Catching Up

I know I have been away for a while, so I will try to be succinct. 

I finished the Baby Dean Tweed for Glenn's other cousin's baby BEFORE the baby came!  I hadn't knitted much lace before and this was my first time to aggressively block something.  I bought the blocking mats and then spent a lot of time trying to convince the 2 scotties and 2 cats that they didn't need to stand, lay, sit or roll on it while drying. I repurposed Moxie's puppy X-pen to protect the blanket.

I was very happy with how this turned out. 

Not too bad for my first lace effort.  And I really liked the i-cord bind off.  Nice strong edge for when the kid drags it around!

And the girls liked it too.  After I told them "off" Moxie tried her nose under the blanket trick, but I couldn't capture it.  You can see she flipped the edge over nicely.

Baby Dean Tweed has been taken to it's forever home and I hope to see a picture with Mr. Weston sometime!

In May, I traveled with a friend to Castle Rock, CO for the Terrier Only Performance Summit.  My friend Sandy drove most of the way while I knitted (AWESOME!) and navigated. Sandy and her two Seallyham Terriers were fun bunk mates. Dobby and Alice played nicely with my two.  We stopped in Lamar, CO on our way and the visitor center had a great expanse of grass.

We were packed into the car pretty tightly, but everyone were great travelers.

We stayed in a nice LaQuinta near the show site.  The back of the room opened into a nice grassy courtyard where we could potty the dogs without stepping out of the room.  However, the bunnies and squirrels had very little sense of preservation and hung out in the courtyard.  Bailey and Moxie quickly spotted them from the bed in the room.  After that, the curtains were perpetually closed and all potty excursions were scouted prior to execution!

The girls on bunny watch!

I lost my mind and entered Moxie in Rally Obedience after the very minimum in practice. The first day I ended up being the first dog to run, so I was very nervous that I didn't know quite what I was doing, but Moxie earned her first Rally Novice A leg with an 87 out of 100. 

Doesn't she look thrilled!?! Pictures aren't her favorite thing.

She seemed to enjoy Rally, and especially the peanut butter cup reward afterward.  The second day we earned a 95.  The third day, we earned her RN with a 97.  I think we will try doing more Rally in the future. 

Bailey qualified in four out of 6 agility runs, which put her at the top of the Scottish Terriers in performance points, so she got named the TOPS Scottie. Moxie unfortunately was totally taken with the Colorado ravens and had a hard time focusing on pottying when there was "caa caa" to be heard.  She pottied in the ring one day.  Had she concentrated better and qualified a few more times, she could have beaten Bailey out with the addition of her Rally points.  But, she is quite happy letting big sister take the spotlight. 

June 21st was my 35th birthday. It's an age I am having a hard time reconciling.  It feels rather old.  I am not sure where all the time has gone.  However, I had no shortage of friends and family quite happy to celebrate it. My friend Katie (click the link to see her blog entry about this) put on the COOLEST party.  We dyed yarn at a local yarn shop. I had the BEST time. 

My friend Bonita dyes the last third of her yarn green.

Michelle begins hand painting her two skeins of yarn.

Lisa begins a tripple dip of shades of blue.

After the second dip, Lisa rotates the yarn to orient the last third at the bottom for dunking in her third shade of blue.

I pose with my virgin skein of yarn, ready to dip in the red dye.

Katie helps me hold the half dyed skein of yarn.

Here I am hand painting my second skein of yarn.

Here Katie is making sure her gloves are clean as she prepares to dip her chartreuse yarn in a fushia pink dye.  She ended up with a BEAUTIFUL skein we like to call Orchid. In the foreground, Lisa is hand painting the highlight color of "burnt" to her orange skein. Being the Longhorn lover, there was quite a bit of consideration on how to get the best burnt orange. 

The Glamour shot: from left to right, Michelle's two hand-painted skeins, my cherries and chocolate skein and Lisa's tripple blue skein.  All of these skeins are merino with silk mixed in, which gives them the shiny look you see.  And, the silk and wool take the dyes differently, so it gives each color a variagation which is truly awesome.

Here are Bonita's two tulip skeins of orange, green and yellow. Then Kerry's two sage green skeins and on the right, somewhat in shadow are Don's amethyst and taupe skeins. 

At the end, we got to create a grafiti skein with all the colors of our dyeing session.  It is crazy colored.  The current plan is that I (amazing how Katie's great ideas often involove me doing all the work!) will make Christmas ornaments out of that yarn. 

At the end, we took a group shot.  Notice the grafiti yarn that Michelle and I are holding up.

The folks at Gauge Knits were truly wonderful. Doug and his helper Kim of White Bear Fibers were absolute god-sends. They did all the grunt work so that we could have fun dying. They soaked the yarn before dying, nuked the dyed yarn to set the color, mixed up endless numbers of dyes, rinsed the yarn and laid them out to dry and acted as general gophers when bowls, jars, paper towels and various items were needed. If you ever have the chance to take a dying class with them, DO IT!

My sweet husband gave me a beautiful diamond pendant for my birthday. He picked out a beautiful (and robust) chain for it that sparkles and catches the light almost as much as the pendant. He did quite well and is pretty much off the hook for the month of July.

I have several WIPs, but most of them are gifts, so they are all under wraps, but will appear here eventually. We have a family wedding in July in Carbondale, IL. Then Glenn and his brother Craig will be heading to Oregon for a nice short vacation. Glenn and I will be joining my family on an Alaskan cruise in August. I am so glad that we will be getting some opportunites at cooler weather this summer. The heat here has been crazy and we will be ready for the relief. So, there will be plenty of picture opportunities in the next couple of months. Moxie and I will be trying our hand at more Rally in Houston at the Reliant World Series of Dog shows in July. Of course, Bailey and Moxie will both be running agility as well. I am hoping we will get to visit with Moxie's breeder while there. In short, the summer will be busy, but I will try to update "le blog", as Katie says, more often.