But this is just a short post to say that today, and even late-yesterday, have been great. It’s been a good 36-hours. Things are moving along. Life’s speed bumps are getting sorted out, one at a time, the only way they really can. And, I even had two conversations with good friends today about future projects.

This has left me pretty excited. And I wanted to record that. That after nearly 3-weeks of feeling like life is throwing too much at me yet again, I feel the universe is evening back out and I will soon be back on the path I should be — enjoying life as best I can, and making the most of it.

Sorry to be so vague about everything, but I just need it to be vague right now while the pieces of the puzzle come together.

Where I grew up we didn’t have cable TV so we had only a handful of channels (and for a long time only a manual TV until we got a VCR and I figured out how to hook it up and use the remote control for that to change channels — and this is still the set up when I left for university, and was still in place in 1995). We also lived pretty far away from lots of infrastructure, and had some coastal mountains on one side of us and the Pacific ocean on the other, so radio stations weren’t very forthcoming either. There were a couple of places where they did have cable television. Luckily I had friends who lived in such places so I’d get a dose of MTV when I went there (back when MTV actually played music videos 24/7), and all sorts of exciting cable channels that played movies long before they were available to rent.

In 1983 we went to Hawaii for a family vacation. It was my mom, grandma, and four kids and we stayed mostly in condos/houses that my mom found advertised in the newspaper as holiday rentals. Many of these places had cable TV and a huge hit at the time was Uptown Girl by Billy Joel. My God I loved this song and the video. I was transfixed everytime it came on the TV or radio.

So for your viewing pleasure, Billy Joel and Uptown Girl.

As always, I’m behind on posting. I’ve got swept up in a more professional blog the last few weeks so all of my posting energy has been put towards that. Also, despite having another FO, and worn it publicly, I am not happy with it so am remiss to blog about it. So onwards!

I don’t think it’s too often that I get yarn that I want to knit with immediately unless I have bought it for something very specific with a deadline. This was not the case here. I bought this yarn at Squam. It was the yarn I saw and had to have because the colour was so gorgeous. I saw it and bought it without a second thought. It came as a kit with the cowl pattern though to be honest the pattern could’ve been for a toilet seat cosy and I would’ve still bought it. I didn’t even notice that it was a heavy lace weight/light fingering weight yarn. It was all about the Benjamin’s colour.

It turns out that the pattern it came with was pretty simple, shows off the yarn well and doesn’t cause any flashing or other horribleness you often get with hand-dyed yarns. So I wound up the yarn, by hand, like I always do. Except that this took me two nights just to wind. And I don’t mean like 20 minutes each night. It was two quite intense nights of winding. The yardage isn’t obscene, it’s just that things got quite messy and it required a lot of patience and pretending like I didn’t know what scissors are.

Night three saw me try to use some sort of provisional cast on. I was pretty pleased I got it all cast on. Then I went to knit and I don’t know what happened but the cast on just started unraveling and I couldn’t fix it.

So on night four I cast on normally thinking, “Hooray! Stockinette in the round! This will fly off the needles!” It turns out that when you start with 330 stitches and every. single. row. also contains 330 stitches, it takes quite awhile unless you are a knitting machine. And I am not a knitting machine. I knit on this exclusively. I even knit in the subway (hard to do because usually it is jam-packed and also I am only on it for 5-10mins max) and at a couple afternoon seminars.

I’m pleased with it. The colour of the yarn is still gorgeous (I want more) and I didn’t knit on too small of needles so it is nice and drapey, but not lacy. The cowl wraps around my neck twice (maybe even 3 times) and I can even lift up one wrap to wear it a bit like a hood. And, I only had 1g of yarn left. 1g!! I didn’t even faff about making modifications to rows. Actually I probably would’ve had 0g left as I technically forgot one row at the end.

Stats

Pattern: Reunion Cowl by Natalie Selles
Yarn: Indigodragonfly MCN
Needles: 3.25mm (& 3.75mm for cast on / bind off)

Mods

Because the thought of purling 330 stitches over several rows seemed horrible, I knit the garter stitch bits back and forth and seamed them up.

The Sage - Gateshead

Gateshead Millenium Bridge

The Tyne Bridge

And a few more

The Sage - Gateshead

The Baltic

Zip-lining off the Tyne Bridge

Over the last couple of years I haven’t been doing a huge amount of stash enhancement because I have so much of it already and I don’t knit very quickly. I’ve been gifted a bit of yarn and I bought some bits for my class at UK Knit Camp that I ended up not using there as we were given some to practice with. I did do a little bit of shopping at SAW though. We were given some two balls/skeins in our goodie bag (including one of Malabrigo — I chose a lace weight and gave it to a friend who gave me the same yarn back in a different colour). I bought three skeins of yarn at the Art Fair on the last night.

