Stitches and stitches and stitches.

Hey, it's December tomorrow!

I haven't been posting regular updates... but I have been knitting!

I'm feverishly working on my 2nd Clapotis, and am about halfway through the straight rows section. I'm trying to finish that so that I can start on my first lace shawl, the Forest Canopy, which I am making to wear to a wedding next May.

Also on the needles is a Sooper Sekrit project that I really need to put the hammer down on to complete by May.

Sean's socks are on the needles, but pending the completion of the Sooper Sekrit project.

I survived the crazy month of October at work, and we went to Puerto Rico in mid-November for a long weekend to celebrate. PR was wonderful and I highly recommend it, particularly the western-coast town of Rincon and the Lazy Parrot Inn on hwy 413.

We hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. Our friends danRay and Panda were in attendance, as were my in-laws. danRay made a beautiful turkey, and Sean and I made side dishes and Mom brought pie and kolaches!

Good thing about having company - the house looks a lot cleaner! Now to keep that up!

Sean got a new workbench - he's getting into electronics again, as well as r/c airplanes - he's building his own r/c airplane now. I have been working on beginning electronics projects too, which is fun.

We're definitely keeping busy.

This coming weekend, we'll be in the greater Milwaukee area, which will help my homesickness. Might be in Chicagoland next weekend, not sure, and we'll be doing Iowa/Denver over Christmas and the week after.

Looking forward to 2010, also. 2009 hasn't been a bad year, but it's been a tough year. Onward!

In it to win it!

Still knitting, mostly. Work's starting to eat my life again, but that'll be over soon enough.

I had a wonderful birthday - came in to work in the morning for a few hours, and my office mates had decorated the whiteboard outside my cube for my birthday. I left at 11:30, and met up with Sean. We went and he flew airplanes and we visited with friends, and then we ran some errands while listening to the Twins game on the radio in the car, got service arranged on my new (to me) iPhone (eee!), and then went to Great India in Brooklyn Park for dinner, which was *so* good. And Sean got me into their kitchen to see the tandoor. :)

Then we came home and I was mellow and helped Sean pack.

Got up at 5 am yesterday, took Sean to el aeropuerto (he -is- in Mexico, after all), and came home. I sat around like a lump all day yesterday. I had to rip out and restart the sekrit project, due to my inability to currectly knit a seed stitch border the first time through. I'm now halfway back to where I was when I ripped it out, so that's good. Watched the Twins game yesterday and cheered on the boys to a win in the 162nd game of the season.

I rooted for the White Sox to beat Detroit, which they couldn't pull off, and so the Twins will go to a tiebreaker game tomorrow @ the Dome. If I didn't have year-end stuff at work, I so would have tried to get tickets to the game.

I'm looking forward to tracking the game tomorrow at 4 pm Central.

Also looking forward to hopefully getting in an hour or two of knitting on the sekrit project tonight. Might also get some knitting done on Clapotis #2 during lunch this week, maybe. Probably no progress made ont he socks till Sekrit Project is done. Sorry, sweetie.

So, still here, still knitting, still trying to keep my wits about me. :)

Updatey.

WEll, the Magic Scarf referred to in the last post is hereby off the needles for another sekrit project. I bought the yarn for it yesterday and cast on. I can't wait to show you the finished result. .... at some later time, when it's done. :)

I've got the Clapotis in my bag for quick knitting here and there, and this new project is primarily an at-home project.

It was raining so hard in downtown Mpls this morning that I could barely see. It's 8:30 am and it's so dark outside it looks like dusk-veering-toward-the-blackness-of-night. Hello, fall!

Knitting update

I now have project #3 on the needles (4, in you count the Mitered Squares blanket, which I haven't worked on in a long time). I bought some Hempathy yarn, which was originally scheduled for the Clapotis I now have on the needles. But the yarn wasn't lending itself well to the Clapotis application. I tried a few other things, none of which worked, so now I'm making another Magic Scarf (Crazy Aunt Purl's inspiration), in stripes of my MC, CC, and both together. I hope it works. It'll be a faster knit, even though it's DK yarn on size 3 needles, because it's just knits and purls and making sure my squares are 10x10.

Clapotis work continues during lunch, as I can. Socks, well, I need to get to the socks. Maybe the weekends can be for socks. :)

I'm in a knitting phase. Probably because the weather's getting colder and I love snuggling inside my warm loft space, knitting away, while the wind howls outside.

