I should have updated this sooner, but due to a slight glitch with my dog's (T’s) pancreas, I’ve been a little busy. Short, sparing version: T hadn’t been feeling well last week, but I’d thought we’d gotten him well again. Unfortunately, it all started up again Friday morning. I took the afternoon off and went to the vet's where they diagnosed gastroenteritis and gave him meds. Despite the shots, which really should have worked, he was still ill on Sat. Called the vet, she seemed to feel we could wait, with which I agreed. However, by Sun. morning it was clear he needed help, so we went to the vet's again. He’s been there since with Acute Pancreatits. Poor mite is not a happy, healthy dog. He’s apparently resting comfortably, or as comfortably as one can with Acute Pancreatitis, which is probably generally not very comfortable, but we’ll just skip actually thinking about that. Poor mite. He’ll be at the vet’s until at least this evening. Longer if she feels he cannot stay at home alone tomorrow. I want him to be out of danger before he returns. Biscuit, in the meantime, has gone to her mother’s, quite literally. I couldn’t bring myself to leave her at home alone all of a sudden, so she’s gone on a little vaccy where she can be outside all day and lay in the sun and generally irritate mom, which is always fun. She’s actually very lucky because she’s the only sibling who’s still tolerated by Mom, but for whatever reason, Biscuit gets away with everything. She can even eat out of her mother’s bowl, which no other dog on earth is allowed to even try without losing a really handy limb or two. It’s bizarre, but cute. And at least her mom doesn’t mind cuddling up at night. T hates it and Biscuit misses it so she keeps trying. T mostly winds up giving in. You can only get up and move so often you know.
On to non-dog related things. *cue scrollers*
After the vet visit on Friday I went to my Not So LYS. Hey, I was in the area, sort of. For the first time ever, they let me down. I now know why I never knit plain socks. The colour range is as follows: Swiss military green, steel grey, black, navy, brown. Woot! Oh the choice! How do you choose with all of those fabulous colours available! I’ll tell you. *You stand there looking at the yarn. You think, this can’t be it. You spy other solid colours and think “Triumph!” . The you look at the pretty colours and realize they are synthetic. You disregard pretty colours and return to contemplating the 80’s tie width range of solids in wool. You look longingly at the navy blue but know that it will not show the pattern, so you disregard it and choose the brown. You look at the brown, realize just how ugly it is and put it back. You abandon search for solid colour sock wool, while diligently ignoring all of the pretty striped and variegated versions. You walk away from sock yarn.* *repeat pattern 1 to 2 more times. You realize that like your refrigerator, the choice is not going to magically change and you must either settle for something you don’t really want or abandon the store. I chose to abandon.
After all, there is always the LYS with the sooper dooper sock yarn that comes in pretty greens, which just so happens to be on the way home. *innocent whistling* So, I stopped and made a bee line for the sock yarn section, not difficult as the entire store is the size of my bedroom. By the way, did you know that they call it a bee line because bees who have found pollen return to their hives using the straightest possible course? Of course you did, but I’m behind and just learned this about 2 weeks ago. They used little bitty bee sized antennas attached to a little bee sized collar to find that out. Y’all wanted to know that didn’t ya? Returning to the point, once again I found myself utterly disappointed with the array of yarns available in solid colours. Granted they did add a few colours, like bright red, bright yellow and bright orange, but since my wardrobe is otherwise rather sombre colour-wise, I felt it would be ill-advised to knit myself socks that precluded anyone actually noticing that I was wearing anything at all except a pair of large, bright, yellow, red or orange socks. “Witnesses said they aren’t able to provide a description of the perpetrator’s clothing. In an unusual diversionary tactic, the person donned a pair of bright red aran sandal socks that outshone any other articles of clothing the person may, or may not, have been wearing.” Like I said, unwise. Plus it might draw attention to my shoes which are definitely not pretty and are seldom clean (see dogs in my life). In the end, I had no choice but to choose the oatmeal coloured yarn that was at least a little better than the brown. I’m sure I’ll like them when they are done, even though it’s not a particularly attractive colour per say.
I cast on last night and got the ribbing and one pattern repeat done (4.5 inches of sock). It’s looking pretty good, or at least I think it is. You can see the pattern at any rate. I’m actually quite chuffed with myself now because it says it’s for the experienced and I’m actually doing it! Go me!
The only thing I didn’t like about knitting them last night was the lack of dog snores accompanying my stitches. Life is a little drab without dogs.
ETA: Last night (evening after original post), I unfortunately noticed that there was something wrong with the pattern. However, it didn't look to bad, so I thought I'd leave it but check my written out pattern today for errors. BUGGER. I made mistakes. More than one. Now I think I'm going to have to frog the last 33 rows of the sock. Damn. Ron and Hermione are still fighting on this though. I'll have a look at it at lunch/this evening to see how bad it is and then decide whether to frog or not. I'm afraid I'll have to though. What I did just cannot be right. It would also explain why the little diamonds on the mirror cable look a bit wonky. Bugger.
I must say I did not know that! I say "bee line" all the time but I was unaware of what it referred to. I can so see the little bee collars - getting them on though might be a bit of a sting.
ReplyDeleteSo what crime are you contemplating my soon-to-be-oatmeal-socked friend? *grins* No I don't think many people can get away with bright red, orange or yellow socks. The other choices were just dismal. Was it a store for male-knitters? Those seem like the colours of socks that Froggy wears to work.
Btw that's a very cool pattern on the white sock! *is impressed*
Yup, I think you are right. She does regularly laugh at me. Evil, little kitty.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the etymology of 'bee line'. Sometime, ages & ages ago, I remember reading that but had forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThose socks are really being a pain in the butt, aren't they. ;o) Stick to it now that you have a suitable yarn to knit them in. When they're done, you'll be ecstatic. I promise!
Hehe. Thanks. I keep trying to make it less snaggy. :)
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