Four Dogs and a Sweater

My in-laws are just the greatest "salt of the earth" kind of people. The only draw-back to spending time with them is that they have a habit of taking in every stray dog that they encounter. You all know that I have a dog, right? So, I'm not a dog-hater, right? However FOUR dogs is a bit much for me, especially when they are the sit-on-the-table-poop-in-the-next-room kind of dogs. Have I set the scene up properly? I guess I should throw in the dog hair for good measure.

In the past, I have always met the knitting challenge at the in-laws house with stoicism and armed with ziplock bags. I have been very careful to keep all knitting guarded in my the lap and all skeins under control in the ziplock bags. It has always worked, that is..........until LAST NIGHT!

We went for a drive to see Christmas lights at one of those drive-through Winter Wonderland lots and, before leaving, I made sure that all knitting was securely tucked away, zipped up and out of reach. On my return, I entered into the house and was met with some exclamatory remarks from my FIL in another room and my girls rushing in to grab me and steady me in preparation for the awful news................. "Mommy, the dogs got into your sweater........"

My ALCEA! My gorgeous Alcea, that I had been working diligently on all week had been carried all over the house. One of the Addi-Natura needles had been snapped, the stitch counter demolished and, of course, all skeins were strewn from one end of the house to the other!

I took one look, went upstairs into a dark bedroom, collapsed on the bed and wept. My girls, after spending some considerable time comforting me, gathered up bits and pieces of Pine Spindrift and we then spliced them together. Fortified by their confidence that I could "fix anything", I made my way back to a comfy couch to start the laddering process. My sweet husband thought he could whittle down the broken needle for me to use temporarily but was unsuccessful. The make-shift needle was just too splintery, despite sanding, and too short in length for comfort.

The wonderful news? All the destruction was on the STEEK alone which was going to be cut later for a cardigan band! I was able to rescue the sweater...........the steek doesn't look as nice as it should but, under these circumstances, I'm happy I only had to salvage a steek instead of frogging a sweater!


And the moral of the story.........................
ONE dog is enough for any good household.