It is nice to have finally completed some Shetland lace. It does take an awfully long time and it is rather fussy. I like fussy though, so I have been enjoying this particular garment. Enough to try it a second time, as a matter of fact. I do that — kinit patterns twice. Sometimes more. I get bored with a pattern the first time I try it, so if I find one that can hold my attention through to the end, I will do it again.

Plus, I have different categories of knitting — stuff I can do while reading or watching tv, stuff I can do waiting for appointments and stuff that requires a great percentage of my brain. I do the latter projects when fluffy puppy Duncan settles down for the night.

This afternoonm I was outside in the shade working on the center of a shawl (easy repeats), listening to an audio book and the next thing I know I was waking up from a cat nap. It felt so decadent! Thank goodness the shawl didn’t suffer from my laziness.

Although this isn’t the most exciting post ever written, I thought I’d better get back to the old blog and update the world about my latest knitting activities. Do you think the world is reading it, and breathlessly waiting form the next update? No, I don’t think so either.

While I waited in line, I worked on a sock. Got a lot done, too. And had a few questions asked of me. One was a yound guy asking to borrow a needle so he could poke the man with the Iphone who was sitting on the ground outside of the store activating it on his laptop. Show off. If I wasn’t sure the act would break the needle, I would have lent it to him.

The waiting-in-line sock was the second one in tiger-stripe yarn by some yarn company whose name escapes me. It really is pretty cool. I’m using a toe-up design and have very little ribbing because I didn’t want to break up the stripes. The first one fit well even without the ribbing, so I am happy.

On the lace knitting front, I am working on an Orenburg shawl. Already found one little pattern error that was easily fixed. It still kinkd of ticks me off. Oh well, I should know that with publishing comes mistakes. Who knows what typos this blog has? (Just fixed one, as a matter of fact!)

Not pretty, is it?

Why firecrackers today? Cinco de Mayo, of course. And the town where I live has quite a Mexican-American heritage, so I imagine people will be celebrating like crazy.

Luckily, I now have some tranquilizers I can give Duncan. I’d rather not have to medicate him, but between having a strangely sleepy dog and one who is petrified, I’ll take sleepy, thank you.

Duncan got his meds after a trip to the vet, where he also had some blood drawn. Just like me! I gave some up for a thryoid function test; he rather unwilling donated to see about heartworms. Duncan’s test came back clean. I am waiting for my results. I think I might be a quart low on T4, based on how tired I’ve been lately, and my rotten memory. (I usually have a great memory, so it is a freaky thing to not be thinking quite so well.) So it might be medicine all around in this family.

On the knitting front, I got to visit a couple of favorite yarn shops this weekend. I spent money, it goes without saying. I am not on the yarn stash diet other bloggers are on this year. Not that I don’t need both yarn and food diets. They will come in good time.

And I will have another finished project in good time, too. Just not today. Probably not tomorrow. Oh, I feel so darn powerful, I can knit on whatever project I want when I want!

I hear music so I had better getr ready to feed some pills down my canine friend’s throat. He is starting to whine and is seriously out of tune.

Duncan is not so keen on squirrels. He only tried to chase one once — unfortunately I was on the other end of the leash, being pulled hither and tither as the squirrel jumped off the ground and into some ivy for cover. Did I mention this was outside of a church assembly room where I had gone to vote? So we had quite the audience for our little show.

On the knitting front, I’m still working on the Starmore sweater, but I am shaping the front neck. Which means I’m being closer to being done with it. Not that it isn’t fun to knit; it is just that it has been a long time since I knit a sweater, it feels like it’s taking a long time.

That’s all I have to say tonight. Here is a photo of two huskies — try to guess which one is Duncan.

However, nowadays so many people — including me — have trouble handling second-hand perfume and aftershave that it’s just not something I smell anymore. And today I miss it.

On the other hand, there are smells that I’d sooner forget. I encountered one on a day long ago and it is with me still.

It was the day after Thanksgiving and my job involved waiting on customers all day long. I came to work in the morning after a hellishy long commute and had a killer sinus headache. The knd where you just want to sit somewhere with your eyes closed, hoping your nose will start running to clear the congestion.

I finally got through the morning, ate lunch and felt the headach going away. Then wham — in comes a man who smelled of something horrible and the headache came galloping back. Even the money he handed to me smelled. It was agony! I hung in for the rest of the day, because it iw what professionals do — hang in and hang on. Only not so much now that I am older.

As the scent of spring has been replaced by lots of rain here in California, i have been inspired to continue knitting the Starmore in-the-round gansey. Although it is no longer being knit in the round; the split for front and back has taken place.Guess what? Knitting a row of 173 stitches goes a lot faster than knitting 346 stitches each round. The fact that my efforts have accelarated has added the inspiration for me to continue on.

The biggest knitting news of this blog enty is the arrival of my wooly board. A new toy! It arrived just a few days ago from Halcyon Yarns. I haven’t opened the package yet but I can hardly wait to assemble it. I dare say it will come in handy for drying sweaters too. Which is good because I can’t have a clothesline where I live.

So on I go with my knitting. Someday I’ll post photos of the sweater and the wooly board. Got to have something to look forward to!

My current knitting mood is finishing projects I’ve started. So I picked up the Alice Starmore sweater that, at this point, is getting very heavy as it is knit in the round and I’ve reached the sleeve gussets. I love knitting in the round, so it’s all good. I just have to be strong. The gansey weight yarn on small needles means my hands need to be strong, too. So knitting can be exercise, even if it isn’t aerobic.

I was in my old neighborhood on Saturday, which meant a visit to my once-upon-a-time LYS. Where I picked up some sensationally soft silk sock yarn. I can hardly wait to start knitting with it. I have to be strong, though, because I have some socks already in progress. I must be strong sometimes.

I’ll end this entry before things get too depressing. And with a photo of Duncan the dog. I finally moved a photo from one computer to another; here it is!

When Duncan gets bored, he attacks my knitting, throwing balls in the air and chasing them around the room. He often can be found with yarn strung around his muzzle. He’s taken to eating my knitting needles lately. Just lost a wooden double pointed needle today.

So to tame his wildness, I took him for a walk. We headed across the street, which is a lot full of weeds that hide little critters and the occasional cat. Here’s a husky fact — they are known as cat killers. Now, I’m not about to let Duncan get close to even hurting a cat (okay, he shook a dead one once, but it was stiff, believe me — it was disgusting). However, the other day he happened to flush a cat out of the long weeds and now everytime we walk in the lot, Duncan bounds through the weeds hoping to recreate the situation. So I was cracking up at his silliness, wheezing with asthma as he handled the weeds like he was pulling a sled through the snow. He had a great time, and energized himself to get into even more trouble with my yarn. I was exhausted, of course.

He’s finally settled down, allowing me to blog, knit on the Alice Starmore sweater and generally recharge for another day of work tomorrow. I meant to get the camera out and take some project photos, but the best laid plans definitely went awry today.