Seamus's Big Three Birthday

Seamus has only been in our household for six months, but it feels as though he has always been here. Already I'm having a hard time remembering back to the days when we didn't have a living black-and-white fur rug in the bathroom, or when I didn't get awakened every morning by a pair of Beardie eyes drilling psychic holes into the back of my neck, or when I could sit and knit without a 50-pound lap dog trying to help. Happy birthday, little guy!

Our evening celebration will take place away from home tonight. We have obedience class, so we'll meet up with Dale and Tucker and carpool to class. It remains to be seen whether he'll whoop it up or concentrate on his work. Last week he almost paid a visit to the pretty white German Shepherd instead of coming to me during the recall, but then he remembered that the German Shepherd didn't have liver treats.

Tomorrow we're off to Manchester to All Dogs Gym to take the CGC test -- wish us luck! If he doesn't jump up on the tester or decide she's "rummy, rummy," he should do pretty well. He can easily perform all of the other exercises when he chooses to. Gail Fisher, who owns the Gym, used to have a Beardie named Mayday, and the two of them did pretty well in agility competition. She now has a new Beardie, and maybe we'll get to meet him-or-her tomorrow.

Little Bitty FO Report

I've whipped up a couple of roll-brim hats for Jody, and will be sending them off for her to try. Hopefully one or both of them will be the perfect hat(s) she's been seeking.

Thanks for my friend TiVo, I've been recording and watching a couple of the knitting shows on the DIY Network. DIY is pretty much public-access cable with commercials, and the knitting shows are a bit on the silly side, but I've managed to glean a few teeny bits of wisdom from them. I finally got to see what an ssk looks like when it's being done, and I got to watch someone turn the heel on a sock! (You have to remember that although I took a class to learn the basic knits and purls, most of what I know about knitting comes from books or the Internet. Sometimes you just have to be shown how to do something in order to see what it's supposed to look like.)

Maybe the best part of watching these shows is the realization that they're not for me; the projects they make are almost always beginner-level projects like scarves and shrugs, which means that -- could it be true? -- I'm no longer a beginner knitter! Somewhere along the line, I passed the initiation without even knowing it. Imagine that!

I did make an attempt to start a sock last night, but the size 2 needles felt like toothpicks to me after a year-plus on the big needles, and my stitches weren't at all neat. I pulled the cuff out and will start again with slightly bigger needles for my first attempt. The socks on the knitting show were made on size 7 dpns. Sure, the finished articles won't wear as well as socks knit with finer yarn on finer needles, but I just want to get the basic concepts down first. After that, I'll migrate to the small needles and get used to them. It might be a while before I'm up to knitting those little sock earrings, though.

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