Yesterday I took a pack of huskies (Maggie, Oso, Rusty and Amadablam) and skijored out Herbert Glacier trail.  Oso is the only one with a harness so he was the only one working.  The other dogs were just there to party to give Oso someone to chase.  They took this job very seriously and I got zero pictures of them zooming up the trail in front of us.

It was a really great day weather-wise: Cold and sunny.  We’ve had a lot of wind recently which has left the first 1/3 of the trail in less than pristine shape.  Lots of debris over the tracks makes it hard to get into a rhythm x-country skiing…

Can you find the trail?

Unless you have a dog to PULL YOU!!!

Go Oso go!

We have been practicing here and there all winter and this was our first trip that Oso pulled the whole way!  It was amazing and fast and fun and I was very proud of how much he’s learned since we started!

In case you are thinking I’m very lazy, I actually do ski while Oso trots along out front.  Together we go along at a pretty good pace and I think we are both exhausted today.

Herbert Glacier

We did the whole 9 mile trail in just under 3.5 hours.  It was around 2  hours in and 1.5 back.  I suspect an incline may be involved because we were flying on the way back.

I had so much fun and it snowed today so hopefully we will get a few more skijors in before the winter ends!

Somebody get this dog a cheeseburger!

Maggie at Boyscout Beach 3/4/11

Last Wednesday I finally got a chance to do something that I have always wanted to do and that was to go camping on a school night!  Hurray!

My bff Emily and I headed out Peterson Lake Trail at 4:30 in the evening with about 2 hours of daylight to hike the 3.5 miles out to the cabin.

Oso carried all the dog food.  Good boy!

Lou joined us at the cabin later in the evening (he hiked out via headlamp) and we were treated to an awesome northern lights show for our troubles!  It was about 20 minutes of dancing lights all across the sky.  The lights were bright enought to light up the snow and we could see some purples and greens mixed in with the mostly white lights.  This kind of show is unusual for Juneau.  We have a lot of cloudy nights which usually obscure any aurorial activity for us.  No pictures because I didn’t want to miss anything running inside to get the camera.  Sorry!

In the morning I got up at 6:00am, made coffee, packed up, headed out, drank my coffee and gulped a cliff bar as I headed down the trail.  Lou and Emily were still in their sleeping bags when I left.  I jogged most of the way back down the trail and even with the 40 minute drive and stopping at home for a shower I still made it to work by 10:00am.

I even made some progress on my knitting:

Iknitarod Sock!

I knit a couple inches of this while Lou and Emily built a fire in the woodstove and cooked dinner.  Thanks guys!

Sunrise on Peterson Lake Trail

I hope there will be more of these sorts of adventures in my future!

Lou and Maggie on Cairn Peak last September

It took me a while to realize that he wanted a sweater.  I have always shown him the popular men’s knitting patterns like Cobblestone and the Saddle Shoulder Aran Cardigan and had him look through Son of Stitch and Bitch but he never seemed to like anything enough for me to make it so I thought he was only humoring me and didn’t really want a sweater.

However, this year Lou started collecting wool shirts and wool pants for winter (see below).  It was then I knew he secretly wanted a sweater and I just hadn’t found the right one.

A man after my own heart

This fall I went on a short road-trip up North and while I was gone I left Lou with a big pile of men’s knitting pattern books from the library.  When I returned he had selected the pattern for his sweater from this book:

This is a really interesting book.  There are archival photographs of people wearing sweaters and then charts for the stitch patterns in the sweaters.  Lou asked for a sweater based on this one:

Once we had the pattern figured out it was pretty straightforward to match up a yarn and get started.

Photo not color accurate.  Actually it is much darker.

I am using Peace Fleece in Baikal Superior Green which is a nice dark blue/green.  I’ve had some gauge woes so far (this sleeve has been frogged) but now that those are sorted I think the rest of the project will go pretty smoothly.

Shooting cactus in Tucson last March

Finally the Official Blog Photographer will have a sweater of his own!

The Freyja Sweater knit in Frog Tree Alpaca Sportweight.

This was a very successful knit for me.  All the plain stockinette on small needles was great for stressful semester knitting and because I knit this in a mini-KAL with Missy she really cheered me on to knit through the colorwork and get it finished up.

Not as tired as I look, just cold!

The only problem with it is that it came out a little too long.  This is my third sweater in a row to come out much too long…  Apparently I think I am much taller than I actually am.

Brrr!

Through some creative blocking I was able to felt the torso section to about 3″ shorter.  It’s still a little longer than what I would consider “just right” but it’s definitely wearable.  In fact I’ve worn this a lot since I finished it.  The alpaca is cozy and warm without being too heavy.

Oso loves modeling knitwear

Raveled here.

In the spirit of “Start as you mean to go on,” I finally finished my Thermal Sweater January 1st, 2011.

