A Little Yarn On The Side

I have almost kicked the bronchitis, I think.  Aside from a little bit yesterday, my cough is almost gone.  I still have some chest congestion, so Tuesday I picked up a cold medicine supposedly for chest congestion.  I say "supposedly" because that third one is an outright lie.  I think it is supposed to be cherry flavor, but whatever cherries ever did to anyone to deserve such an insult is beyond me.  It's so awful that yesterday I was nauseous every time I took it.  Someone in the marketing department for these folks is just a sadist--that's all there is to it.  Tomorrow will be 5 weeks of this garbage, and I feel like I should have a lot more knitting to show for it.  I've been working on the Alice Starmore sweater--possibly because an oversized sweater in fingering weight yarn and a never-ending cough seem to go together--and I just finished up another ball of yarn, which makes almost 1300 yards of yarn in this baby already.  Thi...

Last weekend I really was over the bronchitis, but I made the mistake of stopping the nights of Nyquil as well.  After 3 weeks of the stuff, I seem to have been a little addicted to sleep aids, so for two nights in a row, I couldn't sleep.  Monday morning the darn but was back and I'm not over it yet.  Dang it. I am feeling slightly better today, so I thought I'd play a little catch-up.  In little bursts of feeling good this week I've been working on some shaping ideas for bowls.  I wanted to see how far one could curve the sides inward, which isn't that far unless the bowl is large, and there's a point where it goes from "possible" to "impossible" all at once.  Next I thought I'd try to curve the bowl down instead of up, which only goes to show you how far the month of cold medicine has addled my brain.  You cannot slant a bowl downward because there's a bottom of a sewing machine in the way.  So, I practiced my slanted-side...

Perhaps it's because I feel a bit better today, or perhaps it's because I have been spending soooooo much time knitting, but today I found the gumption to try a fabric & rope bowl. The book Andy gave me for my birthday, is written by a free-thinker after my own heart (when on cold medication, one can mix metaphors).  She says scraps of fabric work just fine, and it doesn't really matter how you cut them.  The book I bought says quite specifically that one MUST cut strips on the bias and they MUST be a very specific width.  I'm always suspicious of "musts," as they are so often wrong.  In chemistry, I believe "musts." In making baskets, I have my doubts.  So, this week while wallowing in self-pity, I cut fabric strips I just used pinking sheers and not a single one is perfectly straight, but again, the author said it wouldn't really matter.  I've only seen these baskets made with cotton fabrics, and being me, I wanted to see what ...

.......but I am tired of knitting.  There.  Hell hath perhaps frozen over, but it's 8:00 PM here, I'm in my pjs, I could be knitting, and I don't want to.  I have GOT to get over this bug before my brain snaps permanently. I had a better day today, though the bronchitis has teased me before.  Last week was mostly better, and I was feeling good enough one day to clean the master bath--albeit in small spurts that took the entire day.  I had to keep resting, but it went well........or until I got the brilliant idea to bleach the shower floor.  There are many things one can probably do to help with congestion, but nowhere on that list will one find "inhale cleaning fumes."  I'm an idiot, of course, but the shower floor is really, really clean. Today marks 3 weeks of this gunk, and I have had so many people tell me it lasts 3 weeks that I was really hoping to wake up today completely better.  I did wake up feeling a bit better, which I know could...

I am still sick and starting to feel a little sorry for myself and a LOT frustrated.  Normally, this is the time when I might start a little on-line shopping to cheer myself up, which is a little inconvenient when one is on a spending ban.  So far, I've been able to distract myself, and even worked on the side seams of the long-languishing March Madness Sweater: Maybe I can get it done by March of THIS year???? 

The Ravellenic Games are coming in February.  Formerly known as Ravelympics, in 2012, knitters worldwide were informed by the United States Olympic Committee informed us that we could not use even part of the word "olympic" because they have sole rights to even just part of the word so they can exploit it for money, and that we "denigrated" the athletes by presuming to model crafting events after Olympic events.  Strike 1 against the entire concept, but the renamed knitting games went on. THIS year the Russian stance on human rights bled over into the Ravellenic Games in spite of the games having technically nothing whatsoever to do with Russia or the Olympics, things don't seem to be handled as well as they could have been, things apparently got quite heated, finally resulting in the team of moderators (many of whom have led the games for the last 6 years) to resign en masse .  There will be a new group formed, but the whole episode--and I think most specifi...