The Sick Chick Crafts

My computer is still dead, the hard drive died entirely and after almost two weeks of trying to get life of it (and luckily getting all the data) I had to admit defeat and take it to get a replacement.  It should be fixed sometime this week.

Meanwhile, my father is back in the hospital but still in Tampa, Florida.  They can’t figure out how to physically transport him without risk.  So Friday (or possibly earlier if he gets worse), Mom and I will drive the lengthy route down there and if we’re lucky be able to bring him back with us or at least take him to the next Army staging point which is one of their hospitals in Georgia.  I will have my mom’s laptop with me but she has problems getting onto his internet down there so it may be dialup for us.  (And anyway three of us in a STUDIO apartment up TWO flights of stairs — I can’t even bring my wheelchair as we’re all too crip to get it up and down the stairs — may drive us to murdering each other.  At least we’re a stone’s throw from the beach!!) 

So it may remain quiet around here for a while yet.  Thankfully I have had a lot of crafting time and a 30+ hr round trip drive (maybe more if we have to detour to the other side of Georgia on the way back) will give me plenty of time to get my sock knitting going.  If anyone reading this as Isela’s basic toe-up pattern (that you get with her sock looms) and knows how many stitches to cast on to start, I’d love to know — it looks like 18 but then peg 19 is supposed to have a loop on it already so I am confused.  I’m going to have to keep going cuff-down until I figure that out.

And we’re not even going to talk about the mountain of crafting supplies I’ve bought since I have been here.  My luggage is going to hate  me!!

But enough of that, I have my diabetes classes this week so have to be up bright and cheery, plus the CFS/Fibro self-help course starts tomorrow too, so I need my beauty sleep!

I haven’t read blogs since I got to the US but I hope everyone and all their loved ones are healthy and happy.  Best wishes to you and yours.

Because I feel bad about not having had photos today, here’s a pic of my Lagoon legwarmers (Colinette Prism yarn in Lagoon, knit in a 2×2 rib on the Reader’s Digest loom) and my sparkly Converse All Stars that are the closest thing to “dress” shoes that I can get my orthodics into!

PS, yes those shoes are what I will be walking in on Saturday’s walk! Sorry, I’m a long way from my donation goal  so I have to keep plugging it

We had a nice Bank Holiday Weekend (three-day weekend) here, the weather actually warmed up — rather too fast IMO — and the sun has been coming out more than in the last nine months put together.  Which has actually made photography a little difficult, I’m not used to full, bright sun!

Anyway, important reminder: My 5K walk for Fibromyalgia research is on Saturday so please donate now!  If you are new to this blog, Fibro is one of the many diseases that I have and walking 5K is well beyond my normal limits but it was important for me to do this as it’s a very worthy cause.  You can read more about my struggle on the donation page linked above.

So meanwhile, back to other things. We went to the National History show which was genealogy, archaeology and military history all together in one Expo.  Once again I was shocked that no scrapbooking suppliers were there as that seems like a great audience.  We saw some of the Time Team members (Tim, Tony and Phil) doing various presentations and generally found out about new stuff out for the genealogy market, etc.  The only thing we bought was mead from Three Drunken Monks but then we went to the huge Whole Foods in Kensington to stock up on supplies.

I’m still recovering from that day even though I was in the chair. I also seem to have come down with some kind of stomach virus which is unpleasant to say the least.  So my crafting has been pretty minimal.  I made two coffee cozies (which I would show you but my camera doesn’t like bright sun apparently, the colours went all weird) and started a legwarmer for a friend but I started getting hotspots on my fingers so had to give it a rest.  When I can’t knit or do something productive I feel guilty or at least out of sorts while sitting and watching tv or movies but sometimes my body just needs the rest and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I’m off to lay down again and get more rest.  I need to plan the route for Saturday’s walk ASAP and just spend the week resting up that’s going to be very, very taxing.  But I have so much crafting to be done in the next few weeks that I’m already feeling the stress and need to get things done for the sake of my brain,so we’ll just have to see what I can manage in between naps!

