Tink the Adventure Dog & Secret Pal 8 Begins

It was quite a weekend, starting Friday, which by the way turned out to be a totally awesome day! Around six or so I got a nice juicy bone for Tink and a book for me and off we went to sit outside at the Ravenna Ale House to celebrate Cinco de Mayo .... oh okay, not really to celebrate but it was a good excuse to drink margaritas, which I did. I didn't get much reading done but that's okay. Tink got into her bone and I chatted and we got home around 10, refreshed and relaxed. I was sitting there in my chair minding my own business, reading, when my friend A telephoned. He'd been awaiting the birth of some rat babies [don't ask] and he happened to have a bottle of tequila, could he stop by for a quick one. Well ... who wouldn't say yes?? We work together so there's always lots of gossip and we yapped away, drinking tequila until a) the bottle was empty and b) it was 4 am. ergh I don't think we missed a person though - we dished on everybody. Too bad I can't remember any of the juicy parts.

The good part is that I was so debilitated on Saturday that I couldn't do anything but lay around and knit between naps and I finished the flower girl outfit!! Yay! Can you say amen?? Holy cow, this thing has been such a weight. It still needs to be sewn up and it's going to be absolutely the cutest thing I've ever knit but I think the running out of yarn thing just really dragged me down. I HATE that! Anyway, here's a picture of it laying out on the table with strings attached. After it's sewn together and the elastic put in I'll take another photo. You can still see how cute it is though.

Sunday I had promised to take my friend's little boy shopping for Mother's Day, so I took Tinkerbell over with me to hang with her doggie friend, Jasmine, while I shopped. She loves to romp with Jasmine and I get the added bonus of having a tired dog the rest of the day. Anyway, the boys had left the gate ajar and when I couldn't see the puppies in the back I went out and found the gate open and no sign of the dogs!! AND they live near a busy street. Off I went in one direction and the boy in another, searching for the dogs. I found them not too far away. A nice lady had taken them off the street. It's a very doggie neighborhood so people are aware when they see a stray. Plus of course my phone number is on her tag. Whew.

I was avoiding sewing the outfit together on Sunday afternoon so after mowing the lawn (talk about avoidance! I mowed rather than sewed!) I decided to frog the x-back and then my treat for doing that would be that I could swatch for K's shrug. Here's my x-back in it's frogged glory awaiting another try.

I bought some synthetic yarn from Elann for the shrug because she wants it to be machine washable and the yarn looked pretty nice. Elann never lets me down, I must say. I just LOVE this stuff and have to take back all the nasty things I've said about acrylic yarn. I bought Scholler and Stahl Micro Cable and it's just gorgeous! It has a really wonderful drape and a subtle sheen that makes it look like rayon. I think the shrug is going to be pretty nice and I keep thinking of other things to make with this. I must hold myself back though. I don't need to buy anymore yarn! I think I'll have to make some kind of deal with myself to finish off a few projects before I buy anything else. Yeah ..... we know how well that works, don't we? Here's a picture of the shrug so far. Too much light in the picture but you get the idea anyway.

So ... big blog today. It's the beginning of Secret Pal 8! I can already tell that this one is going to be the best! First of all MY secret pal is local!! I think that's really exciting. It'll be nice to have somebody local to talk about the LYSs and such. And the secret pal I'm going to be spoiling, Karen, not only has a blog but actually uses it unlike some other secret pals. She just moved and she's lamenting the fact that she can't knit. Now that's my kind of gal! The hostesses did a great job for me (and I imagine for everybody else) hooking me up with two great pals. Let the fun begin!