Finn

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and prayers and condolences when we lost Ramius last week. Each of them was deeply appreciated and I thank you for taking the time to think of us.

I had fully expected to be back to the blog this week at least a little bit (I have been knitting), but we've had a bit more drama around here. The day after making the difficult decision to put Ramius to sleep, Finn got sick. We thought he was grieving (even though his relationship with Ramius was very one sided) and we and the vet treated him with that in mind. This week he was showing no real improvement so we had tests run, which led to more tests, which possibly indicated some really big problems (possible liver cancer). The radiologist got back to us this morning after thoroughly reviewing everything (bloodwork, X-rays, and ultrasound) and she saw no sign of cancer or any other big issues - his liver and other organs look great. What she thinks she sees is an intestinal blockage. It seems that Finn, the walking stomach, ate something he shouldn't have. He is at the vet's right now preparing for exploratory surgery to remove the whatever that's blocking him up. Our family would really appreciate any prayers for Finn and the vets as they work on him (there's a second vet who's coming in on his day off to help with the surgery). I realize that an intestinal blockage isn't usually good news, but compared to what we thought was happening, we're feeling pretty happy right now.

I hope each of you has a wonderful weekend and I'll update the blog with news about silly Finn. Thanks.

ETA: Finn is out of surgery. He's spending the night at the emergency vet so they can monitor him as he wakes up. He spent about 5 hours in surgery and we're not out of the woods yet, but hopefully everything will heal properly with no infection. We're exhausted here but feel better than we have in over a week.

Metro

Thanks for all the wonderful complements on Coraline! I'm very happy with the way it came out and I've already worn it once.

This weekend, I finished the sleeves to Metro. (I realized after I was uploading the pictures that I didn't do a great job of arranging the sweater before I took the picture - the wrinkles on the left front - on the right side of the picture - are purely my own fault for not laying out the sweater right, they aren't really there in real life, the sleeves fit perfectly.) At this point, all I have to do to finish Metro is to finish the collar in the back, weave in some ends and block the whole thing. I'll get it all finished up before I show it again on the blog, but I'm hoping to get all the finishing done and the blocking started today! Two sweaters in two weeks!

We did discover something new this weekend - Finn is scared of bunny slippers. Mickael has some Bugs Bunny slippers and he put them on the other night because his feet were cold. Finn freaked out! I realized that while Mickael has has these slippers for years, Finn hasn't seen them before, because Mickael has been wearing other slippers. Poor Finn had no idea what to do about the silly things on his Daddy's feet. Right now he's wagging at them a lot and avoiding direct eye contact - you never know with bunnies.

Coraline

I've got sleeves attached to the body now! I've read through some of the Ravelry projects for this pattern and there were some others that used a yarn with a different row gauge than the pattern was written for, so using my own ideas and their own, I think I've got a plan. I'm fixing to start the smocking part of the yoke (the fancy stitch area) and I can't wait to start seeing what that looks like in my handspun. I also know now that I'll have plenty of yarn to finish this cardi. I had more than enough according to the pattern requirements, but getting 8 rows per inch instead of 7 means I'm using more yarn. Fortunately, I had 3 skeins to start with, with about 500 yards per skein. I'm almost through with the second skein at this point and I'll be winding the third skein today so it's ready to go. I might even have enough yarn left over for mitts (or something)!

I'm sitting here blogging this morning with a warm, purry lap warmer, so I grabbed my iPhone and got a picture of him. This is the Pink Lemon's eye view of Ramius. Can you see his little paws just below his nose? So cute. And since I saw it when I was sending Ramius' picture to Flickr, here's one of Finn in black and white from a couple of days ago. (Both pictures were taken using the Hipstamatic app.)

