Wheeeeeeeeeee

Saw the surgeon yesterday - surgery is on Thursday. He gave me stronger hydrocodone to last me till then, and yeah, I can tell it's stronger, just look at all the pretty colors!!

I finally finished something (other than I need to tuck the ends). The first clapotis is done, and I love it! I've started the second one for my SiL, and the colors are just gorgeous. I'm using some DK weight from Cherry Tree Hill that Dan helped me pick out.

I'm glad the pattern is easy to memorize and do the repeats - I'm so whacked out I'm not sure I could do anything more complicated.

This week is so fired

It's not been a good week, to put it mildly. I spent a few hours in the ER Wednesday night, with some serious pain. ER doc thought it was my gall bladder, called surgeon, told me to get an ultrasound today (they don't have a tech on at night, how weird is that?!).

Got the ultrasound done, talked to the surgeon tonight. Ultrasound is normal, of course. *headdesk*

I've had issues with right side pain for well over 20 years, on and off. The pain that started Wednesday night, however, is the worst it's ever been, as well as the longest time it's hung around. The morphine they gave me last night helped a lot, the hydrocodone I'm taking now isn't helping nearly as much.

So anyway, we talked to the surgeon about the history, and we all decided that removing my gall bladder is a good idea at this point. But we need to make sure we give the insurance company whatever information they'll need to cover it (as in do we need to do further tests, etc). I'm supposed to call the surgeon's office tomorrow to make an appointment for Monday and to start the ball rolling on the insurance stuff. The hard part will be that Dan has to go to school on Monday, so I have to schedule my appointment around that, since I'm not going to be in any shape to drive.

More than likely surgery will be Tuesday or Wednesday.

Of course, this is sucking for work. Yes, I work from home, but I need to be in better mental shape and not in pain to work. I don't know how much PTO I have, and since I'm hourly if I don't work and I don't have PTO I don't get paid. *sigh*

We were just finishing digging out from the unemployment period. Figures.

So anyway, I'm trying to figure out if I can actually knit while impaired. I'm working on the clapotis right now, since that's a fairly simple repeat pattern. I'm not going to seam more of the hoodie, since I want those seams to look good, and it's the first time I've seamed something up in a long time.

And all this is on top of some other health news I got yesterday that I'm not ready to talk about yet.

Sheesh!!

I'm almost done

Have I mentioned that I've never actually completed a knitting project yet?

*waits for the laughter to die down*

No, really, I haven't. Until I started on the projects I've documented here, all I've done were scarves that bored me to death to the point I frogged them or hid them in the closet.

All I have left on the hoodie is some seaming and 3 rows of knitting I can't do till I seam the hood. Given that I woke up at 4am for no good reason and I'm a bit fuzzy, I've put it aside for tomorrow or Saturday to finish.

While working on the clapotis, Dan asked if I would make one for his mom, too. So I just ordered that yarn. The one I'm working on is over half done.

I've been flipping through the projects on Ravelry to see what else I want to make for holiday gifts. I want to use some of my stash yarn, so the fact that I can search based on type of project and weight of yarn really rocks.

And tonight I have a sleep study, so to entertain myself after I get there I'm taking my knitting. Given that, I probably will be brain dead tomorrow (and might take tomorrow afternoon off work) I'm thinking the seaming will be on Saturday.

Yesterday men in trucks came and cleaned up our front beds. They were a complete and utter mess, weedy, unkempt. Dan and I hate yardwork, and it showed. Since we're going to sell the house in the spring, we decided to get it landscaped now to give the plants time to establish themselves. I think they did a great job. We'll have them back in the spring for touchups.

Hello, hello again

Am still here, just been busy. I have made wondrous progress on the hoodie, only one and a half sleeves to go plus seaming. It's going along better since I got my KnitPicks Options set. I got the nickel-plated tips for now, but I will probably get some Harmony tips, too. The yarn is sliding a lot easier on them than it was on the Denise set.






I know it's a little hard to see the detail, I suck at pictures. But that's the body and the hood, with the sleeve on the side.

I've also made good progress on the Clapotis. I'm on the straight part, and I have the pattern repeats down so it's somewhat of a mindless knit. The hoodie is top priority right now (the kid is growing, after all) but the Clapotis will be finished next.



The color is a bit off in this picture, it's better in the following one:



I've been adding tons of sock patterns to my Ravelry queue, because once I get all the holiday knitting done I'm going to make myself some socks. I have the yarn, after all ;-)

And I love knitting during conference calls. Since all of my meetings are via phone, I get a lot done. Most days I have at least one meeting, and there are very few of them that I have to give my whole attention to.

That was fun!