My first purchase was from Natalie — leeleetea. I saw this yarn and wanted it. This photo does not do it justice. The colours are amazing. In fact, the yarn is Indigodragonfly MCN Lace and was being sold as a kit with one of Natalie’s patterns — the reunion cowl. I didn’t care what the pattern was, I just wanted the yarn. And it turns out the pattern is pretty cute and practical to so I’ve cast on all 330 stitches for the medium.

Next up was a sock weight yarn from Liberty Fibers. I was just drawn to this skein because it is so neutral. It is almost like it is tea/coffee stained. I really like it and will probably make some sort of scarf/shawl out of it. It was interesting to speak to Jude and discover that she uses influences like totem poles and japanese art to influence her dying.

And last up, another sock-weight yarn from my roommate, Angela, who runs Fleur de Fiber from her basement in Chicago. I looked at it at her booth a couple of times. I walked away and didn’t buy it (bad roommate) because I was thinking both about my wallet and how much yarn I already have. I went back to the cabin and then thought how I should’ve bought it. Luckily she still had it and I bought it off of her. Woohoo. I don’t know what this is destined to be. It is certainly outside my normal choice of colour, but I just loved the richness of it.

I did buy a project bag too. I don’t actually own any ‘real’ project bags — I just tend to use the freebie canvas bags I get at conferences. I haven’t taken a picture yet and I don’t know the name of the crafter who made it! I thought it was Annemade, but it doesn’t seem to have any sort of label on it. Will have to investigate.

And just today I got some surprise yarn in the post from BFBs mum. I’ll need to photograph it and log it into Ravelry.

I struggled to find some information about where to place the heel since I didn’t use waste yarn then I found this post by Grad School Knitter. There is also the post from the Yarn Harlot from late-2007 which is when I first learned about this possibility.

Two DPNs in knitting - There is a row inbetween

Yarn snipped

Voila! Heel!

A couple of tips…

1. As for placement, I did as suggested by Grad School Knitter and placed it 2″ short of my foot length e.g. 9.5″ foot length so placed at 7.5″.
2. I placed two DPNs into my knitting before snipping the middle stitch which meant I didn’t have to then pick up stitches once the cut was made. I used much smaller DPNs (2mm instead of 2.5mm) — insert the one on top of where you’ll snip first, then the one underneath — it’s just easier to manipulate that way.
3. When you cut the middle stitch and unpick, don’t get annoyed at having to pull so much yarn through towards the end and trim it off since uh, this is still live yarn and needs to have the end woven in. This could’ve been mildly disastrous.
4. Pick up a stitch either side just to close any holes (as you would do if you were knitting a standard gusset/heel) – though maybe two would’ve been better here.

I am actually going to re-knit this heel as it is a bit tight for my high instep, but the process will be essentially the same with the difference being of slowing down the last 2-3 decreases. Once both socks are done, I’ll show them off. I love this first one! Can’t wait to wear them this winter!

Fishermen on Squam Lake

So before you think I’m just a negative nelly, I did really enjoy taking classes at SAW that were outside my comfort zone. I think it must be an age thing, but it’s pretty unlikely that 10 years ago I would’ve attend SAW at all nonetheless on my own, and if I had I would’ve tried to take things that I was already pretty comfortable with. Something has happened where I push myself a lot more than I ever did. Or ever recognised that I did I mean I did go away for a year to live with a host family in New Zealand when I was barely 15 years old — even though technically it was an option to do a shorter stay somewhere else or 6 months in New Zealand, I didn’t think for me that was an option.

I moved myself to the UK. I sold most of my possessions and shipped the rest over. It wasn’t until I met my friend Keri, also an American who moved to the UK, and learned that she stored her stuff at her parents and came with two suitcases that I realised that that was an option I never even considered. I don’t know why I always have to just in at the deep end. No wonder I get stressed out…

Anyway, I’m glad I learned more about embroidery, quilting, and crochet — all things I had essentially no experience in. I realised that just like with anything, I’ll take more quickly and naturally to some things than others. I definitely want to pursue all three and hope that I’ll find a way in my life to tear myself away from the internet (I get distracted by all the creative people out there and their blogs/photos/projects/recipes) and really make a crafting life for myself even if that means staying with a day job that doesn’t stir up any sort of passion in me.

Cabin on Squam Lake

I think part of it might be that I was never hugely social which people don’t believe. I’ve always liked, and require, time to myself or I start to feel overwhelmed and anxious. The jobs I’ve had in the UK have required me to get over a lot of that, and again, the age thing. In the past I would sit back a lot and observe groups of people before making friends. I wanted to make sure to find people that I would make a good connection with. I like having deep connections with people over superficial ones. (I’m the person on Facebook who would have maybe 30 friends, not 300. But I’m not on Facebook.) Once I’m comfortable with people, I’m pretty social.

