WEEK 35 of YOP 12

 

Hey there!  It is that time again to update you on my weekly crafting progress. 

Here is my progress:

Finished the skein of yellow (canary) and started the orange on the lap blanket.  I am loving how squishy the garter rows are.  Seems I forget that little detail when this stitch is not used often.  The orange is almost done and then I will do yellow again and then orange etc.  Each skein nets me about 7 inches.  This means I will need to use 6 skeins total to make it the size I want.  Lucky for me I have 3 skeins of each color!

And that, my friends, is all for my crafting this week.  Pretty pathetic, huh!

There has been quite a bit going on here this week other than that.  If you don't want to read on, that is fine.  But, I need to put this out there so I can move on from this past week.

I had another ENT appointment on Tuesday,  The infection is gone but there is still fluid in my ear.  Good news is, I have gone from being deaf in that ear to being hard of hearing.  I have been given another two weeks.  If the fluid is still there after that, they are going to slice a small hole in my ear drum to drain it!  Well golly gee!  I just healed the hole in my ear and now they want to put another one in it?  Doesn't seem right to me.

On Wednesday, Josie invited us to attend Mass at her school for Ash Wednesday.  We were thrilled that she asked us to attend so of course we went.  Then we did a quick Costco run.  Trust me, there is nothing quick about going to a big box store!  But we did find some yummy spinach ravioli that I am anxious to make some evening.

Thursday I made out a weeks worth of menus as well as the grocery list.  Hubby cleaned the floors in the house.  There was also laundry to do as well as me cleaning all the household counter tops.  I love it when we finish and just sit back and look at our shiny clean home.

Friday we got some good news.  Hubby had gone to his urologist a week ago and they did a biopsy of his bladder.  This is the day we got the results.  Everything was negative.  PHEW!  Even though we waited an hour past his appointment time, it was worth the wait to get that news.  After that we did the last of our errands.  That evening we went to see Josie in her final High School Play.  She played Doris (the mom) in Bye Bye Birdie.  It was so good!  We laughed so hard.  Those kids did such a fantastic job.  One of the best they had done.

Saturday I finally got into the freezer and pulled everything out and rearranged it.  We have so much meat in there, we should be good for almost a year!  Since we vacuum seal everything, there was very little I needed to dispose of.  I did find a few things from 2017 stuck in the back that went into the trash bin.  Now that I know what we have, I can make better menu plans.

I have not touched my knitting needles for the past 3 days.  Hopefully today will see me getting more rows on the lap blanket done.  I do have just a couple of errands to run (picking up medicine for hubs and grabbing a few mushrooms for tonight's soup)  I am going to do that as soon as I post this. 

How was your week?

Until Next Time......................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WEEK 34 OF YOP 12

 

Hello again.  Here is what happened this week.

The Rose City Roller bulky socks are completed.

These were a quick knit.  The yarn is Romantique from Hobby Lobby, in colorways Frosted Vanilla and Blush Pink.  I used a size 6 needle and knit them via magic loop.  If I had used DPNs I would have gone to a size 7 needle (US sizing).  I cast on 32 stitches and did a FLK heel.  The toe was decreased over 9 rows before doing the Kitchener stitch to close it.  I started the pink ones on the 10th and finished them on the 12th.  I cast on the grey pair immediately but it took me until the 17th to finish them.  (Stupid arthritis got in the way)

They were delivered to their recipients on the 17th and yesterday I received this photo:

The boy loves his!  Makes me happy to see they are being used.

After those were completed I knew I needed to work on something easy.  I also wanted to be able to us Portuguese style knitting 100% on what ever I choose.  My right wrist is super sore and swollen due to the fact I am not able to take my RA drugs until further notice!  Portuguese knitting (purling) is super easy on the hands and wrists and is pretty quick too.   I found the perfect pattern.  Purl Soho Super Easy Lap Blanket!  It is 100% garter stitch which means I can Portuguese purl the entire thing! The only modification I made to this is to only cast on 120 stitches.  Here is the start of it.

I will be using several different colors of yarn for this and it will go to the ministry at our church when completed.  It is the perfect no brainer knit and so nice on my joints.

I go back to the ENT this coming week.  Hopefully I will be given the green light to start back on my RA meds again.  I still am having hearing issues with the ear that was damaged.   After 21 days of antibiotics and 10 days of steroids, I do not think anything can still be 'growing' in there.  

Today will be my normal lazy Sunday.  I have a pork loin roast in the crock pot that will be shredded and turned into red chili.  There will be pinto beans cooked in the insta-pot to go with the chili.  Sour dough tortillas will be made this afternoon to go with the chili and beans.  There is still half a bowl of snickerdoodle dough left that will also be baked today.  Not a lot of heavy kitchen work other than making the tortillas.  Everything else is more or less easy peasy.

So, the above photo of my knitting is what I see when I look to my right.  When I look to my left I see this:

My little loves.

Until Next Time..........................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WEEK 33 OF YOP 12

 

Hey there.  How is it going at your place?  It was busy here this week, especially in my crafting.

Here is my FO for the week.

Hubby's RCR socks are done and in his drawer.  I had a lot of down time this week so spent it all on his socks.  The last sock was completed last night.  So nice to have them completed.

