Projects Update, April 2016

Finished Objects!

First up is the one with a picture that can be shared. This is the Rain On Notre Dame cowl by ImaginedLandscape on Ravelry and Instagram, Sarah Sircha elsewhere.

The shapes on the left of the bottom picture are the steeples of Notre Dame and the shapes on the right in the bottom picture are of Raindrops on window paines and also stylized Eiffel Tower shapes in the same stitch design.

I also worked on a couple of my own designs. One is a yarn cake holder that can clip to a belt or belt loop with a carbine clip, which I own way too many of those clips for a non mountain climber, they are just so darn useful! And, as a key ring can't be beat, just open the clip and slip off the keys in need. I'm going to switch the hard rings for ribbons or yarn for actually holding the keys on the clip in the next few days. 

WIPS

I'm also working on a hat test knit for dogyarns on Ravelry, Elizabeth Ravenwood elsewhere. I can't share pictures of this one yet as it has not been released, and I'm not quite done with the knitting of the hat. I have a funny story about the knitting of this project.

I went to pick up the project and my cable needle, a fancy toothpick, skewered my mound of the moon on my right hand. OWIE!!! Did that hurt. But, thankfully that is an area with thick skin and the puncture didn't bleed when I finally calmed down enough to pull the toothpick out of my hand. It was my own fault for not dulling the end of the toothpick with an nail file board, and for using the fabric of the hat to hold the needle, as either dulling the end or using a different home for the needle would have prevented the accident. Needless to say, it took a few days for my hand to be comfortable with knitting again. Even without any blood coming out, there is still a bruise in the muscle where the puncture happened.

As a friend said when I told her about learning a lesson about knitting, "Sometimes the lessons stick!" She later amended her reply to mention that she didn't intend any puns, though I was the first person to tell her I thought her reply was funny. 

Frogging Pond, or evidence of creativity in progress!

So, I've been wanting to make the Everyday Hermione Socks for a long time now, and when I saw a pair from The KnitGirls podcast, I knew it was time to start the project. Maybe I misread the directions or something, but it wasn't coming out how I wanted to have the pattern on the leg look, nor what the pictures looked like or the sock from the podcast. So, I frogged that project, and I used the yarn in a plastic canvas coaster. Who says you can't use fingering weight yarn on plastic canvas? Does it have to be heavier yarns all the time? It was fun to break the rules and do whatever for once in a long time. Then, through that I realized that there are no rules in art/crafting and that I can do whatever the hell I want to do with the supplies I've procured. So, refreshing!

I also had been participating in the Sock Madness fun that started in March and had made it into Round 2, but the project and real life just conspired to be too much at the beginning of April, so I frogged that 3/4ths of a sock and removed the beaded cuff gently, so I could reuse the beads too. This was the Rose and Thorn pattern, which is lovely, just not meant to be then. But, I got to reuse this yarn in the Hapiness Shawl I mention in the Designs on the Needles section.

Designs on the Needles

Happiness Shawl.

Like I mentioned above, I wanted to make a pair of socks out of a pretty and popular design on Ravelry, the Everyday Hermione Socks, but I frogged that project since it wasn't what I thought the actual design was going to be. That then led to me using the pattern I thought was in the socks in a shawl I'm designing as a rip off of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Square Shawl from the Knitter's Almanac. This project isn't going to be done soon as it is my passenger in rides project and I have yet to get half way through. This is my Happiness Shawl project.

The first yarn for the Happiness Shawl came from a pair of socks I talk about in the Frogging Pond section, which came from boutrosbabe on Ravelry, or Heather of Highland Handmades on the web. It is fingering weight and herSugar maple base in the I'll Make My Own Sunshine color, which just inspires happiness in me, hence the name of the pattern. The next yarns will be from the Rainbow minis kit from Cauldron's Path on Etsy that I bought many moons ago. This is Shayla's Sunrises base, and the rainbow kit, which has over 300 yards of black with a mini skein in the ROYGBIV colors. The yarn I'm debating about for the edging is the Unwind Yarn Company, Journey Sock base, in the Re-Entry colors. With the addition of the rainbow kit and black, I'm thinking this might interest folks who would like to make a project that is inspired by the solar system, with the ROYGBIV being the orbitals around the sun with black in between the sun and the different colors, and then the multi color at the end to show the complexities of space beyond our own solar system. The red in the Re-Entry yarn also makes me think of the infrared spectrum of noise in space, plus the name screams Space!

