R is for Rascal

The Rascal with those big mournful brown eyes is our big dog. He is our big dog because his sister is barely tipping the scale at 9lbs. He is bigger than her. He is over 12lbs, after some exercise regiment induced by his little sister, called running around with Emma. But if he has his ways he'd spend 20 hours a day sleeping or lounging around, 4 hours eating or waiting/begging for food.

Rascal is going to be 5 years old in May. By this age Trinket already had to deal with an old grumpy rescued sister (Lucy), a slightly younger and less grumpy rescued Westie (Macie), a stinking baby brother (Bucky), another rescue (Precious), and finally a human baby brother (Henry). See, Rascal has an easy life, even with the little sister constantly attached to his cheek. One day we asked Emma to "Go get Rascal", and the little girl ran upstairs and literately dragged her brother down. He wasn't unhappy about it tho, because there was dinner waiting. Why didn't he come down on his own? That's the sixty thousand dollar question only Rascal has the answer.

Q is for Quick Giveaway

I finished another scrap scarf. My friends at Green Planet Yarn have been saving these odds and ends for me so I have a nice healthy stash of them. It's a lot of fun to put together the magic ball and make it into something so pretty and useful.

Message on Ravelry if you want to claim this scarf. Better yet, if you can send charity yarn to my mom in Houston. Call it a knitters karma.

P is for Point Gammon Pullover 守灯塔的人

Project:  Point Gammon Pullover 守灯塔的人
Pattern:  Point Gammon Pullover by Elinor Brown, Interweave Knits, Fall 2010
Yarn:  Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool, aran to bulky weight
Yardage:  1434 yards in stash
Needles: Size 8
Cast on: February 9, 2014

Note: I love knitting. I love knitting cables. I try to be a helpful person. Sometimes I'm over enthusiastic in trying to help people, without thinking over my own ability and whether it's necessary to offer help. When people praise my cables and ask me to knit a cable sweater I fall head over heels into the project. That's how this sweater got started. I'm knitting it for another raveler for her son. The yarn is too heavy for the gauge the pattern calls for (surprisingly there are couple of knitters had done this sweater in the same yarn and got gauge, I wonder what the sweater feels like), and I recalculated so I can knit it on size 8 needles instead of size 6. The design itself is simple and easy to follow. The sweater starts bottom up in the round till armholes which is only couple of inches away. The combination of the heavy yarn and doing both front and back on the same needle means the knitting gets pretty heavy! If I ever do over I'd knit the pieces separately for sure. 

As I was going through forum posts on Ravelry I found my own post from when the magazine first came out, and I said I'd make this sweater. There, it took all these years and another knitter's request to get me started.

It's Fiber Arts Friday! Visit Andrea's blog to see lots of fun things!

N is for Netflix Movies

I'm on a movie kick lately, so I've been getting DVDs from Netflix and do a movie night once or twice a week. To point out the obvious, their selection for movie streaming is pathetic. I like keeping up with the pop culture, plus I can knit while watching movies.

Here are a few recent DVDs:

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2. The Hundred-Foot Journey
3. Million Dollar Arm
4. Boyhood
5. Frozen
6. Her
7. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I'm building up a very long queue, but if you have suggestions for good movies I'd love to hear about it.

M is for Mom

Most of my blog readers know that my mom is a long time knitter, now mostly knits for charity. About two years ago she moved from Carmel CA to Houston to be closer to my brother and his family. In October she fell and broke her hip, she had hip replacement soon after that, and has been in physical therapy since then. Now that she's even more confined than before, she's knitting a lot and most of the finished work are donated to her local charity groups. Here are couple of examples of her recent knitting on a borrowed child.

If you are interested in sending her yarn feel free to message me on Ravelry. She likes craft store baby yarns in cheerful colors, or any smooth yarn between fingering and worsted weight.