The Dog Hair Scarf

Yes - It is just what the name says it is. Well, at least partially. The brown yarn is hand-spun by a friend of a friend. It is made from the collected and cleaned hair from her dog.

I was asked by the friend to make it into a scarf - so I did. I used the dog hair yarn - which was a little varied in size for the ends. Then I used a thinner silk yarn for the body. I think the scarf looks good with the mix of thick and thin yarn, but would look good using only one yarn too.

This is the pattern I came up with for it. Be patient with me - I am still very very new to knitting.

The Dog Hair Scarf

size 8 US needles

a thick yarn

a thinner yarn

Top

CO - 21 sts of the thicker yarn with size 8 US needle

1 - K1, YO, K3, SSKP, K3, YO, K1, YO, K3, SSKP, K3, YO, K1

2 - Purl to end

3 - K2, YO, K2, SSKP, K2, YO, K3, YO, K2, SSKP, K2, YO, K2

4 - Purl to end

5 - K3, YO, K1, SSKP, K1, YO, K5, YO, K1, SSKP, K1, YO, K3

6 - Purl to end

7 - K4, YO, SSKP, YO, K7, YO, SSKP, YO, K4

8 - Purl to end

repeat rows 1 - 8 two more times - making sure to end on a Purl row.

Scarf Body

switch to thinner yarn

1 - K2, YO, K2, SSKP, K2, YO, K3, YO, K2, SSKP, K2, YO, K2

2 - Purl to end

repeat rows 1 and 2 until the body id the desired length.

Bottom

switch back to the thicker yarn

1 - K4, YO, SSKP, YO, K7, YO, SSKP, YO, K4

2 - Purl to end

3 - K3, YO, K1, SSKP, K1, YO, K5, YO, K1, SSKP, K1, YO, K3

4 - Purl to end

5 - K2, YO, K2, SSKP, K2, YO, K3, YO, K2, SSKP, K2, YO, K2

6 - Purl to end

7 - K1, YO, K3, SSKP, K3, YO, K1, YO, K3, SSKP, K3, YO, K1

8 - Purl to end

repeat rows 1-8 two more times.

Bind off

Cut yarn and weave in ends.

Abbreviations:

YO - yarn over

SSKP - Slip two stitches, Knit the next stitch, Pass the two slipped stitches over the knit one.

Finding things that were once lost.

like this blog. found. not sure where it went. but now we are reunited.

I may post on here - infrequently.

Scrappin up a storm

I really need to get on the ball. I mean I scrap a fair amount, but I really should be more done. I have been doing the Effer Dares and they are awesome. Excellent for breakning scraping norms. I was so feeling like I was in a rut, and now I don't so much. I mean I am still having a bit of trouble find my style. It seems to be just out of my reach, but I'll find it. I also need to start getting my shit out to mags. I am pretty sure some of it is publishable. My new favorite layout is one I just did using the Senic Route's Brighton paper. Wow is it cute. It is from when it snowed last year, which here in houston it never does. I mean like NEVER! I don't have a pic of the layout, but I can share a pic that I used on the layout.

The real deal

Have you ever known someone for like 8 years and never met them, and then all of the sudden you do? Well I have. My hubby's friend Nic came through with his band last week and I finally got to meet him. I have been hearing about him for like 8 years, and Chris went to him 2 years ago. It was so surreal. There was a very Outer Limits vibe. I mean there he was standing right next to me. I guess the whole time he had sort of been like Chris' imaginary friend. Totally f**ked with my brain. His band was so good. Yummy! I can't wait to go to NY to visit him and meet his girlfriend.

Ripping my hair out

I went to a party for one of my daughter's friends. At the party I decided I don't like children. Well, to be more clear I don't like other parents. Parents seem to play a game with their children, the object of the game is to totally ignore their kids. One of the ladies at the park where the party happened was a champ. I hate parents like that. I am by no means the best mother in the world, and my daughter is far from perfect. One thing that is different about me and a few other parents I know is that I(we) try. I am always keeping am eye on my daughter - not to be mistaken for hovering - and make sure she is behaving. One thing I am always doing is making sure she isn't being rude to other adults or kids. Unlike the mom at the party. This is what happened: the party was at a park and my friend who was throwing the party for her daughter let one of our other friends bring her new pitbull puppy. A very sweet puppy that was wonderful with the kids. So we are just sitting there and the dog is laying in the grass in front of us, trying to cool off. Then this girl comes up and starts taunting the dog by running up to it barking and then quickly running backwards still barking. After a minute or two of a parent not asking her to stop, I do. I go up to the girl, and with as much sweetness as I can muster, very nicely ask her to stop teasing the dog because we don't want it to bite her. The girl was more than old enough to understand what I was saying. She seems to listen, and for a few moments the dog is left in peace. Then she starts running around the dog, and every time she gets in front of it she takes off, clearly trying to get it to chase her. So I ask her again. With a tad more harshness in my voice. Still she ignores the advice. So finally, after she makes one of the sweetest puppies I have met start growling at her, I decide it is time to find the mother. I could have hit the mom. She was all the way on the other side of the park, with her back turned away from her daughter, chit chatting with some guy. So irritating! I could not contain my anger, and rattled off how she should probably try watching her daughter, not make us deal with her, and if she was going to make other people deal with her that she should teach her to listen to other adults, and not be cruel to animals. That her daughter was about to get bit by a dog that normally doesn't bite, and it would be her own fault, because there were at least 25 adults who saw me asking her 9 or 10 yr old not to make the dog bite her. I just couldn't stand it. I mean why even go if you aren't going to watch them. Just drop them off, and save yourself some trouble. Still angry about it, can you tell?

