Ramblings on a dreary day

I'm relieved that my secret pal recipient has posted the answers to the spinning/roving swap questions. I royally screwed up and mangaged to reveal myself to her on my very first contact. Ok, I said I was new to this, but how moronic can you get? Sorry again, SP!

It is a cold, dreary day here. The kind that makes you want to curl up with a cup of tea and a good knitting book. Or some actual knitting. I worked on my log cabin afghan all day yesterday. I was at a work-related meeting and was able to get a lot of knitting done. I haven't been thinking about the colors too much, just using up what's in the leftover stash, so I hope it looks decent when it's done.

I've been avoiding the lace. I find that I really need peace and quiet and large, uninterrupted blocks of time. All three of those are in very short supply, especially the last. So, as a result I haven't picked up the lace since the last photo.

I LOVE my new Kromski Minstel. As I get to know it better, I love it even more. I am spinning really well on it and the more I practice, the better I get. Funny how that works. I have nearly a whole bobbin of hand dyed spun. I don't know if I like it yet. As I said, I wasn't real happy with the way the colors turned out. It's ok, so far, but I can't wait to see what it will look like once it's plied (or is it plyed?)

This is Murray. On His Couch. Murray is a silver standard poodle and is way too smart for his own good. Poodles are very smart dogs. He's also very sweet, very loyal and very protective of his family. I always have to give my plug for standard poodles as a great breed for a family pet. [Gets up on soap box] Standard Poodles get a bum rap because of the stupid hairdos and the little yippy versions. Poodles are not foofy lap dogs. They were bred in Germany (not France) as a water fowl hunting dog. They are outstanding retrievers and trackers and can and do run circles around labs and retrievers in many hunting and tracking competitions. They also don't shed, don't bother people with dog allergies and you can spin their hair to boot! What's not to love?[Gets down off soapbox] He does not, however, understand knitting. He thinks my time is spent much more productively when I give him attention, and most especially when I take him to the Dog Park. I actually have to spell the word p-a-r-k and I don't think it will be long before he learns how to spell. The Dog Park is a medium-sized (5 acres?) off leash park where Murray can go to socialize with other doggies and run at full gallop (and I do mean gallop). It is his favorite place on earth. We are blessed in the Twin Cities to have several first rate off-leash dog parks. Murray's goal in life is to try each one at least twice.


This is Chuckie. On His Couch (a different couch). Chuckie is almost exactly the same color as Murray. We call them Twin Sons of Different Mothers (w/apologies to Dan Fogelberg). Chuckie and Kimi (any of you with children younger than 14 will know exactly where those names came from) were adopted from Second Chance, as teeny, tiny kittens. For a photo of Kimi, see a couple of posts below. They were bottle fed because their mom disappeared before they were weaned and Chuckie was not in very good health when we brought him home. As you can see, he survived nicely and is now in robust health. He's a big cat. His sister is even bigger. Most of the time everyone gets along fine with everyone else but Chuckie and Kimi find it very annoying when Murray barks. So do the rest of us for that matter.