Knitting In Public

Yesterday, two of our puppies went to their new homes.

Jigsaw, our only liver & white male. He is a mellow fellow and I’m sure his new family will love him. They’ve seen his photo on this blog, and have been eagerly following his growth, waiting for the day he could move “home.” Here he is with one of his new family members:

Now he has a new name: Rusty!

We hope that Rusty and his new family will have many wonderful years together!

Later last night, our second puppy went to his new home.

Dexter. He is probably the smartest of the puppies. Just before he left us, he figured out how to go down a single stair (he’ll still need to learn how to go down a staircase). I hope to get it up on You Tube - he decided to leap down the one stair. He is also very fast. The puppies’ mom, Lucy, is also the fastest dog I’ve ever seen and it looks like Dex will be just as fast.

Here’s Dex with his new family:

They’re not quite sure yet whether he’ll remain Dexter or perhaps change his name to Dodger. Either name will be excellent!

Both puppies go to loving homes, and they both happen to have a dog there already, so the puppies will have canine companionship (and competition?) as well as the love and attention of families with children.

As hard as it is to give them away, I’m confident that these boys will have happy homes.

There hasn’t been much time for knitting this weekend, as I’ve been on puppy doodie duty and have been spending much of my weekend washing floors (from the “accidents”) and washing puppies (from rolling/walking/playing/fighting in the “accidents”), and playing with puppies to keep them from being bored and yipping all day….  It’s a good thing they are so cute -

This is Dexter, Sketch, Yogi, Clover, Jigsaw and Google. There’s even a few eyes open in this one.

They love to pile up when sleeping, although sometimes they do self-segregate:

Sometimes our neighbors stop by for a “puppy fix”

I think they all had a good time.

These guys are just plain adorable (when they’re not making a mess)

So, while not a lot of knitting has been happening, I do have some to show you -

The “plain jane” socks are done! (Pardon the pasty white legs that never see the sun.) This is my second pair for SOS 2007. I’m waaay behind my “goal” of a pair every 2 weeks, which would have been 6 pair. The SOS 2007 is over at the autumn equinox, Sept. 21. Less than a week for 4 pairs isn’t happening in this house! So, I will need to revise my goal, and perhaps hope to finish a few more pairs before the end of the week. I have the Horcrux socks which are almost done, and the Cathedral socks (one done, the other about 1/3 done), plus at least one more with an orphan sock. I’ll give it a shot!

In the meantime, here’s some more finished socks:

These were finished quite while ago - I call them my Harlot socks. I started these last October when Mary, Sue & I went to see the Yarn Harlot in Eau Claire (you have to have a sock OTN when you see the Harlot, you know!) and finishing was delayed by Christmas knitting. They are officially my first FO for 2007, I finished them up for the UFO Challenge. This is Meilenweit Cotton Fun (or Cotton Fondo, I can’t remember now) and Jean fell in love with the colorway. Apparently it is now discontinued. These are something like 45% wool and 45% cotton with a little elastic or something else thrown in. Very comfortable. These are the socks I was working on when Tracey admired my knitting, spawning the offer for the above navy plain jane socks.

These were round 2 of Sock Madness. Made from Lorna’s Laces Sport in Rainbow colorway (I think). I wondered how these would fit, but they’re pretty comfy. I really liked how the cuff came out. The rest of the design gets lost in the variegated color, but I could see making this pair again in a solid. Very fun, but this was my last competition round as I was paired against the #1 knitter from round 1. I still received all the patterns from Sock Madness, so it wasn’t such a stinging defeat.

In addition to socks, I am working on the Mittenskal Mystery Mitten KAL. Here’s a progress shot of clue 1: (yes, I know clue 3 is released tomorrow…..)

This will be the cuff when it grows up.

Also OTN, I do have a new sock I’m working on (but will in no way be finished before the end of SOS):

This is Pomatomus. A fascinating pattern, but I do have to watch the chart so knitting on this is a little slower. I think they’ll be gorgeous when done. This is a Cookie A. pattern and is free on Knitty.com along with several other patterns she’s done. I have several of hers on my “to do” list. Good thing I have such a huge stash of sock yarn

Well, I have to run now, someone’s waiting for another bath!

Did you know that you can write, import photos, and click “save and continue editing” but that it really isn’t “saved” anywhere, and with an impatient click of the wrong button, you can destroy your nearly-complete post? Yeah. So the post will have to wait until tomorrow now - puppies are calling and lots left to do before bed. If I can sleep. If I don’t dream of screwing up posts all night. See you tomorrow.

I finished my 2nd pair of SOS socks, the navy blue shown ‘in progress’ below. They went fairly fast, especially when compared to the Summer Solstice socks - these took just a bit more than two weeks.

More Finished Objects (FO’s) and photos tomorrow — today is raining and icky, so I can’t get out to take good daylight shots.

