Hey! The trapped nerve is viral and is in my neck on the left! That means knitting is on the cards if I take it carefully 😀 😀 😀 The bad news? 4-6 weeks for it to get better, but hey, couldn’t it be a million times worse?
First thing is first – to knit something small and chunky so that even though I can’t knit much in one go, it will move reasonably quickly.
Keep your eyes open for something lovely and your fingers crossed I can make it!
Month: November 2007
Alive
But only just. I swear I’ve never felt as ill in my life. I had a week of upset stomach, followed by a week of a very very nasty virus. Including the trapped nerve (which has given me aches and pains all over the place), all three make for two weeks of ‘fun’. I’m going to ask for some physio for the nerve, but the first two are much better now. Except I have a chesty cough now too.
I’m trying to keep my knitting and computer use to a minimum until I’ve had some therapy so that I don’t do any more damage to myself (should be interesting if I’m going back to work this week and use computers 99% of the time), but I am still knitting in small doses at least! There are tons of bloglines updates for me to read too :S Might just have to mark them all as read and hope I haven’t missed too much.
But I am here. Just nothing interesting to show you. Sorry! Hope you are all well and happy, and thank you again for all the wonderful comments and emails you’ve sent.
For the Apres Sock Swap
It was really really hard to find a favourite yarn to show my spoiler but I think I’ve got it with this one… Well, make that a couple ;D So, Golly, this is yarn that I love, that I dare not knit up yet, but can’t stop stroking while I’m making other things 😀
This is merino superwash from White Willow yarns, called Medicine Woman. It is soft, and beautifully dyed, and pretty. I love purples in particular, but this one is just so well balanced, and is as much about the fibre and texture as the colour.
Similarly, Sea Wool in Moss green is a fave because the shades are beautifully balanced, gently moving through the greens without getting away from that mossy school. And Sea Wool has a gorgeous texture – silky yet sturdy, and a dream to work with.
Finally, here is my absolute fave for colours – Piece of Beauty merino sock yarn in Robe and Bowl. This colour is no longer made, so I can’t bring myself to knit it up yet :S
The blend of purple, greys and a little greenish grey in there, they just work so well together, and it dyed in short bursts so that it won’t pool.
So I guess what I’m saying is that I like dyers who put effort and care into making their yarn work for knitters, rather than churning out bulk colours that are pretty, but don’t always work on every foot.
I’ve probably scared my spoiler to death now… Sorry petal!
Still here!
Yup, I’m still around, although not particularly top form I’m afraid. Thanks for all your messages of concern and suggestions to visit the doc with some frankly scary stories – you people have been ill!
I just wanted to offer some reassurance though so that you know I won’t end up in hospital just yet (and a little more reassurance to myself too!). I still don’t think the headache was connected to the arm thing – there is a bug going round work with nausea and headache and my symptoms exactly matched my friend at work who had just had a week off and still wasn’t on top form. Both myself and DB are off sick now with poorly tums, but we actually think it might be a meal we ate on Sunday – we had the same dish, and both ended up feeling poorly by the end of the day :/ Two people off work with tummy bugs at the same time = not pretty. 1 person + 1 person who is resting from knitting + tummy bugs = not pretty plus LOTS of boredom 🙁 We are both feeling a bit sorry for ourselves right now 🙁
My arm is feeling better, but the tingle remains in my thumb and first finger, which kind of reaffirms for me that it is the knitting that is doing it. I was reading Empire in the bath the other day (not that you want to know that!), using my left hand to help grip and prop it up, and felt the tingle more after that, so I need to be careful what I do still. Should probably just be typing one handed too actually… I keep squishing my yarn still and feeling sad that I can’t knit it. And this is NEW yarn – not even the yarn being used in the unfinished projects in my basket! I’m trying very hard not to buy more yarn. Must… resist… The show is a week on Saturday – definitely shouldn’t buy before then! Anyway, to get back to the point, if the tingle isn’t better by the end of the week, I’ll be going to the docs for some advice and exercises. I’m going to alternate between big and little needle projects more often. Fingers crossed the tingle is gone for next week though. Or at least by the show so I can enjoy it to the most!
In nice things, I spun up some alpaca/bfl and manageged to get about 1400 inches out of 25g (whatever that works out at, but it means that by the end of 200g of fibre, I’ll have about 280 yards! Yay!). It’s about dk weight, but varies in places. I’m really pleased how even it is for my first real hank, and will hopefully be able to make some socks in it. The amount I’ve got is a strange one because the spindle was starting to get too heavy and pull the freshly wound fibre through the hook before I could spin anything else (I’m so pleased I worked that one out on my own! I solved a problem without looking in a book! Yay!) – I’m hoping I can russian join each individual hank and then wind it all up into 100g cakes. I’ve already swapped fibre though – Brooke sent me some gorgeous merino roving during Sockret Pal and I feel confident enough to try it out as long as the fibre is predrafted. I’ve also got 100g ish of gorgeous BFL in candy pinks from the Yarn Yard to spin up. That definitely calls for sock knitting…
Hmmmmm. Does anyone know how to train a cat to clean his own litter tray when you are poorly? At least he isn’t poorly. That would be baaaad.
