I find it less fussy than intarsia and looks harder than it really is.

Speaking of harder. I am now working on a hat with ladybugs in Dale of Norway, Baby Ull. It is fingering weight and the needles are size ZERO. My wrists are feeling a bit sore so the hat is going slower than I would like. It should be adorable though.

Multi tasking

I needed to interrupt the work on the Malabrigo cardigan.

I told Karen I'd let her finish what she's working on so she can knit the same cardi with me. Plus, I need to make this Christmas stocking for the shop. We want to encourage customers to start making Holiday gifties early.
After this stocking I have to quickly make a cute little ladybug hat with Baby Ull. (also for the shop) I'll post pictures of that when I get it going.

I wish I had another pair of hands to knit MORE!!!!

All this and I found out (in a very painful way) that I have Pantar Fasciitis. It's very ouchie! I am icing my heel and doing stretching exercises along with new inserts for my shoes... the Dr said I have all the wrong shoes and need new (ugly) ones. wah!

I feel Special!

I made a comment on The Yarn Harlot's blog yesterday. Basically asking if anyone was still reading the comments (mine must have been the kabillionth one) and this morning I got an email from Stephanie herself saying that she reads all of the comments.

Just had to share....that is all.

Knitting Strategy

I would say that a little preparation before a project can help with your knitting success.

Make copies of your pattern. You can make notes on the copy and drag it around while your original stays pretty and nice in the event that you want to use it again. Next- check out the chart on the original pattern. I enlarged it, you can see that the bigger one is way easier to follow.

The first two repeats of the chart start at a different row than the second two repeats. I have different colored stitch markers to designate when I do each repeat of the chart- white for the first two repeats and blue for the other two.
To make following the chart easier I am using two copies of the enlarged chart. Post-its show me what row I am on. I marked them with the stitch marker colors, this makes it so much easier to keep it all straight.

A good strategy for following a pattern has helped me tremendously!