Betrayed again by my aging body

My sporadic posting may become even more haphazard. I found out on Monday that all the physical therapy I've been getting (for the last seven or so weeks) has done no good whatsoever. An MRI has revealed not one but TWO tears in my rotator cuff. No wonder I haven't been able to sleep on my left side for three months! No wonder my shoulder throbs so much it's making me crazy! No wonder I nearly killed myself trying to get the top off a highlighter the other day!

So anyway. I'm pretty sure this means no weaving any time soon. I might be able to do some crocheting. I sure hope so, because I might become even crazier than I already am if I can't do anything more than watch daytime tv.

Ideas? Suggestions?

I bought this unbelievably gorgeous alpaca yarn two or three years ago at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and it's been taunting me ever since. I haven't been able to bring myself to make something out of it, for fear that I won't like the results. But really, it's time to bite the bullet and just make something.

I need suggestions though. I could see myself either weaving or crocheting something with this. I'd originally thought of weaving a poncho, but I don't want to use the yarn for the warp (at least I don't think I do) and I can't think of what would look good as a warp. I also have never come across a pattern that knocked my socks off.

So. Any brilliant ideas? I have a 26" wide, 8-harness Baby Wolf loom, and a 4-harness Glimakra table loom that might be a tiny bit wider, as well as crochet hooks in every size. I have 8 oz. each of the light and dark grey and 16 oz. of the black.

Help me find this yarn's true purpose in life!

Quilty goodness

I did not make this, my mother-in-law did. But it's so lovely that I thought it deserved to be seen by more than the two people who sleep in my bedroom.

Bees!

My crazy husband has decided that he wants to be a beekeeper. He's currently taking a class, and he's even purchased a full bee suit, which makes him look like some kind of insanely happy alien.



















However, lest you think this post has nothing to do with crochet:



















And here's a closeup of the little Secret Bee I made him while he was sleeping:


















Not my best work, but still fairly cute...

Opinions, please

Ok, I'm feeling done with the muff, but the husband seems to think that every square inch of space needs to be filled in. I'm thinking that when there's a liner stuffed in there, it'll make the spaces less obvious. Opinions? Should I stuff it full of roses until there's no more room whatsoever?

The roses, they are multiplying

A quick update on the Muff of Many Roses. It gets pretty boring making those damn things, so it's going slowly.



And I will also say this: when finished, this thing will be heavy. But beautiful!!

Parade 'o' Roses

The muff continues its progress toward rosy loveliness. Here is the base of it, finished.
















And here is a rose, in its many colors and steps (again, sorry for the sub-quality):











And here's where we are as of this weekend!

Beautiful muff in progress

Now, you may be asking yourself, how will she ever recreate those lovely Technicolor tones? I'll tell you how. I went to Bruce Variety, a five & dime store of the old-school, thinking that if I was going to find yarn to do the muff justice anywhere, it would be there. And I was right.













Meanwhile, here's the base of the muff, slowly but surely coming along. Next up: roses!! The pattern calls for "muff liner," but I'll be damned if I know what that is. I'm not so much with the fabric and the sewing.

Chapeaux tres belles

Regina over at Monster Crochet has begun a crochet-along (known in the biz as a CAL) for some super fun hats that she found in an old magazine from the 60s (possibly even older than I am, hard to believe, I know). I am going to make this rosy, elegant, and totally beautiful headband and muff. And then I will embarrass my husband by wearing them everywhere.

Oversight

It's been pointed out to me that I neglected to follow up on my Musings On Turning 40 post with a description of the lovely Fairy Princess party that my coworkers threw for me that afternoon. I had every three-year-old girl's dream birthday, except that I also got a big-ass box of delicious items from Bliss Spa, one of the most divine places on earth.

Here are some of the highlights, including a rare sighting of my actual face (I'm the one in the feathered and beaded pink tiara).

Tweed clutch

Here's a little purse I made for my friend Mary. I wish I could have gotten better photos, but I'm just not the world's best photographer, and my camera is pretty bottom-of-the-barrel. Mary, if you have any that are better, send them along, will you? I got the pattern from the latest Interweave Crochet.

Albino rat

My best friend's daughter has an albino rat named Scabbers (of course), so I crocheted her a faux Scabbers as a Christmas present. Scabbers apparently has a green tail from the chlorophyll in his tank--it's hard to see in these photos, but faux Scabbers does too.

The scarf of paralysis

Here it is, the scarf that had all the problems and that had me paralyzed for three weeks. The photos don't show all that well what the problem was, but essentially, the tension wasn't the same in the middle of the scarf, so you might be able to see an area in the middle where it's sort of riding up.


I also had problems with the threads on the very ends breaking, which is why you can see some fuzziness on the edges.

