Another week or two in review

First of all, I must announce that I finished the DiVe Fiamma drop-stitch scarf. It is very hip, perhaps even too hip for me. The Knitty baby blanket was unstalled when my order from Knitpicks arrived that contained another skein of Asparagus. I really like that Merino Style yarn, it feels nice to knit (nicer than Cascade 220). Then I was stalled again on the last row because I did not have enough Frost (turquoise) to finish 1 row and one bind off row. Maybe I should have swatched first. My Knitpicks order arrived and saved the day again, and I did finish the knitting. Now I just have to block it and sew on the flannel backing. At the rate I complete items, well, let's just say the blanket is sitting atop the backing, neatly folded. My excuse for not getting it done is that I'm not sure I like the flannel I got for the backing and think I need to go to a quilt shop to peruse their flannel selections. Luckily, we have one quilt shop in Spokane, The Stitching Bee, that has tons of flannel right now. Besides, I just found three (3) yes, count 'em THREE pug flannels at Hancock Fabrics! Of course they're brown, so they won't go with the blanket, but I thought I'd mention it...

Chester
Chester actually has fans, so I feel I should keep you all updated. Because he consumed that Greenie from the wastebasket (and it's probably still sitting in his stomach like a lump of Soylent Green), he has lost his hair. His trace (the black stripe down his back) is now a buzz-cut because some shorter hairs are filling in. However, with fall coming, Chester is now getting cold. So knit him little leg warmers to wear at bedtime. He is very 1980's with his leg warmers on. What a feeling!

Chester has started being sneaky about getting on my desk. When we forget to baby gate the office, he now only tosses a few items discreetly on the floor, instead opting to rearrange everything on the top of the desk as he rummages for anything he thinks is edible. He has a new route up onto the desk for this type of behavior: I discovered that a desk chair that swivels doesn't bother him in the least, a trick he learned from Dobby, who liked to lie on the warm chair when you got up. Now I have to remember to push my chair in. Non-desk related: I caught him the other day with a feather sticking out of his mouth. I have no clue where this feather came from; it's too big to be stuffing for bedding. But there it was, hanging like a cigarette from his lips. I swear he does that just to get a reaction from me.

Knitting
The cute House of Marley sweater and rose hat set sold nearly instantaneously. So I knit another sweater for my inventory in shades-of-brown Kureyon. That particular color is really hard to get. I am not sure why but suspect everyone is out there felting it into bags or something. Of course there's another fabulous fall Kureyon and I ordered several from Sue at LittleKnits. It turned out that I already had some in my stash, so I decided it could become a mom-and-me hat and sweater set. I tire of making 2x2 rib one-skein Kureyon or Silk Garden hats, so instead I made a one-skein-plus cable hat. I think it turned out quite nicely, and will begin the dog sweater to match soon. Hey! Maybe I should run a cable down the back of the dog sweater? Ooo. Maybe I should knit a Kureyon swatch.

After my second stall on the Knitty baby blanket, I went swatch-crazy with leftover Cascade 220 and now I have colorful swatches with information tags attached. I would have used sale tags with strings on them, but ELH absconded with them when he discovered they were ideal for labeling motorcycle parts.

Since I made the baby blanket out of Merino Style, my Cascade swatches don't apply, but I do use Cascade 220 from time to time, and am planning on making a red baby sweater out of that yarn to go with the blanket. Actually, I was going to use 220 Superwash, but I think it's so close to the regular 220 it won't matter.

In the meantime, it's getting to be fall and I'm getting cold. I'm sick of wearing denim shirts, so I'm thinking I really should finish up the recycled cotton Cables and Lace cardigan that's been sitting around for pretty near forever.

Maybe. I'm also working on a mohair pug dress in outrageous hot pink. And currently the big needles hold a slip stitch scarf out of Colinette something-or-other, but I worked 2 rows of that and was bored to tears. I know it would be fabulous when finished, but it may be years on that one! Besides, the two skeins are such different colors (in the same colorway, bought at the same time, but that's mail order and Colinette for ya') that I'm having to alternate every 2 rows, which adds annoyance to the boredom.

Why we call them bird-brains
A few years ago, a covy of quail moved in to our neighborhood. I thought they were cute, so I started feeding them. Around here we call them bobble-headed chickens because they're ground feeders so they scratch around like a bunch of chickens. They peck at each other like chickens, too. And they eat chicken scratch quite happily (of course we had to blockade Chester away from the bird food because it's corn and wheat, and he'll eat it and break out).

I had moved part of the Chester blockade the other morning after the pugs came in. Soon, ELH called me, "There's a mother quail and a BABY on the deck! Come see!" That's one late egg. I watched as the quail walked around the deck to the Chester blockade, which formed a quail corral. This confused and upset them, especially since the chick stepped through and they couldn't follow. So they walked back and came forward again, right into the corral. It wouldn't have been so funny, but if they'd simply gone to the left, they would have gone past the corral. But they didn't and over and over again they would walk into the corral and get frustrated. ELH and I couldn't figure out why they just didn't FLY OVER the corral, but quail are definitely bird brained.

I finally helped them out by starting to open the kitchen door. The noise made them all fly over the corral and over to where the food is.

This is why I continue to feed them: they make me laugh. The same can be said for the pugs, I guess.

Last night, we went out and had sushi with a friend of ours. Yes, Virginia, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho has a very good sushi place called Takara. I never had sushi before I moved here (living near Seattle, I wonder what I was thinking), but eating raw fish wasn't a big jump for me as I dearly love smoked salmon (lox) with cream cheese and capers on toast points, bagels or any such bread product. One of the sushi items is smoked salmon, so I started with that. Now I like much of it, but I can't bring myself to eat eel or octopus.

