A second helping

I was blogging yesterday about making fingerless mitts as a test knit for knitwear designer Thistle West of Thistledown Knits. These are her Crisscross Applesauce mitts released on Ravelry, and I'm loving them so I had a second helping. This time in perky yellow lightweight dk tweed from Rose, a Tokyo yarn boutique by Japanese designer Misa Onozuka from the late eighties and early nineties. Sadly no longer in business (The opening of her store Rose featured in Japan Vogue Keitodama 1988 Autumn), but I have a huge stash of her gorgeous goodies.

Being a US design they're a little big for my hand, so I went down a size in needles and added a couple of stitches between cables for extra height since the yarn is less bulky...getting the perfect fit. Sherlock definitely approves! Now to knit the right hand after walkies and chores and ....oh well, soon!

Crisscross Applesauce Mitts

When there's a cold snap and you have to walkies three large doggies you really need gloves, but you also need your fingers to juggle leads, get out poopie bags and fumble with zippers and pulls to access treats, not to mention the finger licking process of actually feeding the treats...so fingerless mitts are the ultimate accessory for the fashionable setter owner. The minute I saw these beauties Crisscross Applesauce on the testknit thread in Ravelry I knew I had to have them, and instantly offered to testknit them for young knitwear designer Thistle West.

Testknitters work through knitting the pattern looking for errors in the charts and making suggestions about size and pattern expressions, measurements and readability, and offering project photos to help make the knit come alive when the pattern is released. 

The doggies were sleepy after the good long walkies round the snowy park so I let the housework and other work slide and settled in for a marathon knit session. Claire gave the mitt her seal of approval. Yep! The perfect accessory for a setter mama. Thank you Thistledown Knits!

Snow

Still a lot of snow on the ground and ice where it melted and froze over again...but we managed to go round the whole park on a long walkies, sometimes using the railings to haul myself over an icy patch.

Claire was happily checking things out, and when she's hunting she gets pretty oblivious to treats, but I had lovely venison to get attention for photos...works best on Sherlock, of course...

Nobu is more about the interaction than the treats, he wants me to do recall work to show how good he is at everything...

Dance Zone Murakami

While my babies stayed home I was dancing in Tokyo with my beloved Latin dance teacher Kent Nagashima. Dance School Murakami where he works has a lovely wee dachshund called Momo, and over the years she's come to know me and says hello.  Here is Momo before the party in the arms of top professional Latin dancer, Kinoshita sensei. Awesome, warm and passionate lady and exquisite dancer.

I'm all garbed up in a hand-me down chacha dress, with fringes which never go out of style. Really pretty in pink, if I say so myself...

Wavelets with Nobunaga

I'm really busy with end of terms but I had one day off for Sunday, enjoying walkies with the dogs and knitting...hopefully I'll still be able to meet my deadlines...This is a wonderful free fish scale pattern which looks just like the traditional Japanese blue seas wavelet pattern, Nami Monyo. There's even a free video tutorial for a knitted beanie. I made a cowl instead of a hat, I think it would go really well with a mens kimono...it's made with Rowan lightweight dk wool and some Japanese wool I found in this delicious mustardy brown, which brings out the soft English hues really well.

Wavelets and Sherlock

Free knitting pattern…thank you, Happy Knitter!

Model English Setter

Fresh trout

Doggie and Kimono

Here I am thinking I'm wearing a doggie themed kimono for the year of the Dog, and it turns out the Okinawa shisa lions on this cochineal dyed kimono are actually kami, or gods...and being lions, are in fact big cats! So this my third post of the New Year is also a cat-related post after all...

Kitty Hat

Happy New Year of the Dog! May it be a fortuitous year full of learning and sharing, the true keys to happiness. Even though it's the Chinese year of the Dog, it's all cats for me: I was gifted this bubble gum pink yarn by a doggie friend, and immediately thought of my bestie who needs one...only I hadn't been knitting this time last year...and so, rather late, the kitty hat. I have been learning new knitting techniques with Youtube and Ravelry, and this is two color brioche with cables, so nice and fluffy and warm. The cables are from a knitting genius, Sybil Ra, who has her own blog, Knitting and so on.

The hat is already in the post winging its way across the Pacific, so I'm free to go for a nice afternoon walkies with the doggies...took you long enough, Mummy, says Claire, more focus on the walkies please!