[edited to add] And now I’m getting a cold as well. Fantastic. Nausea and snot – the perfect combo. Can anyone spell ‘run down and in need of a break’?
Scary stuff
It has been a bad week for my health. I’m not sure if I should be doing something more about it, but nevermind. Severe headaches (very very severe. Not migraine level but close), stomach problems (DB asked if I’d eaten any tuna recently with the scare at Sainsburys), and a scary incident last night at the pub where my left hand started tingling lightly, then went cold, and the cramp rapidly moved up my arm without me having time to think anything more than ‘ARgh! Left arm=heart attack stuff!’. A friend calmed me down, and then when I could think rationally again we decided it was a trapped nerve. Two hours later, the cramp eases a little and I have normal temperature in my hand again. This morning the arm still feels a bit funny though 🙁 I’ve never had anything like that! I’d eased off knitting quite a bit because of a tingle in my hand after doing colourwork, but when the new part of the mystery sock came out, I had a play with that, and felt fine, so I did more colourwork. Think a total knitting break is required now if I want to feel normal. What a bummer, but better that than go through the scare with the arm again!
That means that I’ll be rediscovering not using the laptop (good for my purse at least – no online shopping temptations!), and mending/altering clothes on the big pile I haven’t touched for too long, doing the ironing, reading my book, and maybe relearning japanese and doing a little embroidery to keep the crafting alive (don’t think that puts nearly the same stresses on your arms/hands as knitting can). Today I’ll read all my bloglines stuff and then log off, so don’t be surprised if I’m absent a little while :/
Contemplation again.
Here I am. Another week, another month, and very little to show for it. I have unfinished everything still. Luckily the NaKniSweMo is on this month, which will push me to at least work on that cardi back that isn’t mine. But there is the blanket and the socks and more socks and I made some child’s mittens for an alpaca open day too.
I may have finished those socks last week, but have managed to cast on for two more pairs, and started swatching for some knee highs (but lets face it, there is a lot of maths involved there, and by the time I have worked it all out, at least one pair of socks will be loooong gone!). The new pairs? One is Nancy Bush’s Denmark socks in Posh Yarn Emily in the Elephant colourway, the other the mystery sock for November in the Sockdown on Ravelry, currently knitted up in an almost dayglo green/yellow Posh Yarn Eva. I have a lot of Posh Yarn for socks. A lot. You might have noticed. Not much to show on either of those yet, and there probably won’t be for some time seeing as I really want to finish Laila first, but the need to cast on has been satisfied temporarily.
I also bought more yarn. Ermm. I don’t know how this happened. Actually I do! It is all Rahime’s fault for having gorgeous orange sock yarn and inspiring me 🙂 And Posh Yarn for having some just when I’d been looking around for a good orange… And then I needed to buy something else to justify postage. Ermm. Oops. And I haven’t shown you some of the other purchases either! Oooo erm. Perhaps it was meant to be – an eye candy weekend in spite of no finished knits or worthy progress. This wasn’t all bought in one go though. It just started breeding. Really.
That orange will work well on it’s own, but I’m thinking leftovers will be essential as it would look ace on a black background in some stranded socks… ACE.
And thanks for the hints for some skirts. The Made With Love by Hannah skirt arrived earlier in the week and the Boden skirt arrived yesterday, and they are both gorgeous. The Hannah skirt is perfect. Perfect fit, perfectly stitched, wonderful quality, and something unique. So much care has gone into it, like matching the pattern up on the seams, and the printing leaving white areas at the top to avoid mismatching on the pattern lines. I can’t recommend buying from her enough! The Boden skirt is lovely (the pics don’t do it justice, especially the mirror I just cleaned having smears on it, and you can’t see the brown waistband and inserts in the box pleats) – I may not be able to buy from them all the time, but it was so worth spending a bit extra on it. The fabric quality is really high, and the details make it just a little bit special. When I tried it on it felt light and swishy, but the lining and the wool fabric will make it toasty warm too. And it came with some fridge magnets too (lots of words like the poetry sets). That can’t be bad.
Please note the apple skirt has been worn already at work, and so looks a little creased, but it was perfectly crisp and beautifully wrapped when it arrived.
There you go. Lots of pics. Lots of things to drool over. Are you jealous yet? Have I justified my lack of FOs yet? 😉