Days 5, 6, 7 & 8 and a Bead Faire

So days 5 and 6 found me with a migraine after working in the morning. They were muscle triggered. I had a muscle group in my right shoulder that were triggering pain up my neck into my head. So not your typical migraine but they weren't going away with massage or the use of a vicodin. So there wasn't even knitting going on those days.

Days 7 and 8 I got the last of the Habu Romney and Corriedale all spun up. They are currently drying in skeins. Yup! I even have them plied. The Green Tea Corriedale doesn't have much, but then since I was only working with 1/2 an ounce, I'm happy with what I got. I still need to measure to see how much yardage/wpi I have.

I took this:


and the two on the right of this:


along with all of this, all plied (but forgot to take a picture of that!):


and then found that some of it wasn't plied together correctly because I re-plied it all together to get this:


They are all washed to set the twist and drying on my swift as what will be one skein of yarn. Okay, it will be a most interesting skein what with the color in the middle along with the white twist, but should make an good hat, if there's enough yardage. Will need to see how much combining the bits and pieces all together gets me.

Brandon and I went to the Bead show in May when it was at the Washington County Fairgrounds. We had paid $5 each to get in and they gave us coupons to get in free to the next show. The next show is this weekend at the Portland Convention Center. We hoped on MAX yesterday afternoon and went to check things out. I had a few things in mind, but nothing set in stone. I used my time on MAX to start another Chinese Wave Dishcloth. I worked on it there and back and had 90% of it done to show for my time on the ride. Here it is:


I picked up some magnet clasps so I can use for two projects (anklet and something else). I also found a pretty curve carved rose quartz massage wand for only $6. Previous tables had just plain rose quartz wands for $15, so an awesome deal! No pics of it, sorry, enough of those already. ;^)

Day 9 will see me breaking out my Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester sliver to start spinning that. After all it is all that is left in my stash! I have hopes for a really fine spin and ply for these two bundles. I'm going to go slow and put in a lot of effort to get that, so there may not be lots of progress unless things go well.

Days 3 & 4 and more

Day three of Tour de Fleece I tried out another one of the new drop spindles. Not a lot put onto the spindle though. I just couldn't seem to get into a flow. I did finish all dishcloths though. Photos are up in Flickr and updated at Ravelry.

I also put in a couple rows on block 15 of the Cascade Lizard Ridge afghan. It's one of the blocks that I've actually 'tried' to do a color scheme with. I started out with my greens and flowed into blues and will end with the yellows. I'll probably do something similar with the purples.

Day four of Tour de Fleece I thought to try something other than the corriedale. I remembered I had some romney left of the little sample I picked up at Knit/Purl. I used that all up. So tomorrow it will be back to finishing up the corriedale.



More work tonight on blocks, finish 15 and start 16.

Yesterday afternoon I also found out that the job I interviewed for went to someone else. It was a 'Media Assistant' position for a new elementary school in Cornelius. It would have used my degree, but wasn't meant to be. The principal had suggested at the beginning of the interview that she had another full-time position that she thought I might be good for. I'm not sure if that was a subtle code for, I have someone else that I'll probably have to hire because they are already in district, but would like to hire you. We'll have to see when that other position comes up.

Day two of the new summer position working with developmentally delayed kids in the morning. I think one of the boys came to school with a slight cold because I came home yesterday with a sore throat, fell asleep on the couch and went to read in bed and fell asleep there too. Day seemed to go by quicker today too. Day is three and a half hours before noon Monday through Thursday, so short days.

I've started Damien, book four by Jacquelyn Frank and for some reason just having a hard time getting into the story. Thankfully, it is a library book. Brandon is finally reading the Jim Butcher book, Small Favors. It's one I'm looking forward to reading also. I may just bounce over to Kelly Armstrong's Personal Demon, since it too has been collecting dust as it gets bounced in the queue for library books.

Need to go do some dishes, cook dinner and get back to the knitting...

Day 2

Day 2 of Tour de Fleece and I finally have some spinning done!

