Flint Knits

ETA: Shepherd Susie of Juniper Moon Farm has started an incredibly generous contest. If you buy the Willie pattern and comment on her blog, you’ll be entered to win a 2011 share in the farm’s yarn CSA.

Remember Crush? Also known as The Crushinator? My badass puppy and the muse who inspired the wurstwärmer pattern?

Well, on Thursday night, Crush’s favorite puppy sitter took her to the store and had her chillin in a shopping cart when, like a puppy, she jumped out.

And broke her leg.

Badly.

Today, Crush had some pretty complicated surgery to stabilize a pretty complicated fracture (it went through the growth plate, which on a 9 month old puppy, is still all squishy and vulnerable). Did I say the surgery was complicated? I meant to say it was EXPENSIVE.

And so while Crusher was grogged out on morphine waiting for her moment on the operating table, I spent the weekend working like a dog to whip up a wiener-themed pattern to put a drop in the Puppy Surgery Fund bucket.

I give you … Willie!

Willie is a round-yoked cardigan for babies and kids, with a lovable wiener dog that wraps around the lower body. The body and sleeves are knit separately, then joined in one piece for the yoke. If you don’t love dogs, Willie also looks fetching in stripes and solids. Worked up quickly in chunky yarn, this cardigan makes a handy last-minute gift, and a fun introduction to intarsia knitting.

SIZES:
Chest circumference 20 (21.5, 23, 24, 26, 28) inches, to fit ages 6m (12m, 18m, 2y, 4y, 6y)

MATERIALS:

• YARN: Louet Riverstone Chunky (100% wool, 165 yds) or other chunky weight yarn 1 (2, 2, 2, 3, 3) skeins main color (MC); 1 skein contrast color (CC); 1 skein Willie color (WC)
• US 9 (5.5mm) circular & double-pointed needles, or size to get gauge
• 6 (6, 6, 6, 7, 7) buttons, 1/2 inch in diameter
• 2 stitch markers
• scrap yarn for holding stitches and embroidering dog collar
• tapestry needle

The pattern includes instructions and charts for sizes from 6 months to 6 years. If you haven’t tried intarsia knitting before (that’s the kind of colorwork where you have large chunks of color — like argyle! or a wiener dog!), this is a great first intarsia project. KnittingHelp.com has an excellent video explaining the technique.

Cost: $6 US

ETA: MORE maths corrected, plus I added sizes XS and XXS. Check out the revised sizing. The re-worked file was created on June 10 at 2:50pm, and should say “Version 2.0″ at the top.

As soon as a zillion people started queuing my sweater pattern on Ravelry, I knew I was going to find a huge mistake. I just knew it.

And guess what!

I surely did!

Like, a really big one.

A really, really, massively big one.

Luckily, it’s not til after the raglan increases, so hopefully not many people have gotten that far yet. But, yeah, that part where it says to add 13 yarn-overs? That’s bunk. It’s supposed to be a number between 38 and 41, depending on your size. I have no idea where the number 13 came from. Let’s not even discuss it.

If you downloaded the pattern before June 9 at 12:30am Eastern US time, get the new one!

And please enjoy this recycled photo of my cat Wilma wearing yarn.

I mean, how can you be angry at someone who has such a precious kitty? Answer: you cannot.

Thanks in advance for your patience and generosity and not, you know, kicking my ass or sending hate mail.

Dear Jerkface,

You must have been thrilled to break into our van and find three notebook computers you could walk away with. And such dedication you showed in ransacking the whole place — no simple smash and grab for you, no sir. Only a complete trashing and defiling of our belongings would do.

So, congratulations! You are now the owner of the only two existing copies of my half-finished dissertation, which are on the computer and back-up drive that you stole. If the dissertation bores you, please feel free to instead browse the hundreds of knitting patterns that I have painstakingly collected over the last several years, or the hundreds of priceless family photos I have taken. I’m sure the last surviving images of my dead grandmother will mean just as much to you as they do to me and my family.

My lover hopes you enjoy leafing through the rare primary research materials, clippings, articles, and photographs that you stole along with his computer, and which he has spent several months collecting for his dissertation.

My friend Jeff hopes you like military-themed gay porn — his computer is full of it.

And Ian would like to thank you for deciding that his belongings weren’t worth carrying, and for leaving his clothing, passport, and birth certificate in a trash bin, even though they would certainly fetch more money for you than my crappy old Dell laptop. It appears that you don’t know a good thing when you see it.

I mean, look what else you left behind:

Koigu KPM. Thanks to Minty for infinite patience and guidance.
But shall I use it for socks? mittens? willy warmer?

So thanks for not stealing the yarn, or my sockpal’s socks, or Laura’s bottle of whiskey (which we were very happy to have once the police left). I truly hope you get some good money for our stuff, now that you’ve got it.

Take care, jerkface.

Love and kisses, Pam

***Also, a special shout-out to the apathetic asshats who sat up in their gazillion-dollar air-conditioned TriBeCa lofts and watched it happen. Because they are special, special people.

To my online knitting buddies: I miss you. There are 482 new posts in my Bloglines, and I intend to read skim every single one as soon as I have my new computer up and running. I’ve also lost nearly all of your email addresses — so, if you have a moment, please leave a comment and/or send an email so I can re-add you to my address book.

And please tune in later this week for a wrap-up of some finished projects, and of this week’s lovely knitty bloggy meet-ups. My recent time off from blogging hasn’t been all bitterness and disappointment and grand larceny, after all. Life has been pretty good.

Plus, I’m off to Hawai’i today, and not a moment too soon. I need a fucking vacation.

Yep. I was sure I had a second skein of this lovely Dream in Color yarn, but it’s nowhere to be found. Sadly, I also can’t find the label to this one, so I’m not even sure what colorway it is. “Lipstick Lava” maybe?

Anyway, I’m going to sit on it for a while before I frog, because it’s so damn pretty and squishy.

In lieu of real knitting content (as I curse the yarn gods, as well as my own shortsightedness), please enjoy last night’s dinner:

Throw a few handfuls of arugula in a food processor or blender with garlic, basil, and a bit of hard cheese. Blend it up. Drizzle in some olive oil as you keep processing. Stir in salt and pepper.

Cook some penne in lots of boiling salted water. Throw in some chopped green beans (same size as the noodles) for the last 3 minutes of cooking time. Put it all together with some fresh chopped tomatoes on top.

Those of you in the US, enjoy your day off! I’ll be spending mine at Flint’s 2nd annual Lumberjack Fest. I missed the flapjack breakfast, but am hoping to arrive in time for the live music and feats of strength (log rolling, log splitting, log tossing). It’s really just a bunch of my friends having a cookout with a theme, but it’s tons of fun.

To Whom it May Concern:

If you found a digital camera in the fabric section of the Courtland Center JoAnn store in Flint, Michigan, please let me know. Also, you might NOT want to look at the photos stored on the camera, as they include dozens of snapshots from the last several days on the road with my lover’s rock band.

Those photos might, for instance, feature myself and members of said rock band humping a giant stuffed Santa Claus on the dirty floor of a venue called “The Fortress of Solid Dudes.” Don’t ask.

I’d especially like to have my camera today, since it’s my 29th birthday, and I want to take pictures of the celebration tonight. And I have a finished Baby Surprise Jacket and another ’surprise’ finished craft project that I’d like to share with my online friends. (Yes, my online friends — who are kind enough to judge me by my crafty deeds, and not by any embarrassing photos they might find on my digital camera… including those that may involve toilets, Red Bull, and/or horse drawn carriages. Don’t ask.)

So, yeah. Please return the camera. It’s my birthday, after all.
xo, Pam