When it rains, it... what now?

Sorry I've been a little absent from my blog -- just found out that our family is doomed to go through a bit of a shakeup.  I knew we would have to move out of this apartment at the end of the school year, but it turns out it's going to have to be... *right* at the end of the school year, and we don't yet have a place to live after that.  The man of the house has to go out of state for "four to six months," um, at the end of the month.  Meanwhile he has to go out of the country on business for a few days.  So he has to move his stuff out, so that I can pack up my things and put them in storage, meanwhile it's my job to find a new place to live, and we will have to somehow work it out so that he can come home and sign paperwork/get me the information necessary to get this to work out. And it looks like there will probably be about a month or two in between moving out of here and moving in somewhere else, barring a miraculous "meant to be" finding.  It's a little unsettling, to say the least, and if there's one thing that makes my various neurological issues flare up, it's stress.

I have a recurring mental image of me sitting on a street corner in raggedy clothes, crocheting away, mumbling to myself and jabbing my crochet hook at whoever accidentally gets close to my carpet bag of craft supplies...

More likely, we will find a house... which intimidates me, but is a good thing in the end.  Whatever happens, my time will be somewhat divided in the upcoming weeks between packing and crocheting and trying to find said house.  I'm trying to think of this as something that could be lucky... some of the best things in life happen by chance (or all of it, depending on how you look at it -- this just happens to be a very short notice sort of chance).  Send some good vibes my way!

I've made another Sundry, I just need to sew the eyes on/embroider the face, they make my hands a bit sore so I've been catching up on baby gifts to give my hands a rest. Will have more pictures up soon, I hope.

Sundry's Debut!

I'm pleased to announce that I've completed the very first Sundry the Second Chance Monster!

I've been too spastic to deal with patterns or to be able to make even stitches, which meant it was a perfect day to follow the yarn where it took me, and this is the result!  I'll have to get some better pictures when I have something other than my cell phone to take them with :) The flash bleached out the blue button eyes a bit, but she really is quite colorful! 

I may be able to post an actual pattern for her at some point, but it's tricky because the yarn varies in size, so I basically had to stitch differently in each row to make them even (ish). Here's the basic concept: if you can get a bowling pin sort of shape about 24 stitches around at the wide part of the head, decrease to 15 or so stitches for the neck, and then back up to around 30-35 around for the body.  Keep going until it looks like the "right size" (some of the rows will vary in width, so don't worry about the number.) 

I did the bottom few rows in the back loops only so they would taper, and began to decrease around, also in the back loops only.  *This is important, since it effectively fixes the gaps that are sometimes left between stitch decreases.  Stuff rather gently, since the silk yarn has no give -- it molds very nicely as long as it isn't over-stuffed.  Finish off when the hole at the bottom is quite small by putting a slip stitch across the gap.  Tie off and pull the end of the yarn through the body, pull tightly so that the bottom will sit flat (this won't happen if there's a giant knot).

Hair: Wrap silk yarn several times around the widest part of your palm.  Gather in the center, and sew to the top of the head.  This is tricky since the silk yarn is so dense, I used a yarn needle and 4 strands of embroidery floss.  Wrap around and knot at the bottom first, rather gently, and then make as many stitches as you can up the center part.  Cut the loops so you get single strands of hair.

Arms: Cut three rather long lengths.  Hold one end of them in your teeth, braid.  Tie a knot near ONE end, leave tails for fingers.  Use a large crochet hook to pull the braid through the body, pull to desired length.  Make another knot for the other hand, cut off the braid, leaving tails for fingers. 

Don't worry if it looks lopsided, this design is very mush-friendly and will hold its shape nicely!

:)

Enjoy & feel free to e-mail me/leave comments with any questions!!  These will be on sale at some point to help fund the materials for my donations.

Modest Improvement

I'm still pretty wiped out, but the zap-zapping in my brain seems to have decreased.  I'm hoping that the tension in my hands will be better today so I can do some more crochet.  I'm almost finished with the monkey I started (what feels like) forever ago, but when my brain goes buggy my fine motor skills go out the window.  Forget holding a hook or keeping even tension or even slipping the loops off the hook properly.  And my son wants some more silk caterpillars for his bug house... they're dead simple.  Frustrating when I can't even do basic things.  But my stuffed animal friends have gotten lots of hugs, and I've gotten some rest.  Perhaps I'll be more on track after another nap.  The poor monkey still only has one arm, seems a sad state to be left in.

