Greetings and Dear Laura:
Hello!! I love your "Must Have Cardigan!" You make such beautiful sweaters - I am always inspired. I feel like I gravitate to small projects, so I'm always impressed by your sweaters. And you are so good at the finishing details! Good job!
I don't really know how January got away from me, but it sure did. Let's see if I can expand on the title a bit.
My mom has been troubled for years by spells where she suddenly feels weak and tired. They can last for seconds or minutes, and usually she then has to spend the rest of the day in bed. They were always very random - usually at least a month in between, and sometimes she could go for several months with no problems. Obviously, this was a bit of a diagnostic nightmare, what with the randomness and all. Just before Christmas, it began happening more frequently, and was accompanied by rapid or irregular heartbeats that she could feel. They often happened at night, and were lasting up to an hour. Her family doctor ordered a few tests, but the first go round didn't show anything. And once again, they were still relatively random, just more frequent. Early in January, she and dad drove to Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN. She wore a 24-hour monitor while they were there, but that happened to be a time where she went almost a week with no problem, so nothing showed up. They noticed a bit of irregular heart-beat, but nothing they felt explained the problem, or that posed a threat. They sent her home with an order for a 30-day monitor.
She got that on January 12th, and faithfully pressed the record button and sent in the readings every time she noticed something unusual. After the first week, she noticed that the unit recorded on its own sometimes, even when she hadn't felt anything. Shortly after that started happening, her family doctor called (he was getting a copy of the readings) and said that she needed to see a cardiolgist sooner rather than later, so they had an appointment the next day. Finally - a diagnosis!! Atrial Fibrillation...plus there's some other stuff with rapid or irregular heartbeats....so they prescribed a medication which took care of most of the problems within 3 days. She began feeling good again for the first time in almost a month! It didn't eliminate all the slower missed beats, and so they want to increase the dose, but in order to do that they need to put in a pacemaker to be sure that the medication doesn't slow her heart too much. They will do that next Thursday, and it sounds like a relatively basic procedure with a short recovery. We're so happy to know what is wrong and what needs to be done!
Meanwhile, dad has had to travel to Kentucky several times for business issues, so we've all had lifestyle changes this last 6 weeks. (After 50 years, they are both still adamant that there was a reason they got married and it wasn't to live apart from each other!) Not to mention more mundane things like mom didn't feel well enough to really go anywhere or do anything, she doesn't have a car when dad is gone, even if she did want to run to the post office or something, I haven't been able to carpool very often, so she couldn't use my car.....we had a bit of a trial-run on the switching of caretaker roles! My brothers all live very close, and two of them have their own business, so they've been able to take care of any driving that she needed during the day, which has been really great. I only really took off work a couple of times so that I could be at a Dr. appointment.
The day that the doctor called and sent her to the cardiologist, I was hit by a bout of stomach flu that I picked up at my brother's house. (When I last posted, I was taking meals to their family while my sil recovered from childbirth. Their toddler brought home the stomach flu from the sitter, and it went through my brother and 13-year-old niece, but spared my sil and the new baby!) It hit me at work on a day that I rode carpool, so I had to call for a ride home. I isolated myself in my apartment to try to keep mom from catching it, and we disinfected everything in sight. She did eventually get it, however, and my dad as well, but we've all recovered by now. Mom mentioned an article in the paper about the flu that was going around, so I looked it up, and it's called a "Norovirus." This is just not right!! Noro is a LOVELY yarn with colors that I particularily love. Something this miserable should be named after {insert the name of a yarn that you particularily dislike}!! ~cough~redheart~cough~
So, we've covered the Norovirus and the fibrillation. Fifty is for my 50th birthday, which fell right in the middle of all of this. I was 4 days recovered from the flu, mom had been on her medication for 3 days and was starting to feel better, and no-one in the family had active flu symptoms. A brief window for a great party!
Family and friends gathered at mom & dad's to celebrate. We planned a Euchre party, but in the end we had so much fun laughing and talking that we never did get around to playing cards! I was born on one of my aunt's 30th birthday, and she was able to be there as well, so we got to celebrate together! I got wonderful prezzies - including a gift-certificate to one of my LYS from
Not Worthy, a laptop hideaway from
RPW, and some beautiful yarn from
Knitting at Lunch!
She gave me this Silk Rhapsody in "Cynthia Colors" (which I think would make a
Pretty Thing and is incredibly soft) and some lovely Baby Bamboo 'to make something for Audrey!' I can't wait to get to those projects!!!
Speaking of projects. "What about Knitting, Cynthia?" you ask. "Surely you've been knitting??" HA! Hardly any,
I say! Not much at ALL.