I flew out to LA last Thursday to visit a friend. I won't say to meet her, because I've known her for several years, but we hadn't actually ever seen each other in the flesh before. I had no trouble recognizing her at the airport, though.

We spent a large portion of our time playing with fiber - she spun roving, which fascinated me, and I worked on Mom's clapotis. I also had some animal time, since she has 4 cats and a dog. I don't get any animal time at home, since Dan's allergic to pet dander, so I take advantage of friends' pets whenever I can. I was warned that the 2 kittens really like fiber a lot, so I took a zippered bag to hold my project bags.

I needed help with an increase technique that I hadn't done before - it wasn't hard, but I wanted to see someone do it, and the video on Knittinghelp didn't help a lot. And I watched her spin and asked inane questions as she made a gorgeous yarn from some red/pink/black roving.

And Rainy introduced me to Deadwood. Yummmmm. And took me shopping at her LYS, A Mano Yarn Center, where she forced me to buy TOFUutsies and Trekking. You would not believe the arm twisting that took! Really!! When I have some time I'll take pictures of the pretty pretty sock yarn I bought.

It was a very fun and relaxing visit.

I'm bad

See, there is a sock designer whose patterns I really like. They're available at The Loopy Ewe, and since you get free shipping at the Loopy Ewe when you buy enough of course I couldn't just get those patterns, I need to get some yarn too.

Then I realized that I don't have the needles I need to make the socks - I don't have any 0s or 1s, and I prefer circs since Magic Loop rocks my world. And, of course, the cords on the circs at Knit Picks are wonderful for Magic Loop, so I had to order from there (and again there's free shipping when you buy enough) and they added cool wooden circs recently so of course I had to get some of them, too.

*sigh*

Then Sheri had to add more of Wendy's patters to the Ewe. And there's one pattern that is just *perfect* for a surprise I want to make a friend. Perfect. Really. And, again, I had to get enough to make free shipping....

I'm really glad I have a job again.

Whoo-hoo!

I've been slacking about posting lately, but it's for a good reason - I have a new job! I didn't talk about it up here much, but I unexpectedly found myself in need of a new position back in July, and from that disaster I found something that is going to work out so well in many ways.

One of the really good things is that I'm working from home on a regular basis. I will be traveling to 3 different data centers occasionally, but for the most part I will be in my home office.

The other really good thing is that Dan and I can relocate to Lafayette, which will make his school commute a lot better. Right now he's driving about 2.5 hours a day back and forth. Cutting that out of the day will give him so much more time for other things, including sleep :-)

But on to the fibery goodness!

I've been working steadily on the hoodie. The back is complete, I'm working on the front now:




Switching to the Shine yarn has made a HUGE difference and it's working up very nicely.

I've also been working on the girls' armwarmers. I've switched which set is going to which girl, after getting Mom's input. I had to frog one that I'd bound off when I realized that I'd left out a HUGE section during the increases. D'oh!

I was going to post more, but apparently I have a migraine coming on, so more later.

I should have known better

I will admit I was a bit worried about using the KnitPicks Crayon yarn, given its texture. But, hey, I know how to read stuff, right?

Not knitting. I've crocheted for years, but at knitting I really am still a n00b.

After several weeks of frustration, I've frogged it. 7 inches of stockinette.

I ordered some KnitPicks Shine to replace it. Still going with red.

I'll make something for Dan from the Crayon at some point. Later. Maybe I'll even crochet it.

On the other hand, I've made real progress on both sets of armwarmers. I've cast on the second set (so I'm working on the first one of both sets) and I really like how the colors are working together.

I'll post new pictures later.

Mail yarny goodness!

I got my order from The Loopy Ewe today - 2 skeins of cashwool laceweight that's just gorgeous, and 5 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport to make a clapotis for my mom for Christmas - I had to, the colorway name is her name :-) I still need to figure out what modifications I need to make since I'm using sport weight instead of worsted. I might just start on it and see what I think of the results using the specified needle size.

And after not getting what I ordered from Knit2purl2, I have to find some special yarn for the friend elsewhere - it's really hard to find the specific colorway in stock. I bet, though, if I check the yarn store in Lafayette they might have it, since technically it's in Purdue's colors....

Progress!

Here's part of the present I'm making. It's more red than it seems to be - I'm using KnitPicks Crayon. It's coming along well, other than the mind-numbing stockinette.














I'm also working on armwarmers for my nieces for Christmas. I've had some somewhat started and had to frog it. I just cast it back on and haven't gotten very far yet. It's made with Lime & Violet Sasquatch sock yarn. The one for the older one is in hydrocodone.











The colorway for the younger one is vicodin. The names were inspired by Miss Violet's trip to the ER for migraines - there was a whole series of medication-related named yarns :-D