My migraine is better today. I worked on the drop spindles - little steel wool on the finish then a quick wipe with the stain again. Let them dry. Brandon drilled little holes for the paper clip hooks that I made for them. Also added end caps to make them look nice. I still need to take pictures.

I had gotten some corriedale from Knit/Purl that I originally planned to send off to my Gemini swap person. Since the Habu really wasn't local, I opted instead to send some nice handmade chocolates that were made by Moonstruck. Still need to post pics of what I got and what was sent....

I pre-drafted the corriedale and have some of it spun. The drop spindle I was using seemed to work well. Very light! It seemed to have good spin. It's a little warm in here and the wool was making me warmer so before I started to felt things, I put it aside. I'll take photos tomorrow.

I finished two dishcloths for my swap, started another one too. I also hope to get over to the ceramics shop by The Knitting Bee this week to see how much a coffee mug would cost and how long it would take to get done. Stitch markers will of course be the easy part for me. She said no chocolate because of the melt factor.

I'll also need to get back to work on the Cascade Lizard Ridge. Hopefully these little projects will have been enough of a break to help me over this hump towards the end. When I check out the ceramics shop, I also hope to pick up the two skeins to do the binding for the blanket.

Did I share a link to the blue face? Mine looks like the blue-green up front. I have two of them. Still leaning towards getting this from Sharon too.

Notice I have the projects progress bars going? Got that working the other night working around the migraine. Took longer because of that to see that the code had an extra bracket that shouldn't have been there. You do have to be a Ravelry member to click the links and get more details, but you can click the button and sign up.

Talked to mom yesterday about starting her own business making liners for felted bags. Apparently this is a huge thing over the Bags, Bags, Bags forum. Someone paid a tailor $50 to have one made. Towards the end of the week when the budget can handle it, I'll ship her my tote that needs a liner to give her an example of what people are making and want linings for. Also suggested she become a Ravelry member so she can get connected. She hadn't signed up earlier but hopefully soon. Drawback will be her seeing my project page if I work on a project for her. So won't be able to use names sometimes. I know I'm not the only one with this as a problem. ;^)

worst day for a migraine

Today has got to be one of the worst ones for having a migraine. Neighbors letting off noisy ear drum piercing fireworks, okay they've been pretty good and with dusk starting it's starting to get noisy.

I think though with full dark and the neighborhood display that I will go back to the bedroom and continue reading Kim Harrison's Outlaw Demon Wails. The flash of fireworks would not set well and since I have also been strangely nauseous today with the migraine, not something I want to unbalance further.

Migraine does not equal knitting. Too difficult to concentrate well on stitches. Sigh. I also haven't done any of the planned work on my drop spindles so I can start trying them out for Tour de Fleece.

Speaking of Tour de Fleece, yesterday I must have had the precursor for my migraine because I totally missed that it goes through the month of July. I was thinking it was only three days. Oh well, this does allow me to improve. I have my two slivers and I've checked - Stitch Jones has at least one or two rovings that I like the colors of and she's local. I can arrange to drive over and pick one or two up. I could also get a hold of Carrissa Marie for one of hers too. Her punk pink and purple/black looks cool.

Dogs and I are off to the back bedroom....

Tour de Fleece!

I have had some drop spindles just waiting for a hook to finish them. I even have sliver waiting to be used. What a nice alternative to starting a big project, something that I can do for bursts at a time and have fun doing.

There's a couple of days before it starts, July 5th. Anyone want to join in on the fun? Click on the image in the right bar and you can view the website and join up with Katherine.

It follows the Tour de France time line of July 5th - 27th.

