Jake Loves his new Etsy Purchase

Jake & I went shopping on Etsy last week. Can you tell what's different about him?

He's not helping much, I know. I took these pictures directly after Dan had called for dessert. Jake wasn't breaking his perfect Sit or his attentive monitoring for anything. Chicken strips are tasty.

Here's a better pic.

It's the blue ID tag. His old brass tag was getting tarnished. I suggested that we simply polish it. Jake vetoed that idea. Varnish smells bad. He wasn't about to have some smelly thing dangling from his neck all day. He already has to endure ear drops once a week; that's bad enough. Besides, he needed a tag to match his handsome blue collar.

We received it in the mail yesterday and made the swap immediately. Jake wasn't so sure at first and then he shook his head. It made such a lovely sound against his other two tags!

Oh, boy, oh, boy! He spent the rest of the hour jingling his tags at every opportunity.

When Dan came home from work an hour later, Jake tried to show off his new tag. Dan didn't seem to notice. Jake was undeterred and kept bouncing around him. With a few hints from me, Dan finally figured it out.

By the way, Jake wanted me to inform you that he did get his chicken strip for dessert while we ate our inferior cheesecake. mmmm, chicken strips.

Knitting it Again

My last Ode to Quilting block:

It looks an awful lot like Jake, doesn't it? Well, I thought I could fool you with his cuteness. It always works on me.

I made a stupid error while knitting the last block and didn't notice it until I was piecing everything together. So, now I have to knit it over again. Since I wanted the block to be a surprise, I'm not even showing you a picture of my mistake. I'll let you see Monday of next week what I did wrong. Dan noticed my error right away. I didn't notice it until I had worked on it for over 2 days. I think I had my "I'm almost Finished" glasses on. They never see any errors.

Since Jake is now my Guest of Honor on the blog today, let me share with you his new trick that he learned. The past two times that Dan and I have poured ourselves a beer after dinner, I gave Jake a treat, thinking we'll all have a treat. Yesterday, when we were pouring beers, Jake sat right in front of my feet, tail wagging, waiting for his treat. I laughed, patted him on the head and promptly went and got him his treat. Does that mean I trained him or he has trained me?

Sore Wrist, but Worth It

My wrist is sore from knitting constantly the past 2 days. I knit on the drive to and fro the baseball game on Sunday.

Then, I knit on the train ride to and fro Center City yesterday. Plus, let's not forget the hour and a half of waiting for the darn train to just show up. So, I knit to keep myself from going spastic. I can only take so much of sitting and waiting. So much = approx 5 minutes. I have the patience of a tasmanian devil when it comes to waiting.

Yet, I am pleased to say all that knitting paid off. My Big Dipper Scarf is completed! As you may recall, this scarf was knit for EtsyFAST's August Celestial Challenge. However, I won't be selling the scarf in my Etsy store. There are 3 mistakes in the pattern. I have no desire to rip out 6 inches of knitting to fix any of these mistakes. Nor am I willing to mark the scarf down in price. So instead, I have decided to keep it for me. It will make a perfect biking scarf in the winter. It is extra thick thanks to the double knitting technique, so it should keep me warm when the 20F winds are whipping against me. Besides, I'm worth it and I don't rightly care about the silly mistakes!

I should have completed more knitting over the weekend though. Saturday was also supposed to spent traveling to and fro a Phillies game. But, the weather was so stifling that we called it off. Instead, I stayed home (inside!) and started on my baby quilt. I finished the middle square. Can you tell what letter it is?

While working on my quilt, Jake waited patiently (his patience is about on par with mine) while I finished cutting all the squares out. Which is a nice way of saying that Jake whined constantly until I got up and took him outside. It spoils him, but I can't help myself. He's so darn cute!

Thank You So Much for the Birthday Wishes

It was a wonderful birthday. All the dishes I dirtied while making the cupcakes were left in the sink Friday night. On Saturday morning (my b-day), I awoke to find them still there (no green elves in my house apparently). Not wanting to start my birthday off by washing dishes, I decided to take Jake for his morning walk instead. I came back to find my husband washing the dishes. No, he didn't just shove them all into the dishwasher. He was actually washing them by hand. You see, folks, his jobs around the house consist of killing bugs, taking the trash out, hanging my many pictures, cutting the grass and operating the air conditioner. The cleaning of the kitchen belongs to the cook. Thus, it was a lovely surprise!

So instead of cleaning the kitchen, I got to go play in the garden. The other rose bush is saved from the evil mower!

Afterwards, I started to prepare for dinner: ham, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. Can I pass along a cooking trick to you that I just tested out? Like most others, I tend to buy pre-cooked hams that just require warming. During the last 20 minutes or so, one is recommended to baste the ham with a brown sugar mixture. If you have kids visiting or time is of the essence, try this: baste the ham with molasses instead. The kids can help out with this one. Just hand them an old paintbrush that has never seen paint or anything else equally toxic, and have them dip into in molasses and then paint it onto the ham. It's fun and easy! Plus, my husband was raving about how good it tasted.

