Typical October 31st

in Saskatchewan.  It’s snowing and there’s measurable wind chill (-10°C).

This entry is brought to you by:

Mr. Handsome

So I was able to get a couple of projects finished and off my plate:

the cloche

Rav members can go here to read all about it and see more pics.

And then I did these slippers:

I rounded the still-wet toes after I took that photo.

Rav members can read more and see more pics here. Cute project and interesting construction.

Gratuitous hound pics:

Sabrina burrito, unrolled

Often when she’s on the bed with me, she’s digging around and nesting because she’s cold.  I’ll put up with it for only so long before I wrap her up like a burrito with a fleece blanket.  After a short while, she’s tossed the fleece off and is airing her belly because she’s like a little furnace.

How YOU doin'? Come here often? What's your sign?

Mr. Handsome lets his charisma ooze out.  But then there’s Princess Sabrina, always cramping his style:

typical Jealous Cow behavior - oh, you're paying attention to him, I must try to block you

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women! I tell ya!

And now the latest in the “don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” contest:

don't be jealous

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HA!

Edited to add:  I’ll be wearing the wrap dress and bolero for the ball.  Unfortunately the ball has been postponed a week, now it will be on November 14th.

Edited (again) to add this.  If dogs came trick or treating, then I’d answer my door:

ain’t that a kick in the head?

I love that Dean Martin song.

I found this on Not Very Talented:

I laughed until I cried. It’s some sort of “talent” show where random people can perform.  Idiot.  He obviously pulled a hamstring, too.

Gotcha! Apollo

Yes, it was two years ago today that we were driving home from our vacation with a little extra baggage in the back seat:

"who are you people and where are you taking me?"

Such a timid boy.  We had a great holiday out on Pacific Rim, Vancouver, Kelowna, then stopped in Edmonton on our way home and picked him up.

we had them muzzled just in case anyone had an attitude

That was a crowded back seat – we also had two dog beds in there from Costco.

While I was looking for “gotcha day” photos, in the same folder were our trip photos:

@ Pacific Sands Resort, this was on our door step

I miss going there so much.  We didn’t go last year because we had just bought our house; this year our plans were to make it to Vancouver for Ande’s party, but not go to the island.  Next year we must definitely go.  I miss sitting in front of our fire place and listening to the wind; opening the door or window and hearing the pounding of the surf; walking for kms on Long Beach and all around.  I’ll have to start stashing away my wage that isn’t taken by the car payment and grown a “vacation fund”.

beautiful!

reader poll

I can’t decide:  please look at the pics and make a choice on the poll.

#1, off the shoulder, ruched/gathered bodice

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#2, wrap bodice

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#3, wrap bodice with matching bolero

I’m completely torn between them.  I love the off-the-shoulder look.  But I also love the wrap bodice.  The big fella worries that the bolero makes it look too military uniformish (and it’s a military ball we’re attending).  The first dress is made of a flatter/non-shiny fabric and I like that.  [I had to crop out my face b/c I had bad crazy hair today and a crabby look on my face.]

Edit:  the first dress is not as snug as the second one, so I could actually eat supper   The ball is being held in a military armories building, so drafty and cool.  The big fella will be in red serge, so think how the dress will look next to that.

Edit #2:  Really?! No one likes dress #1?  So you want me to have to wear Spanx and control top pantyhose and not eat?!  I was looking at last year’s photos and the military officers are in red, the enlisted are in a dark green, it looks like.  So shiny midnight blue shouldn’t really look like theirs?

distinct lack of hound content

the past few posts, so here you go:

watch out for the zombie eye!

Last night there was some hard napping going on.  The poopers had a big day – two long walks and a car ride!

hard work

Oh, Apollo slays me:

he was deeply and completely asleep

and the princess, too:

poor little dog

You can see by the abundance of pillows, blankets, toys and dog beds how poorly treated they are.