A lot of my personality is based around humour and my brand of humour is different to a lot of peoples so its hard for me to feel like I can fit in. I have a pretty dark, dry and sarcastic sense of humour and have had many occasions where I’ve made a joke and my delivery has caused offense because it was so serious sounding. I mean, when my sister died, I had to crack a joke when my brother asked what we were gonna do with her. He looked at me and said ‘What is wrong with you?’ and I knew that actually my sister would’ve laughed at my joke — we had the same dark, dry and sarcastic sense of humour. My mom doesn’t really get a lot of my jokes and I always have to say ‘I’m joking, mom’. My dad does though. And my brother and his family in San Francisco.

This post is a bit more rambling than I had planned, but I just want to point out again, that there were some definite good things about SAW, but others that left me feeling flat and not as inspired and creative as I expected. Who knows, maybe some time I’ll go back with a friend and I can feel more free to be me and make all the dark jokes and someone will be laughing and I’ll get more from it.

There is a pool of pictures on Flickr and a great slideshow of photos from a professional photographer including some atrocious photos yours truly.

Squam Lake at dawn

I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I’m going to do it a bit backwards (like how I usually read magazines). And this one is gonna be a long one so go get your beverage of choice. I’ll put in several photos (clicking on them will make them larger).

I came back from Boston / New Hampshire less than 2 days ago now. The whole reason for the holiday in the US on the opposite coast from where my family is was to attend the Squam Art Workshops (SAW). I felt like for years I’d been seeing this place on blogs and it looked amazing and I wanted to go. After much hemming and hawing I signed up. I registered (you select 3 options per day and you get one of them each day) and didn’t state that there was one class that I wanted the most because I figured that whatever I got would be great. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the whole experience.

Now, it was absolutely the polar opposite to last summer’s Knit Camp just so don’t think I am comparing it to that (though how could you really?).

I think what I expected and what I got didn’t mesh. I expected a lot of community and socialising, but really felt that this didn’t happen. At meals a lot of people sat at the same table with mostly the same people. Sure they may have come with a friend or two, be eating with cabin mates, or are SAW alumni and have loads of friends there already, but it seemed that especially at lunch you’d eat with the people you were in class with. There was no central place to sit and relax when there was some free time as far as I could tell. Sitting outside wasn’t much of an option because the weather was crazy and also there were more vicious mosquitoes there than I think I’ve ever seen (I have the bites to prove it and normally they don’t like my blood).

Inch worm

From the pictures on Flickr it appears there was a lot of this community happening, but it happened in cabins which is cool. I was in a very small cabin (3 of us), and my cabin mates were lovely people, but 3 people doesn’t really make a community in the sense I was expecting. At meal times I was wanting to sit with different groups of people and meet different people, but one meal I did this (albeit by accident) and I was glared at. Honestly, the women at the table looked me up and down and I was clearly not welcome there by most of the group. The whole environment was quite cliquish and I really didn’t feel like I had a place there. Maybe I’ve become more British than I even realise.

Maybe I was going about the whole thing wrong. Maybe I should’ve only hung out with my cabin mates and one or two others and made stronger connections with people. Maybe I would’ve been better off to go along with an already close friend, but I didn’t have that option. Maybe the cliquishness was all in my head, but I don’t thinks so. I wonder how many people actually feel this way and so to combat and ignore it they actually hook up with friends and perpetuate the cliquishness.

White moth

As for my classes, I ended up taking things that I didn’t have any real experience with. I learned that embroidery is a hell of a lot harder than I thought (I had no expectations that it was going to be dead easy and I’d walk away with something amazing). I love the idea of it, but it will definitely take a lot of practice and patience to learn to do it with any amount of skill demonstrated by the instructor and some of my peers in the class. I made a mini-quilt that I am so pleased with. It is a right mess in many ways, but for someone whose only real sewing experience happened 25 years ago in a classroom where we learned some basics and then made a basic pillow, I’m well chuffed with my results. It needs finishing still, but I am inclined to practice this skill and make this same design again (it’s a design of my own, not a kit). And I learned that I’m a bit better at crochet than I thought so really should get back on that horse and dive in to some crochet project.

I think two of my classes could’ve really done with some sort of handout (especially the crochet one) because you are taking in so much and it’s pretty tough to write it all down while you’re also trying to crochet/sew/knit/etc. It would’ve been nice to have known who all the instructors were by having them introduced during the opening evening and to have a bit of further information in our registration packs (e.g. reminder of the supplies lists and fees if needed).

