2 finished objects and a dog's birthday

I have been working on these socks since last summer. I cast on after we moved into this house in August. I started working on them again over the weekend and was surprised to see how close I was to finishing them, it only had about an hours worth of knitting left. Here they are,

Pattern is from Interweave Knits, Winter 2005. Yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Bittersweet.

If I had to do these socks again, I would definitely not continue the lace pattern along the bottom of the foot. I think it's wasted time/effort, but also it feels kinda funky on the bottom of my feet to have all that texture. I didn't even think of making the bottoms solid stockinette until the first sock was completely done. The pattern also calls to cut the yarn after the heel and start again, I think I would change that too. I get nervous about my socks not all being one long peice of yarn.

The thing in this house that makes me most nervous though... is this:

AHHHHHHHHHHHH There's a sock murderer loose in my house!!!
These are the worst things you could possibly ever step on. The nails stick up just enough to catch on a sock and RRRRRIPPPPP! I have lost quite a few socks to these strips, fortunately though, only store-bought ones. But it makes me extremely paranoid when I am wearing my knit socks.

The next finished object is a bag that I made for a baby shower that was last Saturday. I couldn't make it to the shower because my sister Shannon was home for the weekend. I hadn't seen her since April, so I thought that was a pretty valid reason to not attend the shower. I finished it Sunday night and will give it to the recipient when I see her this Saturday.



And now we travel back in time to September 15th 2007. Since Bella is such a good girl and just loves to play with other dogs, we decided to celebrate her first birthday by throwing her a HUGE party. There was probably 35 or 40 people here and at least 15 dogs. we had People food and dog treats and I made a cake (for people) shaped like a dog bone:



It wasn't that difficult to make the cake. I used three box mixes and baked them in a 9 by 13 rectangular pan. (each separately because I only have one 9 by 13 pan) then stacked them up with cool whip in between and let them sit in the fridge overnight so they would be more solid. Then I just used a sharp knife and carved out the bone shape using a paper pattern that I drew out first.

Here are two of the dogs that attended the party. Cricket is in front and Jada is in back. They are patiently waiting for the hand made dog cookies that are there on the picnic table. Just after the picture was snapped though, cricket jumped up onto the table and snatched as many as he could before his mom caught him.



The next morning, Bella opened her birthday presents. She got quite a few balls and bones and toys. She even got some scratch-off lottery tickets. She didn't win anything though.



The party was quite a success. there were only a few little scraps here and there and the only major problem was the weather. It was only about 62 degrees here. After a whole week of 75 to 80 degree weather, and then the whole week after the party it was in the 90's. We had a keg and a fire so the cold wasn't bothering me.