New Year, new projects

Hope everyone made it into the New Year OK?!

I have been a little quiet lately, custom orders coming in pretty steady, just enough to keep me busy without falling behind.

I had two new projects to work on, one a little dog sweater , a first for me but turned out really cute:

backside :

belly side:

Jack modeling it:

I had to bribe him with Honey O's to hold still just long enough to get a halfway decent picture.

and here something really unusual:

anyone wants to take a guess?...

well , I'll tell: this is a knitted Horse Ear Warmer Bonnet. one of my customers who lives in Colorado told me that her horses ears get very cold in the winter ( Colorado, i can believe that !!).

she said she uses fly bonnets in the summer but wanted to know if i can knit something similar to keep his ears warm. Heck yes, I'll at least try!

So this is what i came up with , anyone into horses, what do you think, could this be something i could start offering in my shop? feedback appreciated. I've not seen anybody offer them anywhere for sale.

Next i'll try my hand on a really cute knitted hat. I only have one picture of it taken off the tv.

no pattern , no nothing, just a picture. Wish me Luck :)

At long last, progress !!!

 I've finished a couple more socks and a pair of DK weight fingerless gloves (they're called 'texting gloves ' now), and I'm almost done with redoing all of my shop pics.

I'm suffering from insomnia for the last 8-9 days. i think i hadn't had more than 10 hours of sleep in that time. I walk around like a zombie all day , so very tired, but if i try to take a nap i can't sleep!! and am wide awake at night. it is now midnight and i am bouncing off the walls. what is wrong with me??

oh, look at this:

aren't they cute?! I looked up out of the window this morning and there they where, Bib half asleep and Jack watching over her with his paw wrapped around her, like he's saying : " your save , i'll look out for you ".

Disclaimer: No beer was consumed during moving of building and no animals or humans where hurt in said move.

Slow, but its progress!

While I'm waiting for a yarn order for a custom sock order to arrive, i started on another pair of lace socks with one of the skeins i dyed last week.

The pattern looks like itty bitty shells.

Very easy pattern, only one of five rows has some yo and knit together's, the rest is just knit.

They will be added to the store when done.

Ugh, this heat!

Well, another weekend gone by, it was sooo hot and humid.

Summer is definitely on its way, yesterday it hit 93 degrees with at least 80% humidity, HOT !!

Apart from that we had a pretty good weekend, John's shoulder is getting better little by little. Now if i could just make him rest it more it would heal even faster.

I got to finish one sock that i started knitting on Friday. It's a pattern out of the new "Socks from the Toe up" book:

I love this pattern, and it's not complicated at all:

The yarn is a hand dyed with amethyst and then over dyed with blue that i did a few weeks ago. The colors came out in supple shades of Lavender, very pretty.Should be finished with them by the end of the week, they will be available on etsy( hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink , wink ).

And last but not least here is a new pic from Jack:

He sure has grown into a beautiful little dog, still can't hear squat, but is very smart and is starting to pick up on hand signs.

So, all is well, so far....

Of puppies,kittens and a whole bunch of sox

Still not much going on here.We're just plucking along from day to day, awaiting spring .We had two very nice days the beginning of the week ( 74 as a high on the second day) . Got a couple of hours horseback riding in and just enjoyed to be outside. Now its raining again and drab, yuck!!

Well, enough with the weather report.

Here is a pic of Bib, as you can see she is a wee bit big around the middle.

When we got her i was under the impression that she had been spayed. Well, apparently not. That belly is not from over eating, there's kittens in there!

I expect her to have them within the next 8 days or so.

I already been asking around and might have two placed to good homes already . 

Jack has grown quite a bit but we found out that he is totally deaf.

So now i have to train him a little different ,which is no big deal but we'll have to keep him on a leash at all times unless he's behind a fence cause he can't hear whats coming . One good thing : he really pays attention to you and makes constant eye contact.

I think he tries to read our facial expressions since that is the only way for him to know whats going on. One of his little ears has flopped over which gives him a feisty look which fits his personality.

He sure is a sweet little guy. He loves to be picked up and he will sit on my lap all proud .

I haven't weight him lately but i estimate hes got about 4-5 pounds now.

The bucket you see on this pic is a two gallon small bucket and he is about that size.

