I Had 2 Balls

Of yarn that is.. (okay, I know some of you let your mind wander there! Shame on you!) Since the sample piece is finished (and no, I can’t show you) I cast on last Friday for the full size thing that I am mysteriously knitting and that I can’t post pictures of yet. I’ve been knitting every spare moment that I can find and I am halfway through the yarn for the project. (Is your curiosity getting the better of you yet?)

I have also begun writing out the pattern today. (Yes, there will be a pattern. Yes, it will be completely free for downloading in PDF format.) I just hope that I can make it easy for everyone to understand. Might be a bit much to hope for since I’m having problems figuring it all out! Of course I haven’t even had my morning cup of coffee today (upset tummy, and coffee just isn’t appealing right now) and that might have a little something to do with any clarity of mind issues that I am feeling.

Thank you to everyone for the wonderful comments and compliments on Gretchen! I agree, she is beautiful, but all the credit really goes to Delia who designed such a gorgeous piece for me to enjoy!

It’s been a crazy week of appointments so far. Last Monday, the kids and I were at Nick’s school for a special IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting to discuss options for Nick as he still wasn’t attending school on a regular basis. Something about the meeting must have hit home with him as he has gone two days in a row now, but then there’s less than a month of school left for him. One of the options that we are considering is Nick attending every other day, for now, he wants to go every day, but we are keeping the every other day open as a possible option. If he can’t attend, then we are looking at a private school placement in a setting that I truly believe is completely inappropriate. The school district knows how I feel about the private placement as I have made it clear time and time again. That program isn’t designed for kids like Nick, but designed more for kids with severe behavioral problems and authority issues. Nick won’t survive there and I will do all that I can to keep him away from that place.

Tuesday, we had to take care of an appointment for Nick. Thankfully that went quickly as Nick was really stressed since he didn’t know what to expect. I actually brought too much documentation for the appointment, which is always a good thing since it makes the whole process quicker and easier.

Now I’m off to be silent for a little bit longer. I still have a good bit of insane knitting to do to get this thing done. Then there are instructions to fine tune and charts to be written up. It’s all going to be worth it though, and I hope in the end, you will like it. If you don’t hear from me before then, have a great weekend and wonderful Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! (And that includes the moms of non human children or overgrown children too).

Yes, I Love Gretchen!

I know that I am long over due for a posting and that many of you are interested in just how Gretchen turned out. Wait no more… she is finished and blocked!

First, I want to say just how much I do love this pattern! No one section went on long enough to become tedious or boring. The instructions were clear and simple to follow (don’t over think anything on this pattern, Delia spells things out exactly and even though you might sit there and try to over think her instructions, don’t. Just do as the pattern says and I promise that you can knit this too!)

The original pattern calls for a silk yarn. I knit Gretchen in a lace weight merino yarn. My initial gut feeling that Gretchen was turning out a little on the small side was correct. Fully blocked, she is 44 inches, not 52 in the merino. Out of the 1760 yards, I had a total of 644 left over. (Merino is elastic, when you knit it stretches and then shrinks back, unlike fibers such as silk or cotton). Now, for those of you who do want to use a merino or other elastic fiber/wool, there are a couple of things that you can do to increase the size of the finished shawl.

You could go up one needle size, but this at best would only add maybe a few inches. The best thing to do to make Gretchen larger is to do a chart repeat on Chart D. When knitting Chart D, stop on row 35, then begin chart D again on row 5 and knit through the last row of the chart. This will add about 6 inches to the section (this would be 12 inches for the full width of the shawl if you are using merino like I did and should increase the final size to about 56 inches.) You should not have to do anything to the edging chart different than the instructions. When knitting it, I found it to be very elastic and ruffled.

I do plan on knitting Gretchen again. Probably a couple of times as it is such a fun and easy pattern to do! This one is destined to become a gift for one of Spurg’s nice co-workers who is expecting her third child. I think it will be perfect for a light weight heirloom baby blanket!

In other news, I finally finished the sample of my secret knitting last night. It is currently blocking and I am debating on whether I will dye the yarn myself for the full size version, or if I will have one of my many talented friends do that job for me. I am also debating as to what fiber I want to yarn to be.

