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Slavin' Away on Sleeves

Here we go; a progress photo of Dale 10706 (from Dale 107) sleeves:

Ho-hum. That's not orange, but rust. Not very exciting. But! If I keep this pace up, perhaps I'll finish them at approximately the same time this weekend, and then, by borrowing Sister's sewing machine, I'll have a finished Foxes sweater by Monday! Or maybe not! (I just remembered the neckband.) It's a cliff-hanger blog-entry this Friday!

Pups

Della says: If you find something joyfully smelly to love, roll around in it.

Words to live by. Wishing you a most wonderfully smelly Friday, and a joyful weekend. Hey! What *are* you doing this weekend? I saw this via the Knitwit over at Knitwitology, and it's given me ideas . . . hmmm. Yes. Ideas. And hope. Thanks, Morgan!

A Sleeve Grows in Austin

Dreaded sleeves. The first one is growing nicely enough. But I know the second one will take practically forever. I'm trying a sock-knitters trick this time, and working one ribbing, then working the other ribbing, then working the first chart, then working the other first chart, etc. Still seems like a lot of work, but at least the sleeves will stay at about the same rate of progress, right?

Nanette, it's being worked in Heilo, in black, rust, two greens, and purple. Anne, the jury is still out on twee-ness...maybe I'll try it with the fox face under the arm, and let you know!

Pups

After exactly one month here, the pups are quite bold in their backyard. I'm pleased that I can watch from the window inside while they are out sniffing boldly about. Here's what I see while they are outside being Big Dogs.

It's a thoughtful day; a day of remembering the most sorrowful day for many of us. Be safe, and we'll visit more tomorrow.

Foxy Wednesday

All righty! I finished the body of Dale 10706, from Dale 107, which Anne says is out of print now. Bummer! Keep an eye out for a copy for her, okay?

A couple of color changes here, but I prefer green and purple to teal and red. I think it works, and can't imagine why I stopped working on this sweater earlier this year. I'm glad it's nearly finished now, 'cause I like those foxes! Let's look at them some more!

Will it be too twee if I duplicate stitch a single white stitch onto each eye? All that's left at this point is the neckband (easy) and the sleeves (dreaded). Boy. I hate making sleeves. My next project is sleeveless. But fair isle.

Fair Isle! I forgot to tell you about my fabulous out-of-print book score! It's Fabulous Fair Isle by John Allen, St. Martins Press 1991. And I found it at Half-Price Books in Austin, on the shelf all by itself, for a measley $4.98. Awesome! It's full of fair-isle goodness!

Was that lucky or what? Now if I could only have the same sort of luck with AS's Scottish Collection.

Hope your day is full of lucky foxy finds! Tons of love from me and the pups . . . see you tomorrow!

Norwegian Neck Nonsense

So, since this is my first Dale, even though it's been languishing in the work basket for nearly a year, I decided to Follow the Dale Directions on the pattern for shaping the neck. So, I cast off stitches, and by working back and forth on each side, have nearly finished the front and back. However! It is very slow going, and I won't do it this way again. Who came up with this method?? I think it's Norwegian Neck Nonsense to do it this way. Instead, I'll either do as Wendy does, and create a neck steek, or I'll do as Geane does, and stitch and trim along a curve. Both Wendy and Geane are a lot smarter about Dales than I am, and next time, I'll do as they say and skip purling back in color work. Yeah. That's the ticket.

Even Jack is bummed about how long it is taking to do the neckline this way.

But speaking of Dales, I was looking at this one on a "store-bought" Dale site; does anyone reading know if Moldegaard is available as a pattern to knit? I think it looks like fun to knit.

We have busy stuff to do today. You? That's Tuesday for you! Aim high and have a happy one, okay? Oh, and thank you, dear readers, for the mini-tutorials on burdocks and the assorted other sticker-type v.m. stuff!

Monday

Was your weekend swell? Our weekend here seemed long, since my mom was visiting and we were quilt-shop-crawling. We did manage to hit six of our scheduled eight quilt shops, and saw lots of beautiful quilts and fancy fabrics. Quilters have a lot of good tools and gadgets; more than knitters, I think. I saw several little tools that seemed like lots of fun, but I couldn't think of knitting applications for 'em. I was most impressed with a tiny little long-handled ironing device that presses quilt seams open. Cute.

I don't think I'll take up quilting yet, though, despite the associated cool gadgets.
Instead, I did a bit more knitting on the Dale 10706 (from Dale Adult Book 107).

Flor worked this sweater up with some lovely substitute colors and wool; check it out on her Dale Collection page. In other knitting news, I finished the first Opal acid green sock, and cast on for the other.

Pups

The pups were beautifully behaved all weekend, and as a reward, they got to go for a walk in the woods, which they enjoyed very much. However, there are tiny little sticky-thorny-things in the woods that catch in dachshund fur and refuse to be dislodged, so we spent a lot of Sunday evening with dachshund combs and brushes trying to get rid of all that vegetable-matter. Jack models his sticky-thorny-burry-things here:

Did you ever? Texas is full of surprises for us.

Monday! Monday! Monday! We are wishing you a great one! See you tomorrow!