Metro

I've finished the fronts of Metro! I've got the shoulder stitches and what will be the back neckband stitches on holders now waiting for me to do the back. This is really moving along pretty quickly (when I knit on it of course). It's a thicker yarn on bigger needles than Coraline also, and that always helps. I was laying it out for it's picture this morning and realized I need to pick the cat and dog fuzz off of it, but then I realized that it would ALWAYS need the cat and dog fuzz picked off of it, so I just left it until I finish knitting it. Then I'll get off the fuzz and they can re-fuzz it for me.

Speaking of dogs, I have a question for those of you that run. There was an article in Runner's World about running with your dog and apparently Golden Retrievers can run with you as long as your run is 10 miles or shorter. The distance isn't a problem at this point and I would start him out slowly, like I started out - maybe a little dog bed to 5K? Then the article mentions that you really shouldn't run with your dog if the temperature is over 70 degrees because they over heat. So here, that means he gets to start running in October or so (if we're lucky) and runs until March or April. Then when the temperature starts rising, he can't run, but he's in really good shape and has all that extra energy and if your dog is used to running 20+ miles a week (just for example) and then stops, that's how you have doggy behavior problems. I mean it's not like you can walk him for the distance he's used to running because you'd still be running for training and then you'd have to walk the dog and you'd spend all day walking and running and you'd never get any knitting or anything else done. So my question is, when you live in a place like Texas that likes to challenge the record temperatures of Hell for 6 months out of the year, is running with your dog a good idea or does he just get really sad when it gets warm? (I'm thinking it would be fun to run with Finn, but I'm not sure how to channel the extra energy in April when it gets warmer, and I don't want naughty doggy issues.)

A Finished Moebius

I did get the Wave of Berries Moebius finished over the weekend and I got it blocked (that was interesting). This morning, to get a good photo for the blog, I recruited our favorite knitwear model (you guys are always asking for modeled shots of the finished pieces), and discovered that he's forgotten how to model knitwear. That and his father was standing behind me waving his arms around, getting the model all riled up. Fortunately, the Moebius is basically a collar and if there's one thing that fits on Finn, it's a collar, so even after getting up and running across the room to Mickael, he was still wearing the Moebius and just needed to be put back into a stay.

Then he decided to lay down (the Moebius works for that too).

Finally, I got him to sit still and got a good picture without making his eyes glow (it's overcast and rainy here this morning). So here are the details - the pattern is the Wave of Color Moebius, knit as the pattern directs. I used US 7 needles (4.5 mm) and my own 3 ply, BFL handspun which was a light fingering weight. This was a fast project and it only took about 350 yards (I can see this being a nice potential gift project). I do have some yarn left over, but I'll show you what I'm doing with that tomorrow, once I finish.

Look At The Dog!

Because I have no knitting to show today! (Doesn't he look like he's talking in this picture?)

He is out of his mind

I know he looks super snuggly cute here, but he's really not right in the head. Let me explain. Our neighbors (next door, we share a fence) have a tiny, white fluff ball of a dog. She is about a third the size of Ramius, tops. She does her best to boss Finn around (from her yard, while Finn is in our yard) and Finn is always very respectful of her and tries to follow directions. He never barks at her or gets his hackles up at all, he just wags his tail at her through the fence. (As far as I can tell, she's fixed and I know he is so there's really no romance going on here.)

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. Some new neighbors moved in on the other side. They have dogs too. A Great Dane and a Weimaraner. Remember, at 60 pounds, Finn is on the small size for a Golden, so it's a safe bet that he's smaller than both of them. He has heard them bark - great big, low, BIG DOG barks. Does this impress him? Does this make him respectful? No. He goes outside, fluffs up his hackles as best he can (his hair on his shoulders is about 6 inches long so when he raises his hackles, he looks like he's wearing a toupee on his shoulders, not scary so much as funny) and barks like he means it. They pretty much ignore him, but he is determined that they will respect him, or something. It totally cracks me up because if he saw them, he'd probably have a heart attack. This is the same dog that stopped mid-pee one day to run away and hide behind Mickael because a robin landed near him. Fortunately, all the dogs are inside dogs, so there's no all day barking around here. Can he not tell by the sound of their barks that they are bigger than him, or does he just not care? Like I said, he's just not right in the head.

