Drive by Blogging

Thanks for all the comments on little Logan yesterday. He is just great. He will eventually be allowed to model knitwear, but he has to learn some wool manners first. He has tried to walk off with my current Christmas knitting a couple of times (no damage, just a little dog spit), so we'll have to work on what is and isn't allowed before he is ready for the responsibility of showing off knitwear.

I'll have some regular knitting to show tomorrow because we're doing pretty well on the Christmas gifts right now.

Introducing...

...Logan! Logan is our new family member who arrived from Canada the day before Thanksgiving. (Yes, he travelled on the busiest travel day of the year and he did great!) We all had a big empty place in our hearts after losing Ramius and Finn and are thrilled to have little Logan in our family. He is another Golden Retriever, but he is bred to the English/European breed standard instead of the American breed standard. We did some research on other dog breeds, but we kept coming back to Goldens - they are the only breed that hits all of our "wants" in a dog. We talked to a couple of breeders here in the States who breed this type of Golden and due to puppy timing issues, one of them recommended a Canadian breeder who had some older puppies available and this is how we found Logan. He is 5 months old and while we've never started with a puppy this age, we are really enjoying the little extra bit of maturity that 3 months gives a dog. The breeders described his personality as a gentle and loving dog who gravitates to people instead of just playing with the other dogs. This appealed to us since we knew he'd be the only dog in the home.

He arrived Wednesday evening and seemed thrilled to meet us (of course if you'd been on a plane all day the day before Thanksgiving, you'd go home with Jack the Ripper if he volunteered to take you home from the airport). Thursday was a bit crazy but he took it all in stride and met Mom and Dad and Rick and Mindy, who came over for Thanksgiving. Everyone was immediately charmed by him (he's a total love bunny). He also displayed his amazing counter surfing skills as he tried to get samples of Thanksgiving dinner. He is a very relaxed and sweet little guy. He's curious about everything but he leaves things alone when we tell him to. His sweetness and cuteness is almost physically painful and his tail only lies still while he sleeps. (Check out the size of his feet!)

We figured out that his name is Logan yesterday and he's already turning to look at me when I call him by name. Logan was the "regular" name taken by Wolverine of the X-Men. Wolverine is a Canadian lumberjack, so we've got the Canadian connection, and after choosing Logan as his name I found out that the movie Logan's Run was shot here in Dallas, so there's a link to both locations.

As soon as I explain how the computer works to him, Logan will be allowed to blog for himself!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I spent the weekend working on Christmas knitting, so there's nothing to show you here today. I think this will be my only blog post this week because in addition to the Christmas knitting that I'm supposed to be doing, Caleb is home for the whole week and I'm hosting Thanksgiving dinner here at our house. Everyone else is bringing food, but there's still a lot of cooking to do as well as getting the house ready. Also there's something else big happening this week, but I'm going to wait to tell you about it next week.

If you're celebrating Thanksgiving this week, have a wonderful one! If you aren't celebrating, I hope you have a great week anyway.

The Friday Before Black Friday Sale!

For the first time in the history of Pink Lemon Twist, we're having a sale!

From Midnight CST on Friday, November 19, 2010 (early Friday Morning)until Midnight CST on Monday, November 22, 2010 (early Monday Morning), when you buy two or more patterns, you will get $1.00 off each pattern. The more patterns you purchase, the more you'll save! Even Leda's Dream (which is only $2.00 at regular price) is part of this promotion - making it only $1.00 when purchased with at least one other pattern!

Now is the time to stock up on the patterns you've been thinking about for next year!

The only catch - this promotion is only available through the Ravelry branch of Pink Lemon Twist, not through the pattern link in the sidebar here in the blog. If you're not a Ravelry member, it's free to join and will only take a minute to create an account. I'm only doing this through Ravelry because Ravelry has lower fees than Payloadz (the file delivery system I use for sales through the blog), and Ravelry lets me automate the promo (so I don't have to stay awake until midnight Thursday night/Friday morning).

Please note that all patterns through Ravelry are "packaged" the same as patterns that are available here on the blog. Look in the information section of the pattern to see exactly which designs come with the purchase of that pattern. (For instance, the Earth: Elements Sock Collection I pattern includes the designs for both Ridge and Furrow as well as Terra Incognita socks. If you purchase the pattern using the Terra Incognita link, you will get both designs.)

Click here to go to the Ravelry store and remember the sale starts Friday and ends Sunday!

Have a great weekend!

White Tea

I'm sure there's something else I should show you, but I keep grabbing this project when I sit down. Love. It.

I'm now on the lower edging on the body and I'm more than halfway through that. Then it's just sleeves and front edgings to finish! Also, I'm still completely in love with this yarn. Just in case you were wondering.

White Tea

I feel like I got a whole lot of nothing done this weekend, but when I took this picture this morning, I measured where I was at, and I've only got a couple more rows before I start the lower edging, so that's a good thing!

I also started running again this morning for the first time in a while. It felt good to be out there again, but I can see how far I'll have to go to get back to where I was. I can also tell that I'm going to need a headband/earwarmer thing. I have one I knit a couple years ago, but I don't want to wear handknits when I run because I don't want to have to clean them every time I run. (Anyone who doesn't think an earwarmer would get sweaty has never had their earbuds pop out of their ears mid run because of ear sweat. Yes, running opened up new and glamorous worlds to me.) Wool is wonderful for many things, but for running I'd rather have high tech microfiber.