He has a ongoing feud with the Turkey but he gets along fine with Skimpy ( they actually started playing a little ) and he loves the cat. They are living in the studio now and will be my working buddies once i get started in earnest.

 What I'm working on right now: another big order of socks .

Nine pair in all ,going to Canada.I've finished two pair ,working on the second sock of the third pair.

Boniva Disaster/Order Delays/Jack

So far not a good start into the New Year!

I had to go get a "BONIVA" shot last Tuesday and it didn't turn out so well.

Since i can't use my left arm for that (no no 'cause of the lymph notes i had taken out ) only my right arm is available .Unfortunately over the last 5 years I've been stuck so many times that I'm running out on veins.

I also made the mistake not drinking enough that day so i was a little dehydrated by the time i got to the doc's office.

I'll spare you all the gruesome details of the many tries by the nurse (who is usually a good sticker) to hit a vein.
Finally after the third try at different places (blew one vein on the side of my elbow) she hit one at the left side of my wrist. It hurt like hell when she squeezed the medication in but i just sucked it up 'cause i wasn't going to be stuck again. By the time i got home my thumb was totally numb.ODD! Next morning i was in somewhat of a little pain and my arm had swelled up around the injection site.I put warm wrap around it, took some Motrin and hoped for the best. Wrong!!

By next morning, more swelling, more pain and my arm felt hot to the touch; more Motrin and warm wraps. By Thursday afternoon i got scared,my arm and hand had swelled to more than twice the size was tight as a drum ,red ,very painful and hot to the touch.

normal hand:

not so normal hand:

of course by now the doc's office is closed until Monday .Great!

couldn't use my hand/arm at all. John did the cooking, washing dishes and everything else. On top of that we had both grandbabys over new years .Fortunately they are good babys and it worked out all right.John helped out a lot.

I was debating Friday morning to go to the emergency room at the hospital. I called both local hospitals for an estimated waiting time and was told between 4-6 hours!! No way!!!

So i just took some more pain pills and laid on the couch all day because by now i didn't feel so good all around.By Friday night i felt a little better and it seemed that the heat in my arm had gone down some.By this morning it's a lot better but i think it'll take about another week for it to go all the way back to normal, my thumb is still numb.I'm supposed to get one of these shots every three month. Guess what?! It's not going to happen!!! Doc 's gonna have to think of something else or i just have to live with my brittle bones!!! (can't take the Boniva pills since I've already got a bad tummy and the pills are very bad for that).I googled about those kind of problems and found a lot of people have severe sideffect on this stuff.So if your doc mentions this to you as an IV 'beware'.

At least i can hold a knitting needle again today and i apologise to my customers who have orders waiting, I'll get them done as fast as possible.

On the good news side, Jack the bottle puppy is doing great. he weighs 1#3 oz, and has his eyes open:

he'll be three weeks old by next monday.He still sleeps most of the time. can't wait until he gets more active. Theire great fun when they get to be about 5-6 weeks old.

Bottle Baby

Since my beloved Blue past on to dogie heaven this last summer i finally decided to find me another buddy (we still have Skimpy but he is more a outside /doing his own thing dog).

So when my neighbours Fiest dog expected puppies i put myself on the list for a little male.

I got the call about the puppies being born on the 14th December. I was to wait about a week to give the pups and mom some time to settle and then go over and pick my puppy.

But,next day i got a call that one of the pups had been rejected by the mom and had to be bottle fed. Since the owner is a very busy woman and don't really has the time to feed this baby every two to three hours i was asked if i wanted to take him.what a question!! of course!! took me all of two minutes to run over there.

And here is what i got:

one little hand full of puppy

he weighted 4.25 oz that day

this is him 8 days later:

he now weighs 10 oz ,is very active,healthy and fat. He also sleeps through the night now which is a great relieve

I named him "Jack" in honor of Captain Jack Sparrow played by Johnny Depp from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies,which I'm a great fan of.

We are planning to teach Jack all kinds of tricks and take him everywhere we can.I want him to ride on the back of my horse,on the boat,the 4 wheeler etc.

But i think the first thing will be potty training if he is to spend anytime in the house.

He should start opening his eyes in the next few days,i'll try to get some better pics then.