moonfrog –

It has been a rough time in my family, but things are returning to almost normal. Sadly, we are missing the head of the family, my father, who passed away Christmas night. Needless to say, it was a sad holiday season for the lot of us. Things are looking up, though.  My mom is doing fairly well, keeping busy. I am returning to my normal-ish schedule. Life goes on.

We will miss the joy of life my father showed in his dancing and fishing and socializing. I hope that joy of life is what I will carry forward in his memory.

The “new” puppy is now four months old, which doesn’t seem so old, but look how she has grown. She’s still a handful of puppy energy, but she is being trained and learning to fit into her people-world, but just barely.

This weekend she will go to doggie daycare for a couple hours to get her used to being around the dogs and people there. She’s a shy thing, so it takes some practice.

Our cat has started spending time with us again, sleeping in the house (or the linen closet, actually) and letting us pet her. She only comes around when the pup is sleeping and it is uncanny how she knows right when that is. There have only been a couple close encounters so far.  I doubt that she will ever tolerate the dog’s presence.

Ah, and the knitting and weaving and spinning. How I’ve missed them!  I went a full month without even knitting, but I’m glad to be back at it again.  I pulled out the Nordic Sock Sweater, which was started a year and a half ago.  I’ve worked on it some in that time, stopping when it came time to do the increases for the sleeves. A couple weeks ago I sat myself down and wrote out the progression of the pattern and commenced increasing. Now I’m back to even rows for a while. I suppose the decreasing happens next. I’m actually still liking this project, in spite of the tedious nature of lots of straight garter stitch.

After things settled down, I did my Christmas knitting — a very tiny amount this year. I made another Dolphin dishcloth for my aunt and two Flings  which are skinny mohair boas/scarves. Both used Paton’s Lacette in black as the main color.  The one pictured used Lacette in lavender for the other stripe.  The one that I gave away before I remembered to photograph it (sheesh!) used Filatura Di Crosa College in a bright blue. I like that one best and might make one for myself someday.

This scarf is knit lengthwise, so there aren’t too many rows, but they are long. The stripes break it up a bit, and I like the slanted ends, too. The back is pretty, but not striped. The mohair halo makes this a very pretty accent piece.

I also have a triangle scarf called Lacey Baktus  going, which is my travel knit. Not much travel, so not much progress, especially after a frogging and restart after several inches. It’s going well now.  I’ll have to take some new pictures of it and post it up. Maybe next time. ; )