Strep Has Been Confirmed

Again, thank all of you for your good wishes and thoughts. (I’m sorry that I still haven’t had a chance to respond, but please know that I appreciate every comment that you take the time to write.. I just haven’t had much time for doing anything blog or fiber related.) Nick is much sicker than we realized. I had an appointment for him to see the doctor today, but last night something, a mother’s instinct of sorts, told me to get him into the emergency room. I’m glad I listened.

Nick had what I thought were fever and chills. His only complaint of pain was that his throat/neck hurt sometimes when he yawned. He doesn’t feel pain like you or I do, and things that wouldn’t cause you or I pain can be excruciating for him. He was a trooper when waiting to register and he had to sign all the papers since he is now 18 (but takes mom along to help him and explain things). The entire staff of the hospital was very patient and understanding since I had made it very clear that he has a developmental disability. (He had 2 LVN’s, a Physician’s Assistant and a doctor all giving him special treatment with periodic visits and jokes to keep his spirits up. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate their thoughtfulness and kindness in treating Nick.)

He was very dehydrated, even though I have been pushing liquids on him like a firefighter trying to douse stubborn flames. The doctor said the dehydration was caused by the unrelenting fever, and his chills weren’t due to the fever, but the dehydration. They gave him IV fluids (2 whole bags), and IV medications (anti-nausea, antibiotics and non narcotic pain reliever). It was difficult to get the IV line in as his veins were “flat” and he was pretty freaked out at the thought of a needle. It took 4 sticks before they could find a vein that would flow easily. After 5 hours there he was finally discharged. You could tell he was feeling better as he began saying some of his usual smart aleck comments, his voice became much louder and he was insistent that he was starving.

This morning is a different matter though. He couldn’t keep his toast and medication down. I’ve got him on an anti-nausea medication now and I’m hoping that it does the trick. His fever’s back and we’re trying to control it as well. I’m exhausted. For the past 5 days, I don’t think that I have had more than 2-3 hours of sleep at one time. I’m waiting for him to settle down a little bit and then I am off for a much deserved nap!

He does have a follow up appointment to see the family doctor tomorrow so we can make sure the antibiotics are helping and that he isn’t becoming dehydrated again. If he continues to have difficulty in keeping fluids and his medications down today, it will be another trip to the emergency room. I really hope it doesn’t come to that and that he can get better in the comfort of his own bed.

Paging Dr. Mom

I wanted to apologize for not blogging for the past couple of weeks. I know that many of you are waiting to see finished projects, but it seems my children had other plans for me. Last week I was in the Emergency room with Sydney and 103 fever that wasn’t responding well to Tylenol. Diagnosis, ear infection. She’s doing much better since she has been put on antibiotics and has already been back to school last week. Now it’s Nick who is sick with a 102 fever. He’s responding better to fever reducers than Sydney was, but I will be hauling his behind into the doctors as the fever isn’t breaking and he is having chills as well. No ear pain, but he says his throat hurts when he yawns. It’s a little late in the season for the flu around here, possible but a little late. I suspect strep throat if it’s not the flu. Oh yeah… fun. I’ve had my hands full trying to get these two healthy again and hopefully by the end of the week, I will be able to do a decent post.

I do want to thank everyone for their comments… I haven’t had a chance to respond to them, I just wanted everyone to know that I’m not ignoring you!

Cross your fingers that no one else in the house comes down with Nick and Sydney’s cooties.. I’ve already had just about all I can take from this year’s flu and cold season. (We were hit 6 times.. yuck.) Until next time, stay healthy!

Nearly. Almost. Well, Just a Few More Rows..

There are times that I really become nervous, and the past couple of weeks have really been very nerve racking for me, and in various aspects of life. Spurg has a new boss, and unfortunately that is not turning out to be a good thing. He has decided that scrubbing toilets for the county sounds better than being a graphic designer for the paper, and well, that pretty much says it all. He’s still working there, but looking for another job, a complete career change as graphics just don’t hold the allure for him that they once did. I’m not going to go into details as of yet, but hopefully a change will happen in the not so distant future.