Tomorrow is the big day for Project Superstar: Audrey (age 9) is donating her bone marrow to her sister Marian (age 6).  Please wear a blue shirt (light blue if possible, Marian’s favourite colour) to wish them success!  Marian’s request is on her blog.

The official shirt (but wear whatever you like, just send prayers, vibes, good wishes their way!):

This is really long and photo-heavy.  To save on your downloads I have tried to keep the photos small, but you can click on any of them for the full-sized versions.

Day 1: Galaries Lafayette

We were staying quite near the “Grands Magasins” (big department stores) so on our first day we went to our quasi-favourite*, Galaries Layfayette.  The craft department is a respectable size but I didn’t like any of their yarn.  I did, however, find a delightful set of stamps from a French company:

I didn’t take photos of the store as we’ve been there a dozen times but t has loads of photos, although you may have to search a while as he has sooo many photos from this trip!  I also bought socks and leggings there but I’m only showing the crafty stuff in this blog.

* our actual favourite is Samaritaine but it’s closed for remodelling

Day 2: Flea Markets (Les Puces)

Because it’s not very wheelchair-friendly, I walked this day — with many rest stops of course!  We saw so many wonderful things, but alas our budget was limited. I do somewhat regret not buying the wooden hat block that was only 40 Euros, but it was so old that I think I would have to baby it and I’d rather a sturdy new one, even if that means a plastic one.

We saw:  We bought:  

Again, a lot more pictures in t’s Flickr (see above)

Day 3: Closed shops on Rue Saint Denis

Unfortunately, it was Sunday and these shops were closed.  We never did get a chance to come back to them, but they looked interesting.

Knitting shop: Button Shop:

Day 4: Shop-a-rama!

We made it a point on this day to hit as many craft stores as we could.

L’Art du Papier: a paper goods store with stamps, scrapbooking supplies and lots of journals. This was my favourite craft store from the trip!

I bought a Fleur-de-Lys seal, an Eiffel Tower stamp and a nice “J” stamp

La Drougerie: Famous for its knitting patterns, I found the yarn selection pretty poor, the beads plain but the trims were mind-blowing! I didn’t buy anything as I don’t have any sewing projects at the moment and I couldn’t get the attention of any of the shop assistants as it was packed in there.

Bazaar du Hotel de Ville (BHV): I’d heard great things about this store (a department store with a very large arts and crafts department) but was disappointed as a lot of the material seemed to be American imports. Which is fine, if you’re not able to shop in the US, but as I’m spending most of the summer abroad I only bought a few things (erasable disposable fountain pens by my favourite brand). Their hardware section rocks though and we spent a huge amount of time there, I bought some washers for beading projects and a wooden wheel to make a spindle out of once I find a decent dowel for the stick.

Day 5: Montmartre, at the base of Sacre Coeur

This is fabric store heaven, with several very large establishments to choose from. Unfortunately, many are too crowded to get the wheelchair into so we chose Tissus Reine (Fabric Queen) and got some lovely stuff: upholstery fabric to make a bag, iron-on crystals and pirate patches. They had fantastic wool very suitable for re-enactment gear but it started at 17Euro a meter so was out of my price range.

Diagonally opposite Tissus Reine was a knitting shop that seems to be named “Laines” (”Wool”) that carries a lot of lovely Spanish yarn. I indulged just a wee bit

We saw a really cool shop in lower Montmartre, near the Place de Clichy, called Tombees du Cambion. It sells all kinds of antique bric-a-brac and ephemera. We didn’t buy anything as it was a little bit overpriced but man, they had great taste!  (Creepiness of the photos aside, t was just playing when taking them.)

Last but certainly not least, I finally found some craft magazines at the train station on the way home. The Marie Claire Idees is pretty beaten up as it was the last copy and I found it was nice but I’m not gushing over it. It’s sort of a very girly/romantic version of Martha Stewart and that’s not my thing. The Idees Magazine, on the other hand, is exactly my sort of thing, especially as this is the black and white issue — my favourite!  There were several other mags to choose from but as my French is still pretty limited I decided not to buy any more.

