Hi! I'm Still Here.

Sorry!

I know it seems like I've been ignoring my blog and that's true, but I haven't been really well lately.

At the beginning of December, my doctor discovered a problem, and I've been taking tests for it ever since. She seems to think that it's got something to do with my kidneys, so she's sent me to a urologist. My first visit to him was just to have him outline a list of tests that he says need to be done so he can find out what's wrong.

Oh, and he requested that I leave a urine sample.

Before I could even get home, they had left a message on voice mail telling me that they were going to do a lot of tests, and the sample I gave them wasn't big enough to do all the tests. They wanted me to go back and leave another sample.

Unfortunately, although the trip would have taken me 15 minutes each way if I had a car (and that's if every light turned red just in time to catch me and there was really bad traffic), the trip on the bus meant that the whole thing was a six hour round trip. And the trip was arduous enough that although my appointment was on Wednesday the 18th, it made me feel very sick, and it wasn't until Monday that I started to feel better.

So, I talked them into the idea that I should go to the lab (which I'm being told is nearby, and close enough for even me to walk to) instead of all the way back there. I also have to make an appointment for a CT scan, and then an appointment to go back to see them for the final test.

I'm waffling back and forth between hoping that they can find out what's wrong and fix it, and that there's nothing wrong in the first place. There's clearly something wrong with me, but I can't figure it out, and clearly the doctors I've been seeing don't care enough to bother.

The GP, who is new, is the one who found out that I have the problem I'm currently getting tests for, and she wants me to go to two other doctors for problems that doctors have been notable for not doing anything helpful, and, in fact, wanting to do only stuff that makes things even worse, so I'm not enthused about going to either one of them.

On to more pleasant topics!

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In the past, I've read some really good books that really seem to be reasonably modern fairy tales rather than anything else. Some of my favorites have been written by Diana Wynne Jones.

I think my all-time favorite of her books is Fire and Hemlock. My local library has it, so yours might, too. Look for it in the young adult section (along with the Harry Potter books). Don't be fooled by the designation, you'll love it even if you're an adult.

Another one of her books that I love is Howl's Moving Castle , which is even more fairytale-like than the other one. I won't go into a lot about what it's about except to recommend it.

The reason I'm mentioning it is that Howl's Moving Castle was made into a movie, and has been released a while ago on DVD, but will be on one of the Encore channels this coming Saturday. It'll be on three times times on Saturday starting early in the morning. Check your local listings.

Ok, it's Anime, and that's nice, but I don't usually like that. This one, however, would be difficult to do any other way. So, if you like fairy tales, check it out!

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I bought a lot of sock yarn over the internet to make some socks for Christmas presents. The color wasn't bad, but not anywhere as wonderful as the sample looked on my computer screen. This may have been partially my screen that was to blame, but I don't think so. I was disappointed, but I made the socks.

I felt bad about it, though, and saw a great sale on sock yarn and thought I'd buy some really great yarn and make some socks in addition to the ones I already made.

All right, I know that that would make them late, but I haven't gotten to see anyone I made Christmas presents for yet, so at this point, it doesn't make a difference.

So, I sent to Mary Maxim to buy some of their Aloe sock yarn in Sahara (for the presents) and blue (for some socks for me). Well, it all arrived, and I love the sock yarn for me, but the replacement yarn I got is horrible!

The sample of Sahara yarn in their catalog and on the internet looks interesting:

It looks pretty, doesn't it. But the real yarn has the parts that look lavender in the photo looking more like pink. The lime green that you can barely see in the photo is very prominent in the yarn. The stuff in the photo that looks like a sand color seems to be totally missing in the yarn I got. There is some navy blue, which I would think would help, but it hasn't got a hope of mitigating the ugliness of the other colors. I'm going to have to talk to them tomorrow about returning it. I just plonked it down in front of my keyboard and took a photo. Here's what it looks like:

They just don't look alike to me.

The blue yarn for my socks is beautiful! Here's what it looks like:

That photo looks just a little washed out.