Have a great weekend!

Finn's Day

Oooooooh, we're going to spin today! Happy, happy, sheepy flurf today!

The wheel will go round and round and if I hold my head just right it will tickle my whiskers today!

Oh happy, happy, yummy, sheepy, roly, poly, spinny day!

Finn's Day

Look deep into my eyes, you want to send me bacon. Baaaaaacoooon!

Oh, never mind, I have no Jedi powers. Mommy said I could blog today since it had been a long time since I had blogged and I didn't even have to share the blog with the cat or wear funny knitted clothes! She said that Spring is here, but I don't think she knows what she's talking about because we had more of that yummy white stuff over the weekend. I have noticed more bunnies in the yard lately though. Bunnies make me feel all wiggly inside and I just know that the bunnies would be so fun to play with. Why do they run away from me? I would share my squeaky toys with them. I bet bunnies are nicer than cats. Ramius let me sniff him the other day, but then he walked off. Once we had two extra cats staying with us but they didn't even let me sniff them. Mommy said they were Grandmommy's cats but I bet they tasted just as good as Ramius does. Grandmommy likes me, I bet she would have let me snarfle her cats. Do you get to snarfle cats? Have I ever taught you how to snarfle cats? It's easy, here is a small tutorial:

1. Find cat.
2. Get close to cat.
3. Bury your nose in cat's fur and inhale deeply.
4. Exhale into cat and repeat from step 3. (It works better if your nose is wet and sometimes you might have to hold the cat in position with your paw.)

With a little bit of practice you'll get it! So I think Mommy is confused, she said she was going to treat the weeds in the backyard today. Why do the weeds need treats? When is she going to treat the dog in the house? She cooks bacon for Daddy and Caleb, why not fix some for Finn? If those weeds get bacon, I'm playing with my squeaky toys in the middle of the night. Oh, guess what? We got a bird feeder since the last time I blogged. I like the bird feeder. Now we get birds and they sit on the window sills in the breakfast room and on the patio and sometimes they make a mess with the bird food, and then when I go outside, I eat it. Bird food is yummy, but birds don't get bacon. Mommy tells me it's not there for me, but I think it is. The birds haven't told me they don't want to share. Oh, you know what else? Mommy says the lizards are back! We have a couple of giant lizards (Mommy calls them crocogators) that live in the front flower beds and apparently, they make baby lizards. (I asked her about this once and Mommy says its the birds and the bees, but she's clearly losing it because I asked about LIZARDS. I hope Mommy will be OK.) Well anyway, last year we got baby lizards in the back yard and there was one baby lizard that used to spend the night on the window screen of one of the breakfast room windows and Caleb named him Lightning Larry Luciato. He was a really pretty lizard, all grey and black and white and when you poke him with your wet nose, he'd jump and kind of freak out. There was another lizard that lived in one of the geranium pots, but he didn't get a name. He'd jump too when you goosed him. I like making the lizards jump. Ramius isn't nice to lizards. At my Nanna and Papaw's house the lizards sometimes get into the house and Ramius eats them. I'm going to keep all the lizards here outside so Ramius doesn't get them. I better go now, I'm not sure what Mommy is doing and I think someone should keep an eye on her. It's better not to leave her alone for very long.

Spinning and Some Good News for Finn

I finished my first bobbin of Fleece Artist BFL and have started on the second. I've got some more BFL in my stash that I think I'm going to pull out when I finish this. It's not from Fleece Artist, but from The Fiber Denn. Delia does a great job dying fibers and when it's finished, there isn't any matting or clumping as you tend to find on fibers dyed in roving or top state. I've cleaned up the Got Fiber listing in the sidebar and added The Fiber Denn to that list for a quick link.