ETA: oh yea, this is all The Yarn Harlot's fault. ;^) I'm doing this even though I donated to Claudia's MS Bike Ride from reading her blog and didn't win any of the fabulous prizes. I do have the satisfaction of knowing I helped contribute to a great cause. (My 'uncle' died from MS.) Wonder if this will be like the yarn/pattern runs she causes? ;^)

Lizard Ridge Progress

Sigh. I've just completed block 14. That means I only have 6 more to make and then I can start the task of piecing it all together. After it's all pieced together and I learn how to do the mattress stitch, it will still need to have it's border. I'm leaning toward the mitered border that some people have done. I think I'll need to get one skein for the border, two if I do a multicolor. Leaning towards one though.

I've enjoyed this as a project, but I'm ready for it to all be done too. I want to do something new. Resisting casting on a new project is difficult. I'm going to do that tomorrow though. I need to get a few dishcloths done for the dishcloth swap I signed up for. Plus I told Jeanette I'd show her some patterns at knit group tomorrow. So I have a legitimate excuse for starting a new project. ;^)

There are a few dishcloths in my 'Nifty Knit Dishcloth' booklet that haven't been done yet in Ravelry. I feel as volunteer editor for it that I have a responsibility to resolve those gaps. Giggle, yea, right. I just want to try them out. I've done the left twist but haven't done the right twist yet.

Did something today, but don't want to talk about it because it has seemed like every time I have in the past it acts like a jinx and doesn't come through.

Finally!

Norbert and I were out of the house by 10:15 this morning. He had his last check-up for his ear to go through. He's finally clear of bacterial and viral bugs. Dr. Yung was happy because she could see down into his ear. That's the good news.

The bad news is that he doesn't currently have an ear drum, but she says it can grow back. Further bad news is that he has gunk in his middle ear that she would like to see flushed. They don't do that there so he would be referred out. I called to get a ballpark idea of what it would cost - $113 just for office visit to see status of ear and discuss further options. $300 - $1200 to do the flush (higher end I think includes the CT or CAT Scan the doctor may think needed).

The point of this would be to clean out the area that may be a rampant breeding ground for future infections. Norbert has a history of ear infections. I've narrowed it down to an allergy to things like - chicken, and turkey, or animals that have been fed a lot of corn. Yup! Corns on the list too as well as flax seed. I used to try to feed him a raw diet but ran into the issue of trying to find him something that wouldn't cause issues with his ears. So I found a nice high quality kibble that has no grains and has either beef or venison has the main protein source, he also likes the salmon. This can be surprisingly difficult to do because manufacturers slip in various forms of chicken (liver, vitamin E delivered via chicken fat are a couple) narrowing down my choices severely. Yes, I do a thorough reading of the entire contents list. We've settled on the Merrick beef and venison brands. It comes with dried apples, peas and carrots and I can add hot water to make a gravy and soft version to change things up.

If Norbert starts getting more than two or three ear infections in a year, Dr. Yung is going to suggest a TECA (they call it something that sounds like 'teekaboo') surgery. The surgeon was in today and she checked what the cost of that would be - ~$2500. After a little research, I'd check to see if a Lateral, would work for him. Though they don't consider it an option for cocker spaniels (his mother's side of his gene pool).

I received my dishcloth swap partner today. I have until the end of the month to come up with a gift package for someone in Texas, and a $15 suggested limit. Not including postage. Texas is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper to send to than Denmark! I'm looking forward to this, it should be fun. I have a few patterns in mind, need to search for one more and luckily has the same color tastes as I do.

I also found a source for the little devil rubber ducky and pencil toppers that I can make some dpn protectors with. Sure I could go the whole Home Depot route with the wire end cap version, but why not have some fun with the devil ducks? I did find that the Oriental Trading Company has these "Vinyl Neon Monkeys With Putty Eyes. Give ’em a squeeze to make their eyes bulge!" A dozen for only $5.99. Then I did a search on their site with just the word 'vinyl' and the first page has the same kind of thing except with hamburgers....or soccer cows, sailor pigs, bears - beanie wearing or rangers, carnival ducks or dentist ducks...clearly an untapped area of weirdness. I really do like the devil ducks, so will have to get a few of those.

Must get away from computer and get some knitting done. Well that and folding laundry, doing dishes, etc....