Thursday, May 13, 2010

Scotties Rule!

At least in my house, they do. I've been owned by at least one, usually two, and occasionally three Scotties since August of 1981. We'd recently been posted to England, and rather than quarantine the six-month old mixed breed we had, we gave her to the ex's mom. Given that he was a fighter pilot and prone to many and sometimes long absences, I wanted a dog for company. I was living in a strange country, and I was very young.

With some friends from our squadron on the same mission, we visited a breeder of several types of dogs. Our friends ended up with a Westie. I wanted a black dog, since through happenstance all my family's animals had been black, and the ex wanted a male. And he was waiting for us; the last of his litter, and wagging his tail off...but not raising the racket other dogs were. He was for us, and brilliant boyo that he was, Mackenzie knew it.

Mackenzie set an incredible standard. Bright, loyal, stubborn and loving, he was inspirational, literally. Mom fell in love with him, and has owned several Scotties since. By pure luck I'd stumbled on the right breed for me. And smart! Mackenzie knew I was pregnant with the eldest DD before I did.

Now as part of my Scottie-love, the DH and I run a list dedicated to the breed on Yahoo. The link is below. The DH has a wee Sheltie that suits his personality more, but he loves the quirks and foibles of our two Scotties, Jack and Benny, too. When a knitter friend of mine mentioned she was getting a Scottie, we invited her to AngelScots. A little over a month ago, she asked if it would be alright to post and ask for a knitter to test a Scottie scarf pattern from a booklet of same that she would be selling to raise money for Scottie rescue.

Do I need to tell you that the request didn't ever go to the list? I hopped on that. The friend is Liz Lovick, and you've already seen on here the brilliant patterns she does, including the Fair Isle Scottie hat I knitted, and the vest she knitted for me. Both, I understand, to be in the booklet. Liz sent me some ColourMart yarn in a yak blend, of all things - very soft and a gorgeous muted lavender. We agreed I would knit it testing the written instructions, and the DH would provide photos. Here are few that we sent.
For the record, this is a fingering weight, I used about 58g of yarn and the scarf ended up being about 5.5 ft long and 7.5 wide. The scarf is knitted in two pieces and grafted in the middle. My graft is imperfect, but no one will know but me unless they get WAY too close to me for their comfort.

I did attend Maryland Sheep and Wool on May 2nd. I only stayed a couple of hours, and I didn't make it to all the outlaying vendors. It was killer hot, for one thing, in spite of the fans going everywhere. Your Goddess does not do heat. I didn't buy much, but I'll take a few photos and post them next.

6 comments:

Kristina Plaas said...

Love it!!! Love everything about it from the yarn to the color to, of course, Liz's design. Now if only she would feel inspired to do a dachshund version????? :-P

scottylover said...

Oh Diana, I do believe you must have missed Liz's email...didn't she tell you that the scarf should come to ME?? :) Beautiful work!

Sandy A in St. Louis

Diana said...

Ah, Sandy! You're so cute when you're ludicrous!

scottylover said...

**SIGH** Well, it was worth a try...

Sandy A

Unknown said...

Have you had your Witt day this month?

I love that idea. What a wonderful memorial. Has it been a year?

Diana said...

Pat, no Witt days recently, and after this week at the dance studio, I'll be due. In fact, I'm taking off part of the day Tuesday to go to my grandson's Kindergarten graduation.

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Witt's passing. I still miss him horribly.