Sean's home from VA on Friday night, and though I have to work on Saturday, I'm hoping to be able to get out by 2 so that we can go to the AT&T store and get my plan set up for my new (to me) iPhone. I'll have to change the phone number I've had for the last 6 years, since AT&T will only port your phone number if it's ported within the same local area as the # itself. If I had a way to port it in 262, I totally would, as changing one's phone number is a PITA. But, I shall do it, because I want the iPhone that badly, and 612 is where I'm at.

Photo update of the current projects on the needles!

Slowly, slowly, I pick up the camera again. Thanks to my knitting projects, anyway. Saw a beautiful sunrise and gorgeous late afternoon clouds, but my commutes to/from work haven't afforded me a good place to get the shots I want yet. I should start carrying the camera with me again, though. Can't get any shots if the camera's at home.

One of my birthday presents from Sean is a gorgeous new Nikon flash. It came today, but I won't open it till Saturday. As it turns out, I'm getting a new (to me) iPhone from a friend, thanks to Sean, so that's also part of my birthday present, the phone and the AT&T activation (and the breaking of my T-Moblie contract).

So, I opened up this post to post photos! Only 2, but still. One photo each of the current progress of the projects on the needles (Clapotis #2 and Sean's socks).

It's done!

My first Clapotis is done!

The next one will go on needles either tonight or tomorrow. :)

I can now turn my attention to Sean's socks, secure in the knowledge that I finally finished another project!

Clapotis - working on decrease rows!

I'm knitting my little heart out on my Clapotis.

I finished the straight rows last night and am almost through the first pattern repeat on the decrease rows. Hoping to make similar progress on the shawl tonight. It's heavy, and will hopefully be warm in my cold office.

Now I need to find yarn in the right colorway for my next, lighter weight Clapotis. :)

Small update

I've temporarily sidelined the socks for Sean, in order to complete the Clapotis and have that one off my WIP list.

I'm into the last repeat in the straight rows, so I'm hoping to finish the straight rows this week and then do the decrease rows over the weekend to finish it this weekend. Then I can block it. Hoping to get a photo of it once it's blocking. Then once it's dry, I'll have Sean take a photo of me wearing it. With all that egyptial cotton being knitting on size 6 needles, it's going to be a heavy shawl. Which is precisely what I wanted.

Then I can get back to my sock obsession. And start another Clapotis! :) :) :) :)

Been fighting the fatigue/fibro for a couple of weeks now, but have managed to keep to relatively sane eating, and so my weight's at least not going up. I worked out last night, 25 min on elliptical, 15 on rowing machine.

I need to clear off the floor of my office to move my desk to the other side of the space, so that I have room for setting up the bike trainer for the winter. Then I can do 10 min each on the elliptical, rowing machine, and bike trainer.

I'm still here!

Have I really not posted since July?!?!?!

Wow. Well, it's been a busy summer. I just finished the 4th of my 4 sock knitting classes - I took a class @ The Yarnery w/ Jean Christensen on how to knit 2 socks at once w/ magic loop!

I love it!!!!!

I have about 10 rows left on the toe decreases and to do my kitchener stitch, and my 1st pair of socks will be done. Hoping to do that yet today, tomorrow at the latest. I'll find all the bad cell phone photos I took and take a nice one with the D80 and post 'em up this weekend!

I'll be casting on for socks for Sean this weekend!!!

I'm so happy to have found a sock knitting method I love! dpns and I are not friends. the end. I think that once I get started on his socks, I'd like to make a concerted effort to finally finish the Clapotis, and then I can devote myself fully to socks for a while.

Otherwise, we're heading into year-end at work... FY09 ends 9/30/09 and I won't surface till sometime in November. Hoping to do a long weekend of R&R in Puerto Rico in mid-November to shake off the year-end cobwebs.

Things continue to go swimmingly well for Sean and I.... :) We begin the birthday celebrations (his is next week, mine's 10/3) tonight with a Regina Spektor concert and dinner at the decadent 112 Eatery. And next week, we're going to another performance, which is still a surprise.

The State of the Kelly - June edition.

Well, hello there!

It's been almost a month since I posted! Eek!

Of course, quarter-end close got in there and messed things up for a few weeks. But we're on the other side of that now, and it's a race to year-end, which means October will be a crappy month. :)

But I've actually started knitting measurably again over the last few days. I thought I irreparably broke my Clapotis in May @ the Seattle airport, but I finally took it out of its bag the other day and found out it was salvageable - it's got something goofy going on, but no one else will notice it.

So, I made good progress on it over the weekend. A little more than halfway through the scheduled straight rows, and I just might be able to extend the straight rows based on the amount of yarn I have. Or make myself something else out of the leftover egyptian cotton yarn.