I know all the above sounds like doom and gloom, and perhaps ungrateful, but that’s not the case. I’m just saying that my experience wasn’t what I wanted or expected. Maybe my hopes were way too high for it. I haven’t completely written it off, but I think if I went again I’d try to go with a close friend. What I’m really hoping is that something similar takes off in the UK. I have seen mention of a retreat called Do What You Love, but it seems very much aimed at people already making a living from creative arts.

Squam Lake from Deephaven Camp

All that said…

The setting was absolutely amazing. I loved the setting. I loved how quiet and dark it was. How you could hear the loons, sometimes, in the evenings. That we were surrounded by trees and nature. I loved walking on the paths through the trees and hearing the pine needles crunch under foot and the chipmunks scamper. I didn’t love the mosquitoes. Or humidity.

The weather was totally bizarre — 30*C (90*F) and humid the day we arrived and we all looked at the wood fire just awaiting a match to set it alight and laughed at that possibility happening but mother nature laughed backed and dropped the temperature to probably 10*C (50*F) or maybe even lower. All I know is that Thursday morning we all woke up, relieved it had cooled off, but fully expected the heat and humidity to return so dressed for that. It didn’t. We froze our arses off. People were wearing layers of woolens, I had to borrow a hat off my lovely roommate Angela, I went to bed that night wearing wool socks and my hooded fleece fully zipped and hood over my head. Oh and of course we lit that fire.

For a year or so now I’ve been dealing with feeling unwell. I’ve gained weight partly because my energy levels are quite low so I am not getting out as much, but even when I was going to the gym a few times a week or at least walking 30 mins or so a few times a week, I wasn’t losing weight. In fact I was gaining weight. And last summer I started to get this constant pain in my lower left abdomen.

Of course when I went to the doctor they told me it’s poor diet and lack of exercise, or even more annoyingly, lady pains. I don’t think anyone would classify my diet as poor. And yes, I could definitely be doing with more exercise, but I had also started having (prior to this) some menstrual cycles that were so painful it was unreal. I’d miss work for a couple of days and be in bed with a hot water bottle AND a heating pad. Bowel habits changed. Chronic back pain like I’ve never had before. One doctor gave me a course of anti-biotics thinking it could be something to do with my bowel and the fact I had colitis in the past.

Finally last November I was sent for an ultrasound to see if there was an abnormality in my abdomen. They discovered a fibroid. Fast forward to late-January when I go to a surgery consult and the surgeon was pretty gung-ho about taking out the fibroid. I was floored by his aggressive nature, he wanted to do a very major surgery, so tried to get some more answers. I love the NHS, but sometimes it works so inefficiently — and what happens in one region, may not happen elsewhere. I saw a second consultant in April who disagreed with the first, and said he was 99% sure I had endometriosis based on my symptoms. Sure, I had a fibroid but the size and type was really unlikely to be causing me the pain I was having. He scheduled me for a laparoscopy in which he’d treat the endo and maybe remove the fibroid.

Cut to Monday. I went in and had the surgery. However, there is no answer to my pain. It turns out I don’t have a fibroid and I don’t have endo. Nope. Instead I have some really rare uterine condition. It’s not the cause of my problems though. They don’t know what the cause of my problems is. Because of the condition I have, there may be some issues with my renal functions so I’m going to see a renal specialist, but again this is unlikely to identify the cause of my problems.

So looking at my list of symptoms (constant low back pain, bowel changes, painful/heavy periods though not every month, fatigue, constantly feeling bloated/gassy), I think it could be IBS. Or even colitis though when I had colitis I lost a lot of weight very quickly. I am going to try to readjust my diet back to what it was (nearly vegetarian not that I eat loads of meat now but definitely more than I had been and definitely a wider range) and, once my surgical wounds are healed, get back on the bike and in the pool. Maybe with diet and exercise these symptoms will mostly subside.

Do any of you suffer from IBS? What have you found works to relieve the pain/symptoms? I think my biggest problem is the back pain. It has had a HUGE impact on my life and I just don’t know how likely it is that IBS could be the cause.

And somewhat related to this since I am going back to my previous diet, do any of you live in a mixed-diet household? As in one of you is vegetarian/vegan and the other is a proper carnivore (like could hardly be classed as an omnivore)? How do you manage mealtimes especially if there is little overlap in your diets? Do you just cook your own meals for the most part?

Feel free to contact me outside of the comments if you don’t want to publish your health-related issues online.

And I promise another post very soon unrelated to the letters T, M, and I.

Noro striped socks - early morning progress

Whitecross food market - looked tasty

Exciting new celebrities at Madame Tussaud's

Waiting for a platform announcement - Kings Cross London

A lovely view of the rapeseed aka canola

Further progress... then I ripped it back to the first stripe

Another view from the train - near Doncaster

Home. Somehow I got this shot through bridge trusses.

*amongst others