I've made slight progress on my
Noro Scarf. It's just 1x1 rib, and it's been on the needles since.....Oh My.
November 17th. Let's not talk about that.
I did make a pair of felted mittens for my mom. She has had
Reynaud's Syndrome for about 10 years, and so needs to keep her hands warm. I've knitted her several pairs of mittens, but this winter has been colder than usual, and she's been here instead of Kentucky, so she has noticed it more. And the medication she is now taking has a side effect of worsening her cold hands. SO, I did plug away and get some felted mittens knitted. It is not as cold as it was, but she'll still get good use of them yet this winter. I got the pattern and yarn from
Knitting Today, because I loved the sample pair in the shop.
The yarn is "Shepherds Wool" by Stonehedge Fiber Mill, and is it so very soft. Often I find that yarns for felting are a bit coarse, but this is almost silky soft, even after felting! These have ribbed cuffs that you sew into the mittens after felting, and that step is the last bit I have to do on this project, so it's really ALMOST finished.The first mitten took me 2 and 1/2 weeks, but I buckled down and got the second one done in just 5 days, so things must be slowing down. (Well, I did get their tax information mailed to the accountant - getting that ready must have been what slowed me down. Right?)
Ok, I'm going to call this 'caught up for now.' I think that covers most of the big stuff, and so we can move on from here. And hopefully this period of relative calm will continue......
Keep knitting!
Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter!)
It is probably one of the most "three dimensional" dishrags I've made, and is an easy pattern to memorize. It was going to be very large, so I cast on 34 stitches instead of 46. 
I didn't want to scare it away, so the picture is through a window/screen... The neighbors have named it "Rupert," and it typically traipses through our yard every evening between 7:00 and 7:30pm.
I don't spin (yet, and really, I won't until my kids are out of high school, really!), but the book offers manufactured yarn alternatives, and I loved so many of the designs in the book.
...though I don't know which pattern I'll use for the one boy. (Any ideas out there?) I'm sort of "winging" the size on these (note that these are really the same size, but due to my "trick photography, they look different):
I will go ahead and felt the first two pairs as soon as they are knitted just to make sure I'm in the ball park.
And, still plugging away on the socks:
I love it when I get past the heel on a toe-up sock, because then it's just about mindlessly knitting around and around, which I actually like.
This was the first time my mom had tried the magic loop technique, the Turkish Cast on, and knitting a sock from the toe up. We wanted to at least get past the heel before she had to drive home, to get through all of the new techniques before she had to leave. Here's my mom's sock in progress just before her departure from my house:
In the book, among many other techniques presented, Wendy has a gusset heel, which is a different heel from any other non-flap heel I've made. I think it is clearly the easiest, because it doesn't involve any wraps and turns, nor yarn-overs, so that's what we used for these socks. Here's a close-up of Wendy's gusset heel:
I'm still plugging away at the other socks I was working on, too:
I also made a pair of baby booties for a new arrival, using this seamless baby bootie pattern:
These were made with worsted weight yarn, though still size 5 needles. They are a little large for a newborn, but should be just the right size in fall for this Minnesota baby. One pair takes about three hours to make, and are mindless enough for social or TV knitting.
I was supposed to write a note about why I picked this particular pattern. To me, this lacy zigzag is feminine without being too delicate, having a clear direction though able to drift to the right or left for the greater good....you know, stuff like that. 
Finally, I mentioned I'd start talking about the many benefits of exercise. A lot of people already know that there are cardiovascular benefits from aerobic training. The cardiovascular system delivers the oxygen to the cells that need it during exercise (muscles). This is only one piece of the puzzle, however. The cells themselves are modified over time with repeated exercise bouts. For example, people who train regularly will have an increase in the number of mitochondria in muscle cells. Mitochondria are the "power plants" of the cells. So, when the heart delivers the oxygen to the cells, now the cells themselves extract the oxygen from the blood more efficiently, too, reducing the required load on the system at rest. So, it's not just about the "delivery" of oxygen; it's also about "extraction" of oxygen once it gets to its destination. Isn't that cool? Is anybody still awake? Walking is great exercise, by the way!
And, my six-year-old's version of a "house of cards," which I told him I would post on "the blog":
Okay, so I'd better start studying for the exam I have tomorrow!
Isn't he handsome? (That's what *he* always tells me, too!) This is a photo my mom took of him on Valentines' Day. He used to work at Schlitz Brewery, which doesn't exist any more, but Miller Brewery is making the Schlitz recipe, and Grandpa thinks it's pretty good.