Once I was told how to fix the tension problem, it wove up pretty easily. I still can't believe that it stymied me for as long as it did. And my good friend Sheila seems to really like it, so that just proves that you don't have to be perfect to be appreciated. I'm so wise now that I'm 40.

Unfortunately, I never took a picture of it finished. I'm just glad it's off my loom.

The big 4-0

Well. So here it is, my 40th birthday. I’m not entirely sure how this happened. Last time I checked, I was about 26, although I do vaguely remember freaking out when I turned 30.

I’m happy to report that my brain did not win its Death Before 40 campaign. I was up and out the door before 5:30 this morning to go running -- might as well start the day on an energetic note.

I have to say, I thought I’d be a lot more distraught about the prospect of being 40, and in reality, I’m sort of … pleased. My 20s sucked ass. I met and married someone who turned out to be not the person I thought he was, so we split and divorced. My 30s were about a million times better. I met and married a man who is nicer to me on any given day than the first one was in a month. So I figure that the trend will continue and that my 40s will be amazing.

Here’s a little list of what I’ve got going for me:

--Excellent, kind husband. He drives me nuts, of course, but he’s about the nicest person I know. I should probably make an effort to be nicer to him.

--My family! My parents, while crazy, are also quite cool. In February my mom turns 60, so together we’ll be 100. We’re trying to figure out a way to celebrate that fact. My sister … just simply one of my favorite people ever. She's married to one of the other nicest people in the world. And her two daughters. My GOD those sweet little babies! Who needs kids when they have those two girls for nieces. And then there’s my husband’s family, who are also amazingly kind and wonderful.

--Incredible friends. The list of people I consider close friends has shrunk quite a bit in the last several years, but I suppose that happens to everybody. People change and drift off. My close friends are just fantastic, and I know that every one of them would have my back in a crisis.

--My health, more or less. Still with the migraines, but hey, I’m still fairly lean and mean, and that’s mostly due to running, which I took up about a year ago. I never thought I’d consider myself to be a runner, but at 820 miles for the year, I think that’s pretty good evidence that I somehow have become one. Goal for 2006: A cool 1,000.

--Stunning good looks. Heh. Hey, people still guess my age at least 10 years under what it is, so what the hell, add that to the List of Happy.

What would I like to accomplish in my 40s? No clue. My life has been a series of serendipitous occurrences and I’ve never really had a life plan. It would be nice to find an actual career, I suppose, although I’m definitely a work-to-live person, not a live-to-work one. I’d like to be a better weaver, maybe work on my own patterns. Same goes for crochet. Ooh, I’d like to learn to spin (wool, not pedals). It would be lovely to travel to places other than Alaska for vacation (if you’re reading this, dear husband, take note). But on the whole, it turns out that I’m pretty satisfied with life at the moment. Who’da thunk it.

Happy Birthday to me!!

Red scarf

Here's the scarf I wove for my mother-in-law for Christmas. This one turned out perfectly. After all the grief I had with the previous one I made (which I haven't posted yet) this one was completely and entirely perfect from beginning to end. And I like the color combo.

I can't help myself with the Fiber Terrorist pose.

In other news, my brain has ceased, for the moment anyway, its Death Before 40 campaign (see below). I even went running this morning. I'm human again!!

My brain, she trying to kill me

I haven't posted anything in a while, but that should change now that most people have their Christmas goodies in hand. The other reason for my silence, though, is that I have had EIGHT migraine headaches in the last 48 hours or so. My current theory is that my brain would rather kill me than turn 40.

In the meanwhile, before my head explodes all over my desk, here's another necklace I crocheted-- I made similar ones for two friends.

Cool site

I just found this site called Frapper (Friend Mapper) where all your peeps can map themselves on your map, and then you can look at the map and see just how popular you are. Heh. So go ahead! Click and Frapp!

Another poncho

Here's the poncho I made for my one-year-old niece. Her name is Ruby, so she got the ruby-red yarn. This Color Waves yarn is so yummy!




And here are the two ponchos together.

Breakthrough!

I swore to myself that I would sit my ass down this weekend and attend to the weaving project that had paralyzed me so badly. I'd gotten some good advice from my weaving list on what the problem was (different tension on the problem area which required that section to be manually tightened up--such an easy solution for a problem that had me stopped in my tracks), so it was just a matter of forging ahead.

And I'm happy to say that, after many broken threads and MUCH swearing , I finished the blasted thing last night. I took it off the loom and literally threw it across the room--I couldn't look at it one more second. But this morning I sucked it up and gave it a good washing with much agitation, in hopes of getting all those loose threads to line up correctly. We'll see how it looks when I get home from work tonight. And I even spent a couple of hours last night winding on the warp of the last weaving project I need to do before Christmas. It'll be a stretch, but I think I can do it.

No photos until after Christmas. No peeking!!

I will start working on Christmas '06 in January. I will.

