Knit Sisters

I am pleased to report that the Elephant Baby Sweater is no longer just a vest, but is growing a sleeve:

This was the state of things last night at 6 p.m. Sleeve fashioned from the top down on two circular needles—same method I use for socks.

And growing and growing and growing:

Around 7:15 last night. Visible progress!

I love doing sleeves from the top down (and these are particularly easy because they’re just a drop sleeve, no sleeve cap, no short rows, no fuss, no muss), not least because the sleeves get smaller and smaller as you go down. In this case, I started out with only a few more stitches than would be involved in your average sock and before you could say “Is that a trunk you got there or are you just happy to see me?” I was down in the neighborhood of 40 stitches or so.

And then you can just fly along.

For a project that involves the dreaded intarsia, the Elephant Baby has really given me absolutely no trouble at all. In an unusual move, I have actually followed the pattern, improvising only in the area of assembly, where I have done as I damn well pleased, thank you very much. (Mainly, I’ve saved myself from the awful fate of seaming up the sleeves, an activity I find preferable only to eating live worms.)

All this knitting was done on our sunporch in the most gorgeous weather imaginable,

more like mid-September than mid-August. The quality of the light was wonderful—not quite Napa Valley, but for Eastern Massachusetts, about as good as it gets.

Shelley and I were keeping the celebration going,

Still life with champagne flute, cell phone, mechanical pencil and Saturday crossword.

and really, well and truly, relaxing.

And let’s face it, people, it’s not like she’s the most relaxed person OR I’m the most relaxed dog you’ll ever meet.

Alex later joined us for a somewhat peculiar dinner of chicken (cooked on the grill), blue corn chips, guacamole, and bing cherries. It remains unclear what unifies those foods or how they complement each other, but sometimes that’s the way it is Chez Mad Dog. I learned as a child that one is meant to be grateful for even peculiar dinners, and so I am. Especially those of which I myself am the author.

And so concluded another delightful weekend Chez Mad Dog, where the celebration never ends.

Oh, except for one thing: Shelley came in from the yard on Saturday night with just the tiniest flecks of blood on her paws and muzzle. Not a lot of blood, just a little. After I made the nervous-dog-mother’s full body check to ascertain that my adorable little pup was not herself bleeding (she was completely sound and unhurt), I concluded that she must have, well, killed some very small animal in the backyard.

In subsequent searches, no body was found. (As an aside, this raises an inevitable question: did Jimmy Hoffa have any enemies who were…dogs?)

Shelley claims that she was just doing her job.

Me? I’m committed to keeping the celebration going. My dog is my hero because…when she kills a small animal, she’s smart enough to think to hide the corpse.

Bless her little canine heart.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Elephant baby, Heavy sweaters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.