Mine (on the right) is all done (including blocking) except for sewing in the zipper (will that saga never end?). The other one is my mom's. She is doing great with it, even though she has found it quite challenging. Recently, she got it into a minor mess while dividing the fronts from the back, so I told her I'd bring it home and fix it. My mom is no longer feeling the love for this project...so I fixed the issue and put in a lifeline to preserve what we have so far (and it's helpful for Mom to know that if something goes haywire, all is not lost).
DH's health insurance has a "Fitness First" deal in which the employee's spouse may earn a $50 gift card to Best Buy for working out 150 times in the span of a year. I don't know why this has been so motivating for me, but for the past two years, I've earned the gift card. It's not like it's a ton of money, but the challenge of getting all of those workouts in, and then getting free iTunes (which is how I used my gift card this last time) is a challenge that I accept and conquer. I keep track of which days I work out for at least 30 minutes, and I include the days I ride my bike home from school, or the days I run outside, or the days I run on the treadmill at the gym. It has resulted in two and a half years of maintaining my exercise regime, the longest I've ever been able to do that.
(This pattern is the property of YarnThrower and may not be reproduced except for one copy for individual use. If you otherwise print or distribute this pattern without YarnThrower's written permission, you are stealing.)
(This is done to avoid obvious "purl bumps" when the color is changed in the midst of ribbing.)
(In addition to my other cleaning plans for this week, it's clear I should add mirror washing to the list.) I had so much extra fleece, and a bathrobe pattern I sewed years ago, so the only real cost for this was my time. I revised the pattern to take advantage of fleece's non-raveling properties. To eliminate bulk along the front shawl collar fronts, I sewed them wrong sides together, and then used a rotary cutter with a special cutting wheel in it to make the edges scalloped:
( My photography today is worse than usual, because I'm in a hurry to get more of the basement cleaned out and then go running in the nice weather...) I used the same trick on the tie belt:
And, here is a hazard of living with two small boys: 
My six year old loves to follow directions to piece things together, and he is confusing our upstairs hallway with the roof of a hospital. As long as I don't trip on it while carrying a laundry basket later today, it makes me smile every time I step over it...
Clear duct tape (which seems to be a contradiction all by itself): so that I may try to fix up the little plastic thing which our wheeled computer chair rolls on, which has multiple cracks. Not sure it's going to work, but I figured it's a cheap option to try first, before replacing the thing.
Perhaps tomorrow? I'll have an "after" picture to share?
When I changed the "pad" for the humidifier last fall, I noticed the drain tube (see clear tube exiting bottom of humidifier in photo) had a lot of lime deposits in it, so I disassembled the thing, cleaned it out really good, and put it all back together, feeling very proud of myself. What I *didn't* clean out was the hole just above where the tube attaches, at the very bottom of the humidifier unit, and that is what clogged up. AAUGH!
I love the buttons! Here's a pocket:
Just the rest of the left sleeve and the front bands (and the left pocket liner) left to go:
Well, lots more work around the house, so that's it for now. More tomorrow, I think...
I'm in the sixth week of the spring semester (spring break in just a couple of weeks!!), and I started a new sweater -- Basic Chic Hoodie -- which is exactly the kind of pattern I need when school is in session -- mindless, quick, and something I don't have to make any calculations for...except I'm going to do the front ribbing slightly differently...and I'm doing "one-row buttonholes" instead of the little YO and K2tog as given. I have about a sleeve and a half (note the double pointed needles my left arm is sporting in the photo), a hood, and the button bands left to go. Also, one pocket lining (note hole in right front of sweater).
I finished sewing this together yesterday, and had to purchase two sets of buttons (forgot to bring the sweater when I purchased the first set, and didn't like how they looked once I got them home -- so saving them for my next sweater -- for which they will be perfect). The sleeves are a bit tight for my liking, having maybe zero inches of ease, though overall I'm very happy with the sweater and I might wear it every day for a while.
This is Trekking something or other, and it appears that it may not have a "pattern repeat," which is good news for me, because if it did, I'd feel compelled to make both socks match, and I appreciate the implied "permission" this yarn gives me to have each sock be unique from the other... The yarn appears to consist of a couple of plies, each spatially dyed with various colors which are spun together randomly.
It's perfect for *where I am* currently with trying to continue to improve my diet -- lots of fresh ingredients, lower saturated fats, less sugar, lots of veggies -- I've become a big fan of goat cheese -- something I probably wouldn't have said two years ago...but it's yummy! Of course, since today I'm just trying to get back into the swing of things, we're having Trader Joe's fish sticks for dinner...