Hope Awakens

There have been a few books between the last Patricia Briggs novel and this one.  There have been posts over at The News but no knitting.  Why?  Depression.  Serious depression and a loss of hope and the return of a fighting spirit and then...well, then came a different type of hope and finally the pain got better then worse then back and forth.  It's been an odd summer folks.

The long and the short of it is, over.  Yesterday my buddy moved my knitting basket, one of my knitting baskets I should correctly say, close to where I could get it and I picked up my drop spindle and spun a few inches and then I looked at the yarn that hadn't been touched in ages and my hands tingled.

They tingled and they twitched in that knitterly way, not in the pain way they've been doing for most of the summer.

There are tons of presents to knit for Christmas and promised thises and thats and I decided there are things I could actually make for myself that might actually benefit my neck and maybe help me sleep of a night much better than what I am doing now.  I could actually knit a nice felted pillow, fill it and make a couple of back-ups if needed and then make pillow slips for them and maybe that would help me support this neck of mine and then I could rest more peacefully and not have some of the pain and migraines I am currently undergoing.  PLUS I could also undergo some of the presents I need to make for Christmas before Christmas could even get close!

I kept looking at the basket and my heartbeat just eased up a little as if everything was slowly beginning to ease back into its place. 

Since I've never felted anything before but have always wanted to do so, and since I need to pick up the needles and start do my knitting again, everything is right about perfect to begin again.  It's wonderful, and I don't feel so lost any more somewhere inside.

Taking Up the Hubby's Challenge

Finished the previous book and have begun this one you see here.  I have completely fallen in love with the Mercy Thompson books!  I am caught up in the series and am seriously going to hate to see it end if it ever does.  Not thinking about this.  Not thinking about this.  NOT thinking about this.  LOL!

The pain is better in the left leg.  I believe it is due a lot of prayers by myself, friends, and family, qi gong, and the water exercises that were begun.  The water exercises seems to have helped my arthritic body more than they have helped the nerve pain, but I am taking the good in any form I can receive it these days.  The beautiful summer days are not hurting in the least of course.  Today it is just 84*F and not so humid with beautiful fluffy clouds floating blissfully in the most beautiful of blue skies.

A while ago the Hubby challenged me to knit a book in a year and make every single item in the book fit either me or him out of the yarn of choice of him or me.  Yeah, do you who knit see a problem there?  Well, in an argument that happened this weekend he called me a coward and said I didn't have the tits for the challenge and that I wasn't a true knitter.  So, now I ask you - How do you take a pattern that calls for two strands of fingering weight yarn and use worsted weight yarn because that's what the husband wants and make a sweater that fits?  He says its just numbers.  I'm not at all sure.  Anyone have any advice?

Hubby, Books, Knitting, and Friends Makes Me Happy

I am in a very strange place at the moment emotionally and physically: the pain is different and quite bad in the left leg these days.  Thankfully the A/C is fixed, thanks Rae, and the pain is better in spots.  So, I am knitting as it hits and I am reading.  Currently I am reading the book you see here and working on dishcloths because I need some in order to get the work around the house out of the way when I feel like doing any work at all that is - I am just taking one day at a time and being as positive as I can.

Sunday was mine and Hubby's 12 year wedding anniversary.  It was a sad one in some ways because I had  a migraine and so we celebrated it more on Memorial Day, which was yesterday, Monday, than on Sunday.  We went to dinner with some friends and a movie.  We saw Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and, to be honest, we really should have waited until it was out on Netflix or something.  It needed something, like real Persians/Arab actors for instance, and real stunts, not CG.  I won't get into too much detail for those of you who haven't seen it - let it suffice to say I was disappointed.

Still, Hubby and I were together, and that's all that mattered.  We have been together through the good and the bad, and that, I know, is all that really matters.

I love you my darling.

Currently No A/C but Knitting is on the Brain

Hubby is trying to fix the A/C.  He is a bit on the frustrated side at the moment, which I can totally understand at the moment.  For myself I am trying very hard to stay out of his way and just letting the world and my body relax as much as is possible because my body, especially the left leg, just doesn't like me at the moment.  Hopefully the physical therapy that is slated to commence this next week will help me begin to correct that problem, although it is going to be painful, or so I've heard.

Since there is even more pain on the horizon, I am planning even more knitting.  Currently I am working on a dishcloth that was already supposed to have been mailed off.  Unfortunately, when migraines are really bad you can't knit.  I know because I have discovered the varying degrees of migraines and exactly what you can and cannot do when you are having one of those suckers!  However, with pain and its varying degrees, there appears to be much you can do to distract yourself and make the days better.  So, I am planning more knitting projects as well as some much needed sewing projects, and am really going to just listen to my body and sleep when the body decides it is time to do so, because otherwise I am just going to remain exhausted on a semi-continuous basis.

Sometimes it feels as if I am not taking full steps forward, just tiny little jerky ones, but forward is still the direction I reckon I'm still moving, so this is good.

Test

Test

The Fingerless Mitts for Mary Beth...

The fingerless mitts for Mary Beth are finished! These are the mitts that actually got me motivated for doing something once I was out of the hospital.

She is a weaver and owner of The Weft Handed Weaver site and blog where she is on the adventure of weaving and making the an authentic 18th Century cloak! I personally am finding this very interesting and exciting.

She asked me to make her the fingerless mitts because in the winter she cannot work well because her hands get cold. Since she does not knit, she asked me to knit her some fingerless mitts.

I was, first of all, hugely flattered, and second of all, I was thrilled to have something to knit in general. It was just the perfect project.

The yarn wasn't even a problem because Mary Beth had even spun some home spun in sock weight and had said she would provide me with equal amount of the yarn she had given me to knit the mitts in, which was a nice big ball of at least 50 grams at the very least! There is enough left over of the ball to do another set of mitts, which I am sincerely thinking of doing or adding it to the beautiful white she has given me for my own set of mitts for this winter.

Since Mary Beth is a "living museum" person, I did some research and came as close to an authentic 18th-19th Century set of working fingerless mitts as possible. Several articles I read debated on whether or not the fingers were "separate" or not, so I decided to just leave them free; if she decides she would like to have the fingers separate I can do this in less than 10 minutes time.

Because of this request, however, I have come up with some questions on my own:

• 
  What did women use to keep their heads warm, especially their ears, in winter for the inside of the drafty houses?
• How many knitted items were used during the 18th and 19th Centuries for warmth for the lower, middle, and upper classes?
• How affordable was yarn and fleece during these time periods and did everyone knit? Were there thriving yarn stores or did everyone just have a sheep or two in the back yard (which I simply can't see since even then sheep were expensive to keep I would imagine)?

Of course, I am going to have to do a little more research into these questions and see what answers I can come up with because there should be answers for these questions you know.

Settling In For The Future

I have decided that tomorrow I am going to plant as many seeds as I can in the pots I currently have and just hope for the best.  The Hubby doesn't have much clue about how to garden and even though I tell him that we need to get the seeds into the ground now as well as the plants he says "not this weekend", which is annoying, but there is nothing I can do about that.  So, I'm going to get as much done as I can as much into the dirt as possible.

On a good, positive note, the mitts are completed except for the sewing up part and weaving in the ends.  I still haven't done that yet, nor decided on what the next knitting project is going to be, but, at least there are ideas and I just have to choose between several.