A useless day

I've been pretty wiped out since the trip.  Not sure what's going on, I have a feeling it's just some kind of bad brain phase, seems to happen from time to time.  Usually have a few days of blah and then a seizure, after which I feel somewhat better.  Doctor doesn't have an explanation or a remedy.  The EEG didn't show a darn thing, which he says isn't unusual.

For the last few days I've been feeling like someone's flipping a switch in my brain very rapidly, almost as though I sleep for a brief moment every few seconds, and now and then I get strange shocking sensations in my fingers, like something is pulling on them.  Coordination is really off, things are not where I expect them to be, for example, I often find that my glass hits the table more quickly than I had anticipated.  It's a pretty icky feeling overall.  Been curled up with my stuffed animals trying to rest for most of the day, but it doesn't seem to be helping.

It's more than a little disconcerting to me that I can be having symptoms like this that the doctors don't have an explanation for.  All the trips to the doctor don't seem to have done any good at all, and I don't feel especially motivated to continue putting myself through it.  I do need to have another body scan to make sure the thyroid cancer still isn't back.  I'm so tired of it all. 

To the beach and back again

We had a great time with our little weekend trip, since my son has been asking to go somewhere we decided to include it as a birthday present.  He's not hard to please trip-wise, and thankfully we managed to find a place to get gluten free pancakes, so all was well.  I'm a bit worn out, but it was well worth it.  He seems to be going through a sort of insecure phase right now, so spending extra time together was good. 

I'm nearly finished with a monkey for donation, and finally broke down and got a yarn swift to help me wind up these twists that sometimes give me trouble with knots.  Thankfully, my better half has a talent with such things, I like to say it's because he was a boy scout, but it's really because he flies kites (he started teaching my son while we were at the beach).  I don't mind winding the yarn by hand, especially the recycled sari silk, since it balls up so nicely.  The colors are so nice, too, I kind of enjoy exploring the different handiwork, colors and textures before they get hidden under layers. 

So much to do, so much bad weather to make me sleep -- but push on we must!  I was at least a little bit productive today.  My son's school project is to make an invention, and he decided to make an insect habitat.  I made him a fuzzy recycled silk caterpillar to use in his model.  Boys and their bugs.  The sari silk was perfect for the purpose though.  The more I work with it the easier it gets to make it do what I want it to (sometimes, hah). 

Just about time for me to get him ready for bed.  Hope everybody had a good holiday weekend!

New Arrival

Some babies are really eager to be born -- one of my good friends had her little guy early! Congratulations to her and I hope she recovers quickly.  So excited -- need to keep working on the baby gifts, they're late now! Eep! Help me channel creative energies or something! :)

A Very Happy Birthday

We celebrated my son's 7th birthday this evening.  He was very excited about his special dinner, his cards, and of course, his lemon meringue pie (he inherited his favorite dessert from me).  My mom did the gluten free cooking, and tried to make sure the house didn't burn down as the candles got lit.  It was nice to have everyone together.  He absolutely loved the little animals in the box-house.  I had the man with the camera take photos before I gave it to him so I could post them :)

Credits go to Ana Paula Rimoli, mostly, for designing the koalas, the cake, and the fish (I had to make minor changes because I decreased the sizes, emphasis on tiny cake, cough, hand cramp, cough), from her book Amigurumi Toy Box, and Annie Obaachan's Super Cute Crochet for the penguin.

 Animal House

The koalas are made of wool yarn, trying out new materials :) they're so soft! The cake is made of lace weight viscose (from bamboo) -- closest I could get to eucalyptus! Penguin and fish are acrylic, except for the craft thread I used for the penguin's mouth and feet (which are cotton.)

 I HAS A CAKE!

 The penguin has a fish... I don't think he'll have to share.

(omnomnomnom all for meeeee)