As I was working on them, last week, I kept wondering what I would work on next.  I did not have anything really in mind.  Nothing was calling my name to make.  Then I got a text from my TX DIL asking if I would make 2 pair of fuzzy socks for some of the kids in their home.  Really?  How exciting to have a project thrown at me like that.  I contacted my knitting kindred spirit in Las Vegas to ask her if she had done anything like this and what yarn would she suggest.  She gave me some thoughts which helped.

I was out and about yesterday so dropped into my local Hobby Lobby to look at yarn.  I knew I did not want to knit socks with fake fur type yarn.  Too hard to do a heel turn with that.  But I wanted it to be soft with a bit of a halo.  I also wanted it to be a bulky yarn to be knit with a smaller than normal needle for warmth.

Ta Da:

One person wanted pink and the other wanted black or red.  Well, there was not any red soft fuzzy type yarn and this was the only 'black' fuzzy I could find.

I think it is going to be fun once it is knit up into a short sock.  Oh, ya, they both want the short RCR type sock.

So I cast on last night for the pink sock.

Surprise.....I am doing it magic loop this time.  I am loosely doing this pattern.  I went down to a size 6 needle as I knit looser in magic loop than on DPNs.  These are going to be super quick to knit.  They are half the number of stitches I normally cast on and grow quickly.  These will go with me today when I go to our TX family house for Superbowl.

Once these are completed, I have no clue what I will work on.  I figure I have a week or two to figure it out though.  Any thoughts?  Prayer shawl?  Cross Stitch?  Dishcloth?  Scrubbies?

Also, it is that time of year here in Arizona where our daytime temps are perfect and night time is chilly.  Perfect for the wild flowers in the neighborhood yarns to flourish.

These always give me so much pleasure to see.  They only last for a few weeks.  Yet, those weeks tell me spring is in the air.

Until Next Time.......................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS:  My ear is still hard of hearing.  I have a massive sinus infection on the right side of my head.  Will know more in a couple of weeks when I go back to the ENT.  On medications to try and get this cleared up at the moment.

WEEK 32

 

Greetings!  Here is a look into my past week.

The 'To The Point' prayer shawl is completed.

It took much longer than my normal time to complete this thanks to my 'cold'.  I kept falling asleep while working on it.  Then, when I woke up I would need to rip back a bit to fix my 'sleep' crochet mistakes.  It still needs it medal and tag sewn on for the church ministry.  I will do that after I complete a couple more shawls for them.  Then I just make an assembly line and do them all at the same time.

The only other project to be worked on were hubby's RCR socks.

The heel has been turned and I am a third of the way done with the foot.  I was mistaken, last week, when I said this was DK yarn.  It actually is fingering weight in superwash merino.  I finally found the info on the project I had made with this before it was completely frogged and turned into socks.  It is not a very soft merino though.  But that probably is for the best as it should wear well then.  I am not noticing much of a gauge difference between my 2.5mm and 2.25mm needles.  I was really hoping for a denser material but it looks almost exactly the same.  If that is the case, then that means, I have four sets of DPN's to knit socks on!  So I can do a pair for him and a pair for me at the same time.  WOOHOO!

I was pretty much down and out most of the week.  I finally felt like I was going to live Friday.  That worked out well because hubby came down with it that day!  He is feeling exactly the way I did.  I told him if his ear started to ache we were going to the Dr right away!

Speaking of ears.................Many of you said you had never heard of a cold affecting an ear.  Well, since it started in my head and moved to my chest, the infection was still in my head and sinuses.  But because I was coughing so much and so hard, I really didn't realize it was in both places.  So, the sinuses got inflamed and moved that lovely inflammation into my right ear and BAM!  There goes the rupturing of an ear drum.

I am still unable to hear out of that ear.  The drainage from the ear finally stopped yesterday.  My equilibrium is a bit off so I need to be careful and mindful when walking.  I have an appointment with an ENT on Tuesday this week.  Hopefully there will be some good news there.  Although, I have found one advantage to loosing hearing in one ear........If I sleep on my good ear I am unable to hear my hubby or dogs snore!  

Even with being under the weather, I still managed to do all the laundry chores, bake bread, cook nightly meals, get a haircut, make menus, make a grocery list and go to the grocery store as well as both big box stores.  Granted, all the out of the house activity was done Friday or Saturday.  I refused to go out and pass this on to others until I had no more symptoms.

I am so thankful for my knitting/crocheting projects.  They helped keep me from going stir crazy.  I was fortunate too that hubby made sure I had everything I needed/wanted while I was in the worse part of my illness.  So, now I am returning the favor to him.

Let me just brag a bit.  Our weather here is gorgeous!  We are in the low 70's with tons of sunshine.  It felt so good to be outdoors yesterday soaking up the lovely sun and gentle breeze.  Today should be more of the same.  I think this calls for me to wipe down my front porch rocking chairs and sit and knit or read outdoors for a while today while hubby naps. 

I will leave you with this........................................

 Enrique curled up in my lap last night.  This is not a normal occurrence.  He usually sits next to me, never really on me.  It was so cute.

Until Next Time.............Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!