Life is crazy...

...which you probably could have guess through the gaps in my blogging.

I'm wrapping up the semester. Which means lots of odds and ends to wrap up and a couple finals (no finals in two of my classes!) to prep for.

And work has started back up in full swing - my boss is chomping at the bit for school to be done so I can get more hours in.

I'm still working on pattern design. It's going slower, but knitting is relaxing and the designing gives me an outlet for my creative juices. Currently wrapping up the Puppy Trails Tote and working on two baby blankets.

And then of course the dogs!! We're playing quite a bit of frisbee and ball lately. And hiking. Good exercise for them without much thought input for me... I'm doing some training, but not as much as I should (especially considering that I'm putting Kenzi through a SAR evaluation in a month!). I need to step up that training next week after finals.

Puppy Trails Tote

Introducing my latest design - The Puppy Trails Tote! I'm super excited about this tote - that seems to be a recurring theme with my dog inspired designs :D

It's my first foray into felting, or at least pattern writing for felting! I loved designing and making this one - and love the idea of felted totes in general - simple, versatile, lots of uses and they'd make great gifts!


And I love taking pictures of Kipp - he gives me such great poses (yes, I had a handful of kibble, and yes I occasionally said words like "cat", "sheep" and "frisbee" to get those ears to really perk up :p)

I'm in the process of writing the pattern up now and should be sending everything off to Knit Picks in by the end of the week - woo-hoo!

Brains over Brawn

Or, Why Kipp is smarter than Kenzi.

Kipp is the bottom of the totem pole dog here. Always has been. With Missy he understood that she was The Boss. Period. When Kenzi came, she also understood that Missy was The Boss but also figured out that she could still boss Kipp around. .Kipp is fine with that and has no aspirations of climbing higher. If Kenzi is happy, life is good. I think he finds security in absolutely knowing where his spot in life is, even if that means that Kenzi may steal his bone every once and a while...

Kipp likes his food. Really likes his food. Get a handful of kibble and I have his undivided attention. But he has zero food aggression with people or dogs (often this is far from the case with dogs that are highly food motivated)

Tonight I put a plate down for the dogs to lick off. They went to work at it and I started to hear a rumble coming out of Kenzi's throat. But before I could step in and remove the plate, Kipp ever so carefully grabbed the edge of the plate and just dragged it away. Kenzi went back over and stuck her nose back in but again Kipp just grabbed the edge and moved away with it. Then he laid down almost on top of the plate.

Kenzi gave up.

I love watching his brain work.