More news as it develops.

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I've recently found a website called Knitting Paradise. The main part of it seems to be a forum, and it's really addictive. You have to sign up and be a member to post anything, but it's free. They send you an email every day with a link to the main forums and the top subjects. If you comment on a subject, you'll get emails every time someone else has something to say on the topic. If you comment a lot, you can be snowed under with emails. Just so you know what you're signing up for.

A lot of the people who are members are new knitters or don't have a lot of experience. Some of the questions recur at least three times a week. Some of them recur three times per hour.

So, I've decided to make this blog more worthwhile for knitters by answering some of the more popular questions in-depth in individual posts.

So, you're going to start to see my usual posts interspersed with posts on individual knitting topics. For instance, I plan to make my next post about circular needles. They always made perfect sense to me, but from reading the forum, I've realized that it's not as straightforward as I thought for a lot of people.

In the meantime, I hope things are going better for you than they have been for me. Have a great week!


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Happy Winter Solstice!

The Winter Solstice happened very early this morning, right after midnight. Things can only get brighter for the next six months, although it will probably get colder before it starts to get warmer.

From my viewpoint, both of these things can only be good. It hasn't gotten really cold yet, and in spite of having my windows wide open, it's been around 80 degrees in my apartment all day.

I'm about to make myself sound old, but I really am old enough to have seen a change in climate, and I can see that things are getting warmer.

OK, when I was a kid, I lived in, and later right outside Philadelphia, and now I live near Washington DC, but there shouldn't be that much difference in Winter temperatures. By the beginning of December, we would have had at least one snowfall, and it would be cold enough for us to ice skate almost anywhere there was water, except in the channel of the Pennsauken Creek, where there was running water and it didn't freeze. At this point, I still need to keep my windows open in my sauna (which my apartment building manager euphemistically calls "my apartment") to stave off heat stroke.

When I looked for photos of the Winter Solstice on the internet, all I got was photos of snowy landscapes. But if you look out my window, it really doesn't look like that at all.

It rained today! It was all drizzly and warm (not for Summer, but definately for this time of year). Something is seriously out of whack with our weather!

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I hope you've finished getting/making all your Christmas presents! I, personally, am so far behind that I've given up completely, and explained to everyone that this Christmas is such a disaster that only a few people will be getting Christmas presents, and it has nothing to do with how I feel about each individual, it's based on whose present I happened to make first, and I hope I'll do better next year.

I finished up all the stockings I've been making on commission, and delivered the last three today only to discover that there's a dispute about the date on one of the stockings. Although I put the date I was told to put on it, it may not be the right one. I can fix it, but I'm waiting on confirmation of the date before I do that.

So, the stockings aren't completely done.

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If you're up for it, you can track Santa and what he's up to via NORAD!

I just realized that my former Christmas countdown at the bottom of the page is no longer working, and have replaced it with a temporary countdown timer. I'll get a better one in there soon, but in the meantime, at least you can see how much time is left.

And to get you in the Christmas spirit, here's something that's been wandering around the internet so long that nobody can remember where it came from, but it's a lot of fun:

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all around me
Was unfinished knitting not under the tree.
The stockings weren’t hung by the chimney with care
’cause the heels and the toes had not a stitch there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds
but I had not finished the caps for their heads.
Dad was asleep; he was no help at all,
And the sweater for him was six inches too small.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I put down my needles to see what was the matter.
Away to the window, I flew like a flash,
Tripped over my yarn and fell down with a crash.

The tangle of yarn that lay deep as the snow
Reminded me how much I still had to go.
Out on my lawn, I heard such a noise,
I thought it would wake both dad and the boys.

And though I was tired, my brain was a bit thick,
I knew in a moment, it must be Saint Nick.
But what I heard then left me perplexed-ed,
For not a name I heard was what I had expected
“move, Ashford; move, Lopi; move, Addie and Clover
Move, Reynolds; move, Starmore; move, Fraylic–move over”
“Paton, don’t circle round; stand in line.