Also, I realized this morning that when I do start the Christmas knitting, that will be unbloggable, I will not have blog fodder. Unless I do Christmas knitting as well as bloggable knitting every day, but I've decided I'd rather sleep. I know, it's selfish of me, always with the sleep thing, but that's just who I am. I will probably resort to intermittent blogging, unless I get interesting random pictures throughout the day, then I'll share those when I don't have knitting. So, just a head's up that things might be irregular around here for a bit.

White Tea

I've added a couple more inches to the body of White Tea. I realized this week that I really need to start my Christmas knitting, so I took a look at my current projects. White Tea is more than halfway done and for now I'll keep going on it because even though it's too big for public knitting, it's auto pilot knitting and I can work on it when I'm doing other things. The Mohair Bias Loop will stay in my handbag for public knitting. The Gray Snowbird cardi that I introduced this week (possibly yesterday? No caffeine yet this morning.) will be put on hold while I work on Christmas knitting. I won't be able to show the Christmas knitting on the blog until after Christmas, but once everyone has their gifts, I'll blog them.

What are you knitting for Christmas?

Something New

I started one new project over the last couple of weeks when the blog was silent. It's the Snowbird Cardigan from PipiBird (that's her Ravelry name and I think you can only purchase her patterns through Ravelry). If you're not on Ravelry, click here for a blog post with a picture of the cardigan. I've loved the look of this cardigan since I first saw it - it just looks easy to wear, perfect to throw on over jeans and since I live in jeans, it fits my style. I also think it looks comforting and snuggly.

The cardigan is worked in Reverse Stockinette Stitch with Stockinette "seams" at the raglan shaping. The pattern is written for a Stockinette Stitch collar/front band section, but I decided to try Seed Stitch with an I-cord edging (the same edging used in Coraline). In the picture, the collar section is at the bottom and the body is above it - you can see a couple of the Stockinette "seam lines" too. Changing the collar/front bands to Seed Stitch meant the join between the two collar halves is visible, but in real life, it's less obvious than it is in the photo above and since it's not something I'm going to call attention to and it's in the back of the sweater, I don't think it's going be noticeable.

I'm knitting it in Cascade 220 Heathers in a sweatshirt gray color (I can't remember the exact color number and the skeins with tags are upstairs right now). I know some people think gray is depressing and sad, but I've found that gray brings out the red tones in my hair, makes my eyes look more gold and actually works well with my skin tone, so for me gray is one of my best colors to wear. Also it goes with everything which is always great!

A Public Service Announcement

When you're head isn't really thinking straight and you have no short term memory at all, don't dye fiber.

If I had been thinking, I would have remembered that wool felts and maybe not stirred so much. I wasn't thinking and now I have 6 ounces of blue felt rope. I've got an idea or two about how to use it, so maybe it won't be a complete loss, but it certainly didn't work out how I'd originally planned.

Thank you.

White Tea

I started this sweater several weeks ago and it has been a great project with everything that's gone on since then. It's an easy pattern and once you're through the yoke section, it's primarily stockinette (auto-pilot knitting). The yarn is wonderful: soft and bouncy, and it just feels good to knit with it. Feels good yarn and auto-pilot knitting are about all I'm looking for in a project right now. At some point I've got to put down some of my own knitting and start Christmas knitting, but I'm not quite ready yet - maybe after another couple of rows!

Continuing On

Thank you all for your kind comments, thoughts and prayers for our family these past few weeks. This is the first time in the 17 years Mickael and I have been married that we haven't had a fur baby. When we met, he had Bear, a 10 week old Golden Retriever Puppy. Then Ramius came along, followed by Finn. Needless to say, it's weird around here not having to vacuum fuzzy tumbleweeds every other day. (They should probably have been vacuumed every day, but it's amazing what you can tolerate when you don't feel like pulling out the vacuum cleaner.) We're all adjusting though and each day is a little bit easier than the last. Thank you for your understanding.

I have been knitting and have finished up the Mohair Bias Loop. I love the way it came out and I think it looks cute worn all three of the ways they show on the pattern page. I weighed it and while I can't find the Post-It note with the exact weight on it right now, I used less than half the skein of Silkmo to knit it - so you could get two per skein. (Fortunately, there are gift giving opportunities coming up so you could knit one for yourself and one for someone else, or you and another knitting friend could each get a different color and then swap leftover skeins.) The one suggestion I would make is that if you are making it for someone who has broad shoulders (or is possibly a little fluffy in the shoulder area), you might consider making it a bit longer before you kitchener stitch it together. You'd need this to be able to wear it like a cape (poncho?) over your shoulders. The brushed mohair knit on huge needles is very stretchy, so if you are making it for a gift, you should be alright if you get into the ballpark. I'd say shoot for zero ease in the Around-the-Shoulders measurement for your length, but like I said, if you don't nail it perfectly, you should still be OK. Oh, and if you've never Kitchener stitched brushed mohair, find a nice quiet place to do it. It's not any harder than Kitchener stitch ever is, but it's more fiddly in the mohair.

As soon as I wove the ends in on my first Mohair Bias Loop, I cast on for a second one. (This one is in Elann Silken Kydd in Winter White, 2 skeins should do it.) Yes, I like this project that much!