Finn went to the vet for his yearly on Friday and he got some really great news! He's over all healthy but he only weighs 58 pounds. The vet says this isn't dangerously thin, but he could use a little more meat on his bones. So, Finn gets to gain weight! He's supposed to come up to 62-64 pounds. You can feel Finn's ribs (which you're supposed to be able to do), but you can also feel his spine (which you're not supposed to do). Like I said, he's not unhealthy, he just needs a little bit more in the way of reserves. When Finn was about 1 year old, he weighed 80 pounds and had to go on a diet. He did a great job losing the weight, but clearly we haven't figured out exactly how much food to give him to keep him at a healthy weight yet. I've increased his food a bit in the morning since he mostly settles in for the evening after dinner and we'll see how he's doing. Finn suggested that we stop off at the Sonic and get a cheeseburger on the way home from the vet to kick start his weight gain, but I think we're going to do it with kibble instead.

Brrrr!

Like most of the rest of the country, it's gotten really cold here! It's about 21 degrees right now plus we've got some pretty serious wind. Finn was out and in pretty fast this morning and thinks it's probably a good day to play with his woolly man. Ramius was eyeballing the down comforter last time I saw him and I'm guessing he's one of the lumps underneath it now (I haven't made the bed yet this morning).

I have made some more Babette squares though! It's fun to mix and match the different colors and see how they come together in the squares. There is a Babette group on Ravelry (they also do hexagon blankets, which is really the reason I started messing around with crochet) and it was mentioned that the smaller squares all seem to run a bit bigger than they should (compared to the other sizes) and mine seem to be doing this too. (If you look at the medium red square on the right, the two tiny squares underneath it should be the same size as the lower edge of that medium square. As you can see, they're a little bit bigger.) I'm going to try using the sliding loop* as a center instead of the start given in the pattern because once I've gotten my first round worked, I can tighten up the loop and make the center as small as possible, which might solve the slight size issue with the smallest blocks. If this works, I'll just do my smallest squares this way from here on. I will probably still use the first ones I've made because there are so few - I'll just space them around the blanket and make sure I sew them in carefully.

*I learned the sliding loop technique as a start for the star motifs I made into a scarf last Fall from the book Beyond the Square. I Googled for a link to this technique and while I found something similar, it wasn't going to hold as well as the one in the book (so I'm not linking it here.)

I'm a little reindeer!

Mommy got me this new fancy, fluffy thing to wear for Christmas! She says I sound just like a little reindeer! It makes fancy Christmas noises when I walk around wearing it, so Mommy only puts it on me for a little while every day. Caleb giggles when I wear it and Daddy says I look like an idiot - that must be a good thing because he smiles when he says it. Ramius doesn't like it very much, but he's probably just jealous because he doesn't have one. Here it is:

Isn't it pretty? Oops, I dropped it.

There it is!

Now Mommy put it on me so you can see how pretty I look in it.

Now I'm all decorated for Christmas! Are you decorated for Christmas yet?

Cherry Blossom Shawl, Done!

I finished the Cherry Blossom Shawl this weekend, and got it all blocked. It's just gorgeous and I love it! After briefly considering a more elegant photo shoot, I decided to go with the tried and true Pink Lemon Twist model, Finn. He's always happy to help out and since he's never modeled a circular shawl (because this is the first one I've ever knit), it was exciting for him too. I tried to get him to turn around so you could see the back view of the shawl, but Finn was having none of that - either we photograph him from the front, or not at all.

The pattern is the Cherry Blossom Shawl that originally ran in IK back in 2002, but is now available as an individual pattern - either from IK directly, or from the designer. I believe it's available in downloadable form as well as a hard copy. I used Shibui Knits Silk Cloud in Blossom as my yarn (4 skeins) and knit it on US Size 6's (4.0 mm). The lace is very easy to work, it just takes some time to get around the longer rounds at the end. I had no problem knitting it while I was watching TV.

Because it's Friday...

...I give you two dogs on a rock.

On a lovely November morning.

Have a great weekend!

