Traveler

Traveler is one of a kind.

I waited for a year to get him. I knew exactly what kind of dog I wanted.
He had a small umbilical hernia and every night when he was a puppy I'd roll him over and gently press any stuffings that pooched out back in. The vet said that this would keep it from getting bigger. When he had surgery to neuter him the vet fixed his hernia. That was before he was one year old. But for years after he would roll over every night to have his tummy rubbed. He would make a ritual out of any thing.

Soon after I got him, I learned that I was afraid to have a dog of my own. I don't know why I was so anxious, perhaps some of those childhood experiences left more of a mark than I had thought. So I was afraid to take him anywhere. We spent hours and days just roaming around. To meet and greet at grocery stores, to visit my friend that had had a stroke and was in rehab, for a look see at some new place to walk.

As I got over my anxiety, I began to find out that I had never learned to play. I really tried but I just couldn't get the hang of it. I could run and romp some and Traveler liked that. But beside that all I knew how to do was take him with me. For a time I felt like I was letting him down. Newf's are great water dogs and cart dogs and he had come from a line of dogs that had won many tracking titles. He could have done any of those things and entered competition. But I did not know how to do any of those things and I didn't know how to find out.

It took a while to find out that he really wasn't very choosy about what we did. Just as long as we did it together. Then I began to figure out he really liked to meet new people. His specialties were kids, old people, disabled people and drunks.

TRAVELER Tongue roll is perfect!

This dog is a legend in his time. Oh no, he is not some fancy show winner or some famous rescue dog. He is just my dog. He is aging and since dogs have relatively short lives, his will soon be over. But it is not his passing that I want to remember, it is the cheerful whole hearted sweetness of his whole life that is worth commenting on. There are many stories I could tell. But the best of them are long and fall short in telling you who he is.

So, I will just post this picture, taken on his twelfth birthday, which is some months ago now. When I looked at this picture later I could hardly believe it. Tongue rolling has always been one of his specialties and here he is still doing it yet again.

The Pirate and the Loot --new yarn part 2

Yellow Bear stole 3 skeins of my new yarn before I was able to set up and photograph it. He, then, very willingly posed with it for me. This yarn smelled good. Certainly, this is no excuse for piracy, but after all, he is a dog

The yarns are from Fearless Fibers. The colorways are spring breeze and antique rose. By this time the sun had gone and pictures of these exquisite colors will have to wait for another day.

The spring breeze is a very green more so than it looks on my monitor. It has fantastic and very subtle gradations of color.


The antique rose looks more pastel pink in this picture than it really is. It is a truly fine muted pink that tends to the orange but does not go so far as to make it a coral color. Both yarns are lace weight.

Needless to say, Yellow Bear graciously agreed to pose with the second 4 skeins of yarn even though, he had not had a chance to steal it. I think think he likes having his picture taken.

NEW YARN

1. 

I thought it was absolutely insane how the typical knitter/blogger would rush to post pictures of yarn that they just bought. I really did. Like it isn't the most exciting thing in my life. Well, it is exciting, but there could be other things.
That's what I thought.

Now, I think other wise. It may be insane but I can't help myself and I've never been one to complain about insanity.


Well, insane or not, when I got some yarn moments ago the first thing I did after the squeezing and smelling ritual, was get the camera. Now I've taken pictures before but this it the only the second time me I've done yarn pictures and so they didn't come out very well and then............Well it's a long story.

Before starting I must introduce Yellow Bear. He is sitting pretty for you bottom picture . He is 100% mutt and proud of it. Notice the little mustache hanging down there. It shows in this picture but only and one side and then you have to know where to look, but never mind.

In the top picture he has stolen my yarn. He likes little squishy toys about that size. The photo shoot for my yarn quickly degraded into something else.

CHILDREN OF LIR SHAWL

I am truly inspired by the Lir shawl that Freeform Katia made. I loved the way it looked in her photograph.

I have been looking for suitable yarn and not really finding much that I can afford. There are some insanely expensive yarns out there . Funny thing is that no one seems to carry much in sport weight. There is a lot of sock yarn and a lot of lace weight. I seem to be stuck on this one.

I really want to do it in merino so it will be soft and feel good next to the skin. I also want an interesting yarn because the feel and color of the yarn are part of the motivation for knitting. I find that color and texture are so important for me to be able truly be soothed by knitting after the harsh, hard and colorless nature of my day job. And now that I think about the search for the right yarn is part of the pleasure of knitting. The yarns that are being made today are works of art in them selves. The search is part of the pleasure. .

Sierra Madre scarf

I am working on a scarf using a wonderful bulky yarn in a colorway called Sierra Madre from Blackberry Ridge. This colorway is very evocative of that time of evening when the sun has just gone down leaving a golden glow in the quickly gathering deep blue and violet of the night sky and mountains.

This yarn is a wonderful dynamic balance of muted complementary colors. It conveys peaceful transition as you can almost feel the air dropping in temperature as night envelops the rugged mountains. I really like the desert.

I suppose the fact that there is a 1948 Bogart flick named TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE helps the illusion along.


The pattern that I am using come from this book. The pattern I chose is on the cover. I chose it partly for the short row shaping-something I've never done before. For more about this book go here.