I also recycled the wave cast on from the Sock Madness Round 1 pattern, Slip Stitch Spiral, which is a recycling of Cat Bordhi's Footprints cast on, to start the project, only by doing 4 waves instead of three. Then, I worked stockinette for as long as I could with invisible increases at each corner. Then, I used the pattern I thought was in the Everyday Hermione Socks pattern, with all of the excitement on the increase rounds, like Elizabeth Zimmerman mentions in her Square Shawl instructions, not the pithy ones, but the other ones. Then, I got bored of that pattern, so I went to the next step up in difficulty, and that took some puzzling to get the corners right. I actually started using stitch markers for this pattern then. After I'm don't with this, I will add in the rainbow minis and start with a wave style pattern in lace to go from there to the end of the project.

I have some yarn with a lot of the shawl colors mixed into it. I'm thinking of using that to do something on the external edge, maybe a picot bindoff, or something.

This design is heavily inspired by colors and textures.

Yarn Cake Sacks

I'm also designing what started out as playing with yarn, and then progressed to yarn swatching, then went on to a finished object using loads of techniques. The finished objects could be baby hats, or the parts could be stopped at various steps to be a headband as well. But, I added a drawstring to make them into yarn cake holders that can clip to belts or not, and keep the cakes from imploding on themselves on a shelf. These also make good project bags, and yarn based yarn bowls. Extremely, pretty and practical. I'm just charmed by them!

They also make learning advance techniques easy because they are not very big, and I don'tknow about others, but cup cozies just don't do much for me, though they are really pretty too. Just not my cup of tea.

Anyways, hats and bags though are really useful for me, so that's what these are.  I will be sharing more pictures as the release date for the patterns approaches. 

For now, these are inspired by textures and techniques, then color, but that's my way of seeing them, your's may differ!

TaTa for Now, folks!

So what have I been up to?

Let's see!

November was a rough month emotionally. I got really burnt out on life and knitting and crafting wasn't happening. I was doing a lot for everyone else, and not taking good care of myself.

December, was, well, I did want to help decorate for Christmas, but it was still tough. Luckily my family loves me even when I'm not sure I'm lovable.

January was a fresh beginning. I decided to Sort for the House Cup and was with the Ravenclaws again. So, it was back to crafting with a passion. And, life started looking more nice in general.

February was interesting in that I finally felt weird about turning a 4- birthday. I wasn't sure why it struck this year and not the one when I turned 40. But, it did, and I realized that life needed to be funner and that I was tired of living how I'd been living doing a lot for others but not me.

March was a return to some blahness, and not because of the weather, which was awesome and way too warm for Northern New England. El Nino is a strange phenomenon! Anyways, the month ended with me just wanting to get the projects done and moving on with fun things.

I just did a goals check in for the 2016 Goal Along that PrariePoppins is doing on her website, Imagined Landscapes. 

Soul Cleansing ...

Hey there, everyone!

I have been having a hard year. I had migraines non stop between March and November of 2015. I lost my crafting mojo. I even lost a lot of faith in reality and God. I have found faith in reality again, but I don't know what I think about God anymore.

I don't think in the same way about a lot of things. I'm more clear eyed about my past and some people who misused my generosity of spirit. I have no control over the ways that the head works, but I do have control over how I respond going forwards. Anyway, that is not what I wanted to write about tonight.

But, it's what needs writing about, so I am going to rename this post, and write about the bullet journal journey later.

Now, I am writing about this as it is important.

I have medicine for a few things. Some are to prevent migraines by increasing the tolerance for the things that set the brain of into a spreading cortical depre, like those experienced by folks with seizures, only the electric storm only affects the brain and not the parts of the body that control gross and fine motor movement. Depression, the mood disorder, is also sometimes associated with the spreading cortical depression, which is just like a ripple across the surface of the brain that dims its electrical activities for a bit, and that leads to the seizure of folks with epilepsy, the attack phase of the migraines, and possibly the lowering of mood in depressive epi, along with a host of other side effects that this spreading cortical depression sets in motion that are designed to protect the brain and the body, but mostly the brain.

