Yarn Along #3: Light At the End of the T-Shirt

Another week without a proper post: hopefully things turn around in that regard.  It's still been crazy around my house.  Dad's home from his hip replacement and healing nicely, and my hubby and I have been fielding help requests and been requesting updates.  Seems like he's feeling way better than he did before surgery, so YAY!

I didn't get to finish the shirt this weekend like I hoped, so you get another week of looking at it! Aren't you guys just so excited?

THE CRAFT: Round #3 of AB's Playground Shirt is upon us, but we're so very, very close to completion.

Current Progress on the Shirt

This is where we stand right now.  Magic Loop is still working well for me for those sleeves, and I'm getting pretty antsy to start the collar.  I'm thinking I'm going to make it that grape-purple like the edging I've done, mostly to break up the rows up on rows of variegation.

Completed Sleeve (...and my rings...)

I'm loving how it finishes off the sleeves, though!  I edged it (and the bottom) in a single crochet; I also used a single crochet bind-off as that's the one I'm most comfortable with.  I like the feel it gives to the sleeves: it reminds me a bit of the hem on the edges of other sleeves.

...I also just like crocheting...a lot...

Bottom Edging: When Not Rolled

Though I still love the edging on the end of the shirt, I'm not completely sold on it.  My big beef with this is how much the bottom rolls from the stockinette, even with the single crochet row.  Now, I know I can do garter stitch rows to help tame this. However, I despise garter row edging for a whole slew of purely-aesthetic reasons, and I didn't think ribbing would look okay with the rest of the shirt.  I also worry how this acrylic yarn will block.  I really fear it's not going to tame that roll near as much as, say, a cotton or a woolen garment blocked would.

I'm considering doing another row of single crochet across the bottom, going in the opposite direction of the first, to see if that stabilizes it; it's also to help match the sleeves, whose purple borders are a row longer due to a brain-fart.  Thoughts?  Should I be this concerned?  Will the rolling be way less noticeable when AB wears it?

THE BOOK: We're also still reading The 19th Wife.  I've only gotten a few more pages into it since I wrote about it last, so I don't have much to offer there.  Though I hate history in general, I'm love Ann Eliza's accounts of her past and how the author intersperses historical documents into his narrative.  I'm really enjoying it more than I thought!

Check out the other Yarn Along pages!

Yarn-Along #2: More Shirt & Two Books!

(Forgive the late post--long week)

Well, this week has proven to be just as crazy as other weeks, with a bit more spice added in for good measure.  My father had a hip replaced yesterday, and I'm second tier on-call for my paternal grandmother's medical alert necklace.  (For those who are unfamiliar with that technology, Grandma wears a necklace around her neck that she can push to reach on-call nurses.  If it's pushed and it's deemed not on accident, a family member is also called.  Dad is first on that line, followed by me [as I, out of the three local grandkids, can get away from work the easiest to help Grandma.])  Long story short, I'm bebopping between home, work, and the hospital where Dad's recovering and praying Grandma (who has dementia and is freaking out over Dad's surgery) doesn't have a spell of some kind.

My dad also had some complications yesterday involving his blood pressure, so I literally forgot to post this at all.  Dad's stable now and improving, which helps, but I hadn't slept worth beans for two solid days.  Last night became "Cherish crashed after dinner and never woke up again until her alarm went off."  Today also has me bearing a killer headache, so please forgive any crazy grammar errors.  I will re-proof this at a later date.

Ended up a bit blurry as I was working out lighting issues in our computer room; this is the best shot I got.

THE CRAFT:  I'm still on the same Playground Shirt for AB, though I've completely finished the body of the shirt and moved to a sleeve!  Behold, dear readers: my first attempt at the Magic Loop technique!  I didn't have DPNs of the right size for the sleeves, but I did have interchangeable circular needles and a tutorial on Magic Loop, so that's what we're doing.  I'm working the first decrease row tonight, so let's see how this works out.

One Sleeve done; blocked to test out borders' rolling issues.

**Later Edit**  Sleeve worked out, clearly: on to sleeve two!

I hate that scrap of yarn's color...at least it's great for scraps!

THE BOOK(S): I'm actually working through two separate books right now.  My current audio book is The Tsarina's Daughter by Carolly Erickson.  It follows a woman named Tanya as she goes through life as a Grand Duchess (aka: princess) of Russia yet becomes a modest, Russian immigrant in her later years.  The elderly Tania (now going by Daria) tells her tale.  And, let me tell you, this is no innocent Russian grandmother telling this tale!  She's got fire in her, this Tania, and the story is hinting towards her doing greater things than just her birth-determined role of marrying a man of noble blood chosen by her father.  I was obsessed with Anastasia briefly as a girl, so this story of her sister is really catching my interest.

