Puppies are fun

You may recall my encounter with a visiting puppy last year; she seized a pristine hank of Schaefer Nancy and gave it a thrashing, Wren:1, Nancy: 0.

Wren is back. She's older now, but still in the if-it's-somewhere-my-pointy-nose-can-reach-I-am-required-to-poke-said-nose-in phase.

As a longtime dog owner, I'm pretty savvy about puppy-proofing. Calculate how tall the dog would be standing on its hind legs, multiply by 3 to allow for jumping, and put everything at a height two feet above that. Behind a locked door.

A lot of our stuff ends up on top of the fridge, which, although it's technically accessible, is the highest surface we have.

Last night, I wasn't feeling well and I went to bed at 9:00. I forgot to put my knitting bag on top of the fridge, and I forgot to close it.

Now, for a digression. For the past week or so, I've been working on The Little Neckwarmer that Couldn't. Or Wouldn't. It's a diabolically simple pattern: K2, P2 in the round over a multiple of 4 plus 1. Work until you're out of yarn or until you're sick of it. Bind off. Could it be easier? Apparently, yes.

Because of the extra stitch, the K2, P2 doesn't line up like a rib, but rather as a traveling stitch on the diagonal. It's harder to see when you've messed up, until suddenly a 4-round rib develops. Add to this the fact that a) I was working on two circular needles so one needle had an extra stitch on it, and b) I was sick, and c) I can be dumb as a bowl of marbles at times, and you have a stunning combination of brain fog and ineptitude. I had knit, frogged, reknit, tinked, reknit, taken numerous time outs, etc. during a span of time in which I should have been able to knit 3 or 4 neckwarmers, but I was finally on the right track again.

Imagine my dismay when I got up to find it in the middle of the living-room carpet this morning, covered in dog hair, half off the needles, with suspicious munched-up areas on either side.

I took the needles out and started pulling. I unraveled one piece that abruptly ended after about 18 inches. And another, and another. I collected a nice pile of yarn suitable for needle felting or flossing. When I reached untouched yarn, I'd frogged about an inch and a half. Bah!

I took a deep breath and started working again. I was steaming along, making good progress, when I saw I'd managed to stack up 3 knits. And 3 purls. And then The Little Neckwarmer that Couldn't went back into the time-out bag. I decide to work on a dishcloth instead, since that seems to be the only thing I can manage at the moment.

A garter-stitch dish cloth.