(Photo: Me in the Project Superstar shirt with the view from Sacre Coeur in Monmartre, Paris.  April 12, 2008.)

The Project Superstar photo program is people taking pictures of themselves in the Superstar shirt and sending them to Marian (the very crafty little girl having a bone marrow transplant whom I have mentioned several times here before, see the link for “I’m a Craft Artist” in my blogroll) who is now in the hospital after her chemotherapy.  I’m not the farthest away or the most exotic locations (a family in the Slovak Republic has sent in photos!) but maybe I can be the most posh locations

More photos, click to see larger:

My crafty photos are edited and on Flickr, I just need to write up the post about everything.  Which may be broken into several parts as there are a lot of photos! There are also many more photos of me that t is posting, these are not PS shots but are usually for the wheelchair travel groups or they involve a lot of wine and thus are not appropriate to send to six year olds ;0  If anyone really wants to see those, drop me a line.

I really hate letting people down. Especially when I know if I had just not procrastinated I wouldn’t have had this problem!

I failed to finish my afghan for Tricot du Coeur. I let other things (Thing-a-day and Project Superstar) take precedence and then in the three weeks I had left — which should have been enough — I was too poorly to do much knitting. Where I normally could do about 2 feet per day I was barely managing five inches. So that just sucks.

I really hate disappointing people. I also hate letting myself down and not being healthy enough to finish things in the amount of timethat normal people could do them in. t has made me promise not to craft to deadlines any more. I really exhausted myself trying to do this and now I’m really overstretched and our vacation is this week.

I’ve got to conserve what energy I have so that I will be alert and not a total drag for our week in Paris! I’m going to give the blanket to the girls of Project Superstar when I finish it. I think I will be able to finish it (except for sewing up) whilst away so I can just add it to whatever I buy for them there. SO it’s still going to a good cause, even if not the one I had intended.

I still feel crappy about it though

Thanks to those who have written me with encouragement in the past two weeks.  I’m coming to terms with everything but things got delayed as my father was in the hospital most of last week with blood clots in the lungs.  He’s fine now but since his father died from blood clots unexpectedly, we were all more than a bit nervous.  And it may be another genetic condition to which I may be predisposed, so I’m awaiting the results of his testing almost as much as he is. Since I have so far gotten every single disease known on either side of the family, and often younger than the “normal” onset, I’m starting to become a little obsessive about knowing just what may becoming down the pike. (And desperately praying that I miss out on Alzheimer’s!)  I’m not crazy enough to think that I will get everything, but my odds are batting 1000 against me at the moment so I want to know what to be screened for.

Anyway, all of this has sent my mental health into something of a spiral.  I normally have a depressive episode in February each year so it’s probably just a slightly delayed reaction combined with family illness (father inlaw then father) and the upheaval of my new diagnosis.  It’s not that diabetes is a problem per se, it’s that I’m having to give up several coping mechanisms and unorthodox (but working for me) treatment strategies so my symptom load is going very high and I just feel like things are still very chaotic.  Well, in fact they are, as we’ve yet to decide on new treatment regimes so I’m kinda of flying blind.  Hence the “doldrums” part of the title.  The grey, rainy weather isn’t helping any and knitting with my brightest yarn isn’t helping there either.  When not even beading magazines can cheer me, I know it’s getting bad.  So I have a med review this week, one of my four appointments this week when I don’t have the energy to get out of bed let alone trek to the doctors and hospitals.  It has to be done though as I can’t handle much more of the way I am feeling…

