Getting ready for Christmas

Well, I actually bought yarn to knit a sweater for my daughter for Christmas. It has been a while since I bought yarn for a project instead of spinning it. I am feeling a little spoiled. But when the Winter 2006 issue of Interweave Knits came in the mail earlier this month and I saw the Equestrian Blazer by Kate Gilbert on p.26, I immediately thought it would be a beautiful gift for my daughter, Teresa. She told me she would like a sweater that doesn't fit 'like a box'. This pattern uses short rows and paired increases and decreases to give a nice feminine shape to the sweater. I wanted to make it in time for the holidays (this year!), and, well, I can't possibly spin enough yarn and knit the sweater in just a few short weeks (and still sleep and eat and do all that other necessary stuff that uses up so much of my fiber time!). I chose Jamieson's Soft Shetland (the Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran that the pattern calls for was a bit beyond my budget, though it is quite wonderful!). The Shetland is nice too, and I like the color, # 1330 Wilkinson. It is a pretty purplish tweed, not quite as blue as it looks in the photo above. I have been knitting for a couple weeks and finished up today. I am blocking the finished pieces on towels on the dinning room table and hope to have the sweater complete by next week.

This photograph makes the yarn look a little more purple than it is in real life. After Christmas, I will photograph my daughter outside in natural lighting wearing the sweater. Hopefully that will better show the true yarn color.


My next holdiay project will be a knitted turtle puppet for my grandson, Christopher, who is 2 years old. Teresa and I thought it would be fun to write a short children's story about the adventures of Topher Turtle, a character that likes the same things Christopher likes. A knit puppet will be a fun gift to go with the book, once it is complete.


Christopher is allergic to wool, so I will make the puppet out of cotton yarn which I purchased yesterday. I also picked up a copy of Vivian Hoxbro's Domino Knitting. I plan to make a turtle shell fashioned after Vivian's Potholder #4 using the light and dark green yarn shown here. The shell will then be attached to a green knit puppet. I will see Teresa this weekend and we can finalize some of the details for this project.


I also ordered a T-shirt for Christopher for Christmas. My wonderful German Shepherd, Shasta, was on the cover of the October 2006 issue of Dog World magazine.

I am having the magazine cover printed onto a T-shirt for Christopher. I am also having the picture of my German Shepherd, Monroe, that I posted earlier herding sheep, put on a T-shirt for Christopher. Christopher loves the dogs and I think he will like having T-shirts with their pictures on them. I might order a T-shirt for me, too. After all, how often will my dog get to be on the cover of a national magazine?

Felted Doggie Bag

Here is a picture of my knitted and felted 'doggie bag'. It is a pattern that I created about a year ago. I have made several of these bags since then, but this one is kind of special because it is the only one that I have made with dog fur other than German Shepherd. I used Siberian Husky for this bag and blended it with blue wool before spining it into a 2 ply yarn (11 wpi). The wool fleece was white originally, but I dyed it blue in a vinegar bath in my crock pot with Raspberry Ice Blue Kool Aid. The white halo of the bag is from the natural dog hair and the blue color of the bag comes from the dyed wool. I liked the idea of an artic theme for this bag from the ice blue wool which seemed perfect for the Siberian Husky dog fur. I felted the bag in my washing machine.

Houdini Gloves
After spinning a 2 ply 18 wpi yarn of 100% dog hair from Houdini, a wonderful German Shepherd and Labrador mixed breed living in Canada, I knit a this pair of gloves. They are very warm and soft. I used directions from the Progressive Gloves article in the Winter 2003 issue of Interweave Knits.

This is a picture of my daughter, Katherine, taken in California in September 1985. We were hiking at Castle Craig and stopped along the trail to take her picture with Mt. Shasta in the background. It was a beautiful day, the kind that make you wonder if life could possibly get any better.

I was born in Northern California and enjoyed the time I spent as a child in the mountains there. Over the years life would take me in other directions, but I always held a special love for the mountains of California. Mt. Shasta in paticular was always my favorite. As a young mother, I returned to live again in Northern California for a while. I will always remember the day when Katherine was about 3 years old and we were driving along a winding mountain road in Shasta county. As we came around a corner and Mt. Shasta came into view Katherine pointed with excitement and exclaimed "look mommy, my mountain!" It still gives me goose bumps when I think about it today. She didn't know the mountain's name then, but instinctively she had the same love for it as I did.

I live in Connecticut now and Katherine is a young mom living the magic of having a child of her own.

Recently I bought an alpaca fleece and was surprised to learn that the alpaca whose fleece I chose is named Shasta. AND it is the same color as the undercoat of my German Shepherd dog, Shasta. So......I am hoping to make a Shasta Shasta sweater by blending the fibers of both aminals together. I have been working on charting a knit graph of Mt. Shasta that I hope to incorporate in the sweater.