Black Dog

Another Tuesday, another day off. And a great one it has been so far today! Oh, come on now, Sabrina……….

it wasn’t that spooky to see us briefly this afternoon! And besides, it wasn’t that long of a visit!

I’ll start with the end, so to speak, showing off yet another Tuesday evening meal. I’ve been craving stuffed shells for a few days, particularly after hearing someone at the shop talk about having made some for dinner recently. So, I put together an entirely too-large pan of jumbo shells, stuffed with four (really five) cheeses

Inside, under all the goodies, I put a mixture of cottage cheese (I’m too cheap for ricotta!), shredded parmesan, fresh mozzarella, shredded sharp provolone, and shredded “normal” mozzarella, plus spices (fresh cracked black pepper, basil, oregano, parsley, red pepper flakes) and egg for binder. Thanks to a local independent grocery store, Goodrich’s, has the most amazing selection you’ll find in a small store, plus the bonus of it being locally-owned. The adept person at the cheese counter suggested the sharp provo (versus a tame, domestic version), and he overheard me asking Matt to find fresh mozz (and pulled some from under the counter for us). Needless to say, the combination of cheeses made for an amazing filling, and we’re thrilled to have massive leftovers! Earlier in the day we hit an Asian market and picked up some baby bok choy

that I’ll use for a side dish for another meal in the VERY near future (we love it slightly braised, prepared stove top in a skillet) and a little bit of decadence (for my sweet tooth)

The kiwi are standard, and they didn’t have the muscadine ones I really like, so Matt picked the orange, and they were GREAT (and past tense….we both pigged on them over the course of the day). Ah, the pleasures of fun Asian candies!

I’ll start the knitting content off with a picture of Kyler’s Kardigan, still in this state as of this writing

No, those aren’t wings forming on the front–they’re the knitted in slash pockets. You increase every other row and they grow, in a sort of triangle shape. At the bottom, they’re folded over and knitting into the welt on the sweater. They look silly hanging there, but they’re actually quite ingenius. As is the designer, Carol Anderson. I’ll talk more about this sweater in my next post (tomorrow/Wednesday), but for now it has NOT been ripped back and is in time out, awaiting it’s fate (continue forward or rip back about 6″ of knitting). Stay tuned…………but at least you get an update pic, as I promised one days ago.

And I’ve been on another starting binge of sorts………commencing with the swatching. And I didn’t used to be a swatcher. Who knew??!?!? First up, a swatch of a couple yarns, held together

This is going to grow up to be a hat, and what you see is a band of swatching in three different needle sizes (first was TOOO firm, third was too loose, and the second is the target gauge/needle size) and two stitches (stockinette for the first three, with seed stitch at the far right. Matt really wanted to see it in seed stitch, and it is attractive, but not what I envisioned the hat being constructed in. So the first one will be stockinette,

and if there’s a second, it will be seed stitch.

Kits available soon………and in a WIDE range of colourways (Matt’s been busy at work on this aspect, and he’s a color GENIUS!). I then swatched and started another Ocean Waves Shawl (pattern available for purchase)

This version is out of Colinette Jitterbug (old stock still at $20.50 a hank, but the new stuff coming in is priced at $21–the website will reflect this tomorrow). I’m using Kingfisher, one of my favorite shades from Colinette, particularly in this yarn. I’ve knitted this shawl twice before, with the first going to Matt’s mom on a visit a couple years ago (we stopped carrying the yarn I used for that one, so the model became less useful) and the second going back to the US Colinette distributor to be used as a model for them to show Jitterbug used for something other than socks. The second one was in Kingfisher as well, so you KNOW I must love this pattern to knit it three times (and counting!), twice of the same yarn/colourway. Trust me, it’s a FUN knit and well worth the time for the finished result. Pattern is just $7 (from us!) and you need about 850 yards of fingering/sock-weight yarn (three hanks of Jitterbug, five of Claudia Fingering or Prism Merino Mia or Koigu KPPPM, or any other yarn). Affordable AND beautiful! New stock of Jitterbug (restock of some, with others being new to us) appear on the “New Arrivals” blog at the main ThreadBear site.

More swatching happened, with this one

happening last night, while I was surfing Ravelry and blog reading. As I told the folks at Be Sweet today, while ordering yarn, the only word I had for knitting with this fiber is………..sultry. Amazing depth of color, phenomenal drape (it’s 100% bamboo, hand-dyed in South Africa by a cooperative), and just slides right off the needles into fabric. I can’t wait to knit with it ASAP–as soon as today’s order arrives…..probably by Saturday of this week. YES!

As the title hints, such is the life of a dog in these parts

as I caught Busby sprawled out on one couch this evening, while Tate’s nap was interrupted earlier today

Many have said that they want to come back, in another life, as a dog in our household. There’s some truth to that……..without question!

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