The other thing I can't bring myself to eat is QUAIL EGGS! Yes, you can get a quail egg added for 50 cents. Hah. Actually, it's not really so much that it's from a quail as it is that it's raw. I'm the type of person that likes my scrambled eggs nicely browned. So I'll be saving that 50 cents for something else!

Super mundane
I sterilized my toilets. Yup. I bought a Piccolo steamer from Costco.com. It is a must-have if you have drunken parties because past a certain time, male party goers can not hit the toilet with the same degree of accuracy as a sober man. Besides, the steamer cleans the toilet seat hinges like magic. Oh, and it zaps mildew into oblivion without the use of bleach. Such a thing, I wonder how I ever lived without it.

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Many things to blabber about this week:

• Our Newest Model
• Chester in a Hole
• Stalled (knitting)
• The De-Hairing of Marley
• The Gang's All Here

Our Newest Model
Every foster pug that comes through my house has to do time. Hard time. They have to model canine couture for House of Marley. I rationalize that House of Marley donates to a lot of pug rescues, especially Inland Northwest Pug Rescue, so they're just helping themselves. So several winters ago, Odie had to model the fleece Santa hoodie, which has now become known as the "Ho Ho Odie". Sam modeled anything red (he looked good in red). Chester now does big-and-tall modeling duties. How Dobby managed to escape modeling, I don't know, but he's definitely the exception, not the rule.

Just imagine how happy I am that I'm fostering another girl! Yeah, it's Crickett's turn to model. She doesn't seem to mind, either. So without further ado, here is Crickett in the latest House of Marley handknit.

This little number is actually 2 pieces: a sweater out of Cotton Twist in the colorway Pucci (that rayon just makes this sweater gleam), and that flower I mentioned last post. I added some leaves and then said to ELH, "Honey, now what should I do with this?" He looked at it for two seconds and promptly said, "Make it a hat." Excellent thinking outside the box! Done and done. Then I discovered that it could go around the old pug neck (as seen above), or around my wrist twice and then I have a wrist corsage. House of Marley, where we're all about the trend. Please note, she's not unhappy in the photo despite what she looks like. What she's doing is trying to figure out a way to get off the chair she was perched on and back into the sunshine. Silly hedonists, you'd think they could give up a sunbeam for 2 seconds to pose for some photos!

Chester in a Hole
Chester was feeling poorly on Thursday due to his never-ending allergies. To cheer him up, I invited him to help me move the pickup. He likes doing that because he thinks it's a car ride. As I was backing the pickup onto our parking pad, I noticed 4 workmen across the street at the manhole. After I parked, I came around and opened the passenger door for Chester, who promptly leaped out of the car and sprinted out of the yard across the street towards the men. I immediately gave chase while wasting my breath yelling, "Chester, get out of the ROAD!" Dumdum Chester was so intent on seeing these manly worker guys, he didn't notice he was barreling towards the now-open manhole. Lucky for him, one of the guys heard me, turned and blocked Chester with his foot before Chester could Wiley. E. Coyote four feet down into the storm drain.

Whew! They said they were worried when they saw Chester coming that they might have to run down the street to the next manhole and fish him out. I responded that I was worried that Chester might have gotten stuck halfway there and plugged up the works. He is big for his age, after all.

I scooped Chester up and lugged him back home as he squirmed, trying to go be with his new homies. Chester's real goal in life is to be a manly man, working with his paws. He'd be perfect. As a curly-tailed dog, he's already got a doggy plumber's butt going on.

Stalled!
Due to the fact that I am unable to read instructions, my baby blanket project is stalled. In true computer programmer style, I just don't read instructions until I encounter a problem. And in this case, my problem is not enough Asparagus. The pattern called for 2 skeins of that color and one of everything else, and I ordered one of everything.

Of course that means I have to go back to Knitpicks and order another skein of Merino Style in Asparagus. And not wanting to pay shipping, I was forced, forced I say, to order a bunch of other stuff like that Suri Dream in an aqua color. I was under duress! That baby's a-comin' (sometime this winter!).

No matter, really, though, because my box from Little Knits came. Yes indeedy, it was quite speedy. Since I finished that gold Soiree scarf that's not long enough for my liking, I felt I needed another something on needles larger than US #6. Little Knits had DiVe Fiamma, and Berroco had a pattern for a scarf called Kukla (I can't recall if Fran and Ollie are in that book), but the particular color of Hip-Hop yarn is rather unobtanium, so I subbed in Fiamma. The scarf is one of those drop-stitch affairs that I can't decide if I like or not. Boomer can't seem to decide if he likes it, either. Well, there is a size 13 Brittany Birch slung around his back, so maybe that's why he looks the way he does.

The De-Hairing of Marley
Normally, this would be known as a bath. However, in this case, it was a de-hairing. I scrubbed her three times and the fur just came off, and off—this is the result. Unbelievable! I was happy I had a screen over the tub drain for this one. This pile is off of a dog who was thoroughly brushed 2 days ago! Why she is shedding her coat now that summer is almost over has me baffled. It's not like she's lacking fur, either, she still has a rich undercoat. Sadly, this stuff is not long enough to spin and if you blend it with something else, it results in a rather prickly yarn that's unsuitable for... for anything.

The Gang's all here
Odie came over for a visit the other night. Odie is a rescued pug who lives with my neighbor.

Boomer fell madly in love with Odie during the time he lived here in foster care, but you can't tell that from this photo. Crickett and Odie are grinning because they have the hots for each other—maybe that's why Boomer looks so depressed.