Guess that Pog!

As promised, a little game!

As you might know, we adopted some dogs a little over a year ago. One of them, Pog, is a major mystery mutt.

Exhibit A:

For Christmas, I asked for this:

It's a DNA test that will, theoretically, tell us what dogs make up Pog's specific brand of mutt. We have our own theories, but we thought it'd be fun to let people guess! Y'know, like those pools they do with babies, only....not.

The prize:

Some nommy Louisa Harding Kimono Angora, plus whatever other goodies I feel like tossing in when I'm mailing it.

So here's how it works: In the comments, tell us which dogs you think make up the Pog. You can be as specific as you want ("50% Horse, 50% Bat" or "Mostly Gargoyle with a little bit of Gremlin.") The answer that is most accurate (and comes first in the case of a tie) gets the prize. Wisdom Panel is sort of notorious for coming back with totally left-field answers that make no sense, so if nobody gets it, I'll just draw randomly. Also good to know: Wisdom Panel doesn't have "Pit Bull", but they do have stuff like "Staffordshire Terrier" and "American Bulldog" which is what Pits were made out of back in the day. (Here's the full breed list if you want to get technical. )

Pog facts:

- 31 lbs

- Black outer coat with a tan undercoat and white blob on chest, one toe.

- 'bout knee high, or "just tall enough to whack you in the balls with her front feet."

- Very fast, smart, and stubborn. Slightly neurotic.

- Makes a wide variety of grumbles, yodels, and trills

- Underbite

- Tail curls upwards slightly

- Slightly tucked up belly

- Short hair, but not smooth. Mohawk on the spine that raises when she's angry/excited.

Reference pictures:

And this is what she sounds like being grumpy.

Good luck! I popped the tests in the mail today and we'll keep the contest going til I get the results :-)

2011

Time for the yearly retrospective mosaic. Not too shabby. I cheated a little and included the CF4L hat to make it an even twenty, even though I only put up the charts for that.

I'd say "I can't believe it's almost 2012!" but really I've been accidentally writing "2012" instead of "2011" all year, so it ought to be an easy adjustment. Resolution-wise, I decided to set myself up for success this year:

1. Knit

2. Pet at least one dog on a daily basis

3. Do not go into space

DO I HAVE WHAT IT TAKES??

Anyway, a happy new year to all!

Let's play catch-up!

I have been very bad bad bad about updating the last few months- I'm tempted to blame my computer, which keeps refusing to work very well (hopefully I'll have a replacement pretty soon.) But it's probably more my own fault.

So anyway, let's see, what's been happening...

1. A small thing, but I meant to show it off...splurged on a sweet new Namaste bag (the mini-messenger.) I saw these at TNNA and kinda fell in love. I've had it on order at Twisted since summer. Hooray!

2. I recently took over the Project Coordinator position at Malabrigo! You guys may know Hannah- she was the gal handling this stuff before, but recently moved on to a swanky new gig, and I'm pleased as punch to be taking over some of her duties. It will give me a chance to work with all sorts of wonderful designers and flex some creative muscles - very exciting! All from the comfort of my pjs. Which, today, are Travis's new Christmas pjs, which he hasn't even gotten to wear yet. They are cozy.

3. I did a craft fair! Just a little local gig (I don't make much stuff to sell, in general, so once a year or less is just about right for me) but it was a lot of fun and helped me buy quite a few Christmas presents, haha. Here's Travis manning the table (he made and sold some seriously good toffee, remind me to post the recipe next time he makes it):

4. And of course, Christmas time! Probably my favorite time. Lots of friends and family in town, lots of tasty food and time off and sparkly things and PRESENTS. I only wish this crazy snow we're getting today had turned up a few days ago. Geez.

Our little tabletop tree. The better for avoiding dog-tastrophe.

My favorite ornament- a unicorn I picked out when I was very wee.

A super crazyjellyfishrainbowglowtank from my niece & nephew (endlessly entertaining.)

Travis and I got each other shoes, quite unbeknownst to each other. His have Batman, mine have warmth.

Cross-stitch iphone case! I'm so excited! I have no idea what to stitch on it, though. I'm thinking something sort of bright and Scandinavian-inspired.

Tattoo money for Travis!

BASTARDINO!!!!!!! He's a weird Toki-Doki art-toy. I LOVE HIM.

It's difficult to get a dog to model earmuffs. FYI.

Shiny-baby-Christmas Le Creusets. I'm hoping to rope Travis into making me some souffles and mini cheesecakes.

The awesomest thing ever. It is huge, and plastic, and it is now on our wall.

Check out how excited my sister is (in the corner):

There's another present to show you but I think we're going to make a little game out of it. A game with prizes. The best kind of game. Mwahaha!!!! So we'll get to that later. Hope you're all having wonderful holidays, whichever ones you celebrate :-)

Bauble Cowl

Malabrigo + pompoms + reversible + really, really fast to make =

It just makes you want to hug a weird pillar, what can I say.

The good news is, you can probably whip out at least two before the holidays! (If you're aiming for Hannukah you'll have to work a little bit faster, but I believe in you.) Last minute gift knitters, rejoice!

See it on Rav

or...

Mandelbrot + Fractal Knitting

Yay! The new Knitty Winter bis issue is out, and in it is an article I wrote on Fractal Spinning, and an accompanying hat pattern, Mandelbrot.

(It even made the Knittyspin front page! Ooooh!)

You may remember my previous experiment with fractals- I figured out why that one didn't work. The key is to pick something with nice, loooooong color segments. If they're not long enough, it won't be a noticable difference.

You can really see the striping on the brim of the Mandelbrot:

...and in case you were wondering, this is what it looks like when I try to walk two dogs:

I wonder where our blue leash went...hmmm....

Doggerversary

I hope, despite my crappy posting history of late, you'll permit me a gratuitous dog post.

'Cause exactly 1 year ago today, we brought these monsters into our lives:

Back then, they were a bit scruffier. Rupert was definitely skinnier (he may have overcompensated, just a little.) I'm not sure they were quite so good at using pillows like humans. Pog barfed in the car on the ride up, and ran around in circles whining for three days. Rupert snarled at me when I tried to stop him from licking his neuter stitches (they were infected- turns out the shelter didn't exactly take him to the best vet around. He had to have them totally redone a few days later, poor chap.) Things haven't been boring since. No more snarling, thankfully. Plenty more barfing and whining. Mostly from Pog.

Just for kicks, I uploaded a few videos from my phone:

(She did that for at least an hour, no joke. I eventually had to pop them while she was outside so she'd let it go.)

...and this is the abuse we wake up to everyday. Usually there's more hitting-faces-with-claws.

Alright, enough of that. We're off to DUCF! I promise I'll get a real post up soon- I've got plenty of things in the pipeline but my studio is just so darn cold, I haven't edited any pictures or formatted any patterns in a month. Stupid winter.