I've got a couple of other projects on the needles, and need to get back to socks one of these days. I really want to take a class on doing 2 socks at once, either on 2 circs or magic loop - I just don't like dpns, and I get bogged down with one sock at a time, and that's making me not knit socks. So, I typed that, and then went, found a class, and signed up. 4 Wednesdays, Aug 19, 26, Sep 2, 9, I will be learning how to knit 2 socks at once, magic loop style. :)

Our new elliptical machine was delivered to our house this morning. It's in the box, and likely won't be assembled till we have time this weekend (Sean's actually in MN this week, but will be way too busy to help with that project), but at least it's in our abode. I got out for a nice 6 mi bike ride on the Cedar Lake Trail this morning, thanks to Sean's gentle suggestion that since I didn't have to rush off to work right away, I had time for a bike ride before starting work at home.

I had a dr appt this morning about this exhaustion issue. Now that all the tests have been run, including a 12+ hour sleep study, we have ruled out everything, and it comes back to fatigue, and likely is tied to the fibromyalgia stuff. It's not usually how my fibro has manifested itself in the past, but it appears to be doing so this way this time.

I have recommendations - 0.5 mg of Melatonin at 5 pm daily, trying to get to sleep about an hour earlier than I do each night, and a book recommendation, to help with guided relaxation and other techniques to turn off the brain weasels. :)


He's a young doctor, but very bright and personable. I have hope that I can get some relief from this fatigue without sedative medications. I'm going to stop and find melatonin and get that book on my way home tonight.

There also may be a component to this fatigue that is job-related, so I continue to try to work on that angle. I'm also considering potential career shifts, and we'll see where that takes me. I might take a class in a different discipline this fall, just to see what I think.

We're preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Ann this coming weekend. She's either staying for 1 week or 2, depending on how she feels. I'm looking forward to seeing her. Sean's going to be busy with work, so she's going to be stuck with me a lot this trip, but I think she'll manage. It'll be good to see her!

So, that's the state of the Kelly, more or less. Still laboring under crushing fatigue, but still happy with my life in general, and determined to still find ways to enjoy what I can.

Excursion!

I went to knit nite last night! It was good to see Becca and Janelle, and sit around listening to Janelle read to us from Wikipages on US military uniforms. I kind of fell down the wiki hole when I got home, and I made sure to share the love with Sean, knowning (a) his penchant for falling down the wiki hole and (b) the military. :)

Dunn Bros on W Lake St is, indeed, a most excellent location to sit and knit for a few hours. I got a few rows done on the Clapotis (need to remember to put another ball or 2 of that yarn in my bag for the trip!) and also started another mitered square for that blanket.

Had a lousy night's sleep due to how hot it was in our place when I fell asleep, which happened later than usual. It cooled off nicely overnight, but the wind was strong, and was blowing the blinds all over and making a racket, which woke me up every 5 min.

In a good mood today though - tomorrow's Friday and Sean might be home tonight! :)

Catching up is hard to do!

So, I haven't posted in a while. Things have been moving along. We have 3 days till we leave for Hawaii, and I've started packing, and need to get sunscreen tonight. Sean tans; I freckle, burn, peel, and still have White Legs of Doom. I'm in favor of skipping the "burn" portion of my usual equation.

I've been working on the Malablanket as I get a moment, and it's getting bigger. Soon, it will need new circular needles as a home, because it's knit in the round from the center out. I think I will get a bit done on the Clapotis on the plane on Saturday.

Sean left for Chicago for the next couple of days, but it's been nice to spend the evenings with him the last two nights. We just watched movies and he did some work stuff, but it's still nice to fall asleep next to him.

My working out and diet stuff is going pretty well. Workouts are going quite well, actually. I'm planning on doing workouts on the mornings that we're not likely to already be doing serious hiking/exploring activity - especially once we switch to the resort during the latter part of the week. I like how I feel mentally with the workouts happening in the morning. The elliptical and I are definitely good friends.

I'm still battling the fatigue, but I'm pushing through it, and hopefully my visit with the dr on June 15 will shed some light on my sleeping issues.

It's very windy out right now. It'll be nice to have it cooler here for the next few days.

One Step Closer....

I had the sleep study done. I ended up sleeping for 12 hours from 11 Tuesday night till 11 am Wed morning! It was a dark, quiet room. And I slept. Not necessarily well, but for a long duration. The techs said I was up and down a lot in the night, and such. I don't meet the criteria for apnea, and don't need a cpap. However, I got a lot of sleep..... and still woke up feeling fatigued and like I'd been hit by a bus. They kept me through the afternoon for testing during naps, and I was out of there by 2:30 and stopped @ the grocery store on my way home.

