2013

It's been a long time since I've written a blog post, and I seem to be a little out of practice. This is my third attempt to write something, and I'm not sure I'm happy with it - but here goes.

The turn of the new year is always a time when we go over what we have done the previous year. I'll do a little of that in this post, and then over the next few days I'll talk about what this year will bring for me. I have exciting plans, and high hopes - probably the reason I'm resurrecting this blog after a year away! 

To start with - what did I do? Well, I did knit, of course. I did a little crochet as well, but not as much as I would have liked. I have trouble with my joints and have to take it easy; working with the hook too much makes my elbows and hands hurt. I also worked on my spinning, and am finally getting to the point where my perfectionist self is happy with the yarn I'm creating. 

The obligatory montages; first, the knitting finished objects: 

A smaller section for the Christmas presents I made this year:

And the crochet FOs:

And finally the spinning FOs. 

2013 was an interesting year for me. I started up amateur dramatics again. I was involved in two shows, one being the epic Les Miserables written as a stage play by the woman who directed it, based on the book. I had four roles, so it was quite a lot of work! I did a little bit of larp, and decided I was going to move back to the States. More on that later. 

My health has not improved any, and maybe even gone a little downhill. I still go to a knitting group, but I don't get out every week anymore. I find working on more demanding projects exhausting, and always have something "mindless" on the needles. However, my craft is one of the few constants in my life, and it is a rare day indeed when I physically can not do some kind of work. I mention this, because it will more than likely come up quite a lot in my blog. Suffering from ME/CFS has certainly changed my life, and talking about the condition is something I do openly and often. 

I'll end this by saying if you have anything you'd like to see me include, please let me know. I've already had a request for a tutorial on beginning knitting. I will probably do one for crochet as well. Thanks for reading! 

So far behind!

I know. I know. I haven't posted for aaages. That's mostly because I haven't really been up to much craft wise. I've had a lot of problems with pain getting in the way of the work, and have had far to many evenings distracted by writing for the play by email I'm involved with. Having not written for something like 2 years and thinking I was never going to be able to again, it's nice to find that lack of concentration, memory, and overall unhealthyness of my brain doesn't mean I can't write. I've been making up for lost time as a result.

Unfortunately, this means my Christmas knitting has fallen way behind schedule. In an effort to fix that sorry state of affairs, I've decided to crochet a few gifts instead of knitting them, and plan on buying some presents as well instead of making something for everyone in my family. With any luck, I'll get all the presents on my list finished, but only time will tell for certain.

First, a few ta-das! I made a few snoods for wearing as one of my larp characters. The setting for this larp is Regency England, with a smattering of fey and magic thrown in, as well as a bit of steampunk. As snoods were often worn during this time, I figured making a few would be nice and fun. I made a blue one first to go with the dress I had intended to wear as the character, and then at the event things happened that meant my character changed costume - and began to show a hidden side that I hadn't really thought out in character creation, so I made a black

one after the event to go with her new costume.
I'm very pleased with how they both turned out. The pattern is by Brigids Hearth and is in her blog. She is a fabulous designer, and I'm using her pattern for armwarmers to make gifts for my Mom and sister Laura, as they have both requested armwarmers. I've also made the armwarmers for myself.

In addition to knitting things for larp, I've also been working on a scarf for my Dad. I had no clue what I was going to make him, so when I decided to do some crocheted projects, I first looked around for something for him. I found this really easy pattern for a scarf, and had some yummy microfibre yarn that was in mannish colours, so I took hook to yarn and came out several days later with something quite nice. It was crocheted long way, and I wasn't happy with how long it was. I had intended to pick up the stitches on the short side and make it longer by adding a fancy end to the short ends, but I had trouble picking up the stitches and figuring out how to crochet them, and was tired of messing with it, so I simply fringed it instead. While I like how it looks and the colours, I wasn't happy with the yarn. It was extremely splitty and a pain to work with. I'm sure it wouldn't have been any easier trying to knit it. After I finished the scarf, I crocheted a Christmas ornament, as that's what my Grandma asked for as a birthday present. Her birthday is next week, so I had to get it done and in the mail asap.

Now I've just got to get cracking and knit as much as I can. I have to take frequent breaks because of the pain, but I still love knitting, so it's worth it.