But enough about that, let’s talk socks I have been wanting to order a sock loom but have been put off by how many sizes there are (so if I make socks for myself and my mom I’d need a different loom for my husband and dad) and how long of a wait it is to get a loom.  I think I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and order one though as I know that with diabetes foot care is important and that means wearing socks all of the time.  I generally try to escape socks as much as possible and right now can only cope with toe socks or part cashmere (luckily I got a bunch of lambswool and cashmere at TJ Maxx last year for $5/pair).  I’m hoping though that hand-knit socks will be every bit as amazing as everyone says. I also know from trying to get people to make hats for me that I won’t just be able to lean on folks to get some socks either so like hats I’m just going to have to make them myself.  So if anyone reading this has sock looms and likes or dislikes them, please let me know which one(s) you have!  I am hoping to use proper sock yarn (and do not like slipper socks or anything bulky!!!).

(As an aside, if anyone has single socks languishing without mates, my husband refuses to wear matching socks so will happily give them a good home ;)  He also could not care less what gender they were meant for or even if they fit him properly or not! So if you have second sock syndrome but can’t bear the thought of frogging the one you already made, he can put them to good use.)

In other news, I’m finishing up the mate to the Lagoon legwarmer. I had hoped to have it done by today but I was getting hotspots again so I am taking it slower.  Then I need to really get cranking to finish my afghan for Tricot du Coeur as that is due this month.  I made a hat inspired by Annie Modesit’s rasta hat but have yet to photograph it.  I think I need to order a styrofoam head form for better hat photos plus I can use it for making felted hats.  So another thing I just need to get off my rear and order!  I’m just being a bit stingy since we’re going to Paris next month and always waaaay overspend there so we’re putting off nonessential purchases as much as we can just in case.  Ooh, I should start looking for the Parisian yarn shops…

Oh, and I shall need to buy a spindle as my spinning class is very soon and I’m sure I will want to keep going at home!

Well I have to go, I’ve got an appointment to attend and miles to go before I sleep….

This is a self-portrait from Meez.com.  You’ve probably seen it on other blogs, as there is a knitting animation that you can have your virtual self doing   This is pretty close to accurate, but of course all avatars look better than the real thing!  Here you see me dressed as usual in a t shirt and pyjama pants in a terribly messy room.  I’m not usually in the chair in the apartment (in fact never, there isn’t room here), but they didn’t have an option for canes or crutches or my usual of leaning on the walls as I slink around…  Usually if it’s less than 20 meters I don’t bother with a cane, so that can confuse some people who see me walking “normally” (like at my felting course this weekend which was in a small place) and then hear me talk about using a wheelchair.

In other news, I have found a new charity to knit for (after I get caught up on the projects already on the go).  It’s pretty near to my heart as it serves people with neuroendoimmune disorders including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and multiple chemical sensitivity.  (I have two of those for sure, maybe on the middle one.)   Anyway, having been the person begging for warm hats a few years ago (when I first had to give up having hair) I feel it’s the perfect place to give back.  P.A.N.D.O.R.A. is the organization, but I couldn’t find their request for knitted items on their website, only on their page on Liom Brand Yarns’ charity finder.

OK typing this has killed my fingers so I guess they need more rest.  I’ll try to write up about the felting course tomorrow, achy fingers crossed!

I don’t usually do this, but it’s really important.

I’d like to request prayers/candles/energy/anything that might help on behalf of t’s dad (John).  He’s been in hospital for a month now battling a series of infections and is now resistant to all but one antibiotic.  If he can just beat these infections and come home, he may get his new kidney within a few months (he’s been waiting over two years).  But they can’t give him a transplant while he has an infection and anyway, being drug resistant is a very dangerous thing!!  So please, do what you can….we’re very worried at this point

I’ve made my peace with pain, for the most part.  I won’t stop trying to get new and improved meds, but probably 29 days out of 30, pain is not stopping me from doing what I want to do and on that 30th I just have to rest up, pace and work around my limitations so that I can still do  much of what I want.  I still spend a lot of time in bed as it’s the only way to keep up my treaty obligations, and that leads to an overactive brain frustrated by inability to do anything.  More on this later.