Poncho

Since no one in my family ever checks this blog, I feel fairly certain that I can safely post the following pictures. This is a poncho I made for my three-year-old niece for Christmas, from a pattern I got here, using Lion Brand Color Waves yarn. It's supposed to fit a 3- to 7-year-old, so with any luck the child won't be swimming in it too badly. I'm just about done with one for my other niece, the one-year-old, so I'll post photos when that's done. It's super warm and cozy ... almost makes me want to make one for myself.

Apropos of nothing

Since I'm still in the throes of my crippling crochet paralysis (see below), I'll just post this photo and ask: why, WHY, does the national Christmas tree always have to be made to look as if someone put a gigantic condom on a perfectly lovely pine tree?

I swear we have the fugliest tree in the country. Every year, no matter who's in charge.

Baby blanket

Here's a blanket I made for my youngest niece, who's now 14 months old, before she was born. I got the pattern here. You can see it on the cover! The pattern called for silk, but come on, who has that kind of cash laying around. So I found a nice neutral tencel and doubled it up. It has a really nice drape and a silkish feel. I was quite pleased with it. You may be able to tell that the actual baby has been allowed nowhere near the thing.














In other news: I am completely freaked out about the holidays. This happens to me every year, and every year I swear I'm going to work on stuff throughout the coming year, and then I get distracted, and before I know it, it's December again.

I know what I'm making or getting for most people, but I have NO IDEA what to do for my mother and my sister. I have a project for someone (who reads this blog so who must remain nameless) on my home loom, but it's giving me problems. I know it's probably not as bad as I think it is, but I swear, since it's not going perfectly it has me totally paralyzed. I can't do anything on any project. I just sit staring at the tv all evening, knowing I have all these projects to work on, and totally unable to get off my ass and do some work. I need a kick in the behind. And some ideas. Gah!!

Crochet with wire

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I sure did. It was a vegan feast, complete with veggie cornucopias. Yummy!!

Anyway, I promised pix of pretty things when I returned, so here goes. This is my first attempt at crocheting with wire (actually, this is the first successful attempt -- there were three others that didn't turn out so well). I made it for my sister for her birthday, which was the day before Thanksgiving. She wore it on Thanksgiving, and again when I took this photo, so she must like it.

The holidays are upon us

I'm off to Seattle tomorrow for a week of hanging out with my sister and viciously smooching my nieces' cheeks. I'll post pix of pretty things upon my return. Happy Tofurkey Day, everybody!!

The best laid plans

*sigh*

Sometimes you just have to look at a project as a learning experience. Especially when you're trying to learn the quirks of a new piece of equipment.

This weekend I tied on the chenille scarf warp. This involves taking inch-wide sections and tying them to the apron rod at the front of the loom. When you advance your weaving it gets dragged down and around the cloth beam at the front of the loom.

The next step is to weave a header. Usually you use a nice thick yarn and put two or three passes of yarn (or picks) through and then beat them down. This evens all the threads out so they come down evenly through the reed. In the case of this scarf, the header is eight inches long and will eventually become the fringe.

Ok, so this is where things got hairy for me. The threads behind the heddles were so incredibly twisted (and I don't know why that is) that they were butting up against the heddles and causing all kinds of problems. So I did what the good people on my weaving listserv always advise, and I inserted lease sticks back between the threads, and each time I advanced the warp, I moved those sticks back. What this does is keep the twists on the other side of the sticks, far away from the heddles. This was working fairly well.

However, this new loom of mine is apparently slightly different from the Baby Wolf I'm used to. I wound onto the back in the wrong direction. This became abundantly clear when the pawl in the back kept springing off of the brake mechanism. So my husband and I wound the entire warp all the way forward, then wound it all the way back onto the back beam, in the right direction. This solved the braking problem, but now I have a whole mess of threads that are not under the right tension. This picture shows how, even with the tension cranked really tightly, half of the threads are dangling. The lease sticks aren't helping, and I don't know what else to do.

Can this scarf be saved?? I don't know yet, but I'll post the gory details when I find out.

Chenille scarf -- slow progress

Things might slow to a crawl on this here little blog, what with the approach of Christmas. I'll be busy, oh yes, but I don't necessarily want people to see what goodies I'm working on until after the holidays. I'm just saying.

Anyway, I did a little more work on the scarf this weekend. The next step is to thread the heddles according to the pattern you're working with. As you can see, the alternating color scheme starts to become more obvious at this point.



Then you have to sley the reed. This means taking each thread, or in this case two threads at a time, and pulling them through the reed. The reed serves to keep the threads at the proper width, and it also is what you use to beat the heck out of the threads that you actually weave with.







So now this is what it looks like from the top. The next step is to tie the whole thing onto the front, and then it's time to start weaving! With any luck that'll be this coming weekend.