The Juno Collar

I decided that the best solution to the cabled edge on Juno's collar was to follow the suggestion of the commenter and add a selvedge stitch to the inner edge of the collar. I frogged the few rows I had and restarted with an extra stitch. This means that there is an extra stitch on the outside of the small edge cable on the inside of the collar and not on the outside (which I totally could have compensated for if I had been thinking, or if I wanted to start a third time, but I didn't), but I think that since I'm working in black, it will just disappear and not be noticeable unless I point it out.

So far I've worked a little more than 3 repeats of the cable pattern and it's really going pretty quickly. I will probably just keep going on this (which means lots of blogging of black cabled stuff) until I get it finished because I'd really like to get Juno all done and wearable.

In doggy news, Finn and Barclay have become delinquents. We came home one day (Mom and Dad are back in town now) and found that they had dumped out the kitchen trash and chewed stuff up and made a big mess. The next day they got a loaf of bread off the counter and ate the entire thing (1-1/2 pounds of whole wheat - yeah that was fun). We've decided that Barclay is the brains behind the operation (Finn has never done stupid puppy stuff and he just isn't smart enough to carry out this kind of nefarious plot) and Finn is his henchmen - Barclay couldn't reach the bread on the counter - he's too short. Our suspicions were confirmed when we put Finn in his crate the next time we left and Barclay got into the trash again all by himself. Who knew such a cute little Sheltie dog was an evil genius?

Furry Friday

As I've mentioned, we currently have 5 little furballs in the house right now since Mom and Dad's two cats and dog are staying with us until they get moved down here later this month. In the meantime, I figured I'd give them all a day on the blog since they're just so cute, and let's face it, if I blogged them with knitting, you guys wouldn't pay any attention to the knitting anyway!

I finally got some pictures of Cinnamon, Mom and Dad's Siamese. He is more shy than Shibori, so it took a while before he'd come out and see me long enough for me to get pictures. He's lighter than Ramius is and he's also a bigger cat. His eyes are icy blue like the underside of a glacier, where Ramius' eyes are aqua blue, like an aquamarine (the aqua eye color goes with the mink coloration of Tonkinese).

Of course, partway through Cinnamon's photo shoot, his little brother Shibori (the Bengal) started wiggling into the frame.

Shibori is a shameless attention hog - whether it's a camera or lovin', he's going to be in the middle of everything.

And he really doesn't care if the lovin' is coming from a human or his little dog buddy, Barclay! Barclay is spending time with his kitties every day - sometimes he just passes out on the floor, but sometimes they play together a bit. Last night Shibori was rubbing on Barclay hard enough to knock him off balance. We had to make the decision for everyone's safety that Shibori and Cinnamon stay in the guest room, separate from Ramius who doesn't like the idea of other cats in his house, and separate from Finn who is trying to welcome the new cats a little too enthusiastically. I know if we had to, we could work past the Finn part of the issue, but Ramius (AKA Leroy Brown) is just too aggressive for this to work out. I certainly don't want Cinnamon and Shibori turning against each other - they have to live together.

Barclay on the other hand has full run of the house since he and Finn and Ramius are getting along wonderfully! Barclay quickly became a member of our "pack" and he and Finn follow me around all day and do everything together. Ever wonder what a doggie slumber party looks like?

Here's one! The thing that really cracks me up is that Barclay is on Finn's bed and Finn is on Barclay's - they are sharing so nicely! (Not food, Finn wants you to know that he isn't sharing food and when it's feeding time, he's been working on his technique and has beaten his previous eating time record by several seconds. He's been wondering if the US has an eating team and if he could maybe try out for it.)

Finn also wanted to show you all his new toy. Since Finn was a puppy, he has been ripping stuffed dog toys up and strewing stuffing from one end of the house to the other. Naturally, we made the decision not to give Finn this kind of toy years ago. The other day, he found this Dino-Roar (Fisher Price made them a long time ago and this was mine). He seems to like the noise it makes and he hasn't ripped it up yet, so we've let him keep it. He walks around and squeezes it so it roars (or whimpers) and is really enjoying it. This morning he discovered that Barclay is the perfect height to set the Dino-Roar on his back and chew on it there. Barclay was not amused.

