… so my other half is behind me, taking Betty the rest of the way apart. With a repair manual next to him. I’m sweating bullets, but he swears it’s a good thing. Sigh. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!
(BTW – he busts Betty, I’ve informed him he’s buying me a brand new equivalent. Ahem.)
This is über late – my birthday is the seventh of this lovely month – but I decided to share my goodies in a couple of posts. Firstly, I decided to give proper props to my kids by giving them their own post, as they each contributed lots of loveliness to my day! ^_^
My Youngest made a large, sweet production about a Kiss on the Cheek. An absolutely fab present if I do say so, myself.
Youngest Son (Pardon the lack of shirt. It's a phase, lol.)
Middle Son gave me pin money from his very tightly cared for (hoarded? 😉 ) savings stash and basically said, go to Goodwill, look for yarn, knock yourself out. So I did. Couldn’t find any yarn, but I did find these three things, between the Goodwill and another local thrift store (benefiting Haven House)*:
A small but lovely stash! First is the Mere Poulard cookie tin from Mont Saint-Michel. Found that at Haven House for 99 cents. Pleased as punch with this, as it perfectly fits all my little crochet needles and notions. You can’t beat a French biscuit tin for that, I figure. ^_-
I also splurged on a little remnant of Holly Hobby quilted fabric. Mom made me a bathrobe out of the same print when I was little. I’m hoping, if I can get my sewing machine sorted out, to make something from it, even though it’s an odd little leftover. It’s in fabulous shape, though.
My final gift from Middle Son was a gently used copy of Peace is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh. I have been wanting a copy of this book for ages and was delighted to find it at a really 
good price at Goodwill. Used is recycled, which is great!
And last, but certainly not least, my Eldest urged me to download Cake Mania 2 for my birthday and funded said venture. If you’ve not played it, think Tetris with cake, though it’s nowhere near as epic as Tetris, of course. Several years ago I bought the original and played it entirely too much until I won. I’ve yet to get anywhere close to that with this one, which is good on a variety of levels. ^_- Hopefully that means I’m being more productive, haha!
I couldn’t be more thrilled – thanks boys! ^_^
I had to go into town, so while I was there I hit up Tuesday Morning and Wally-World looking for budget-friendly yarn. I’m still a newbie, so I wasn’t looking for anything fine, just workable and practical yarn for a beginner.
Tuesday Morning was mostly a bust, ‘though there were two small packets of Bernat Organic Cotton. I didn’t think it was a good enough deal at the time (three balls for $4.99) so I didn’t get it. In retrospect, looking at the Herrschner’s Yarn Sale, I guess it was a decent deal. Ah well. The Lion Brand Homespun *definitely* wasn’t at a good enough price. Actually, I wasn’t hugely impressed by the whole store – the prices weren’t what I’d call…a bargain.
I dropped by Wal-Mart’s craft section while I was out – I got 2 skeins of Caron’s Simply Soft Eco in White and one in Natural, as well as two Red-Heart Super-Savers, one in Dark Sage, and one in Claret – all for a dollar a piece. The latter two I view as practice yarn more than anything else – a bit scratchy, but good for practice scarves, hats, etc. The Caron yarn I love – I had already bought a skein of Ocean on sale ($2) for my middle son – he wanted a “lovey” blanket to cuddle under, which I did make – I didn’t think to photograph it, though – guess I should. Their Simply Soft Eco line is really soft, though a bit friable – hard to keep from separating strands, sometimes. The fun thing is – it’s partially made of recycled plastic bottles.
I was poking around Ravelry a couple of days ago and found a mention of crochet hook cushions on the Learn Crochet group board. I had started to wonder – I find that if I’m working on something that requires a finer hook and smaller gauge, I still have issues with hand cramping and aching. These:
Crochet Hook Cushion
…look fabulous! I look forward to getting some, as well as trying out different hook styles – perhaps that will help, as well.
Found this browsing the web – looks to be a fabulous resource with pics, links, and more! ^_^ Woot!
Via the Persnickety Knitter, I found this lovely guy. Wow! Not that I have any hope of something that glorious any time soon, but a gal can dream, yes? ^_^ Anyway, hope P.K. doesn’t mind me borrowing the picture – what a lovely image and what great inspiration!!
I’ve been really struggling to get a real project done, crochet-wise. If I sit and crochet for a long period of time, my hands begin to ache through the base of my thumb, in towards my palm, and then also across the outside edge of my wrist down through my upper arms.
I haven’t been able to figure out what’s going on here. I don’t get swelling or numbness – just a very strong feeling of hyper-fatigued muscles so tired they want to cramp. To me this doesn’t sound like arthritis or carpal tunnel. So I’ve been trying to track down what it could be….
I’ve been typing for more than twenty years, but beyond a little bit of tiring after a while, I seldom have an issue with it. I have always tried to take care with my typing technique in an effort to avoid getting a repetitive stress injury like carpal tunnel. On the other hand, I do have a very hard time writing by hand for very long – I get the response I get when I crochet.
Anyway, I have a lot of ideas, but no specific thoughts on how to proceed. Any feedback, y’all?
My First Yarn Ball ^_^ -- Berrocco Comfort
Well, at least a little bit. While both the yarn skeins I bought the other day were center-pull, I decided to roll up the Comfort one for practice, using this post over at Ariadne’s weblog as a guide. (I hear congratulations are in order over there, ya know.^_^) I had tremendous luck rolling my first ever yarn ball – I even took a picture, haha!
However, after that, I tried a variety of suggestions, both online and from two books. Now the online one worked out fine, but my skein management failed miserably. I went from a nice neat skein, to a tangled mess. I tried advice from the Klutz books I got recently, as well as Stitch n’ Bitch. Now the suggestion from the Klutz books is to drap a skein over a chair edge. I can see that – just not the way it is portrayed in the Crochet book. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I was finally able to figure out that my husband’s top desk drawer was wide enough to keep my skein from slipping off and tangling, so all of my skein’s from the Klutz books are now properly rolled. Now to actually dive deep into the actual practice of knitting and crochet. 😛
Well, I finally got around to going to my first yarn shop in a very, very long time last week. Meant to blog about it between here and there, but life’s been busy….
Anyhoo, got a little late birthday pin money from my MIL, so off I went to hunt down my very own LYS:
Destin Yarn Shop
And there it is! ^_^ I am *almost* too embarrassed to mention how excited I was when I realized I’d found it. And what fun it was – lots of colors and textures…
LYS Goodies
Anyway, I controlled myself and bought some size 9 needles and two types of yarn. 😛 Gonna make a potato chip scarf, a free pattern from owner Carol Williams that I’m sure most have you have seen before. It’s supposed to be easy. Guess we’ll see, lol.
Ack – I know that my knitting and crocheting goodies have left Jacksonville, FL, so they can’t be too far away….Darn you “Track Packages” feature. o.0
<— Fidgeting impatiently….
UnRavelations 