I love my dog but sometimes . . . .

I forgot to latch my dog's kennel this morning. I couldn't believe my eyes when I walked in the door and saw the clapotis scarf spread out on the floor and one of my needles eaten. You would think after the first time she ate bamboo needles she would have learned but apparently not. This is round two of her eating my needles and I must say I'm beginning to run out of pairs. She usually eats only one of the pair so I have a single size 6, 8, 10.5 (from the first time she did this) and now a 9 to add to the list. Can you buy single straight needles?? Will people at the LYS look at me like I've grown a second head when I go in tomorrow and ask?? And if they don't sell singles, which I'm expecting to hear, what do I do with all of these needles?? Why didn't I just lock the kennel this morning - oh wait, I guess it is partly my fault isn't it? I have to say in all other things she is a wonderful dog and I do love her - she's my avatar for pete's sake - but today she was working my last nerve.
So, I haven't made much progress on the scarf and I think in pulling the working needle out to eat it "sweet puppy" also managed to pull loose some stitches. School starts on Monday so I don't think I'll have it done in time for Anique's first day which is a bummer but I think she'll understand. Of course since it is still topping 100 degrees every day around here I'm thinking it won't be too big a deal if she doesn't have it for a week or two.

You may call it Clapotis, but I call it Anique!

So I've been working on the clapotis pattern scarf for my dear friend Anique. The scarf is a congratulations gift for her new assignment as a full time teacher this year! This pattern is the most challenging thing I've done so far and you can see a few mistakes but all in all it has been fun. There's something about intentionally dropping a stitch and seeing it unravel itself that's a little bit hard to swallow but liberating at the same time. As a knitter you spend so much time worrying about dropping a stitch that the first one you drop on purpose in this pattern takes a little mental preparation! I'm only about half way done, as the pictures show but I think it will turn out to be a beautiful gift which I hope Anique will enjoy wearing. And if she doesn't like it she can use it to muffle the kids in her classroom who just refuse to behave!

Congratulation to Anique

I am starting a new scarf as a gift for my friend Anique. She has just been offered a full time teaching position so I'm hoping to have this ready before school starts - yikes!! I'll post updates as long as I'm not going embarrassingly slow . . . . Here's a link to the free pattern and the pictures of what it's supposed to look like. We'll see what mine actually looks like : )
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall04/PATTclapotis.html

The Ripple Scarf

Cast on 26 stitches

Row 1 - 4 Knit all stitches
Row 5 K4, [k2tog] 3 times, [yo k1] 6 times, [k2tog] 3 times, K4 (26 stitches)
Row 6 Knit all stitches
Row 7 Knit all stitches
Row 8 K4, P18, K4

Repeat rows 5 through 8 until desired length is reached ending with row 5. Complete with one set of rows 1-4. Bind off knitwise.