Ramius thinks Dino-Roars are stupid, but he figures if Finn likes it, that's fine as long as it doesn't disturb his nap. He would also like it if someone would come get these spare cats since the guest room is South facing and gets lovely amounts of sunshine all day long.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to love your fuzzies!

Doggie Buddies

I can't get a good picture of the visiting cats yet, but Barclay did pose with Finn for me! Here is a bit of the dog cuteness we have around here!

Dog in the Herb Garden

I finished my Herb Garden Scarf (pattern is The Gift of Friendship Scarf) and even though it still needs the ends woven in and blocking, Finn agreed to model it for you. Here he is showing the Preppy look (love how it really shows off his chest hair).

And here we see it folded in half and the ends pulled through the loop - much more appropriate for those chilly, cold days when a scarf is more than a fashion statement.

I better be careful, or Finn will start charging for his modeling skills.

I worked 400 rows of the pattern stitch for this scarf and it will be around 72 inches or so in length when it's all blocked. (For those who aren't knitters or who have never knit lace, blocking opens up the piece substantially and makes it much larger than it looks unblocked - I realize it looks no where near that size on Finn.) The width is probably going to be pretty close to the 9 inches the pattern gives and and I'd say 400 yards of the laceweight yarn is probably pretty close to what I used. I knit this on US 4's. It was a really easy pattern to do and I like the stitch pattern - it works particularly well on multi colored, hand painted types of yarn like this one. I did most of the last 300 rows of it watching the Deadliest Catch marathon over the weekend (love those for knitting!)

Finn Blogs

This morning Mommy told me I could blog and I was SO excited! I wiggled and waggled and pranced on my hind legs and made lots of wookie noises!

Then Mommy told me she wanted me to show you her new finished Shur'tugal sock. I decided the best way to show you the sock was to wear it. Then when Mommy sees how good I look in socks, maybe she'll knit me some. Don't you think I'm totally wearing this sock? I could get used to this. Lounging by the fire (OK, fake logs and gas started fire, but hey - it sets a mood), wearing socks, sipping on something warm and bacony... I think I could be that dog.

Hey Mommy, I need three more of these!

Mommy Edit: There was a request that I keep you updated on Finn's treatment for allergies. As you remember, he got a Cortisone shot at the first of June. That gave us 3 weeks of itch free happiness, but last week he started itching again. (The vet was hoping for 5- 6 weeks of relief, but with the severity of Finn's allergies, he wasn't expecting it to last that long. I called the vet and let them know and he is now on Prednisone pills - by the second day of taking them he is itch free again. They started him off with 2 a day but tomorrow we go to one a day and next week we'll be doing every other day. Fingers are crossed that this solves our problems.

Happy Birthday Finn!

Today is my birthday! Mommy says I'm 3 years old today. I have no idea what it means but my people keep telling me "Happy Birthday" and I like happy, so it must be a good thing. Mommy said I could blog today. I wonder if I'll get to play with the cat today? If it's a special day, anything could happen.

This morning I stood up at Mommy and Daddy's bathroom sink to see how pretty I looked. I look this pretty every morning. Can you stand it?

Ooooh, I think I saw a bunny outside! Did you see it? Bunnies are fun! You can chase them and they run away, kind of like the cat, but they run funny - kind of bouncy. Also, I don't get in trouble for chasing bunnies. I don't think Mommy believes I could catch one. If I ever do catch one, I'm totally keeping it. If I catch an extra one I'll share one with the blog. I'm sure Mommy won't mind. Tell you what, we won't tell her, I'll just raffle it off next time I'm allowed to blog. Anyone want to enter a bunny raffle?

Hope you all have a Happy Birthday kind of day!