Nessa, knitting, nothing much else

Okay, there was a little "n" thing going on in the title.

Nessa has been under the weather since last Tuesday. She stopped eating. This is the little girl who hasn't met a food she doesn't like, so this was a HUGE indicator that something was wrong with her. Noticed she was running a fever, found some homeopathic sulfur in the med cabinet and tried that with her. Thought I would give her a day or so to see if she would bounce back. Well Thursday she still wasn't eating and still running a fever. Brandon wanted me to see Dr. Ulbrich at Holistic Pet Vet Clinic over going to the local allopathic doctor. Since he is the main breadwinner, I went with his option. They unfortunately weren't able to get us in until Friday afternoon. She was running a temp of 104.7. No vomiting, was drinking water, and some diarrhea. Dr. U wanted to take blood and also took a fecal sample (tiny as it was). No parasites showed up in the sample, but her blood was dark and thick, showing that she was a little dehydrated.

While waiting for Will to finish his written test for his permit (finally), Dr. U called back saying that she had over 31,000 white blood cells running around (high average is 15) and that she is clearly fighting off some type of infection. Her thyroid and kidneys were also showing low so he wanted to get her an antibiotic and support for both of those. So after Will gets his permit we swing by HPVC to pick up the new supply of meds and head home. Do you know how much fun it is trying to get 12 different meds down a dog that doesn't want you to? Thankfully they had also given me a couple of syringes so that I could get the pedialyte and beef broth into and so they helped ease the way of the capsules and pills and powdered stuff.

Saturday I did get out of the house while the D&D game was going on. I met Camille at the Fairgrounds MAX stopped and we talked our way to Knit Purl for another night of inventory work. Another $20 on my gift card and I'm back up to $24. Camille splurged and bought some gorgeous (not just because I helped) Shibuiknits Silk Cloud - silk and mohair. She plans to make them into a shawl. I'm saving mine. I think though I have found what I'd like to get with the addition of another $20 - some Habu Textiles Bamboo lace weight. Two skeins of it and I'd be set for the Cleopatra shawl in my queue, plus some leftover for another project...

Just spent some time doing an added benefit for me in my queue - making sure that my notes all have the type of yarn and yardage needed. That way its an easy scan, not a 'must look up first'. Okay, it was a distraction because of looking for yarns and projects that could be supplemented with the Gemini birthday gift swap. But it's how I found the bamboo lace weight. I will hopefully work another shift of inventory at Knit-Purl to help buy it too. I can also then pick up what I've outlined for my giftee in Denmark.

I need to get started on a sock. That way I can participate in Blue Moon's Inexplicable Knitting Behavior contest. They call it a Scavenger Hunt, but it's not like we'll actually find items at the locations, we have to take photos of our sock at those locations.

My recent photos are here. Yarn and finished projects are in the April 2008 albums.

Organization and projects

I spent a surprising amount of time (really though? It is Ravelry after all...) organizing my queue against what I have in my stash. In an effort to make sure that all stash is optimally planned for an intended project. So my queue has matches against all things stored in the stash. I still have many projects in the queue that don't have yarns yet, so that helps with future shopping.

I cast on this afternoon my Muench Touch Me for the Velvet Oblivion eye mask. I really, really love my eye masks for sleeping. Sure I have the light blocking curtains but just that little bit of light that can come shining in can cause a loss of a few hours more of sleep. ;^) Because it was going to deal with a stitch holder I didn't want to mess with bringing it on MAX.

For the ride down to Knit/Purl I brought Tudora. 112 stitches to cast on, while Brandon's talking to me and asking me to look at things outside the windows. It took a couple of attempts. ;^) I did get one row done and started half way through a second by the time we got to our stop. We arrived just a couple of minutes late, but in time to get started to work immediately.

I got to see Camille and put a real face on Carissa. Camille and I had taken a hemp market bag class together last summer at The Knitting Bee. Carissa I met online through Ravelry. We were soon busy fondling yarn balls as we pulled them out and put them back away after they were inventoried. It was a quick two hours of work with twelve people. We had five us working together as a team, Pat made up our fifth. We did the Jamieson Shetland line, their Cascades, and their Collinettes. I had thought it was for a $10 gift certificate each. Turns out it was $20 per hour. So ended up with $40 in store credit. I scored a couple of rovings and two skeins of Shibui sock yarn in a gorgeous purple color that Brandon picked out. There was also the pizza afterwards too. Then Camille walked with us to the MAX and we had fun chatting about various things on the ride to our stops.

If help is needed next Saturday, I'll definitely be going. I still have $4 in store credit and could get enough to buy another two skeins of sock yarn, though I might buy it for making a 'clap-jean', combination of clapotis and jeannie. Off to work on my Velvet....but first, find out what Harry Potter character I am.

More on yarn and authors

It's amazing how you can get tongue tied when talking to someone in person that you admire. One of the things I meant to tell Lili when I gave her the herringbone cuff is that she kind of inspired me to explore the world of knitting. I think she had mentioned it a few times on her blog, she's had the cool yarn avatar on her blog too. So I tried out knitting again and it stuck. Brandon's happy about that too because he'd been wanting me to get into it for a while now.

So when I gave Lili the cuff she was noticing how it was created and we talked a bit about yarn. I told her about Yarnia, and she said that we'd have to try it out together sometime. Both our budgets allowing of course. ;^) The funny thing is there had been a conversation just before this about 'Narnia' so it was a little confusing to get wrapped around Yarnia.

Wonder if Lili has thought about getting signed up with Ravelry yet?

A bunch of local area Ravelry members will be headed to Knit-Purl Saturday evening to help with stocking. Their normal staff consist of a large number of college students who are going through finals and paper writing. They still need to add/shift stock around so decided to try this out as a method to get it done. Those who help out get reimbursed with a $10 gift certificate that can be used that night as well as pizza.

I'm either going to get some Jamieson of Shetland skeins (only $5 each on sale) or a combination of some rovings - they have a Blue Face Silver for $8.25 and some Habu Textiles Corriedale in purple and green tea that are $4.25. If I can swing it I'll get all three.