Honestly, I’m not completey happy with it.  It’s too big overall, the neckline is too low (even though I raised it from the pattern), it’s too long and the seaming around the shoulders is funky.

However, after almost 4 years of taking up space in the UFO bin I think this may be the sweater I’m most excited to finally be wearing.

Even though this sweater isn’t particularly flattering I’m sure I’m going to be getting a ton of wear out of it.  I’ve already worn it more times this winter than a couple of my other handknit sweaters I can think of.  Part of this I’m sure is a desire to save my favorite sweaters for special occasions so they won’t wear out as fast and some it is that this sweater is a nice lightweight layer for beneath my winter jacket.

I’m already planning to knit another Thermal which will hopefully fit a little better.  It was nice having this one as a long-term background project that I could always pick up if I needed some reliable zombie knitting and it was a perfect travel project.

Oso is learning to skijor!

Meanwhile the holiday knitting frenzy continues…  Hooray for wintertime fun!

She turned out to be not the right fit for our pack and to tell the truth I’m not totally convinced Maggie wants another dog to join our pack at all.

Despite her many doggie playmates Maggie has always been an “only dog”

Even though we didn’t name the puppy the Random Number Generator chose Elizabeth as the winner of the drawing!

Hopefully there will be a knitting post later this week when I finish my finals!

Oh Hai!

She is a 1 year old black lab mix from the local shelter.  We are considering adding her to our pack depending on how she does at our house (so far so good) and whether we can come up with a good name for her.

Please put any cool dog name suggestions in the comments!  She is on the small side for a lab and all black except for a small white spot on her chest.  She had a rough first year but the folks at the shelter have been working with her to give her a new start.  She is friendly and loves to play and zoom around in the yard.

There will be an as-yet-undetermined prize if we choose your suggestion, or if we don’t choose any of the suggestions I will draw a random commenter for a small token of my appreciation.

Which bitch is which?

Extra points if your name suggestion sounds good when yelled along with, “Maggie,” and “Get back here!”

Mitered Cowl

I knit this Mitered Scarf using Noro Silk Garden Sock striped on itself and squares similar to those from the Modern Quilt Wrap pattern.  It’s hard to see in this picture but I only did one row of squares so here is a WIP shot that shows more of what the scarf actually looks like:

I really like the colors of this but never once wore it once I finished it last spring.  I used all the yarn but it came out a little short for a scarf.  However, last month I was looking for a cute scarf to match my outfit and pulled this out and had the idea to turn it into a cowl.  Now I am wearing it all the time!  Hurray!  I still need to sew it up into the cowl but for now a big safety pin has been doing the trick.  So I guess my first finished object is actually not finished…

Moving on:

Although it is hard to tell in this picture I actually really love this scarf/cowl and wear it all the time!  I used the September Circle pattern and knit most of this while on a crazy road trip with my bff.  I used Crown Mountain Fiber’s Sock Hop yarn that has been one of those treasured stash jewels for a long time.  If I could go back in time I think I would knit this on a smaller needle but since I only brought one needle on the trip I used that and what I mostly love about this is the colors anyways so I tried not to worry too much about the giant gauge.

Lastly:  I finished knitting these mittens out of Missy’s yarn

I made up the pattern and took notes while I was knitting so I’m planning to write the pattern up at some point.  I hope I can find the time because these mittens were really fun to make!  The yarn is super squooshy and awesome and they knit up really fast.

Right now I’m booged down knitting the one and only holiday present I’m planning to make this year…  It’s going to be awesome!

They are getting nearer to completion though, so I thought I would show off where I’m at.

100 Year Sweater

This is my 100-Year Sweater in honor of Elizabeth Zimmermann.  I joined the sleeves and I’m trucking through the plain knitting below what will be a colorwork yoke.  Although I think the bulk of the knitting is done this sweater is a long ways from completion.  I’m planning a color-work yoke and a steek to make a henley neck.  I think both the color-work and finding the courage time to do the steek will take a while.

Freyja

This is my Freyja sweater.  I’m very very close to being finished with this one.  I have a few more rows to knit of the collar, then bind-off, sew up underarms and weave in ends.  That’s it!  I’m excited to wear this this winter so I hope it fits as I haven’t been able to try it on at all.

When I finish Freyja I’m planning to cast-on for two more sweaters.  I know my math is off on that but one has a bit of a deadline and I’m worried I won’t have enough zombie knitting around for a busy holiday season since the 100-year sweater only has a couple inches of plain knitting before the fussy business starts.

On Deck

On the left is a purple mohair blend I’m planning to use to knit Tea Leaves and on the right is some dark blue/green Peace Fleece I’m going to use to knit a sweater for Lou(!).

Also in the near-future I got some super soft squooshy yarn from Missy that I’m planning to knit some colorwork somethings with.

Squoosh!

I’m thinking mittens.