Fatigue is another story.  I have not made peace with it, we’re still at war.  It is my primary nemesis and the cause of most of my inability to get things done. You see, 90% of people with chronic pain will experience fatigue.  On top of that I have two more diseases that cause fatigue, lucky me.  It comes in many guises and has more causes than a bleeding heart liberal.  (Not that I have anything against bleeding heart liberals ).  For me, fatigue can come at full blast or sneak up on me on silent cat feet, usually attacking *because* I am at peace with my pain.

Confused?  Well, part of my being at peace with pain is learning to ignore it.  It becomes just another annoying signal coming from the body, like hunger or the need to pee. When you are wholly engrossed in a project to the point where you don’t notice time passing or hunger pangs rising, you can also ignore pain too.  Hours later, you look up from your craft table and realize that you’re really hungry,  have a desperate need to pee and you’re in massive pain.  Hey, I’d rather have a burst of pain quickly quashed by big drugs (quickly being a relative term) over annoying pain all of the time.  Your mileage may vary, but that’s what I have chosen.

But ignoring pain like that drains you of energy without you even noticing it.  (After all, you’re not noticing the pain either…)  And unlike pain, the fatigue that can come doesn’t wait for you to look up from your fantastic project.  Oh no, it sneaks up behind you and pounces, knocking you flat.  You have no choice, you are wholly within its mercy.  And mercy, it has none.  So you can be doing your favouritest thing in the world but when fatigue strikes you have no choice but to go lay down and probably sleep.

This happens to me a lot and is the main cause for UFOs.  Actually, Fatigue’s nasty sister Insomnia is equally to blame for UFOs.  If I’ve crashed out in the middle of the afternoon for a few hours, it’s practically guaranteed that my sleep schedule will be borked.  You see, insomnia is not a lack of sleeping, it’s the inability to sleep when you want to and can be coupled with the inability to stay awake when you want to.  It’s simply a messed-up sleep schedule.  But oh, how a messed-up sleep schedule can mess up your life!

There are three types of insomnia: not being able to get to sleep in the first place, getting to sleep but then waking up in the middle of the night unable to get back to sleep for several hours, and waking up well before your alarm and unable to get back to sleep.  I get the middle one, my husband t gets the latter, but due to the fact that he sleeps half as much as I do, we often wind up dealing with insomnia at the same time.

Insomnia is insidious: you want so badly to go back to sleep, you hope and pray that you can get to sleep any minute now.  So you don’t do anything that’s going to wake you up even more and you don’t get too involved in anything so that you can go back to sleep the moment insomnia releases you from her evil clutches.   You’re awake, but can’t really be productive unless you’ve given up entirely on getting back to sleep.  You pass the time, knowing that every minute you’re awake in the middle of the night is probably one that you’re going to be asleep during the productive part of the day.  (At least for me, as I have the option to sleep whenever my body demands it.  Unlike poor t whose work frowns upon keeling over in meetings, etc.)

For me, passing time without doing anything so taxing as to wake me up fully involves a lot of random web surfing and a great deal of churning my mind over and over. (Actually the mind churning over and over can be why I can’t get to sleep in the first place on those sorts of nights.  Go generalized anxiety and ADD!) I have to admit that a lot of my great craft ideas come from this semi-meditative state, but it’s not always a consolation.  I can’t *DO* anything during this time, except maybe fairly mindless online things like adding my entire blogroll to this site, so it means I am filled with ideas that have to wait until I have the energy to do them.  Often without regard to whether I already have a project on the go  that I really should finish first…

This week I was upin the middle of two nights and caught myself blog surfing and actually commenting. Rare for me, but hey, I had nothing better to do and was already awake enough to form coherent sentences.   I came away from these periods of meandering with two burning desires:

1) I want to do MORE with this craft blogging thing.  OK, I want to do a podcast but my track record with podcasting isn’t so great. But maybe I will get into interviewing Sick Chicks who Craft for the blog?  Or would that be better as a podcast anyway??  (Thoughts welcome.)  The problem of course is that I am barely keeping up with this blog this as it is, so a desire to do even more than I’m attempting to do now isn’t really helpful at this stage

2) I want to learn to spin.  This is not a new feeling, I’ve wanted to learn to spin since before I’ve wanted to knit, I just fear failure a lot more in this area.  I’ve even looked up spinning classes in my local area but none of them tell the prices and well, if I have to ask I know I can’t afford it.

