Oso is learning to skijor!

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

We decided not to adopt the puppy after all. She is a great dog so I’m sure she will find a good home in no time (our shelter does not euthanize adoptable animals).

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!

Potential new dog needs a name!

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!”

these have all been finished for at least a week and some much longer…

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!

I feel like I have been working on the same old things forever.  I guess sweaters take a long time to knit, who’d have guessed?

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.