How to knit with your puppy! A handy cut out and keep guide!

1.Take your puppy and place it well out of the way of knitting.

2. Knit smaller.

3. Don't start ambitious projects.

These are Monkey socks. Bearing in mind the word sock and  the phrase 'pattern other than stocking stitch'  have never appeared together on the same playbill in this house, this is ambitious on a grand scale. I may regret this.

4. Get other people to knit for you.

These lovelies are from my kind and talented friend Elle. She made them with Hummingbird colourway too! (I love them, Elle, thanks :D ) Hmm, these were a surprise...I wonder how much a commission would be?!

5. See (1) - a reminder for all those not present at the beginning of this lecture - keep puppy away from knitting!

6. Accept fact that Monkey socks may not see completion until 2011. 

Oh, yeah, hilarious!!

Dog ownership is bad for your knitting!

It's true and I can prove it! Here's what I knitted/finished off during the time we were without our Dylan:

 

And here's what I've managed to knit while we've had Trixie.

I've also managed a paltry amount of dyeing this week, and I think some of this lack is attributable to a certain little minx.

I swear she's laughing at me in the picture below - right after I've cleaned up the chaos of tangled yarn and dog-spittle covered knitting and skeins (don't worry, that's my sample skein you see there, she doesn't get to clamp her jaws around the Good Stuff for sale, kept under lock and key. Imagine the complaints I'd get!) 

In between picking her off the box of mis-dyes (tasty, apparently) and getting her out of the box of dyeing pots, I managed to dye a few skeins. My fave this month is definitely Festival:

 

I was thinking of Glastonbury tie-dyed outfits (some of which I am partial to myself. In fact, it's probably better to call this skein Ali but there you go) when dyeing this I think! I do crave colour in the winter months. It makes me wear brighter clothes - not quite in the Zandra Rhodes league, but getting there. I'd love to have pink hair, mind.  I find it fends off the winter blues!  Another favourite this month:

 

 Always up for a terrible pun, I called it 'Crocus Pocus'! I haven't managed to grow any crocuses (crocusiiiiii?) but got crocus envy when I saw a beautiful patch of purple and orange the other day in someone else's garden. When gardening fails, dye yarn instead I suppose!

A 'tail' with a happy ending!

Thank you so much for all your comments and thoughts on my last post, you're all very kind :) It was so sad for a while back there, but we are OK now, thank you, and life in the Yaffle house is already looking a lot happier. You see, we couldn't cope without a dog around the place (what? No-one to babble onto while I'm working? No-one to listen to me play piano and appreciate it? No one to chatter inanely to while dyeing? Nah, I couldn't cope). So we now have this little mite to keep us company.

Her name is Trixie, and she's 9 weeks old. If you're a doggy person you'll understand just how empty your house feels after a dog has gone...and how you can't replace your beloved pet but you can, somehow, if you're feeling up to it, replace the 'dogginess'.  (if only you could do that with dear departed humans. I'll rent out Michael Palin for a dad, and possibly Maureen Lipman for mum please. A side order of Tony Benn as a replacement grandad would be ok too, when do you think you can deliver? Tuesday? oh that's great! thanks!)

 Trixie is already showing an early appreciation of handmade blankets and cushions.

And enjoys the occasional cotton reel too.

She's really quite tiny. Here's our remote control to give you a sense of scale...

Her favourite foods are old, knotted socks

And of course hands and fingers - nomnomnom!

Expect more gratuitous pup pics soon...I've yet to find a way to do the dyeing while she's on the loose so that should make for interesting images...!