This spinning-lust has been made even worse by egging on from Violet of (of Lime & Violet), which happened because I commented on a review of a new spinning book and she actually responded with said egging. (Thanks :P)   It’s pretty overpowering now and I think that when I make a run to the Handweaver’s Studio for some fiber (for felting), I will ask about their spinning classes.  And maybe their fiber dyeing classes, as I love dyeing (and am going to do some Kool Aid dyeing as part of Thing a Day).  *deep sigh*  I can just see my craft budget for the rest of the year slipping away to course fees…..

And now it’s half five in the evening and I have nothing but this post to show for what I’ve done with my day.  I’ve been too drained to do anything else.  I know it’s not my fault, but I can’t help simultaneously feeling guilty and silently cursing the fatigue monster that made me sleep sixteen hours straight….oh well, my fingers say I have typed too much for one stretch so even if I wanted to get more moody at you it’s time to stop.  So goodbye for another day…

So instead of the forecasted rain it was actually sunny for a while today.  I dutifully trudged out to the back lawn (we live in a high rise but it has a garden around it) with yesterday’s knitting and camera, got everything laid out in the one sunny patch (hey, even when we have sun it’s not *that* much!) and turn on the camera.   It makes its cute little startup noises and then the screen goes black.  Ah, I’ve left the lens cap on, doh!  Flick it off and on again and this time it makes its cute startup noises, and lets me see the neckwarmer on the LCD screen for a second before going black again.  The ONE sunny day we’ve had in weeks and my camera batteries decided to die!  I’m so doomed…..

(I’m gonna sing the Doom song now….)

OK, only hotspots.  But still, that hated Bernat Soft Boucle is such a pain to work with, the nubby bits just get caught on each other and so trying to do a K2P2 ribbing (which I am doing for t’s wristwarmers — sadly, he liked the first one so I am having to do another) is nightmarish.  Hoping to make it end quicker, I worked for 2-3 hrs on them yesterday and got *hotspots * (pre-blisters/swollen hot areas) on my thumb and forefinger from constantly yanking at the yarn to close the loops properly.  I think it might be easier with needles but the way that you do a purl on the loom involves lifting it off the loom, putting the new loop on and then tightening, so that’s a lot of manipulating the yarn.  Owwie!

Yesterday my Colinette order came through so I am taking a day off the blasted boucle and making a neck warmer to match my Ragdoll hat.  I’ve yet to figure out how much “fringe” I want, but I have plenty of yarn this time!

Pictures are a bit of a problem with the utter lack of light in London at the moment, but we’re building a light tent this weekend so hopefully I’ll be able to take decent photos whatever the weather.  Blistery fingers crossed!

Warning: No crafting content here, but perhaps some frothing at the mouth.

 I can’t even begin to say how much it irritates me that another round of Fibromyalgia-denial has begun.  What’s a bit odd is that they are using the US FDA’s approval of a drug to treat fibro (which was months ago) as their excuse to start attacking it (and by extension, us) again.  It’s the same old tired refrain: there’s no test for it so it can’t be real.  Even one of the docs who invented the current diagnostic guidelines (the closest thing to a test we have) has recanted and said he no longer believes in it.  (See this NY Times article for what’s being said.)

HELLO, smug doctors of the world!  In the seven years I’ve had a fibro diagnosis (admittedly, my diagnosis is weak: it may be chronic fatigue syndrome instead and anyway it’s not my primary illness) the advances in diagnostics have been impressive.  No, we don’t have a foolproof test yet, but there *are* biological markers in the majority of patients.  Plus, chronic myofascial pain (closely related to fibro) has been discovered to be discernible on a special MRI, thus making it “real” in the eyes of these same doctors.