Come now, you sheep wool work just fine!
I know this is hard semi, it’s just your first year,
I’d hate to go back to eight tiny reindeer.”
I peered over the sill; what I saw was amazing,
Eight woolly sheep on my lawn all a’grazing.


And then,in a twinkle, I heard at the door
Santa’s feet coming across the porch floor.
I rose from my knees and got back on my feet,
And as I turned round, Saint Nick, I did meet.

He was dressed all in wool from his head to his toe
And his clothes were handknit from above to below.
A bright Fairisle sweater he wore on his back,
and his toys were all stuffed in an Aran knit sack.
His cap was a wonder of bobbles and lace,
A beautiful frame for his rosy red face.

The scarf round his neck could have stretched for a
mile,
And the socks peeking over his boots were Argyle.
The back of his mittens bore an intricate cable,
And suddenly on one I spied a small label.
SC was duplicate stitched on the cuff,
and I asked “Hey Nick, did you knit all this stuff?”

He proudly replied “Ho-ho-ho, yes I did,
I learned how to knit when I was a kid.”
He was chubby and plump, a quite well-dressed old man,
And I laughed to myself for I’d thought up a plan.

I flashed him a grin and jumped up in the air,
And the next thing he knew he was tied to a chair.
He spoke not a word, but looked in his lap
Where I’d laid my needles and yarn for a cap.

He quickly began knitting, first one cap then two;
For the first time I thought I’d really get through.
He put heels on the stockings and toes in some socks
While I sat back drinking Scotch on the rocks!!

So quickly like magic, his needles they flew,
That he was all finished by quarter to two.
He sprang for his sleigh when I let him go free,
And over his shoulder he looked back at me.
And I heard him exclaim as he sailed past the moon
“Next year start your knitting sometime around June.”

-Author Unknown

And here's a little something for Christmas. Check out how to put a twisted fringe on the side or in the middle of something you're knitting here ! This is really cool!

If I don't get a chance to blog before then, have the best Christmas ever!


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Today's Lunar Eclipse

I had intended to blog about this before the event, but didn't realize it was this morning instead of tonight. But since it was best viewed from Asia, most people one the East coast wouldn't get a great view of it anyway.

You can see some spectacular photos of the event here, along with information about the eclipse including links to other sites. NASA's Lunar Eclipse page has more information about this and other eclipses as well as general eclipse information.

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Most of my time has been taken up lately by two things: Finishing the last three Christmas stockings for the commission I'm working on, and finishing the cover of the third Steve Canyon on DVD, plus the slipcover for all three DVDs for people who bought all three. You can see the art, and simulations of the art at the link.

But. I have been doing a little knitting for a new design. I showed this photo in my last post.

I have since finished the whole scarf, and even darned in the myriad ends, but haven't taken a photo yet. It turned out beautifully, though, and I'm reknitting it in a better yarn with a few small modifications, mostly in relationships of sizes and spaces of various parts of the scarf. It has a braided section near each end, making it look rich and gloriously understated. This cries out for cashmere or mohair for a luxurious scarf. It's not what you usually think of as a Celtic Braid, but it really is. And, being a scarf, it's reversible! I hate it when scarves aren't reversible!

And I finally got together the money for a newer computer, which is a nice little laptop iBook (G4). It's not new, but is a big upgrade from the computer I have. I also obtained the software I need to lay out and make PDF files of knitting patterns, so this pattern may be available soon. It's possible I'll also redo my free patterns as PDFs, too.

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Some people have been bemoaning the fact that the Home and Garden and the DIY Networks have pretty much stopped showing craft shows and are only showing home improvement. I can understand it for HGTV, but for DIY, it's inexcusable!

I recently discovered that one of the local PBS stations has more than their original UHF broadcast station and on one of the new, HD stations they broadcast, they show Knitting Daily and Beads, Baubles and Jewels.

