Ribbit

I had an extra knitting helper this weekend, and she was not nearly as tolerant of my knitting as Gwen. At one point she even reached up and was mouthing my yarn! She quickly figured out that was a really bad idea, right about the moment I unceremoniously dumped her off my lap.


Having successfully finished all my projects, I was able to cast on for a new project. Its the short-sleeved version of CeCe by Chicknits, and I was a little nervous about a lace garment. I haven't done much lace. Much to my delight, I really enjoyed starting the lace pattern and quickly cruised along through the first 12 rows of the sweater. And then disaster struck. I'd love to blame what happened on the additional help, but it was all me. I missed a stitch, so I tried to rip back and fix it. In the process I dropped a stitch. Unfortunately, it was a stitch above a yarn over. I could not figure out how to pick up a yarn over. It just got worse from there. The stitch dropped lower, and since its in the middle of the lace pattern there were more yarn overs and strange twists... It got ugly.

I finally just frogged all the way back to the ribbing and started over with the lace pattern. So, here's what I have to show for my weekend knitting.

It's a really good thing I'm enjoying this pattern! We'll see if I still enjoy it hundreds of repeats later.

Swimming Lesson

Since Lily's family goes canoeing several weekends a month and she always goes along, we were very surprised to learn on a recent trip to the dog park that she is a very poor swimmer. The lady beside us put it best when she remarked "Now that's a doggy paddle." Lily tries to swim vertically - her feet hanging down to the bottom and limp while her upper legs flounder around on the top of the water. Words to fully describe it fail me, but it is a pitiful sight.

The need to wear out two excited dogs drove us to spend several hours at the dog park both Saturday and Sunday. The 90 degree humid heat drove us to spend those hours in the water. Lily wasn't so sure about this plan, but we finally got her out in the water with us. And the swim lessons began. Alex found that lifting her hips just a little encouraged her to swim, well, horizontally. And to do that she had to use her back legs at least a little. It was small progress, but it was progress.

Of course, we almost caused Gwen to regress in the process. Gwen has long been an excellent, if reluctant, swimmer. This summer's heat has even inspired her to do laps around us in the lake, rather than just swimming to us and demanding to be held. However, the sight of her Dad spending so much time swimming with Lily and the frequent refrain of "good girl" apparently caused her some consternation. I turned around and there she was swimming to him in the same ridiculous doggy paddle Lily uses! Yikes. So not the plan. We immediately discouraged that and praised her for swimming properly, but she still tried it out from time to time... We may be better off with an 'only pup' since our parenting skills apparently don't extend to sibling rivalry.

Socks!

This was the kind of week that did not lend itself to blogging. (Lots of yucky cases at work, too much stress and frustration, and too little time at home. Much better by the end of Friday, thank goodness.) But, it did lend itself to soothing knitting.


And the accomplishment of finishing my first pair of socks was an excellent bonus.