Some of you may remember that there are four stages of a migraine when it is in the wild by itself. They are prodome, aura, attack, and postdome. The prodome stage is marked by a sudden increase in desire for carbohydrates and simple sugars. This stage can last a few days. This is also when lots of people eat the chocolate that is blamed for their migraine, even though it is just a bit of time linking the two things along with the cravings for those carbohydrate and simple sugars. During the aura stage, which is not always present, the person experiences hallucinations of sound, smell, and sight along with flashes of light that crosses their field of vision. The attack stage is the pain of the migraines, also there is nausea, sensitivity to sounds and lights. Most people in this stage strive to get to the darkest and quietest place available. The attack stage will last anywhere from four hours to three days or so. Then comes the postdome. This is like the hangover for those who know what that feels like. For those who don't, you're groggy, sounds still smart, bright lights can hurt still, you want to sleep it off, and food is not a good idea. This stage can last for a few days too.

A single migraine from start to finish can go something like this...

Sunday, you wake up and eat pancakes with syrup, cereal, coffee with milk, and a muffin for breakfast. You spend the morning trying to catch up on paperwork. Lunch comes and all you want is a sandwich and a bowl of soup in a breadbowl from Panera bread stores. You get the apple to look healthy for the cute cashier. Then, it's shopping at the department store for shirts and jeans. Then it's mid afternoon and you notice that you are sneaking the snack cakes to your child's school lunches. You know that something needs to change, you had to buy bigger clothes than last time earlier today. Then, it's supper time. You decide to be healthy and that you will have a good sandwich with lots of vegetables and some fruit for fillers, hey, you still have the apple from earlier today.

Monday, you wake up a bit after the second snooze button press. You have cereal and milk, toast with butter, coffee and milk, and some oatmeal to stay focused throughout the morning. Lunch time and you have a whopper of a burger with your friends from work on the floor, and think about getting lemonade, but get a super sized cola instead.  Snack time and you raid the vending machine in the break room, you get licorice, tortilla chips, nuttier butters, and some flavored water. Supper is steak, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry juice cocktail, and butter pecan ice cream for dessert.
Tuesday, you don't so much as wake up as you are suddenly aware of this crushing, burning, white hot poker of a stick holding your head up on top of a spike with the same excruciating pain, no, this is beyond pain, whatever it is, it surrounds and is cleaving your skull and brain in half along the corpus collosum, and the sensation, whatever the heck it is envelopes your spine. All you feel is white, hot, burning, pain. Eventually, you pass out unable to take the intensity anymore. When your eyes finally flutter open again, you find that you can't move just yet. Your body is still in an insanely tight fetal position. You stretch out on foot and then that leg slowly, ever so slowly, just in case the pain of the night returns.  Eventually, you have stretched out all of your limbs and there was no return of the pain. You sit up on your side, so that you can vomit in the trash can that now lives by your side of the bed. The room darkening shades are not dark enough, and you can see it is a beautiful day outside in the world of the rest of the world.  You gingerly flex your toes as you stand up , sort of, you are still leaning on your bed, heavily. You use the wall and bed, then the door frame as supports on your way to the bathroom. After making it to the toilet and sitting down, you do your business. The strain of solid waste management causes you to loose your breath with the effort, and to get a small bit of pain, nothing like the night before, to hurt your head and your vision pulsates with the blood being pushed through the vessels in your eyes. You know you are a wreck and weak. You want to be able to do what you normally do, but today is going to be a lucky if you make it to the living room day. You are happy to have the habit of charging your phone by your bed. You make it back to bed gradually. Then, you do the hard part. You call your boss and disappoint them again, then you call your spouse to come home and get the kids ready for school bc you are not able to do it. You failed again. As if the excruciating pain and torture for no purpose wasn't bad enough, you have the ability to make sure you feel like the worst possible person for experiencing this horrendous event that you didn't ask to be part of.

Wednesday, you wake up still hurting, and groggy. You are feeling better today than yesterday about going through this, but otherwise you are still in the attack stage.

Thursday, you only hurt a bit in the morning, by evening you are ready to start being part of the family again.

Friday, you are still not fully functional in the cognitive areas and driving is not a good idea this time, so you stay home today too. You can handle the kids, getting them ready for school, and your spouse can go back to work.

Saturday, you are back to being able to drive again, and you take the day easy. By supper time, though, you are wanting something crunchy and sweet, maybe a lb and jelly sandwich with some potato chips would be a good idea.

And, so goes the story of another week in the life of a person who lives with migraines.

I have experienced the searing pain that I described above, and the other more insidious pain caused by finding fault with myself for having had the migraines. I'm still working on being gentle with me. But, there is no way to know when a night will wake me up from deep sleep with some pain or the cruciate curse pain, for the other Harry Potter fans out there. That's the hard part. For all of the advantages and advancement in technology and medical research we have access to now, I am at the mercy of my own brain waves and electronic system.