Nick hasn’t gone to school in quite some time. I’ve stopped making a fuss with him. I’ve let him just hang at the house with mom, but have made it clear that it is unhealthy for him to isolate himself the way that he has been. I told him it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t finish school, but that he needs to consider a day program for disabilities such as he has. He has been resistant to even considering it, but slowly, I am working on him.

Today, instead of Spurg taking Sydney all the way to the other side of town to school, (she was placed there since our local elementary was full but she will be returning to our local school for the 1st grade as there will be room for her) I walked her to the local school to take the big yellow bus. I’ve been very nervous about this as she is my little baby and has never done something like this without an adult. When that bus pulled up though, she was on it and rushing to any seat that she wanted. She is the first pick up and it’s just her and the driver until the next stop. It was really cute to see her sitting there in the third row passenger side and she was just glowing. I think that I am just going to have to face it, she is a very independent child and very able to cope with some things on her own. We do have to get up and ready a bit earlier than when Spurg took her. It’s a half hour walk to the local school, plus I am taking Nick with me since he cannot be left unsupervised. Nick was a good sport about it, although nervous since to get to the bus stop we have to walk right by his class at high school. He was afraid that he would get into trouble if anyone saw him even after I assured him that he wouldn’t. When we began to head back home, I saw Nick’s class clinician and we stopped to chat for a few minutes. Nick asked if it would be okay if he stopped by the class to say hi. I suspect that he is beginning to miss his friends. We were there for about 20 minutes, and Nick was as relaxed and easy going as could be. When leaving to go our way, we barely got around the corner from the class and Nick mentioned that he might go back to school, but that he wanted to sleep on it tonight. I made it clear that if he doesn’t return, and doesn’t go to a day program, he will have to walk with me to take Sydney to the bus every school day. This did make an impression on him since half way home he was begging me to take a break and stop anywhere.

That kind of made me laugh, since I was prepared to feel the pain myself. Walking that far these days is really painful for me with the arthritis in the hips and knees. But I am pretty good at pushing through the pain and getting to where I need to go. Honestly, I know that in a matter of years I may not be able to do that anymore, but I can now and the exercise is good for me. It is also my hope that I might be able to drop a few pounds with walking an hour 5 times a week. In July, I will probably have to pick Sydney up from 1st grade, so it will go up to two hours of walking each day. I used to do that every school day when Nick went to the local elementary, so it’s not like I haven’t done it before, it’s just been a long time since I have done it.

I’m feeling the aches coming on, but that’s okay. It’s time for some knit therapy and tonight before bed, a nice hot shower. (I would kill for a long soak in the tub, but we only have a shower here. Sucks, big time!)

Gretchen is coming along. I had a very hard time starting the edging, no fault of the written pattern which is simply very clear. It was my own brain having problems wrapping itself around the simplicity of it all. Once I had that “AHA!” moment though, I have been knitting like a fiend.

Gretchen is beginning to make me nervous though. She doesn’t look so very big. I don’t dare take out the tape measure to confirm this, I’m too terrified to. I might measure her just before blocking and am trying to convince myself that she will block out much larger than she is now. I have knit lace before after all, and have seen time and time again how much size a garment can gain in blocking. It’s just another one of those things that my brain has a real hard time wrapping itself around. (Kind of a “I’ll believe it when I see it” brain thing going on here.)

This is all that I have left to do on Gretchen. I only cast on for her 22 days ago and haven’t knit every single day, so she’s been a speedy knit for me. Hopefully in the next day or so I will be blocking and then the brain can breath a sigh of relief with the evidence of her being much larger and a more wearable size than she is today.

Where’s The Wool?

I know that many of you are probably wondering if I still bother to knit, crochet, weave or spin anymore. With all the other things in life as well as new interests that I have been involved with, it’s a fair question. The answer is yes, even though I have not shown any photographic evidence as of late.