The other book I'm reading right now is The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff.  This story is weaving together the tales of a gay son of a convicted-of-murder 19th wife in 21st century Utah and Ann Eliza Young, a 19th wife who broke away from her polygamist cult and her husband.  A friend of mine recommended this book (and lent it to me), and I'm finally getting into the story.  It's a much slower read than some of the other books I've picked up, mostly as I can't exactly knit my shirt and read at the same time...and I've been determined to finish the shirt the past few days.

Wee!

As I mentioned yesterday, my day started with a bit of a tumble.  (Or, as I started referring to it today, "Cherish's Attempt to Determine Why Humans Themselves Cannot Fly Down Driveways.")  I am not-so-pleased to say that I am officially feeling my flight attempt.  I am also less-than-pleased to say that my flight attempt bears no cool images.

Yes, another terrible camera phone shot.  You're welcome.

THAT, dear readers, is yesterday's battle wound.  That little patch of red on my leg.  THAT IS IT.  For something that feels like the result of a demented troll with a hot iron launching a holy war against my leg every single time it touches something (re: all the time), this little 3 inch by 3 inch wound is a pathetic attempt at a battle scar.  It almost makes me ashamed to admit how bad it hurts.

...almost...

But on the advice of my sister (...also, if you found my blog, M: HI SISSY!), I am recapping my adventure here in more detail.

...nope...we beat no dead horses in this blog... *shifty eyes*

Anyways, our landlord notified all of us tenants on Tuesday that he was having our building's driveway sealed during the day on Thursday.  We tenants had to move all the cars to the street.  Neither Hubster or I minded doing this, but it was a little complicated in our case.  Y'see, my husband had a jeep he drove up until a few months ago, when it was given a nice little death sentence by the DMV in the form of failing inspection for a total of repairs worth more than it was.  It's been sitting in our driveway ever since, staring longingly at the functional cars we have while we attempt to figure out its fate.  We can't put it on the road, even to park overnight, without risk of ticket as it's unregistered and uninsured.  Landlord told us to put it in the yard, so no sweat.

Yesterday morning, though, found me in a rush as I couldn't find my sunglasses.  Readers, I have (mostly latent) strabismus and drive East in the morning and West in the evening on my daily work commute.  We call this, "Cherish cannot see the road well because her left eye doesn't get that turning away from the sun is kind of important" in Cher-Land.  My sunglasses are a requirement as far as I am concerned, and after three days of rain finally breaking, I wanted to be able to see to drive.  (Because, y'know, it's the important things.)  Hubster confirmed my suspicions: I left them in his car after the weekend's adventures.  He needed me to move Tony the Super Impala, though, so he could move the Jeep before he went to work.  I did indeed move one Tony, then decided to just go get my sunglasses from his Focus while he was moving the Jeep.  Cherish, being Cherish, decided running there was a good idea.

Never mind that I was wearing pretty wedge heels.

Never mind that our driveway is a bit uneven, with cracks here and there, and on a subtle downward slope.

Never mind that I have the grace of a drunken animal walking on a boat in the middle of an angry sea.

Nope, one Cherish decided she was running.  Her right heeled shoe, however, had other ideas.  Specifically, it wanted nothing to do with this endeavor and, instead, wanted to hang out on the asphalt.  Alone.  Cherish, as a result, was somehow catapulted through the air to skid to a not-so-pretty landing in the driveway.  Hence the aforementioned pathetic scrape of evilness.

Angry that I biffed it, I stomped back for my shoe, put it firmly in its place, and stomped its sorry sole the entire way down the driveway and back, sunglasses in tow on the return trip.  Hubster realized when I came back that "fell," this time, meant "Cherish decided to make an airborne attempt at spanning the driveway and, as a result, has permanently embedded some genetic material into the asphalt's surface."  (Aside: you know you're an accident prone person when you have to stress to your husband that this was a different kind of fall, as in it involved blood and pain and a blatant loss of even more dignity.)  Realizing I was probably late to work, I just rinsed the scrape, determined to clean it out when I got to work with my first aid kit.

And now, the new part of the story.  When I opened my first aid kit at work, I found a surprise:

Look--an even blurrier picture!