No time for any knitting content – have to go get my sister to go out for tea.  And possibly shoe shopping.  Her, not me.

wishy-washy ishy-bel

I’ve been working on Ishbel.  I’m using Malabrigo sock yarn in ‘tiziano red’ and 4 mm needles.

about half-way through the stocking stitch section

I am not entirely pleased with the appearance of the yarn-overs that are executed on the purl side.  The beginning of the purl row has you doing the 3-stitch garter edge, then a YO before you begin purling.  So you have to do almost a double-wrap of the yarn around the needle.  It makes a bigger hole than the one at the end of the row which is going from purl to knit.  I’ve even tried knitting the YO through the back loop to tighten it up.

loosey goosey

I think with blocking it might get even holey-er.  It was a good thing I realized this morning that I have need of making a birthday present, so I am setting the Ishbel aside to do the other project, I’ll think about what I’m going to do.  I did read on the Rav there were a few people who did a slightly different border so they weren’t doing purl-side YOs from a knit stitch, so I might go back revisit that.

Rainy, damp day today.  We ran some errands then went for Chinese food for a treat.

waiting for the ribbon

I finished knitting the cloche a couple of nights ago.  I had to order ribbon online, so it should be here next week:

almost the true cranberry colour

(p.s. Flickr has gone and changed some stupid setting/feature, so now I can’t just right-click on the photo on my photostream or in my set.  Grrrr.  Why do they change things that are good and working perfectly into something that sucks?)

I like the style of the hat and how it fits.  I’ll definitely make another!

pleated pants are a fashion “no”

(yet it’s surprising how popular they still are!)  Stacy and Clinton, look away!

I’m sure the rule doesn’t apply to hats (the Caroline cloche):

the colour is a deep cranberry

I tried messing around with the colour tones, but couldn’t get it to show the true shade.  Red is so difficult to reproduce digitally.

four 5-stitch pleats

I’ve adapted the pattern for this yarn – it’s Elann Incense, a wool/silk/bamboo blend. It’s nice to work with.  I’m getting 5 st/inch instead of the 6 that the pattern calls for.  I think it’s going to fit.

Cloudy, rainy, gloomy day here.  I’ve done a little housecleaning and think it’s time for tea, a movie and some knitting!

does humidity affect cookies?

I baked cookies yesterday afternoon using the engineer’s Tollhouse cookies – secret is weighing the flour:

using my eBay drug dealer digital scale

However:

they left me feeling flat

It was a really wet, damp day yesterday.  I know altitude affects baking, but what about humidity?  I could have chilled the dough to help keep the dough from spreading while baking.

Cute:

I love how the dog just puts up with it, puts up with it, the kitteh is freaking out and finally the dog levels an oh-so-gentle smackdown and runs the little buggar off.   Good dog!

So I cast on a couple of new projects: Ishbel and the Caroline Cloche. Both are very interesting patterns. I’m using a different weight yarn for the cloche, so I have to rejig the numbers to make it work. I may end up ripping out, but we’ll see how my math was.

My back is killing me – my desk is horribly un-ergonomic and aggravates my shoulder/neck/rib thingie.  I spent three hours at my desk today.  I should sit down and knit.

cookies on the horizon

Taking a brief break in my “day of rest” chores.  Kitchen cleaned, laundry ongoing, some vacuuming done, blah blah blah.  I have some butter sitting out coming to room temperature and am going to bake cookies as soon as I’m done this entry.

Odessa completed

Last night I finished knitting up Odessa (Rav link).  I’m quite happy with the hat.  I love the swirls!

swirly crown decreases

The pattern calls for dk-weight yarn, but I used the Mirasol Qina which is more a light worsted.  I used 4 mm needles and a cast on of 100 stitches.  The pattern repeat is 10 stitches.  I knit to a depth of 5.5 or 5.75″ and then began the crown decreases.  Because I had the 100 st. cast on, the last few rounds of crown decreases ended up with an extra stitch, so I just knit that.  I think I had 10 stitches at the end to draw the yarn through and fasten off.  My ssk decrease was slip as if to knit, slip as if to purl, then put back on left needle and knit together.  I did not use the beads as the pattern calls for.

fab!

I will definitely make this hat again – what a great pattern!