The doggie sweater is done!

Okay, so this very pink doggie sweater was promised sometime in the summer of 2006.
I didn't buy the yarn for it until November, and didn't start knitting it until the beginning of December.

Regardless of the amount of time I spent procrastinating knitting this sucker, I am really happy it's completed without any major hitches. I just hope it fits the cutest dog in the world, since I can't try it on her in person. Normally I avoid anything that involves seaming and shaping and picking up stitches, hence the lack of sweaters and other large knitted pattern heavy FOs.
Let's just call this mini-sweater a small step toward the garment making direction.

Casey's Coat from Stitch n' Bitch Nation
Yarn: Less than a ball of some generic sport weight acrylic i found at Ben Franklin's
US 4/3.5mm bamboo circulars and dpns
Because I knit this sweater at a much smaller gauge than the suggested pattern, I knit with the instruction for the medium size dog sweater.Other than that, I followed the pattern pretty faithfully.

I finished the sweater last night, and started on the afghan I've been dreaming of!
I'm using Paton's Classic Merino in Natural Mix, Deep Olive, and Chestnut Brown,
some very earthy mellow colors.
I'm thinking stockinette squares alternating colors with a seed stitch border.

And now there are two!

Against all odds, the long suffering toe up socks are done!

I was about to rip them out when two knitting friends talked me out of it. Not only that, but the decrease portion of the heel which were giving me the most problems, was generously knit by a friend. (Em, you are awesome!)
I finished up the cuff of the 2nd sock tonight, and bound off too tight, so it's a little bit of a fight to get one of them over my big heel, but I'm not undoing it! These things are done !

Toe-up Socks with a Sherman Heel
Yarn: 1. 5 skeins of a Japanese extra fine merino
Japanese size 2 Clover bamboo dpns
Magic 8 cast on, 60 st. foot, modified no wrap Sherman Heel

Honestly these were the single most frustrating items I've ever knit. I started them in May 2006, and it took me almost 10 months.
I think if I had not started and stopped so many times, it would have been much easier. I didn't have time to knit for a good couple months, and had forgotten exactly how to do the heel. The toe and foot were actually quite simple, and painless.
I'm just not a sock knitter, is the conclusion of this experiment. The teeny tiny needles, the fiddly-ness of dpns, the heel of doom, and the simple fact that I have to make TWO socks.
A sneak peak at the little Casey's Coat from SNBN. One sleeve down, one to go!