I suppose the real problem is that most of the docs who did believe in it are rheumatologists, but recently it has been shown that fibromyalgia is a neurological condition.  This baffles the rheumies, but the neuros aren’t up to speed yet.  In any case, the FDA is on board and Pfizer is plastering the airways with “public service announcements” (read: sly ads for Lyrica, the approved drug), so public opinion is  swinging our way.

But this just goes to show that doctors are not infallible.  Indeed, far too many of them have sticks up their bum.  And that it’s sooooo very important to find a doctor that believes both in you and in your diagnoses.  While the NHS here in the UK has no trouble with fibromyalgia, I know there are some GPs who are still resistant.  I’m blessed that I don’t have one of those!  I’m also lucky because Lyrica (pregabalin as it is known here, which is the generic name) is *not* yet approved for the treatment of fibromyalgia here, but my neurologist gave it to me anyway for the neuropathic pain that may or may not be fibro-related.  So I get the benefit of the meds without having to wait for more drug trials, etc.  Maybe that’s just reason number one million and four why the NHS rocks my world.  Sure, you have to be a patient patient as waiting lists can be a pain, but it’s better healthcare than I ever had in the US (and I had health insurance and HMOs that were supposedly the best healthcare money could buy).

I’m going to get off my soapbox now and maybe go photograph some hats. :) 

One of my boxes has arrived from the States — and it has the camera cable!  Now I just have to find some sunlight (don’t hold your breath, I live in London!) and there will be pix galore…. It also has some of my yarn in it, mostly the ubercheap stuff I got on sale, some of which I don’t really want any more.  I’ll put them up for trade on Ravelry but I doubt anyone will want them…

Meanwhile, I finally took t’s hat off the loom - man I hate Bernat Soft Boucle (and 4 more skeins just arrived in that box today, blech!), it breaks every time I try to knot it. (And being acrylic I don’t trust it without knots.) I got about halfway through with my second fingerless glove but I think I am going to have to tink the last two rows as I seem to have messed up my K2P2 ribbing somehow.

 …especially if your husband has been sick and hasn’t cleaned anything in the five weeks you were gone.  *Sigh*  I know better than to expect the place to be nice when I get home but some part of me still is disappointed when I walk into a dump

I survived the trip to DC, which included a visit to the Springwater Fiber Workshop (which was cleaned out due to their almost-went-out-of-business sale so nothing really to see) and the very lovely Knit Happens shop in Alexandria where I bought three skeins of Pima cotton from Peru. Not organic, alas, and I *know* that it is very important to buy organic cotton as 50% of the world’s pesticide use is in the cotton industry, but it was beautifully handpainted from a small company so I couldn’t resist.

So I’m home, but my yarn stash is in transit as I didn’t have enough luggage space. All I could cram in was two skeins for the scarf for my husband and the yarn that has now become the finished scarf for my mom. I need to try to take pictures but I need to be awake in daylight for that to happen. Right now I am sleeping 15 hrs a day

I do get to gloat a little as both husband and friend made noises about wanting the very first hat that I made of out Red Heart Light & Lofty. I think I have enough yarn left to make a second hat so both shall be appeased. It’s nice to make things that other people like, I was worried about stuff being really boring or screaming newbie but I find with the looms it’s a lot harder to screw up than with needles! Dropped stitches are more noticeable and easier to fix.

So much to write about, I got five looming books from Amazon for a total of six (out of I think 8 that exist), so I shall be writing up about them soon. Unfortunately my hands hurt too much for me to type any more today, but I really plan to blog more frequently now that I am home. If having my computer in the shop doesn’t turn into too much of a nightmare, that is! But hopefully that will all get fixed while I am away for the holidays and thus will be as painless as it can be. In the meantime though, the hands say it it time to stop and I must obey…