Over and Over and Over

How can my daughter watch a movie a thousand times? A thousand times in a row for that matter. Is it really that entertaining? Does she find something new in the movie every time? Or are all children just completely obsessive freaks? They must be because I know almost all children do it. I did it too. Not quite as bad as she does. Now there are DVD players, and the process can begin again instantly. Before DVDs in the VCR age, while dinos were still roaming the earth, we had to wait for the stupid movie to rewind. Surely enough after watching it like the second time - I was no longer willing to wait for it to rewind, and would run off and play. Not my daughter. She hits the menu button as soon as the credits start to roll. Amazingly she can't read yet but she can always find the scene selection, and start the movie over. How? I have no idea.

That brings up another point. Like I said my daughter can't read. Product placement is no mystery. I know if she sees the campbels logo and hears me call that logo by the name campbels enough she can then recognize the logo. I get that. What I want to know is how does she still know what it says when it is written in a totally different font? I mean like the word won't look the same at all, and somehow she still knows what it says. It freaks me out, and I love it at the same time.

New and Original

Ok - so I love artistic people. Some people might even refer to me as an artistic person. But with that said I can't stand the people who just act like they are artistic. Or act like they are Original in some way. Like plugs, for example. I have an "artistic" friend that got plugs several years ago. Then of coarse more people got them. I even got a set of plugs. I had wanted them for a long time I just didn't have the extra money. So after he had his for years he just took them out. When asked why he said it was because they got too popular and now it wasn't original enough for him. Now to me that is a crazy thought. I put enough thought into the modifications I have done to my body that I will probably never take them out. I have had my tongue ring going on 9 years now. I also have a Monroe piercing that I love. I wouldn't trade those in no matter how many people got them. I guess that just really bothers me. I feel like he only got the plugs because no one had them. Not because he really liked them. So now I feel like he does that about everything. I think it is crazy that even though he would say he doesn't care what other people think he cares more than he knows. He lets his whole look, even what he listens to be shaped by what other people think and how many other people like what he likes. That is just crazy to me. Like if he fell in love with a blue base ball cap he would wear it until he saw other people wearing it. Not me if I like it enough to buy it I will have it and wear it for a long long time. Sadly I find more and more people like this.

The aftermath

I live in Houston, and the other day I was driving behind a car from Louisiana. They didn't turn fast enough for me at a light so I honked at them. Well, I have spent the last few days feeling terrible for it. I have given to help the survivors out, but since I live in a part of town where there aren't really any of them it can be easy to forget that they are here. I realized that the person I honked at probably doesn't have anything except what was in that car. There whole life is in disarray and here I am honking because they are slowing me down on my way to shop. What a jerk I am. They might have lost family, or their home, or their job. Who knows maybe they lost all of it. When I think about it I just want to cry. I can't even imagine. The closet I can come to that kind of loss is when my mother died 3 years ago. I wanted the whole world to stop spinning, and for everyone to spend months mourning my mother. I guess that honk was my wake up call to be more compassionate, and to really help me connect with what they are going through.

Belief

I went with my hubby last night to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Its was pretty good, and it really got me thinking. Mainly about my beliefs. I realized strangely enough that I believe it all. I could be a Buddhist, a catholic, a Wiccian, or any other religion you could think of. I guess it is because in my opinion nothing is really impossible. To me any of them could be true. I guess what I really believe is there is good and evil in this world, and I don't really believe in organized religion. One thing I feel is without a doubt is that people can be possessed, by whatever name they give to evil. There are just too many cases, any too many legends that involve people being inhabited by evil spirits. So I can't dismiss it. Although I wish I could. I spent the whole night unable to sleep waiting for 3 am to come. Just knowing something terrible was going to happen. However it didn't.
The movie did remind me of an experience I had as a young girl. I was reading a book about the Amityville horror. I was up until very late, and when I went to sleep I just put the book on my night stand. As I started to close my eyes I felt something in the room with me. Then all of the sudden there was a huge weight on me, like someone was laying on top of me. I couldn't yell out for help, and I couldn't move. I just kept repeating in my head for the lord to rescue me, and to deliver me from this. All of the sudden it was gone - and I was thrown out of the bed. I say thrown, but it was really that I had been fighting so hard against the pressure, when it left, I threw myself out of bed. Then I was able to yell for my mother. This movie was the first time I had ever seen it portrayed in the same way. Which sacred the hell out of me. Well I'm not sure why I shared that, but there it is.