Hopeful

I am hopeful that I have beat this cold.  I have my fingers crossed that the fever has finally broken.

I spent another day sleeping and not doing much. I managed to finish 2 UFO’s, this means that  hats 6 and 7 for the year are finished and hat number 8 was cast on.  If I am feeling better tomorrow I will cast on some fingerless mittens for me.  I was also able to consolidate  yarn from 2 project bags devoted to hats into 1 project bag.  Small step progress.

Right now it is time to try for more sleep.

hat 7

Hat 6

Still Sick

I am still battling the head cold when the  arthritis decided to make things interesting by flaring up late last night.  So I walked 3/4’s of a mile while waiting for the aspirin to kick in.  In between naps today I cleaned out most of the pantry and dumped the expired food. I did not do much cooking in Eric’s last months.  It seems that food expiration dates are getting shorter. Either that or we did way too much take out during that time frame.

I spent a lot of the day napping and did not make my step goal again. Sigh. I did more sleeping than knitting too.  I hope I sleep well tonight and feel better tomorrow.

Home Sick

I have a head cold. So I spent the day sleeping,doing laundry and knitting in no particular order. I missed my step goal by 1,500 steps.  That ok.  There is always tomorrow.

My First Random Project

This is my first random project.  The pattern Preposterous by Natalie Selles, which is available on Raverly.  The yarn is a special club edition of MCS Sock called “For the last time Charlie Brown, will you please water “that poor tree”” from Indigodragonfly in Canada.. since this kit is from 2011,  I have a hunch that the yarn is no longer available.  I do love the yarn from Indigodragonfly, it is wonderful.  So do check out Kim’s lovely yarns. Kim’s clubs are awesome too. The Indigodragonfly shop.

Random Acts of Knitting

I have a shelf of knitting projects that I can not reach so I have not worked on any of the kits or projects.  There are over 30 project bags up there.  So randomly I will knock one down with a hanger or grabber.  The ones at the back will require a taller person so John or Teri will have to get them down for me.  They will not let me use a ladder either.

I have knocked down the first one today and will show  the final knitted object when done. At the rate I knit I am hoping to get them all done by years end.

Sorry for the bad photo, the light for the room is under the shelf.

Eleven

The 11th project of the year was completed tonight. It is also 5th hat of the year. It is also Rich’s birthday present.  He picked the color and style so I can show you.

Let’s see how many I can finish next week.  I have a lot of UFO’s and small projects.

Progress

Today I worked on getting caught up on paper work. This included cleaning out my coupon file, I had coupons that expired in 2018, oops! I got most of my steps putting things away and throwing things out.  I did make my goal of 8,100 plus a few extra.

Our friend Rich knows he is getting this for his birthday, even though it is a little late. So Rich here is the progress on your hat.  I am on the first stripe.  I am half way through the first stripe.  Yes, I did make the brim 4 inches deep.

Thursday

Despite my bad body day, I had a great day of knitting.

Pattern Release Day

Today I finished typing and setting the pictures in my new pattern called The N.H.Shawl.  I think the name is quite clever and honest. The N.H.Shawl is short for the numb hands shawl. Usually in the United States when the initials N.H. Are used it stands for New Hampshire or a designer who hales from New Hampshire.

I am surprised that it got past the editors.   I got a yellow warning flag saying  it might be a sales link which is not allowed.  I guess the second paragraph of my pattern description was clear enough.  The pattern is now listed on www.Ravelry.com and www.LoveCrafts.com.  If you do nott have accounts at either your local yarn store should be able to purchase a copy and get a commission on the sale.

Arthritis Pain

I am not the biggest fan of my body right now. I might have over done a little today. But I ask you is that any reason for my body not letting me sleep. I just took more Excedrin and am debating between heat or cold. Cold might be fast to get.  I just want to sleep. May even new ribs.

Monday

Not much is getting done., this flare up is still hitting me hard.  Today not much got done.  I have been exhausted all day.

My New Math

Today’s math looks like this.

Snap + Crackle + Pop + Exhaustion = Arthritis Flare Up = My Saturday

Don’t you just love new math?

To answer your question, I did spen time resting and detangling my yarn barf from early this week.  By the way it is now 4 of 3 a Shawl Study.  I am on a roll.

Project Bags

It is my very humble opinion that project bags need to be washed when the start to look dirty. If you are anything like me, you put your project of the day, notes snacks and a whole lot of other stuff.  When I finish a big project I usually empty the bag. Hat bags are emptied when I switch from cotton to wool or wool to cotton. If it looks dirty, I empty out the bag and wash it.

By the way the same should go for grocery bags too.  My rule of thumb there is if meat or raw fruits and vegetables  are put in the shopping bags it goes in the wash as soon as I get home.  I tend to like bags that go into the dryer too.  Your grocery clerks will like you for doing this too.  Did you know that your bags will last longer if you keep them clean? They will have less germs too.

At least several times a month grocery clerks ask me where I got the shopping bag if they don’t recognize the print.

Most of the time I have to say that I got it so last century when my daughter was a toddler or for a few in the early 1980’s.

The next question is why are they so clean? Don’t you use them?

My answer is that I use them a lot. I just wash them when they have, meat vegetables or look dirty.

So keep America clean. Wash your project and  grocery bags when they look dirty.  Make everyone happy.

New Designs and a Contest

The best thing I love about designing new patterns is that I can change the flow of the pattern at the drop of a hat.  Well today the hat dropped on the new NH Shawl. I was knitting and did not like my ending. So today at lunch I looked through my design bibles. I found an ending that I like but wanted it less over the top.  So I am modifying a ruffled edging.  Hey, just because it’s in a stitch bible does not mean I have to use it as written. It is called pattern design for a reason. I should have it done by tomorrow and then  start writing the pattern.