Ladies and gentlemen, I lost my prescription of Patanol when I moved last November.  Patanol, for those who don't know me in person, is a prescription eye-drop I use for exactly two months in the spring when my allergies raise a righteous fury upon my body: in layman's terms, it keeps me from clawing my eyes out.  My insurance (which changed from the last time I filled it--YAY health insurance reform) absolutely refused to fill the prescription as they deemed it "not medically necessary" though my doctor had been ordering this exact same script for me for TEN SOLID YEARS and the insurance company knew me for, oh, 4 months.  (Another aside: I am told my phone call with that particular company was especially epic as I went all debate champion all over them...I don't take being screwed over well).

That picture?  The one right up there?  My lost prescription.  Good until next year.  And about three months too late to help me.

Apparently, I keep my medicine in a first aid kit now.  >_<

So, yeah, yesterday can take a flying leap off a tall cliff for all I care.  I'm kind of done with it.

...or, y'know a flying tumble down a driveway...I have it on good authority that those hurt terribly when you're over the age of seven.

A Fortnight Passes

So, two weeks have passed since I posted last...at least this time, I have a good reason:

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: Last week, I had three birthday parties, three days in a row, for two guys born on the same day (my baby brother and my husband's good friend).

Wednesday: I crashed the second I got home and slept until Thursday.  No knitting or reading done = no Knit-Along.

Thursday & Friday: I spent the entire night and all of Friday cleaning for company as a dear friend of mine from college was coming to stay with us until Sunday morning.  I was VERY glad to have her, but that ate the part of my weekend not taken up by...

Saturday: Two friends of mine from college got married on Saturday, August 2nd, in a town over an hour from where my husband and I live.  We spent the majority of that day at the festivities or traveling, and we and Dear Friend got home around midnight that night.  We had an absolute blast at their wedding and reception, even though the sky decided we all needed a demonstration of Noah's Flood done in five minutes flat on city streets.  (Also, take note: this Protestant was very confused in the full Roman Catholic wedding mass...and thought it was very long but beautiful...but long...so long...)

Sunday: Woke up feeling sick.  After our company left, I slept and/or rested most of that day.

Monday: Found myself in that wonderful "I am not unwell enough to classify as sick, but I have no desire to do anything not involving a flop onto something soft" land, but I made an appearance at a bridal shower for one of my sisters-in-law's friends and at the weekly game night Hubster and I attend.

Tuesday: Day #3 of "Okay, body, pick a mode, any mode, but for the love of all things cute and fuzzy stick with either sick or well" land had me still not so great.  We ate leftovers from the bridal shower for dinner.  I felt none of the shame...and I was glad I didn't leave the food my mother-in-law tried to pawn off on me on her counter like I so desperately wanted to do.

Wednesday: Cherish threatens to send her body to counseling to make it choose a mode as she's sick of being neither sick nor well.  (Anyone detecting a pattern yet?  Anyone?  Anyone?)  It was the first day of a new volunteer tutoring job I had agreed to take, so I pulled myself together long enough to make an appearance and something more useful than a talking corpse in a library chair.  When I got home, I knitted maybe two rows tops and read all of three pages of another book but forgot to take pictures of either endeavor.  Honestly, I'd probably have not taken any pictures even if I had remembered as, as sorry as I am to say this, I liked my couch better than any blog readers by that time last night.  Again, no shame shalt be felt this day.

That brings us to today.  Though I finally--FINALLY--feel like a human with an immune system worth more than a peanut at a carnival, I am less-than-pleased to state that I am out of "spoons" for the day.  Yep, I'm done.  Y'see, I flew down our driveway today.

Without a car.

In a knee-length skirt.

And landed on my side...as in I skidded down the driveway on said side.

I learned today that 26-year-olds don't bounce like they're six years old anymore.  I also relearned just how bad a bruise under a brush burn can hurt.  I feel like I'm 80 today after brush-burning my left leg from the knee to the middle of my shin, bruising (I think--haven't looked yet) my left hip, and just overall aching everywhere from both the fall and being sick all week.  I am a SORE lady.  It's time to go home and sleep.

But, yeah, haven't forgotten about here yet.  Should have some type of post up in a day or two.  I'm also finally--yes, after TEN YEARS, FINALLY--making progress on my Sailor Moon fanfiction, so I may share it here as time goes on.  We'll see!

For now, though, I want ice.  And a gauze pad.  And maybe a hamster ball to protect myself from, well, myself.