Sweater for Baron von Schnauzer

It's been rather cool here lately, and I thought Baron (or "Mr. B" as I nicknamed him almost 3 years ago) could use a little help keeping warm. I did pretty well adjusting the pattern I found to fit his chest/front legs, but got a little carried away with the length. Oops! He was a bit resistant when we put it on him, but after a couple of hours he looked comfortable, and even a little warmer :-) !




I even got the colors right so that they matched his bed! I was thinking about a superman one for Haloween ;-)

THE SHRUG

The pieces of the Shrug have been put together and it is far from perfect. Regardless, it is really fun to wear something that I created. I got many compliments and a lot of awe at work last week when the Shrug made it's debut. I definitely LOVE the color!!!! I am thinking about adding a button, latch or pin of some kind to keep the front pieces together. When I do this it pulls out the small "bubble" that is there. I guess I should not have altered the pattern, but for some reason I like to deviate from what is asked for. I do like the differences I made to the ribbing, it gave a little flare around the edge.

I have learned a couple important knitting lesson from these last two projects:

1. Follow the pattern (and this includes knitting a swatch to check your gauge), at least until my skills evolve to the point where I can start designing my own.
   
2. Measure, or know the measurements, of the subject you are knitting for.

Lessons I am sure that all knitters know, but for those of us who are eager and stubborn it takes a little longer.

Morning Visitor

This morning, while sipping a cup of Green Mountain coffee, I glanced out the window and saw that we had a visitor. She was laying in the back yard, casually chewing some of the grass which has sprouted since the last rain. I quickly grabbed the camera and took a few pics through the window (hence the glare). She stayed for about an hour until a fellow deer came by and they set off together for greener pastures.










I have decided to work on a project for myself; a shrug-cardigan. Here is a pic of where I am at with the sweater so far. I have finished the right and left sides, the back and 1 and a half sleeves. The sleeves have a fun cable and bobble pattern on them. Cables are much easier than I thought they would be. I actually had to rip out half of the second sleeve this morning! :-( When I looked at it I noticed I made a terrible error in the pattern- probably sometime while I was watching TV and trying to knit! I am not the best multi-tasker. (You are supposed to enjoy un-knitting as much as knitting. I am not sure I am there yet.)
I am using a pattern form the web site: www.kintty.com you can see the original pattern here. I really like this site, there are tons of fun free patterns with excellent photos. Stirs up all those creative juices! There are a couple pieces from this site that I have in mind for future projects.

Besides that, all is well in AZ! The weather is great, the Barrett Jackson car show is in town, and the Super Bowl and FBR Open (although I believe that it changed it's name) are right around the corner. Lots of things to bring lots of people into town and make lots of us locals make lots of negative comments about a lot of crazy driving!

60th Birthday Gift

My dad celebrated his 6oth Birthday this past December and I decided to make something unique for him. I knitted this fair isle scarf using a number of different patterns, some homemade, some taken from other patterns. I started the pattern knowing that I wanted to reference the year of his birth. Hence, I decided to put "EST. 1947" (established 1947) on the bottom of the scarf, with his initials "JSA" above. He is an avid cross country skier so I thought that he would love to have snowflakes, fellow skiers, and trees draped around him. Then there are the hearts. A daughters love for her dad.


I had so much fun knitting the scarf I thought I would make a hat to match! This was his Christmas gift. (Poor guy, he has had to live his whole life with a birthday a couple days before Christmas. Talk about being gypped!)

They were both a hit, although he did express the desire to hide the "EST. 1947" section from view.



This Christmas was pretty mellow. I decided that this would be a year of homemade gifts. The hat for my dad, a club cover with hearts on it for my mom (sorry no photo of that creation) and then I finished up an afghan that I had been working on sporadically for years and gave it to my sister. This is from the night of it's completion. I guess I was worn out from all those granny squares! When I put them together I set them at a diagonal so that the edge of the afghan is a jagged line. Well, she seemed to love it! I am sure that it will find it's place in her home. Chris expressed some worry about the blankets ability to provide warmth due to it being full of holes. Sometimes it is more about style than warmth!



After Christmas I felt like I was missing something without a project to occupy my hands. I did a little research and I started on a great little sweater pattern I found for some friends of mine who just had a baby boy. This is "the not so baby yoda" sweater. You can find the pattern here. Finished it today! Now to pack it up and ship it off.

So, what's next? I have a couple projects in mind that I would like to do, but it is difficult to decide where to start. So many ideas... so little time.

New Adventure

Most people may not find that creating a "blog" is adventure, but to me it is. All this open space to write and post whatever I want, and to share all the thoughts that come to my mind.... well, maybe not all my thoughts. :-)

Here's to the beginning of a new adventure!

Let's try adding a photo... It worked!

This is an image of my favorite day in 2007!

Now I will attempt to post this whole thing and see what happens...