Birthday Presents: Hubby got me a bike rack and tote to carry all my purchases back home. The only trouble is I can't get it to fit on my bike. Typically, it would be attached to the bike seat pole, but I have to have my seat almost at the lowest position in order to reach the pedals (Oh, the joy of being short). Thus, there isn't enough length of the pole to attach the rack to. I'll drag it up to my trusty bike shop and see if they can't advise me on what to do next.

My dear friend got me a Craft Tote. Isn't it cute? It holds all my sewing notions.

The next day I went to visit my Aunt and Uncle. They spoiled me with a homemade dinner: roasted chicken, spaghetti, Italian bread, and green beans. It was very good. The chicken was the best though. And because they know how much I love to bake, they gave me 2 cookbooks and a huge tub of flour. (They had picked up a 25 pound of flour from Sam's Club and then didn't know what to do with it all. I go through 10 pounds in a month so I was happy to take some off of their hands).

The only bad thing that happened was poor Jake came down with an ear infection. I started him on the ear drops and wipes yesterday and, as you can see, he is feeling much better today. He'll have to endure a few more days of treatment though. It takes both of us to get him to cooperate with the ear drops for he tries to bury his head in your lap.

So, all in all, it was a wonderful weekend and a wonderful birthday.

Thank you to all for your warm wishes!

28 blocks done, 44 triangles to go

The blocks are done for the CP (Chili Pepper) Quilt!

I finished them last night during the baseball game. True, I was supposed to be knitting a purse, but I frogged the design in the 4th inning. I couldn't just sit there for 5 more innings (actually the game didn't end until the 14th inning, so I really would have been bouncing off the walls. I simply MUST have something to keep my hands busy). So, I started pinning my blocks together. Then, all there was to do was stich them up and iron them.

It's so nice to see something accomplished on the quilt. So, it's not due until Christmas, but I'm trying to be strict with myself. I will not start a new quilt until this one is finished. I will not start a new quilt until this one is finished. I will not ....

I give myself a week before I cave. I've already designed a baby shower quilt to be gifted in September. Do you remember my model of the striped sweater? She and her hubby are expecting their first child. I'm making them a dragon/rainbow quilt because I couldn't find shamrock or sheep fabric. Who doesn't like dragons? They are just as cute as sheep and they will lead you to underground stores of gems.

And because Jake was so cute yesterday, I took pictures!

Here he is helping me garden. His job is to break up the big sticks into little sticks that can be used as firewood or thrown away. He's awfully good at it.

And here he is with a stick more his size.

Have a great day!

Excuses for not Knitting

Yesterday was Jake's 4th birthday. Here he is eating his birthday treat, a greenie.

I don't think he knew it was his birthday, but he did like the extra treats!

Oh, I have to share my funny story about Jake. On Sunday, while out on our daily walk, he caught a squirrel! Now we chase the squirrels at every opportunity, but I didn't think he would ever catch one! I'm not sure who was more surprised - Jake or me.

Back to the story: Jake was concerned about the dogs barking at him two doors down (not wanting to share his booty), so we back tracked a few paces. All the while, Jake is carrying the squirrel in his mouth. The poor squirrel is squirming around trying to get out of Jake's grasp and squeaking up a storm. Once Jake was comfortable, he laid the squirrel down ever so gently. Well, the squirrel tried to make a dash for safety. Jake nimbly snatched the squirrel back up in his mouth. He then looked to me for some assistance (as if I was going to help him keep this squirrel as a play thing!). Getting none, he laid the squirrel back down. This time, I convinced Jake to let the squirrel run away (a quick command and no leash freedom did the trick). Afterwards, I called my husband to brag about Jake's hunting skills. He's a true blooded retriever after all. Truth be told, the squirrel was a little baby. I don't s/he had learned to be scared of dogs yet. Well, I am proud to say Jake nailed that lesson home!

So, I hate to blame Jake on why I didn't get a lot of knitting done yesterday.

I have another excuse!

Homemade sticky buns! My husband and I had them for breakfast this morning. They were a sticky, gooey mess, but oh, so good.

I did manage to find enough time to knit a gauge for the upcoming "Ode to Quilting" afghan. Being a habitually loose knitter, I always look at the guide on the back of the yarn label and subtract 2 sizes from the needle size they recommend. It almost always works. This time, I only went down one size in needles when knitting the gauge of Lion Brand's Lion Wool (mainly because I wanted to use my favorite needles). I am stunned and shocked that my gauge is a bit too tight and that I need to knit the wool using the EXACT same size of needles that Lion Brand recommended. This has never happened to me. Either my knitting has altered over the year or Lion Brand finally has a knitter who knits like me. I'm going to assume the latter.

I also finished seaming the left sleeve to the body of the striped sweater. I'm afraid it looks about the same, just minus the safety pins, so I refrained from taking yet another pic of it.

The business cards were finished yesterday morning. I picked them up in the afternoon. Thankfully, it was only a light rain that I got caught in while I was out picking them up. (My main form of transportation is my trusty, Gary Fisher bicycle). Check them out.

They were done by my local print shop, McKinney's Design & Print. I think they did a great job.

Well, that's all for now. I am off to knit more (I'll be better today, I swear!).

Happy Knitting!