Micromechanics may have to be a new adventure for me, or someone, to find out the how and how to fix of the brain.  I could be content with not knowing the why of mig, if only the how was much better understood.

Right now, they are lucky to have a model of migraine stages.

Then, there are oddballs like me who don't fit the normal mold for migraine disease. I have as many as I do bc I have scar tissue in the brain section where migraines happen, so the reduced space for normal functions leads to more migraines than before getting sick and than others with migraines would have without the scar tissue.

How to figure out priority for tasks, from Terry Matlin's book, Survival Tips for Women with ADHD

I learned of a new way to figure out priority for tasks.


You need a table with three skinny columns, and a wide column. I just drew lines on the page in my 3 by 5 notebook.


Then label the columns as value, urgency, priority, and the wide one is the task list.
Value is how important is the task, gets a number between 1, most important, & 4, less important. Urgency is how soon does the task need to happen, use same 1-4 scale, with 1, soonest, and 4, last.


To get priority, multiply the value number by the urgency number. This will result in a number between 1 & 16.


The instructions I saw for this process said to rewrite the list by ordering all the ones together, then the twos, and so on. I am too stingy with paper and refuse to do that when I can just look down the list at the priority column to see if there's any more ones etc.
My list had 8 ones, one two, two fours, one six, and an eight. I still have four ones, two of which are appointments so will happen at specific times, one of the fours, and the six. Five items done and I feel good about it. And, like I'm getting the important things done first, rather than haphazardly tackling things and not getting any of them done.


Yay for working smarter not harder!

Junk food Prohibition for the poor only? Good or bad?

"Two lawmakers in Augusta want to curb the junk going into Mainer's mouths through legislation."

That is a misstatement. They do not want to limit the junk food going into Mainers' mouths, but poor Mainers' mouths, and not just poor Mainers' mouths, but poor Mainers on food stamps. Since when did Prohibition comeback? I never noticed that we had made sugar illegal. If they are going to limit food selection for the poor folks on food stamps, then Maine should make all such foods illegal for all Mainers to make the impetus behind the bills apply to all Mainers equally. Prohibit all so called "junk food" for all Mainers, or for none. And, if your going to do it for Mainers, then it needs to apply for all Americans, or none. So, do we really want to try to convince the entire country to Prohibit junk food? The war on drugs and alcohol have shown that making such items illegal only makes them more desirable and easier to get. Prohibition did not stop alcohol consumption. The war on drugs has not stopped drug consumption. Big government is wrong on this thought. Going through educational programs that show the benefits of avoiding the supposedly undesired substance is a possibly good way to bring in reducing consumption. Another process that can help is to make the substance legal but add so many taxes to its purchase that it is highly expensive, so that the healthy substances are more profitable for the average person. Another process is to give the healthy options subsidies through the grocery stores such that healthy choices are less expensive and yet not hurtful to the stores for selling them.

Also, if that particular store owner is really that upset and judgmental about folks using food stamps for what she perceives as unhealthy choices, then she should stop selling the unhealthy choices so she doesn't have to see what she doesn't want to see.

Quote taken from, "Proposals encourage better nutrition for Maine food stamp users: Two bills would change eating habits, EBT use," by David Charns, at http://www.wmtw.com/news/should-food-stamps-cover-junk-food/32554818

My submission to the Meredith Vieira Show, Digital Make a Wish Booth

I was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis in 2011.  Since then, my number one hero has been Karen Forbes.  She saved my life by insisting that I go to the hospital when I was so sick I could barely make sense of the world.  She has helped me recover, supporting me when the world fell away leaving us alone.  She was there when oil had to be ordered in 50 gallon amounts because we couldn't afford full orders since I was unable to work.  She does the dishes even though it is my responsibility when I can't keep up because of constant migraines, which is my after effect from the bacterial meningitis.  She has done this while maintaining at least one and sometimes two jobs.  I am just amazed at how strong, powerful, and supportive she is.  I admire her stamina, and ability to maintain a positive affect through tough times.  I have had to reorder my life from a useful and happy worker bee, to one of a disabled person and relearning my new normal.  To say that this has been a simple easy road is a laugh.  Karen has been my rock through that process and continues to be so when the road gets really rough.  We also have a puppy that she insisted we get.  At first, I was angry about him and his unpredictableness, but he has grown into a great therapy dog.  He knows when the migraines are hard.  Karen's best idea. Thank you.