Now to the fun part of the new pattern. My second pattern of this year. Will I be able to get it self published by the end of the month, remember it’s a short month.  It does not matter if you are right or wrong. Just send in your guess of yes or no with contest written in the subject line to skaro964@gmail.com.  The winner will get an assortment of my choosing of my hand spun yarn and some stitch markers plus a copy of my new pattern. I will put all of the names in a bowl and John will pick the winner. By the way John does not know that he volunteered for this job.

Just to let you know that this contest is open to everybody, but those outside of the United States will be asked to share the cost of postage if they win. This will be the difference of the the U.S. postage and the international rate.  This contest is not sponsored or endorsed by blogger.com. I am solely responsible for the prizes.

A Rest Day

Today I woke up feeling yucky. So I made it a rest day.  John joined me in the rest day. We binge watched TV watching The Good Fight. This lasted until the  CBS all access app crashed. I spent the day binging on yarn. I am on the last section of my new pattern.  The reveal will be later this week.

Well I am exhausted and going to call it a very early night.

A Hard Day

Today was a hard day. It was not hard because I vacuumed half of the house in a round about fashion. Not because I did my chores in 10 minute spurts every hour. It was hard because I was running out of things I can only get at Fry’s supermarket. I had a very hard time walking through the front door.

I have not been to Fry’s since a few days before Eric died. We just don’t seem to go through things as fast anymore. Some things we no longer use at all. Things like Tide, a small bottle lasted a week and a large bottle maybe two and a half weeks at best. I opened a large bottle of Tide in the last week of December and it still has detergent in it. Plus we have at least 2 spare bottles.

It was hard because I had to walk by the Huggies Wipes to get to the toilet paper, paper towels and trash bags. By the way we are using less of these things too. To get my over the counter stuff, I had to walk by the Mucinex  liquid , Liquid Tylenol, Head and Shoulders shampoo , and other things Eric used on a regular basis. My hand wanted to automatically put these things in my cart. I had been buying them for so many years.  I had to stop myself.  Eric does not need these anymore. Not very surprising was that my bill at check out was about 50% less.

I will not change markets because I like my Fry’s.  It is just down the street.  I know it is one of the smaller ones in town, which means a little less selection.  I think it is worth it not to drive 20 or 30 minutes to go shopping.  I like the nice family atmosphere too. The employees are great.  So maybe next time will not be as hard. I will wait and see.

Leave it at Home

I usually love meeting up with friends to knit.  Today was not one of those days. Little miss I am not happy with my life choices was in over drive today. When I left the house it was 28 degrees below my minimum temperature requirement of 70 degrees f.  So I wore my wool coat, the one I got when Teri was a toddler, so last century.  Well yes I did buy and expensive coat but amortized over the years the current cost per year to wear my nice coat so far is $6.66 not bad for a nice wool coat. Then again the devil is in the details.  Next was my sweater, a fancy one if I have to admit it.  Bought when the kids were in elementary school and on sale. Amortized over the years works out to $4.75 a year of wear at this point. My point to her was that I buy nice things that last, I also take care of them, they might cost more at the beginning,  it the cost per years of wear. Brings the price way down.  It went this way for yarn and other things in my life. Let’s get one thing straight right here and now. Life to to short to knit with crappy yarn.

Then it came down to how to pay for things. Here I was even called un-America.  This is going just a bit to far.  Every family handles their finances to the best of their ability. Every family is different. Every family would like a redo at some time in their lives. A blog is no place to go into this.  Suffice to say my knowledge of our country and financial well-being has been one of saving for what you need.  Not living beyond your means.  The changes came about in the 1960’s with the advent of readily available credit.  The banks learned that they could create a new revenue stream by giving people more credit then they could handle and charging high interest rates and late fees.

Then came  The Lifestyle’s of the rich and famous in I believe was the 1970’s showing what more money could buy, whether it was trips, bespoke clothing or accessories. Designers are very smart people. They created mass produced lines with a lot less detail than their bespoke lines, but enough to get the customers flocking in to buy the goods.  Travel also became cheaper and faster.  Work ethics were also changing.  Gone was the 6 day, 80 hour work week of past generations. Most jobs even introduced paid vacations.

This is were the country started changing.  Some people planned and saved. Thought it was still a good idea to live under their means.  Other people went headlong into the credit card debit way of life.  Let’s fast track forward to this century.  The people who were frugal are for the most part doing OK.  The people whom opted for the credit card to the max way of life are nearing or at retirement age. They have started wondering if they are going to be able to get out of debt before they retire.  They have visions of county run, rat invested living conditions.  They are scared and need to lash out.  I understand all of this, however I am not in the mood to be on the receiving end of someone else’s bad choices.  It’s time to pay those credit cards off no matter what you age is and save for big purchases.  You probably won’t be able to buy a car or house without a loan, but the more you put down on the big ticket items the less interest you will pay and have more money for the things you want.

Now want and needs is an entirely different conversation.  Not for now but later.

Weird Weather

I get I live in the Sonoran Desert. We are use to extreme weather, but not all in one day.  This morning was in the mid 70’s so I choose a short sleeve shirt to wear. A few hours later it had cooled to 71 degrees so we went for our walk.  By the time we got back from a walk around the block it was 67 degrees.  Even in winter the temperature peaks about 3 pm.  By dinner time it was in the 40’s.  So I wore my fur line house slippers out to dinner.  It is supposed to get down to 25 degrees tonight.  A fifty degree drop is a bit much even for me.

We my new pattern the NH Shawl is getting big enough to warm my lap. So it is time to knit.

New Patterns

I have started a new shawl pattern that is going to be called the NH Shawl. I am almost a third of the way through the design.  I also have a pattern that needs a little bit more data and typo corrections and it should e out the door this week.

Check back for further information.