ok, ladies of the mel-o-dee, who among us is going to make THIS??? Karrie? Dare ya. There's even a knit-a-long!
Man, talk about an item for the costume box....
this is not about knitting or spinning except very tangentially. when i was pretty young (12 or 13) i developed this major pain in the ass medical condition involving chronic nerve pain radiating from my hip to my ankle. which got worse over time but took about 17 years to correctly diagnose. which was a super cool amount of time to get shuttled around the medical community.
so the reasons this is relating to knitting are that this thing (1) is most likely the root of my rsi problems, and (2) also causes extreme pain when i sit for long periods of time. like, when i'm knitting or spinning. and for whatever reason (oh i don't know, maybe certain recent exciting but scary stressors....) it's been really bad lately. which means i haven't been doing much of anything. including, say, knitting or spinning.
but today i started taking a medication that's actually designed to help this pain without making me a zombie. so i'm pretty excited about the prospect of getting this thing under control enough that i can live my life and do the things i want to do. like, say, knitting and spinning. got it? good. look out UFOs -- there's a new sheriff in town!
now the only downside is that this medicine has all kinds of side effect warnings involving drowsiness, dizziness and lack of coordination. in case my falling-off-the-wall incident didn't make it clear, i don't know how much less coordination i can handle. i wonder if suzie counts as "heavy machinery."
ok, no more boring health stuff. hopefully i can get some knitting done during my drowsy weekend. i wonder if this will make the lace scarf even harder to pay attention to. or maybe it'll get me more focused (because i'll only be able to focus on one thing at a time...)? so ... knitting news to follow.
Our Alameda SNB has finally returned to full-strength after a few sparse weeks following the sudden unexpected demise of Coffee for Thought. CFT is now back open, and last night we had about 15 folks.
As for me, I've finally returned to the baby blanket I started last July. I got the book (some sequel to "Wee Knits") and yarn (RIP, Mission Falls Cotton) shortly after learning that my friend Veronica was pregnant with the-child-later-to-be-known-as-Indiana. See 9/24/04. It's a pretty complicated pattern for a brand new knitter, whic I was. It's still complicated now - for a knitter with some kind of relentless knitting pattern ADD.
So I've brought it the last two weeks to our Alameda SNB, but it's slow-going. Maybe I need to make my own chart. The way the one in the book is laid out just begs for mistakes. Or maybe my sloppiness begs for mistakes. Who can say?
I'm also making slow progress on the lace scarf. I may be confident enough in it now to bring it to the dimly-lit Mel-O-Dee.
Speaking of the Mel-O-Dee ... yippee it's Tuesday. There's something disconcerting about the new bartender's consistency vis a vis drink prices (as opposed to Martin's wheel-of-fortune approach to pricing). But it's still the Mel-O-Dee...!
If you're reading this, you probably spend too much time at your computer. In a related story, several folks have asked me about the RSI treatment/pain management book I keep talking about. The author is Pete Egoscue. The two books are "Pain Free at Your PC" (that's the one I have) and "Pain Free" (I don't have it but it's been highly recommended). He has really useful exercises for "preventing or reversing" RSI (his claim, not mine).
This is the yarn store ("stash") that we went to yesterday. Very snappy. It's at 1820 Solano in North Berkeley. It reminded me a lot, organization-wise, of Big Sky Luxury Yarns in Lafayette, although Big Sky has a lot more yarn (and, correspondibly, can be a more stressful experience to visit). Big Sky has everything organized by color, rather than by brand. Stash has everything organized by gauge, which is also a nice set-up.
Having spent the day spinning, though, I was pretty shocked at the price of hand-spun yarns. I picked the wrong profession.....
Two of my spinning friends ordered two fleeces online awhile ago. This all got started with our prurient interest in adopt-a-sheep, although no one I know ever wound up using that site....
First they ordered one from some mystery farm and a sheep called Speckles. I didn't get a look at the fleece or the roving, although the report is that it was a suprisingly dirty and smelly experience. Karrie showed me some finished yarn, though, that looked impressively like yarn.
They also ordered "Maxine's fleece" from Skyline Farms. I got my first first-hand look at Maxine yesterday. They decided not to comb it and to basically just spin right from the fleece. It's extremely variegated -- ranges from natural/white to dark charcoal grey. Very pretty, but it's also really oily; I don't know how much washing you have to do to get it cleaned up -- and, importantly, what kind of end result you get, fiberwise, when most of the lanolin is gone. Anyway, very interesting to see. I think Gen is going to try to spin enough to make an entire garment, so that should be educational for all of us who get to live vicariously through her. Meanwhile, Karrie gave me some to take home and spin, so I'll report back once I've dealt with Maxine hands-on, so to speak.
But I think that for the time being I'll stick with buying roving.
Incidentally, I noticed that Oregon Trail has 15 oz. of 50/50 wool/mohair (white/undyed) for $16.00. However, my yarn diet is also a roving diet, and will certainly continue until I figure out where in the world I'll be living 3 months from now.....
i have been a horrible blogger lately. will try to remedy soon. but here's a quick recap of this week:
alameda SNB returned to its full glory. sadly, so did the pirates.
i met several knitters during the week through various friends; hopefully some of them will be joining us at the mel-o-dee on tuesday.
karrie, gen and i went to check out the new yarn store in berkeley/albany - stash. very nice. we ran into B there, which proves that it's now where *all* the cool kids go.
also thanks to karrie and gen, suzie (my beloved majacraft wheel) and i finally got reacquainted, and i continued spinning the lovely white roving from morgaine. i think a dyeing party may be on the horizon.
speaking of spinning, i learned that karie is going to get to spin musk ox - i am extremely jealous.
then again, alaska continues to pop up in strange and unexpected opportunities ... by this time next year i may be raising musk oxen in my yard.
bedtime now. more details on all of this later.
it's been a very educational experience. it requires a lot of things i'm not particularly good at, such as, counting rows, delicate technique, paying attention to detail, etc. i may need a back-up project for social knitting, because at both CFT and the mel-o-dee this week i spent about 1/3 the time knitting and the other 2/3 undoing mistakes i was making. dumbass.
By popular demand (and with thanks to Katie H's mystery cousin):
Blend but do not over-process the following ingredients in a blender:
1 14-oz can of artichoke hearts (drained)
1 c. parmesan cheese
1 c. mozzerella cheese
1 c. mayo
1 clove garlic
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp. dijon mustard
1-2 dashed of tabasco.
(Blend, then adjust garlic, lemon, mustard, tabasco for taste. But when you blend it, you still want some chunks of artichoke.)
Put the mixture in a ceramic dish and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Serve with sliced baguette.
So ... now everyone knows why it's so good (*how* many cups of cheese??) ;-)
All this, and I knit, too!! I've started the lace alpaca scarf I picked up at stitches. I'm hoping to bond with Suzie this weekend and decide whether to take the intermediate spinning class at West Valley Alpacas next weekend. Hmmmm. But for now I have to hop in my little car and drive to Hayward for work. I'm soooooo glad it's almost the weekend.