I now have a follow-up appt scheduled on June 15, where they'll tell me the results of the study and the treatment options.

Got a little knitting done, a few rows on the 4th straight repeat on the Clapotis. I'm still struggling with the Malabrigo yarn. I just need to spend some time concentrating on the Totally Autumn pattern and I think I'll get it. I just didn't do so well at keeping track of where I was on the row the other night. Still half-tempted to make a Top-Down Raglan Sweater out of it. I'm undecided.

Got up at 5:45 this morning and hit the gym @ work, and did 30 good, solid, intense minutes on the elliptical xtrainer. I love this machine. It feels like running to me, without the impact of running. I'm going to try upping the time I spend on the machine next week by 5 min, going up 5 min/wk until I'm at 60 min.

16 days till we leave for Hawaii! So excited!

1st Weekend in May!

Despite my usual best intentions, I didn't knit much this weekend. I ended up frogging the first attempt on the Totally Autumn blanket, and I'm not yet sure where that's going. I'll figure it out. And I didn't even take my Clapotis out of the bag.

But I did finally acquire a bicycle. Yes, another one. But this one's different. I can ride this one. And I did. I rode it the 2.25 miles home from Freewheel, and then yesterday, we rode it from 4th St & Portland to 34th & Bloomington, and from there to the Lake/Midtown light rail stop. 4.6 miles. Not a lot, but it's more exercise than I've been able to handle in months. So, 30 min of exercise M-F it is. I figure I'll walk for 30 min @ lunchtime today.

I have sewing class tonight, where I'll be cutting out fabric pieces for my tote bag. Exciting! And tomorrow night's my sleep study.

Sean's heading to Boston for the yearly sales meeting, so I won't see him till the weekend. I'm sure he'll have fun in Boston. And Shepherd's Harvest is this weekend! Not sure what day we're going, but it'll be fun!

There's good news all around...

Kindle has been located. It was by the turntable in the living room, where I set it down the other morning, distracted by re-enveloping the netflix movies to go back. Yay!

Cast on for the Totally Autumn throw last night, with my lovely red-blue-purple Malabrigo Merino Worsted yarn. I think this is going to make me very happy.

I'm hoping to make good progress on the Totally Autumn throw and on the Clapotis this weekend. And to do my May square for the Mitered Square blanket.

I think Sean and I are going for sushi for dinner and then to see the Wolverine movie. Yay date night!

Also, results back from the doc - no blood sugar issues (which is what I was worried about), no mono or lyme disease. But I do have borderline high cholesterol, so I'm going to revamp my diet and try to exercise as I can until I can get back to serious exercise. Got a couple of good books last night on lowering cholesterol through diet, and Sean says "Bacon and eggs are out for breakfast; muesli and skim milk are in!" Actually, it's oatmeal that's in, with Cheerios a close second. :)

Looking forward to my sleep study next week. I get to sleep in a sleep # bed for the first time. :)

Also? Looking forward to the weekend!

Grr. Argh.

I finally made it to a knit nite last night. The Beat Coffeeshop was quiet and rather a comfortable place to sit, and chat, and do crafty-type things. I finished repeat #3 of the straight rows on my Clapotis, so that was nice.

I am currently frustrated, however. I seem to have misplaced my Kindle. :(

I went to pull it out last night at KinhDo for dinner, and it wasn't in my backpack. I went home, and looked, and it wasn't in the usual places. I figured it might have been left at work, buried under folders. No such luck.

I clearly remember having it Monday night, as I was sitting in the parking lot of South HS while I was waiting for my sewing class to start. And I think I had it Tuesday night, reading for 0.2 seconds before I went to sleep. And I think I had it yesterday morning, over by the iMac, as I was cleaning my glasses. But it's not by the bed, the iMac, nor is it in my backpack now.

Since it's not at work, all I can hope is that I set it down somewhere in our house, and I just need to find it tonight. I hope so... if I've lost it, that's not good. It's not a cheap item. And losing expensive things makes me crazy, and not in a good way. It's the hard thing about all the neat portable gadgets that exist.... they're easier to lose because they're so mobile. I'd been so careful with it. I'm going to be distracted all day until I can get home and find it.

Yay!

I had sewing class #2 last night. Still low pressure, and we did no actual sewing last night. We did, however, cut out pattern pieces and spent most of the time picking out our fabric choices for the tote bag we're making. Mine's in shades of dark red and tan, and I can't wait to actually start working on it. Next week, we cut out fabric pieces from our pattern!

