Creative Abundance

Road Trip

Peachy

Poodle

Small Adult Female Dog

Robeson County Humane Society

Lumberton, NC

 

If you are looking for a dog who is perfectly content to sit in your lap hour after hour, look no further! Peachy is an apricot poodle who thinks her sole purpose in life is to love and be loved! Only 5 pounds, she is about 7 or 8 years old and is absolutely adorable. She's fast becoming the Friends for Life mascot, as everyone falls in love with her. She is housebroken and completely up to date on all her shots. She has a cataract but manages extremely well. If you're searching for a companion dog, look no further!

This pet is up to date with routine shots.
This pet is already house trained.

 

Need I say more?

I am hoping for a safe trip and will be trying to get off the road before the super bowl parties begin.  I know some start early.....

"Putting on the Dog"

   

I received this bit of heaven from Kelly.  She lives in Anchorage and spins up fur that her husky, Zues, so lovingly and generously provides.  She has an Etsy shop, I'Did'A'Twist'.

There are 300 yards in this skein of gorgeousness.  Enough to make Tammie and me fingerless mitts.  I am at the top of her waiting list for more - we will need matching scarves.

I have been interested in spinning for awhile. My interest and enthusiasm was bolstered by this book, Knitting with dog hair:  Better a Sweater from a Dog you Love than a Sheep that you will Never Meet.  Dog fur (chiengora) does not smell doggy when wet....  It is a lovely fiber and the book advises that you can stop vaccuuming and start knitting!!! 

The sun was out this morning....I tad a chance to take a couple more photos of Tammie's mitts before they are sent off to her.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

I was looking for a fingerless mitt pattern for Noro Kochoran. 

I decided to use the Irish Hiking Armwarmer pattern but  I made some major changes.  I eliminated a cable, added a thumb gusset and added beads.  I added seed beads as well as decorative pewter beads. 

I felt that I could create a thumb gusset by picking up stitches and then decreasing.  That's what I did.  I took a pair of mitts that I had made earlier - and did a feasibility study.  The prototype was a success, so I went forward with my plan using the Noro.

It has been rainy and wet and I wanted to take a picture of this without a flash - I found such an environment under the grow light, right next to the begonias...

 
The mitts are for my friend, Tammie. 

I embellished them with beads from Beadlady.  Her beads are all lead free pewter, so I am not worried about washability.  This bead is lovely - but it is an experiment in terms of weight and size.  The bead says "Grow strong" on the edges.  Tammie does not need such encouragement for she is one of the strongest people I know.  Over the Christmas holiday she fostered two chihuahuas and found them perfect homes.  Chihuahuas are PEOPLE OWNERS and fostering them with her own chis is a challenge that most are not prepared for.  At any rate, i really like the bead, and I am interested in whether it will be practical.

Here's the other hand:

The LOVE bead works well in terms of size and weight. Tammie knows she can remove the beads if they don't work for her.

And Ms. Maizy wanted to model the mitts...Hi Ho, Hi Ho.....She loved them and wishes that she had opposable thumbs so that she could spin and knit up a storm.

 

Genius, Luci, a Tornado and Gratitude

Carrie Strine, a very talented artist, made this for me.  She has a couple of Etsy shops -

It is her design knitted in bamboo.  I believe it is based upon the Hemlock design, and I am so pleased with it.  It is absolutely incredible!   I love the sleeves and the collar.  Who would have thought Hemlock could become a little bolero?

 

Ms. Luci had surgery on Tuesday.  I had discovered a small mass on her chest and it was removed  and biopsied.  She had general anesthesia and recovered very quickly.  I was supposed to limit her activity but that was tough - she was doing her little dance on her back legs while waving her arms the very next day.  The good news is that the mass seems to be localized only in her skin and it was benign! HUGE AMOUNTS OF GRATITUDE!

Eric asked Dr. Jones if she would throw in an exorcism along with the surgery - the jury is still out regarding its success.....- it is a blessing that she doesn't have teeth.  

Here's a picture of her last Saturday (prior to the surgery) at the greenhouse nursery. Every employee and every customer wanted to meet her and pet her.

 

Every day I reflect on the many reasons to be profoundly grateful. I have added another to my list.  Last week we had bizarre weather, including a small tornado.  It had been raining and I had been watching my emails regarding weather conditions.  I hadn't received any notice of a tornado.  We were all upstairs and I began to hear a strange sound like a train.  I began to get all the dogs down to the ground floor.  At the same time my neighbor across the street was trying to open her door to go to the barn to check on her horses.  She could not open the door due to pressure.  The good news is that her horses are fine but two trees fell on her pasture fence.  Talk about bad luck - she has two pastures and a tree in each pasture fell on a portion of her fence.  We had one small tree come down.  Many of my neighbors had multiple trees fall. My sense of gratitude is heightened because eleven of our trees came down, including one on our house, during hurricane Isabel.  Again, it was like a small tornado came on our street  - a huge amount of damage occurred on our street, while other streets had a great deal less damage.  Lots and lots of gratitude!