Duke has had all his bandages removed and is doing fine.
He thanks you very much for your good wishes. We went for the visit with the oncologist last week, his prognosis is much better than we were originally told. I cannot possibly express how much joy this brings us both, and Pixie too, tho she has no idea what's going on. His cancers both came out 'clean', so no radiation therapy, they are mid-level dangerous, so they are being sent off for additional testing to determine if chemotherapy is recommended. And where they had originally told us 3-6 months, now they are telling us 2-3 years with a watchful eye for any new tumors that might pop up. I am incredibly grateful for advanced veterinary care!
In my effort to buy less yarn this year I managed to stymie an impulse purchase yesterday. I was intending to go to Vogue Knitting Live with friends, but that got canceled at the last minute because someone was feeling under the weather and we decided it would be more fun to go to NYC together at a later date than to leave someone behind this weekend. So of course I had been planning on buying yarn there, my thoughts immediately turned to buying yarn HERE. Instead I redirected myself to find something fun in my stash and cast on for an impulse PROJECT, much better than an impulse BUY.
The impulse project was a pair of socks for DH (who I am fairly sure gave up on reading my blog last year some time, if he didn't, um...SURPRISE!) for Valentine's Day. He had asked for another pair of socks, but the idea of another never ending pair of fingering weight socks was not appealing to me at all, so I found this SPORT weight yarn from Briar Rose and decided they would make a seasonally appropriate Valentine's Day gift.
Once I started knitting they were sort of addicting, this is a broken rib stitch, my favorite go to stitch for socks, it breaks up the color just enough to prevent flashing or pooling. I knitted them bottom up to get the most mileage I could out of the yarn and used the Widdershins heel. The Widdershins heel allows you to put a slip stitch heel on toe up socks, it's reallllly clever.
The reason I decided that he did, in fact, deserve another pair of socks this winter and shouldn't wait until NEXT winter is that my final Christmas present arrived in the mail this week.
He had told me there was something that was delayed, but he had already been really generous so subconsciously I was expecting something small, a book or something, but what he handed me was this.
This is two skeins of Sweet Georgia laceweight cashmere silk blend in Blackberry. This is NOT an afterthought gift.
It was on my wishlist, he didn't come up with it on his own, but still, he is SUCH a sweetheart.
800 yards of gorgeousness. I am considering making this lovely stole called Evening with it, but I'm not going to jump into anything, I want to make sure I pick just the right pattern to go with this lovely yarn.
As a random sidenote, I made bread this afternoon (the artisan bread in 5 minutes a day kind) and I knew something went wrong, it took WAY too much additional flour to get to the right consistency, but I couldn't figure out what happened. Finally, about an hour into its rise I realized that the odd thought I had when filling the measuring cup the second time 'huh, is that right? seems like a lot of water' that led me to double check the recipe, was because I was using a 2 cup measuring cup, so instead of putting 2 3/4 cups of water in, I put 3 3/4 water in, so presumably another 2 cups of flour, but the amount of yeast, salt, and other ingredients for the regular amount of flour and water. I am not optimistic about this bread dough, but I can't bring myself to throw it away without at least trying it first. Sigh.
For the bread, the rise will just be longer. You can also put it in the fridge overnight and bake it tomorrow. Just pull it out, shape it and give a little extra time to rise and throw it in the oven. Low yeast, long rise = great flavor! Good luck!
Posted by: Midj | January 23, 2011 at 06:21 PM
Congratulations, Duke! Good one!
Such fun to receive such lovely yarn. As I read your description, my fingers itched... I could almost feel it.
The bread will be fine! You'll just have a huge amount of it. That's not a bad thing.
Posted by: Julia | January 23, 2011 at 07:35 PM
Yup - let that bread sit longer, it'll rise (yeast is wonderful stuff!). And HOORAY!!! for Duke!! That's great news, and SUCH a relief. Yippee!
Also? Love that yarn. Love love love it :)
Posted by: Jocelyn | January 23, 2011 at 08:55 PM
Congratulations, Duke!
I think that shawl should be lovely in your Christmas yarn. Perhaps pearl beads to go with the purple "twilight" of Evening?
Posted by: Barbara-Kay | January 24, 2011 at 09:58 AM