A lot of Knitting Daily is stuff I already know, but there are some unexpected gems thrown in there, even for experienced, skilled knitters. One of those gems taught me to do a twisted German cast-on, which is a much stretchier cast on, and almost makes a small rolled edge that I think is very pretty, and so I'm using it for a lot of things. If you want to learn that, you'll have to record all the shows until it comes around again, and then play that part of the show, back and forth until you catch on to what they're doing. At least I did.

The other show, Beads, Baubles and Jewels, has reawakened my desire to make silver jewelry. I used to have a business (Maxwell's Silver Hammer) and made a meager living making silver jewelry. The show is great because although it shows the usual beading techniques, it also shows some very advanced and sophisticated silver work involving torches and other advanced equipment!

I want to buy some silver and a torch!

I've been restraining myself, but I have bought some jewelry pliers and some charms to make stitch markers from. They've been mailed to me and should arrive any day now. In fact, they could be downstairs waiting for me to pick them up on Monday. Packages can be delivered to my apartment building, but we can't pick them up except during office hours.

Anyway, I bought some good quality jewelry pliers at a highly discounted price. They're especially engineered to be ergonomic, and especially designed to fit women's hands, although I think they'd work fine for guys, too. The handles are longer to give you more leverage (like the really expensive ones), and therefore stress your hands less, and the handles are shaped to make the business end at a more ergonomic, comfortable angle to work with. And, on top of that, they're even pretty! I love good tools! They can make or break your work.

Here are photos of three that I ordered: First the round nose pliers .

And needlenose pliers . These also have a cutter in them!

And a pair of longnose pliers .

And if these turn out as great as I hope they do, I want to order the three-in-one pliers . This looks like it would be very handy. Sort of an improvement on rosary pliers.

They also have two different cutters that I can't decide between.

Supplies are important, and they wind up being the finished product, so if you skimp on them, you don't have as good a project as you otherwise might, but tools are forever. You'll use them over and over again and they have the power to make your projects shine, or make them look like they were made by someone who didn't know what they were doing.

I also ordered some charms, and some knitters I know may get some stitch markers for Christmas. If I can part with any of them. I'm even thinking about checking out the jewelry making magazines.

Well, all this hasn't even arrived yet, so there will be a lot more to write about.

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In the meantime, The Holiday is on, and it may be my favorite Christmas movie. I'm recording it, but I have so much to do that I haven't been doing that I need to stop writing and get something done so I can watch it again. It will be on again between now and Christmas if you want to catch it. Just check your local listings, and the 21st keeps running through my head as a date that it will be on. No guarantees, but you could start looking there.

Only 15 days until Christmas!

If you're making presents, better get moving!

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Happy December!

Happy December!

Here's a reminder: If you scroll down, there's a countdown to Christmas at the bottom of this page.You can find out how much time you have before those presents have to be ready.

I finally have a photo of a knitting project that I can actually post! In other words, it's not a Christmas present that the person it's for can see it and ruin the surprise, and it's not another Christmas stocking that's exactly like all the others except for the name and date on it.

This struck me as a good idea, and I've been knitting it in between all the other things I'm doing. The photo shows a project that still has ends to darn in, but I think you'll get the idea that it's going to be a really neat scarf.

In case you're curious, that scarf is actually braided.

I plan to write a pattern for it, and also for a hat and a set of mitts/mittens to match.

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I know I haven't been writing much lately, but that should improve a bit with the new year.

I've been working on a commission for Christmas stockings like the ones I did a few years ago. It's getting down to the wire on Christmas things and there's a lot to knit on them. They're all colorwork, and there are SO many ends to darn in! Not to mention having to consult a chart every few stitches! So, they're really slow going!

In addition to that, we're getting to the end of the Steve Canyon on TV DVDs, and there's suddenly the slipcase to do, and the third cover to finish. A lot of the work on the third cover was done a while ago, but I have a photo to colorize for it, and all the finishing touches (at this point) for the slipcase.

And now I have to get back to work on it all.

Have a great week!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your Thanksgiving is the best one ever!