We’re taking lots of puppy photos, too - so some of those will go up tomorrow as well. We are also taking some videos of the puppies in action (we call it “Puppy Pinball”) and will try to get those up on a You Tube video after the boys get back from Atlanta on Monday.

 See you tomorrow, with lots of photos!

We are lucky enough to have both a County and a State Fair. We love the County Fair because it has most of the elements of the State Fair (and a few unique to the County) - but on a smaller scale and with far less crowds!

The County Fair is usually a couple of weeks before the State Fair, so I am able to enter knitted things to both Fairs. Each fair has different categories and different prize levels, etc. I try to enter things every year, especially to the County so that they know there is continued interest in competition. Some years there has not been much submitted, and I’ve wondered if they will decide to stop having a knitting competition at all. Last year, I convinced my friend Jean to enter her knitting to the fair. We had so much fun!  When you go to the fair, you look through all the exhibits to find your entries, and see if you won any ribbons. At the County, the items are often displayed next to the competition from the same category, so you can see what items the judges liked best! The State has so much more to display, and usually they try to put the items by theme, rather than category - so often it is hard (if not impossible) to determine which items you were competing against.

Of course, the competition is subjective, and if you can’t take criticism of your work then you’re best off not entering. I’ve had some pretty strange results over the years (I’m certain in some cases they got the score cards mixed up - the comments made no sense for the item submitted), so you just have to roll with the punches and enjoy the ride.

This is a multi-directional scarf made from Patons SWS (2 or 3 skeins). It was fun and interesting to knit. The County was apparently not too impressed, I got a 3rd place ribbon. The State, however, seemed to like it a bit better (and of course, the competition is different - not everyone from the county enters the state competition, plus the county had only one category for scarves, the state had 3) and I received a 2nd place ribbon. Woohoo! The state always gives a score card and almost always has a judge’s comment. The county occasionally has a judge’s comment. Nothing from the county on this, but the state said “Nice bias work” :)   My score was 97 of 100 possible points.

This baby sweater was made from  Bernat Softee Baby acrylic yarn. Used less than one skein. It placed first at the county, and had a judge’s note “very even stitches!” It did not place at the state. My score was 95 of 100, and the comments were “Lovely color choice. Nice pattern selection. Jacket is nicely proportioned. Very well knitted.” This gives a peek at how competitive our knitting is at the State level. We have some fabulous knitters here, and we take it pretty seriously! Every September at our Guild meeting, we have the State Fair Show and Tell. We share what we entered, and the judges’ comments, and often little anecdotes about the items. Fairly frequently there are negative comments about the choice of buttons! I’ve given you a close-up here of the duckie buttons on this sweater. It’s always surprising how difficult it is to match a color!

The last item I put in the fairs this year was this pair of “Childs French Socks” from Knitting Vintage Socks in Burgundy KnitPicks Essential. They won first place at the county, and nothing at the state. No comments from the county, the state said “nice socks, but this lot was so competitive.” Score was 95 of 100.

I have fun entering the fairs, and now I have a few ribbons to add to my collection. If you aren’t entering in your local fairs, maybe you should check it out!

In other news, another pair for my SOS total (wow, I’m so behind on those). These socks are “plain jane” in KnitPicks Essential - Navy. I made the ribbing a bit longer so they can be folded over if desired. This is a pair that my DH “promised” for me - for a lovely lady we met last fall. She was hosting a surprise birthday party for a friend of ours, saw me knitting my current socks and immediately tried one on! She exclaimed how comfortable they were (I, of course, explained that hand-knitted socks were the best thing ever!), and my DH said I could knit up a pair for her. She was having another party at the end of August, so I thought I’d better pull out the yarn and get going on them. Well, obviously they weren’t finished in time, as they are still a WIP, but they’ll be done soon - they just aren’t much to look at….

Ho hum.

One last puppy photo I forgot to post last night. Here’s my DS, DD, and DD’s Bf holding all the puppies. Photo was taken August 26th, so puppies are two weeks older now. DD’s Bf was in town to go to the State Fair. He has never been to a State Fair, and it is one of DD’s favorite things - so of course, he had to visit!

Here’s some quick photos of the puppies before I head off to bed. They are growing like crazy! Their eyes started to open just before M went back to school - so that would have been the end of August. You’ve seen their first attempts at walking…now they are scooting around like crazy!  They are being fairly well socialized - we pick them each up and hold them for awhile, and we’ve had lots of folks stopping by to visit. They are even starting to be housebroken at only 3 weeks old! We have “wee wee pads” (don’t blame me, I didn’t name them!) and they do their business on those and keep their sleeping area clean. Wow. I wish they’d had these the last time I had a puppy. We are working hard to get them weaned. They are eating solid (canned) food, but are also still nursing.

Nap time is one of our favorite times…….

Clover and Google:

Clover and Sketch (my, that Clover sure gets around!) 

Yogi:

Jigsaw, “sawing logs” –

 And now, it’s time for me to head off to sleep. Tomorrow, State Fair entries!