Posts from — April 2008

Vitamins posed in window – I don’t store them there.
Originally uploaded by grannycat2327

I have been sick since, it seems like…forever this spring. I had thought the flu was going to miss me because I didn’t catch it early in the “season” like it seemed everyone else had. So, I figured I was safe. Home free as it were. Not so. It caught up with me about a month and a half ago. For two weeks I was in misery, thinking about how plausible the Spanish Influenza epidemic death toll now seemed and then reminding myself that I’ve had the flu before, felt like that, and survived it every time. So just be patient. Knit something, and make use of the down time. Well, I didn’t feel up to knitting. Mostly I just felt like sleeping or watching a movie in my chair with my quilt…and sleeping. Eventually that bout started easing off, and I was back in action. Still had a nagging cough, but otherwise felt almost back to my old form. And then one day, about a week or so after I considered myself “over it” – it all came back again. Relapse. So, two MORE weeks out of commission, and another week recuperating. So far! The recuperating phase seems to want to linger. Friends are starting to become concerned. Some have even taken action and sent healing gifts.

For the past month, at least, I have been kind of away from blogging about my knitting. I have been knitting a little, just haven’t finished anything, but mostly I’ve just been sick. The flu finally caught up with me. I was staying ahead of it pretty well. Everyone else around me was dropping like flies from it, and I meticulously washed my hands and stayed away from obvious sources of flu bugs…and then one day…it found its way to my house. It came home with Sean. He works at a grocery store, so really, there wasn’t much hope of him escaping it. So, he came down with it – and after that – there was no escaping it making the rounds of our house. Since then, I’ve mostly just been sidelined. Even knitting makes me tired, although, I have finally begun to feel well enough to pick up the shawl I’m making. I have also made one felted clog – which has turned out enormous even felted – but I’m still going to wear it. I’m making it’s companion the same size, and will just schlep around in huge clogs. Actually, they tend to shrink with washing as you wear them, so I figure that eventually, one day, they’ll be just the right size. They just need to be worn and washed a few times first.

So, anyway, I missed D, E, F and I think “G” in my ABC-along pics. If I ever get over this Flu, I’ll try to rectify that. D was too close to losing my Dog Daisy, and I couldn’t think of anything else – and I’d used her for C anyway – so add the loss of my dear fur-baby, throw in a double-dose of influenza (yes, I relapsed) - and there were no ABC-along pics to decorate the blog with.

Here are my three knitting bags with their respective projects. Brown paper bag holds clog yarn. I had the idea to put some of the “fun fur” type yarn around the cuff. I washed and dried this clog so many times trying to get it to shrink down, that I think I melted the fun fur! Note to self – make smaller size next time you use your handspun.

Small sock bag with one sock that needs toe Kitchnered and next sock started. These socks are for a child. They’re my car knitting project, and since I’ve been home sick – there has been no car knitting recently. The last bag has the Faroese style shawl progress. It looks kind of pitiful right now, but I think it’s actually turning out nicely. I have never blocked a cotton yarn, so not sure how the end result will be, but hopefully it will behave willingly, and it will look much better on blocking wires than it does as a formless blob on a knitting bag.

I have been sewing too, but don’t have pictures to share. It was mostly mending and “need this” kind of sewing, nothing fun and noteworthy really. Although I kind of thought my idea of serging the edges of my old towels a rather clever idea. My towels were getting frayed – there was no money to replace them with, and I have all these neat threads from my past life here – so I just got out the serger and freshened up all the edges of the old towels. I feel like I got new towels everytime I get one out to use now. Pretty cute, heh?

I always feel so “resourceful” when I do something like that. Cheap thrills.