Of Hats and Gay Dogs

Last Sunday as I gave my friend Gina her new scarf, I realized that part of the problem with my documentation of my knitting projects is that I get so excited to give them to the recipient that I forget to photograph them and, well, my descriptions are hardly exciting. I don't care what kind of yarn whore you are, it's hard to get all worked up over a paragraph - touching, seeing and sniffing are a whole different ball game though. I didn't want to just set everything on a table and shoot it either (also boring). Therefore, I have decided to include a few of my action knitwear shots. Admit it now, that's got you on the edge of your seats. No? Oh well. All that drama isn't what it's cracked up to be - I work with drama - you can trust me on this one.
Up there on the left is my first attempt at fairisle knitting on location at Ano Nuevo. Please note that this (Tahki cotton) hat maintained good humor throughout the shoot which included wind and rain that day. Sweet Babboo requested this as a present prior to our first Christmas - the fact that he wears it on a regular basis means that he gets continuing knitterly love. If you have visited this site before, you may have noted that he does not have fleece of his own to keep his head warm, surrogate fleece is an essential part of his uniform. To the right is a simple green hat, seen here traveling throughout Europe, warming ears on a cold night in London. Made of an extremely soft Merino, it has insulated the fleeceless head against the elements many times. However, I do believe the fairisle is the favored of the two.

Next you will observe just one of the ways that I torture my dog. There is a tad less action in this image because almost all photos of the dog involve action, which unfortunately appears as a large brown streak. I actually got the idea to do this because I had taken her on a job with me and when I looked back at the truck where she was waiting, I saw that she was shivering. Now, I had always owned big warm dogs - labs that would break ice to swim - that sort of thing. So, to see my little girl shivering in a California winter, well, I just never expected it. I decided that I would have to knit her a sweater - but a mystery-meat-with-some-pit-thrown-in dog can not have a goofy little cutesy sweater - I had to show that she was tough, but girly. I was inspired by the mud flap girl tank in one of the Stitch N' Bitch books and I set out to make a flattering garment for my not so tiny dog. Not an easy task - most people making sweaters for their dogs apparently have pets the size of tissue boxes. I found this pattern and used it as a guide, but mostly I just kept trying it on and went by the "winging it" method. I think it turned out fairly well for a first time intarsia pattern - and Livi likes to wear it too - despite the fact that some people "don't get it". I'm not sure what there is to get - it's a sweater - but then again, I didn't really know what to say when someone asked me if she was gay (she was wearing the sweater) either. Just another reason why I prefer to hang out with the dog on the weekend instead of people. And of course, if Livi ever does come out to me, I'll still love her just the same.