Today, I do want to chat a bit about a knitting project that I have been working on. It is something that I have been wanting to knit ever since I first saw the pattern. Last December I finally purchased the pattern and the wool. About a week and a half ago I sat down and cast on. I completely fell in love with the simplicity of the design. From the photos of the pattern, it does not look like such a simple knit, but truly it is much simpler than some other lace designs that I have worked on. I didn’t even need more than one stitch marker until I got to the forth chart, and that was just to save my brain from frying out over the 34 stitch pattern repeat. (The brain needs all the help it can get these days!) It’s been a very hard knit to put down so far, every time I thought that I should take a photo of it, I had to just knit one more row, and we all know how that goes! But today, before I do that next row, I have sat it down to take a photo to prove that wool does still live in my house. Obviously since this is still in progress, knit on a circular needle and an unblocked lace circular shawl, the photos will not look that impressive. All the same, magic will happen in the blocking, once I start and complete the edging pattern of Gretchen, (yes, click on the link to see Delia’s photos, they are gorgeous!) a beautiful circular shawl designed by Delia of The Fiber Denn.

Gretchen in progress. Purchased kit from The Fiber Denn on Etsy, yarn is handpainted lace weight wool yarn in “Olivenite”.

As I said, the design is fairly simple, even if it doesn’t look it. Delia took a basic Pi shawl, added some wonderful stitch patterns that really work together and compliment each other and made the instructions fairly simple and easy to understand. The best part that I like about it? No one stitch pattern last long enough to really get bored with it! Of course I haven’t knit the edging yet, and that has to go all the way around the shawl, but even then, I can’t wait to get on with knitting the edging so that I can block her and enjoy her in all of her glory.

Obviously this is the beginning of falling in love with circular shawls. (Down the rabbit hole I go!!) The warning signs are already there for me, and there are a few other circular shawl patterns that I want to knit in the months to come… however, they must be put on hold for just a little while. You see, I have a secret that I have been working on. I’ve been working on a sample for another design that I had an idea for during Mystery Stole 3. I’ve almost completed the sample, and have decided to knit a full size one in the Knit Picks dye your own lace weight. As soon as Gretchen is completed, I will be doing a very special dye job for this project, then I must knit said mystery item, finish the charts and directions and then tempt you here on the blog. Obviously I cannot go into too many details at the moment, but let’s just say that it won’t be another pattern for a scarf!

As for my bagpipe practice.. I believe I am improving.. the ducks have stopped circling my house for the moment. That and Sydney has stopped laughing at the dying duck call sound.. it actually sounds like musical notes as I play the scale.

Momma Don’t Dance and Daddy Don’t Play the Bagpipes

“It” finally arrived yesterday! It’s been about 2 weeks since I ordered and it only had to travel a little ways across the state to me. Part of the order included a set of books that were on their way from Canada. Express shipping no less, but customs decided to hold it at the border for a while, so I had to wait until that happened for the full order to arrive. I know some of you are just dying of curiosity to find out what I could have possibly ordered that would fulfill a life long dream…so without further ado, may I present the evidence of my insanity….

Yes, dear readers, bagpipes. Real honest to goodness bagpipes! These are not the Great Highland Bagpipes that so many associate with Scotland, but a two drone set (the Great Highland Bagpipes have three) that isn’t nearly as loud, nor do they require lungs the size of a hot air balloon. They are also completely convertible for all the stages of learning to play the bagpipes. In the first stage of learning, I won’t need the bag itself, nor will I need the drones, just the blow pipe and Chanter (the piece with the fingering holes) and these books…

(Not shown with the books, the audio CD’s with exercises on them. I do have them as they came as a set.) Yes, these are the offending items that customs had to investigate! And finally, here is the blow pipe and chanter assembled without the bag or drones. This is referred to as a practice chanter and so far I sound like a hunter blowing a duck call while drowning. Sydney has found this extremely amusing and hasn’t held back her laughter at all. Nick has only made the comment “what is THAT?” followed by “Oh, yeah. They finally came.” when I was playing (he was in another room with the door open, when we had it closed, he couldn’t hear me over his computer game.

And now I am off for my daily practice, really hoping that I can get the hang of the fingering. It feels awkward at best and my left wrist tends to cramp, but practice I must! Be glad that you don’t live near me.. and if all the ducks in your region start flying towards California.. you’ll know who to blame!