Also, I found out today that we're going to Hawaii at the end of May! Sean's been a very good boy this year, and he gets to go to the sales club meeting this year (this year's version of the one we went to in the Bahamas in January 2008, when we got engaged), and I get to go with him!

And it's conveniently during the week after Memorial Day weekend, so instead of taking the Friday before Memorial Day off, I'm working that, and taking all of the rest of the week after Memorial Day off. It will be quite awesome.

Still working on the Clapotis, slowly. I'm hoping to make some good progress on the pattern tonight.

I might also cast on for a Sekrit project. We'll see. I went to Bella Lana last night and found some nice yarn in some excellent colors and thought it would make a great Sekrit project. We'll see how long it takes me.

Last weekend in April.

It was a good weekend, if a bit short. I got some napping in while listening to NPR yesterday, and I finally got to give my FIL his FIL scarf. He seems to like it quite a bit, so that makes me happy. Sean got a photo of Dad (wearing the scarf) and I. Once I get a copy of it, I'll post it. We also got him a Bose Wave Radio for his birthday, and he loves it.

I got to work on my Clapotis a little, also. I'm into the 3rd repeat of the straight rows. Last night, I almost had a minor disaster... I'm using interchangeable needles, and the needle tip that I was starting to knit from came flying off , which meant I dropped some stitches. in a section that didn't have them intentionally.

In times in the not so distant past, I would have gotten pretty upset and made that known. But Sean and I have talked about that, and I'm working on finding ways to channel that flashpoint and focus on solving the problem.

I didn't use profanity once, and instead of stomping around and flailing and getting upset, I instead managed to rescue and reknit all the lost stitches back onto the needle. It's definitely progress, and it makes us both less crazy. It also makes me more productive. OF course, I also had a lifeline in place. If I hadn't been able to get the stitches back on, I had put in a lifeline at the end of the increase rows so that if I did have to rip back, it would only be the straight rows. Still. It's progress, and I am happy to see it.

I kind of woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, for no apparent reason. And I won't get to see Sean for the few minutes he stops by the house this evening to pack and run to the airport because I have my sewing class tonight. I'm kind of hiding out in my cube here at work today, since I just don't really want to talk to anyone. It's not usual for me, but it's just being one of those days. I'm not having a bad day, but I am having a hermit-y kind of day. :)

Omg, a photo surfaces!

It looks like I have survived another quarter-end! Hooray!


Also, last night, I stayed up too late and finished the increase rows on my clapotis. Here is a crappy cell phone photo. someday, I shall get a photo with my shiny Nikon. Until then, here's what I could reach easily at midnight. 107 stitches on the needles.



Now I start the straight rows, where I intentionally drop stitches. I'm great at unintentionally dropping stitches. We shall see how I do with dropping them on purpose.


I went to see Dr Emily on Monday for my annual physical. Aside from testing fasting blood sugar levels (which may or may not be an issue, though they haven't been before) and cholesterol (which is probably high), she's testing for lyme disease and mono, due to the continued severe fatigue I'm feeling. And I am scheduled for an overnight sleep study on May 5, to see if anything shows up in my brainmeatz overnight that might explain things. The melatonin helped me make it through quarter-end intact, but the exhaustion's still there, and I know that the melatonin use is only a short-term answer.


And Sean started yesterday morning in Minneapolis, flew to Chicago on the omg early flight, flew to Cleveland on a late flight, and will fly back to Minneapolis via Chicago tonight. That doesn't beat his craziest week, where he was into and out of a different city 4 days in a row (something like Chicago to St Louis to Nashville to Des Moines and home), but it's a lot of time in airports.

I'm taking the Friday of Memorial Day weekend off to get a 4 day weekend. Still trying to figure out where we want to go. I'm torn between someplace I know and love and places I've never been that contain people I know and love. We shall see. We're a last-minute decision sort of duo.

quick update

Haven't done a lot of knitting this week... did get a little done last night while talking to Ann online.... I'm now further ahead on the Clapotis (by 3-4 rows) than I was when I messed up the pattern before. I haven't worked on any mitered squares either.

I'm hoping to get some good knitting time in this weekend. I think I have the whole weekend off, and it's sorely needed. Between the craziness at work the last few weeks and the whirlwind weekend in New England last week, I would love 2 solid days to putter around and relax.

I should have some more photos up soon - tonight, if I can stay awake long enough to get the camera on and shooting photos. :)

And thanks to the people who're reading this! I'm over 100 site visits, and that's awesome to see! I hope to return to marginally interesting posts about knitting and my other crafty pursuits soon. Oh, and I start my lern2sew class this next Monday night!