Cedar and Spice and Everything Nice for Emma

I finished my Cedar and Spice and Everything Nice Shawl finally. As you can guess from the title of this entry and the pictures that follow, this turned into a dog blanket for my girl Emma.

Emma sleeps on a little sleigh bed that my hubby made, and it's right next to my side of the bed in the corner of the room. Every night she curls up under various little blankets and looks super cute. So I am actually happy to give her a hand knit blanket. Bonus that it matches the curtains and rugs. Double bonus that it's machine washable and dryable.

When I finished knitting it I tried it on and it just looked weird. And it's because the ends are not symmetrical. As you can see on the picture below, the edge on the left is really skinny and pointed - where as the edge on the other side is more of a gentle slope over a larger surface. I wanted to wear this with a shawl pin and thought I could hide this better with a pin and overlapping the fabric rather than the button method the author intended. (The button method would be too much for me. It would have been too tight on my neck and just felt icky.) So after trying several things and talking to the hubby about it we decided it would be better suited for the dog bed.

I really like the look of this as a blanket - and I think it you tripled the amount of stitches and knit it about twice as long you would have a really warm blanket that you could snuggle into on the couch. I am quite happy with this as an Emma Blanket. I think it classes up her little bed and I like the thought of her having a hand knit blanket to curl up in. The one I made I ended up using 4 skeins of Hometown USA in Tampa Spice.

If anyone wants to look at the pattern on Ravelry it is a free pattern by the wonderful Susan B. Anderson. She looks really cute in the one she made! The pattern is called Cedar Wrap and it can also be found on the Spud and Chloe Blog if you aren't on Ravelry.

Storm Season and Emma

Last night we had our first real Thunderstorm of the Season. That means we had one freaked out Dog cowering in the bedroom with us. My hubby and I were laying in bed watching Season 2 of The Biggest Loser and saw the storm roll in. We closed the drapes and tried to make the room as quiet and calm as we could and still poor Emma started shaking like a leaf. I really need to order that Anxiety Wrap toot sweet! But that wasn't going to help us much for the night. I looked at my husband and asked if I should get an old T-shirt to wrap around the dog. He said that wouldn't help since our shirts would be really big on her. So then he suggested the old Dog Sweater I made for her the first summer she was with us. It's a little tight on her now so she doesn't really wear it anymore.

It ended up being perfect! I went and popped it on her and she went from super shaking puppy to just laying there staring around. You could tell she was still freaked out by the weather, but just to have that shaking stop was really nice.

This picture above was Emma not knowing how to react to the sweater the first time I put her in it in 2009 - I didn't stick my dog in a sweater and then drag her out in a storm for a photo shoot. You can tell she wasn't real sure what to think about the sweater. She was probably thinking Oh no! I live with people who want to dress me up!

Here is a rather saucy picture of Emma's underbelly just to show the tight fit of the chest area of the sweater. I think it was the tight fit that made a difference last night. Once he thunder stopped she immediately fell asleep. It was so nice to see. We could still hear the rain falling and she just nodded right off.

The pattern I used to knit this was the Need for Tweed Dog Sweater by Shiri Mor on Ravelry. It's also available on the Lion Brand website and it's a free pattern. It's knit flat and seemed which makes it easy to customize the fit. It took less than two skeins of Lion Brand Thick and Quick and the pattern was fast and easy. Bonus that it's machine washable - always a good thing with a dog sweater!

I am so happy we thought of putting this on Emma last night. Bonus that something I knit came in REALLY handy!

Happy first day of Spring!

Dog Sitting

We are pet sitting my Mother-in-law's dog Minnie currently. She is a Jindo that my Mother-in-law adopted from a shelter last year and she is still a young dog. (I think under two years old? I get Teenager energy from her.) It's very interesting having another dog in the mix here. Emma is very calm and submissive where Minnie is very aggressive and strong. We have been having to spend a lot of time keeping our energy calm and doing simple things like walking slower and not gesturing as much and just really keeping the state of energy in the house very low and mellow.

The first couple days of her visit I had a hard time doing anything other than being with the dogs. Emma is my girl and she is territorial over me, so of course Minnie wanted to take that and would nudge Emma out of the way when I was petting Emma and would just sort of be on me. This caused Emma to Hump Minnie in a show of territory. So there was a day or two of figuring out the pecking order around here.

Now that the circus has settled down things are much more mellow. The cat is out of hiding under the table and is hanging out in her Kitty Tree in the front window. We have figured out how to handle the feeding time and the outside time to keep the energy good. Yesterday Tom took Minnie out of the house for an hour so I could do my Zumba in peace. That is very high energy and frantic and I think something to avoid doing with this dog around.

I am really pleased with how smart Minnie is. I was making a sandwich yesterday and Minnie was under my feet in the kitchen. (Movement of the Human female AND food smell - hard to resist!) So I kept telling her to leave the kitchen. Every time she came in I would stop and back her out and tell her no. This morning when I went to make breakfast she came to the threshold of the kitchen and looked at me. I shook my head no and then went back to cooking. When I turned around again she was laying on the floor next to the entry of the kitchen. So smart!

It's very interesting having a different animal here. I am enjoying this but I also look forward to having the natural order of our household restored!

Yippie Skippy it's FRIDAY!

Most of my flowers have died out for the season, but I still have a few that are fighting against Old Man Winter. (OK - I know it's fall, but Fall in MN is kind of like Winter anyway....) This sad little white Echinacea has popped up in my front garden and has greeted me everyday when I come home from work. It's dark out in the morning when I leave so I don't get to see it then.

In my back garden this purple Echinacea is still hanging in there. You can see the dried up Aster next to it and a bunch of leaves have curled up from frost - but this one is still hanging in there.

Yeah, I'm hungry too Em.

I am SOOOOOOOO Happy it's Friday! What a long week! Work was stressful and occupied my thoughts a lot. I missed two work-outs this week due to Zombie status (Insomnia) and I just feel like my shoulders are up at my ears. You know that feeling? When you are just so stressed out that you just can't seem to unwind? Argh. My mission this weekend is to get my shoulders down to a normal level. ;)

Tonight I am looking forward to dinner, some Ghost Adventures on the TV, and working on my KAL. I am up to the cable section and Vickie put up this video on Utube which is super helpful. I love doing cables, but about half the time I get confused and cable the wrong way. Very frustrating when you realize your cables or going all wonky. So I will watch the video again and get cranking on my KAL Cowl.

Happy Friday!

The Trials of Loving Critters

The critters (Emma in particular) have had a rough couple of weeks. About 1 month ago I slowly transitioned both Emma & Izzi from there normal food to a high end dog food. Clogged them both up badly. Emma was so corked that she was lethargic and having trouble jumping up on the couch. Izzi (the cat monster) was crying and frantic. I was all set to take Izzi to the vet (car in the drive way with door open, kennel out....) when miss Izzi unleashed her butt fury on the cat box. Per the vet's instructions I started pumping both Emma and Izzi with 100% pumpkin and I mixed it with wet food, slowly working them back onto their dry food that didn't cause constipation. All is now running like clock work.

The Next week Emma pulled a muscle in her leg and was limping a little for a few days.

And then last week I came home from work and Emma had a gooey eye and was looking like a pirate. Tom told me it was worse that morning but seemed to be better now. Argh. Not sure what the pirate eye was about. I think both our animals have allergies - and Emma is prone toward gooey eyes.

Would love a week off from any animal mishaps. PLEASE?!?!?!