Biscuits and a Vest

Run, Patty! Mommy said TREAT!

In typical fighting Irish fashion, our dog Patty feels compelled to bark her head off about twice a day in response to the insulting presence of some neighbor dogs way up at our back fence. She's not very food-driven, but we have finally trained her to abandon the barkfest and come back to the house when we call her by giving her a treat when she comes through the door. Snoopy, who's very food-driven, loves it when she goes up and starts barking, because he's learned to anticipate the T-R-E-A-T. (That's what we have to do - spell it out - that and the word D-I-N-N-E-R, both of which set him off in hysterics.)



This morning, I prompted the same response from Anna, propelling her into the kitchen from a dead sleep at 10:00 am (remember, it's summer, and she's a teenager) by saying, "Anna, fresh biscuits!" They're a little craggier than Tyler Florence's biscuits, but they tasted great with fresh strawberries.



I only had about a 1/4 cup of buttermilk so I made some with a cup of milk and a tablespoon of lemon juice; the biscuits had a very faint lemon note that was actually quite pleasant. A word of caution - I only used 1 teaspoon of salt in the recipe, not the tablespoon listed, and it was plenty.



In knitting news, I am done with the ribbing on my Back to School Vest. That was a LOT of ribbing. I'm now ready to start the patterned top portion, which will be a very welcome change from K2P2. I'm knitting the smallest size and I had just a few yards left of my first skein of Cascade 220, in case you were wondering.

Can I PLEASE have a biscuit too?

Impulse, Shmimpulse

Warning: there is so little knitting content in this post it barely qualifies for a knitting blog. But if you like puppies and kitties (and who doesn't?), read on.

Another crazy weekend at chez Windansea. Fencing tournament, fundraiser for a school none of my children attend, two (two!!) projects involving a posterboard and/or construction of a miniature stage and puppets, a sleepover, and I'm not sure what else because I think I've only been home for 10 minutes in the last three days.

Here's what's really crazy: in the midst of all this, I had a major impulse-control problem leading to the acquisition of a puppy.

Yes indeedy, internet friends - meet Snoop. Snoop's a rat terrier; we knew absolutely nothing about the breed before we met him, but once we found out that blue eyes are an undesirable genetic trait in the breed we knew he was for us. (Mutant dog? Absolutely, where do we sign? I blame John.)

And guess what? Despite the fact that I swore I'd never put clothes on a dog, something about his size made me have to go into gay dog overdrive. I bought a rainbow collar, a pink Kate Spade-looking doggy purse (me!), a leash with a daisy on it and a t-shirt that says "Security" so he can be just a little thuggish sometimes. John made me put back the tanktop with rhinestones that spelled out "Rock Star" but the Petco is an easy 10 minutes by freeway.




Today is day two and Patty is adjusting pretty well; she still says "All your dog toys are belong to us!" but the feisty fight-picker does have a tender place for her new buddy.



Spot's still not so sure...he's trying to decide whether it's something to eat or just another ill-mannered dog to put up with.

PS Gratuitous Knitting Content: Now I can knit those doggy sweaters I keep seeing patterns for. Although maybe not this one - don't want people thinking my dog's been in the big house!

Still Too Big

Even after the shrinkage, the shedir is a little too big. Maybe if it's worn with the brim folded up a little...maybe...it might work. And just look at it, lying there all innocent-like.

I did love, however, knitting with Calmer - it's awesome. The hat, even after washing & drying pretty roughly, feels like the knees of your favorite jeans. It's soft and velvety, and the yarn has a little elasticity, so it should knit to fit unless you're a gaugiot (that's gauge-idiot, i.e. someone like me).

Speaking of Calmer, I was down at The Grove last week, browsing (There isn't a ton of yarn there, but what they have is good quality and they have a multitude of cool stuff for ribbon embroidery, books, cards, and assorted other inspirations; plus it's across from Rebecca's) - they had an unbanded ball they let me have for practically free. It's sort of a light lavender so maybe it'll be a shedir for Mary. (Which will probably fit John if I haven't learned my lesson, and I guess he can wear it to the Gay Pride Parade and people will wonder just what kind of marriage we have, exactly. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

And today, even more Calmer. A brickish red, bought at Knitting in La Jolla (my LYS, lucky me) along with size 1 addi turbos to start that new shedir. I'm a little afraid of the addis for this yarn - it's kind of slippy. John suggested surfboard wax, or possibly a little steel wool action, to which I said, "Yeah, no." I'll just try to be a little more careful.



Clearly, Patty believes in being Calmer herself.

Seeing Red!

I'm not a big sock knitter. I live in flip-flop country. But sometimes.....I get a hankering to knit socks. Plus I had to cast on a stranded project to stay involved with a KAL I belong to. (This was before I knitted the Christmas ball in yesterday's post, which I'm definitely counting - it's stranded, right?)

I had some Cascade superwash left over from the infamous off-center placket sweater and some random lighter-colored worsted in my stash. I cast on for a toe up sock (my favorite!) using the method where you knit into the backs of your cast-on sts to start. I fooled with graph paper until I came up with this scrolly pattern (don't ask me why it's showing up BLUE either - that's not how the image looks here!):



I knit in a tube until I got to the heel, and then - disaster. I had to put the whole thing down for two weeks to allow the swelling in my brain to subside, because figuring out how the !@#$ to put in a heel on a stranded project almost made it explode.

First I tried a heel flap, which I frogged no less than three times while I alternately figured out I'd wreck the instep pattern when doing the gusset decreases and then convinced myself it was all in my mind.

Then I decided to use waste yarn - I've seen it done - and an afterthough heel. But wouldn't that wreck the pattern on the back of the sock? Which I realize now is actually on the bottom of your foot, so who cares?

And finally I decided to do the unthinkable. For me, anyway:



SNIP! I cut the stitch you see above, right in the middle of the heel. I unraveled (or is it "raveled"? I can never decide....) to both sides. I figured out I had to cut the contrasting color. I unraveled that too. I picked up an appropriate number of sts, and knit a "toe" like Elizabeth Zimmerman told me to.

I weaved in, I blocked on a hanger (which was easier said than done, bending that hanger into a foot-like shape).



The heel looked pretty good while blocking!



I tried it on Mary's foot - cuz it's for her. My guage for some reason tightened up between the casting-on honeymoon phase and the heel phase (repressed heel rage, anyone?) so it was a little hard to get on, but once on it looked, well, custom-made for her!!

And then I saw this:



Yep, that's a renegade stitch, laddering away from the heel as fast as it can. I'm about ready to burn this sock. I don't know how Patty can sleep through it.