If you haven't checked out the Panopticon, do so now! Franklin is always fun!

I've been thinking about all the things I have to be thankful for. I'm going to leave out a lot of them, because they sound too much like complaints, not thanksgiving.

But here are some things I can be unreservedly thankful for:

• New, 19 inch LCD TV this year!
• I got a Samsung Galaxy Tab this year!
• It looks like I'm going to be finished with the Steve Canyon on DVD covers and slipcase before the end of the year! It was fun to do, but I'll be glad when it's finished.
• I have a commission to knit Christmas stockings, and it looks like I'm going to have another commission to knit more stockings, which could earn me enough money to get a refurbished Mac laptop! This seems to be the year of technology.
• After three years of Social Security that hasn't gone up at all, while prices of the things I need soared, SS has decided to give me an increase of $4 per month. The thing that's good about that is that they made it retroactive to 2007, and they're giving me all the extra that I should have been getting in a lump sum of $240 in January along with my regular payment!
• I'm reasonably healthy, as long as I take care of myself, and can still walk around, even if it does hurt.
• I discovered a local yarn store in my area (Yarn Cloud), which had been there for a while, but I didn't know it. They have great stuff!
• I discovered Chiaogoo lace needles, the best ones in the world, and bought a batch of them!

I'm sure I'll think of more things to be thankful for!

I have to go. I want to finish up the current batch of stockings for tomorrow so that I can get paid for them!

Have a great weekend!

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Happy Veteran's Day!

 Happy Veteran's Day!

I hope you've been having a happy Veteran's Day! I intended to post something for it earlier in the day, but I've been so exhausted the past few weeks and especially yesterday.

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Since I live in HUD subsidized housing for senior citizens and disabled people, November is time for our yearly inspections.

Since I have some environmental allergies, I asked about air conditioning before signing my lease, and they lied, or at least made it sound like the apartment's environmental conditions were completely different than they actually are.

The result is that I was sick for about 50% of the first year I was here and the time I've spent sick has been longer every year. About a month ago, after four courses of antibiotics (this year), and an emergency room visit (which cost Medicare about $3,000!) I finally got to be reasonably well, about two weeks before they shut off the air conditioning again. I've had some high temperatures in my apartment and my choice was between heat stroke with the windows shut (it's been 110 degrees in my apartment with the windows open) or an allergic reaction that's likely to give me severe sinus congestion with a high probability of another infection that could have me taking antibiotics again for another year or more.

There are no good answers here, except getting a portable air conditioner, which the manager strictly forbids, no matter how sick it makes tenants.

So, I'm coming up on nearly two years of feeling like I have flu almost nonstop.

The result is that my apartment is not as neat as I would like it to be, so I've been cleaning.

Inspection was on Thursday, early in the morning (when I'm usually so sick I'm still asleep). I was really, really afraid that they'd evict me, but, to my great relief, I passed the inspection.

I don't want to talk about this anymore, though, because it's just too depressing.

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In the meantime, I'm doing some minor art to be printed for a friend who is actually going to pay me for it later in the month! And, as if that weren't good enough news, I also have a commission to knit some Christmas stockings, plus they're adding on a few extra, which will boost the total amount I get for that.

So, I've been pretty busy.

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Tuesday, I ached all over from my exposure to ragweed, but I went out and voted anyway. I felt like somebody had beaten me up by the time I got home! The bus stop I used is right next to a thrift store, and I went in because I had a long wait until the next bus.

One of the neat things they had was a small wing-back chair. Now that I know I'm not going to be evicted (at least not for another year), I plan to go back tomorrow to see if it's still there. I really hope so. It's comfy, and the arm rests don't bash my elbows like my current chair. I really hope nobody else has bought it before I get the chance!

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As far as knitting stuff is concerned, I've been knitting Christmas stockings on commission, and Christmas presents, which I can't show here. So, I'm very boring as far as knitting goes, and probably will be for a while.

But I hope you've been doing some great knitting and I wish you a fabulous weekend!

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