Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Hey there Blog
It's been a while since we last spoke (especially after my two-day-in-a-row debut). What are my excuses? A very busy weekend: starting on Friday I had no less than two sets of visitors per day. An appointment on Monday with a neurosurgeon, more about that later. Plus sleeping off a head/neck ache for a day and a half. That about brings us up to date!

The weekend was pretty great, lots of friends from school and church dropped by and my brother and his family came to visit. It was nice to have the brodiggler here. We accomplished a lot (well, Rory and Lucy accomplished a lot). Thanks to them, I now have artwork hung in my living room, laundry done and an air-matress ready and inflated for my next overnight guest. It's no-longer bring your own mattress at my place folks!

It was also just great to have the family around. Family is great because they are instantly comfortable in your house and have no hesitations finding their way around the kitchen to make coffee in the morning if they're up before you. I got so many nice hugs from Little Miss Maya who just turned two...and a good number of slobbery kisses too.

Speaking of family, my Mom and my sister Randi came up from North Bay on Sunday night. Randi had a PD day on Monday which was conveniently the same day as my neurosurgeon appointment. It was nice to have them over too...nothing like having your mom around when you don't feel good. We watched A Series of Unfortunate Events (perhaps that was more due to my dark sense of humour than Randi and I having read the book a few summers ago).

After a night of not very much sleep, we went down to the Civic Hospital to meet my neurosurgeon. She made me wait a very long time and when I finally got to see her she told me that she would like to wait two more weeks before giving me surgery. She says that within six weeks of the initial injury, a disk will sometimes move back into place and that would take away the need for a potentially risky surgery. So, its more waiting for me. Good thing Im pretty good at that waiting thing.

The head/neck ache isn't much to worry about. It's my body's standard response to stress and lack of sleep--something that I have had a lot of since this whole back thing started. Still, it is strange to lose a day and a half altogether.

In other news, I managed to finish two projects and give away three last week!
Here is the hat and bootie set I made for Baby Joe. Notice the leaf on the hat since his daddy is an arbourist. I gave it to his mommy when she came to visit me.

And the hat I made for my friend Christy who re-arranged her life to sit in the ER with me for two days. (Sorry for the strange self-portrait, let's just say the sun was in my eyes!)













And some fingerless gloves I made for Maryann's birthday present.

They are all knit in Cascade 220 in various colours. The booties are the Gansey Booties I talked about in my last post. The baby hat is the Gooseberry Hat by Suvi Simola and the leaf pattern is called Just a Leaf by Hinke they are both found on Ravelry. Christy's hat is the New Sweetie Pie Hat from Purl Soho. Maryann's gloves are Fetching from Knitty.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Yarn Stuff

Today my friend Christy took me on an outing to Yarn Forward so I could stock up on materials for knitting during this healing process. Here are the spoils:
I have great plans for this heap of wool!

Here is a bit of knit-history (knitstory?) for you:
Last fall I got bit by the knitting bug, hard. I have know how to knit since my mom taught me when I was six. I have knit on and off ever since with some breaks for crochet and cross stitch. When I was in university, I didn't have much time for any sort of crafting (a Chemical Physics degree will do that to you...).
So how did I get bit by the knitting bug? A friend of mine from work was expecting a baby girl last September. I decided I needed to knit her something for her new little one. I started with the Umbilical Cord Hat from Stitch n Bitch by Debbie Stoller. I knit this in Northern Worsted by Kertzer in a colourway called Ocean Wave.
I found that I couldn't stop at the hat, I had to complete the set with some booties. I scoured the internet for a bootie pattern that made sense. I don't like the idea of having a seam running up the bottom of the baby's little foot. I realize the baby won't be walking on them and won't feel them but I know that I would be uncomfortable in sock or slipper with a big seam along the bottom. I didn't know about Ravelry then so I was relying on Google searches. I found a great pattern for seamless Gansey Booties by Lobolita. Even for a relatively novice knitter, they turned out pretty well (we'll just choose to ignore the one failed bootie that didn't fit due to an extremely tight bind-off!).

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

A New Blog, A New Situation

Hello Everyone in Blogland, I have decided to start blogging. I have a bit of a new situation. On Labour Day Weekend I decided to move some furniture and ended up herniating a disk in my back. The disk is bulging into my spinal cord (I saw the MRI). Because of the pain that I'm in and the drugs that I'm on, I have had to take an indefinite amount of time off teaching. I am waiting for an appointment with a neurosurgeon and I will find out on the 24th what I will need to do to fix this and maybe a time-frame of getting back to work. In the past ten days of being off, I have learned a few things: 1. I have a great group of friends in this city. I am amazed by the support and care that people have shown me. I have a fridge-full of food and a social calendar that is packed with visits and tea and suppers! 2. I can't just lay around and watch tv all day everyday (I end up feeling sad, unproductive and restless). 3. Even though I can't walk very far, I can still spend time outside. I found one of those vinyl table cloths that I spread in a sunny spot in my back yard and pile my necessary pillows onto it. Sometimes I bring the radio out with me and listen to CBC Radio 2 Drive while I knit. 4. I can knit quite comfortably in my default 'all fours' position if I lean against a footstool. I have found that double-pointed or circular needles work much better than typical straight needles. The straight needles are too long and get caught on my footstool and pillows. 5. Since signing up for Netflix six days ago, I have managed to use up 75% of my 20 Gb on the Rogers Lite internet service. I will need to upgrade modems and switch to the 80 Gb service plan. As another back-friendly activity, I will update this blog regularly while I am off. I'm thinking this will be a blog about anything that's on my mind. You will probably find some knitting posts (I have a stockpile of finished objects that have been waiting to be posted!). You will probably also find life anecdotes, music suggestions and spiritual ruminations. It will be a bit of a grab bag and I won't be offended if you only read the posts that interest you :-) I'll sign off with a photo from my summer adventure to the North Shore of Lake Superior. Carla