ER trip and helical knitting - again...

This week I only knit on one item (a hat, of course) and couldn't manage to finish it.  

Actually, my plan was to finish it last night, but about 6 1/2 hours ended up being spent in the ER - from around 6pm - 12:30 am.  I realize (unfortunately, from experience) that that is not all that long of a stay in the ER, so I was thankful it wasn't longer.

All is well, but it turns out Hub had a kidney stone, that may or may not still be in there.  Sitting in the waiting room, within a minute or so of asking for prayer from our small group at church, and getting text responses, the nausea and pain dissipated for him, and he's felt fine since.  I believe in both the power of prayer, and the power of endorphins.  And the human body doing the things it was created to do.  Since no medical person had gotten their hands on him up to that point, our Creator gets credit for all of it.  Fortunately, even though Hub was feeling much better by the time they got him into a room, him telling them he felt better didn't keep the ER doctor from ordering images.  

Interestingly, while the CT scan showed the small offending kidney stone on the side that was hurting, it also showed a large stone in the kidney on the other side.  He was told this large stone had probably been there for years, and this isn't exactly uncommon.  Evidently nothing is done about something like that unless it creates trouble at some point.  I guess time will tell on that.  Meanwhile, he's armed with pain meds should the smaller kidney stone still be in there and cause him pain as it makes its way out.  I did pack my knitting, but the chair I had to sit in was so uncomfortable, and I got so cold, I wasn't in the mood.  It was pretty wonderful when the nurse brought me a heated blanket, though.  

We were so glad we stopped at the hospital that is five minutes from our house, rather than drive 25 minutes north where we historically have gone.  Not having to worry about "being in network" is a great aspect of Traditional Medicare.  The ER got busier the longer we were there, and the time passed slowly, but the staff was great.  Hub's nurse was a very friendly retired E-7 Army Sergeant who had been in some dangerous places in her twenty-year career.  He seemed to make her evening when he thanked her for her service, asked her about her experience, and from there on called her Sergeant Kim.

So, that was last night.  I'll, no doubt, finish my hat later today.  I started this one with a double brim again, and decided I wanted striping of some sort above the brim, and to my delight I rediscovered my love for helical knitting.

Yarns are Lion Brand Basic Stitch in Taupe Heather and 

Premier Everyday yarn in Chinchilla

If you're not familiar with helical knitting, you are missing something that is super simple and super satisfying.  It's more fun with multiple colors, but even with just two colors as I am working with here, helical knitting provides just enough interest in the knitting process, and a pretty narrow stripe pattern without continuous joins or jogs. 

If you're new to helical knitting, there are lots of short videos online showing how to make the color changes, but here is a video that is fairly indepth for anyone wanting to understand how knitting this way works:

You can skip to 6:00 minutes in for a demonstration of how to actually start (and continue) helical knitting.

And that's all for today!  Another week and a half of hat knitting and I'll be happy to put this endeavor to rest.

Hats...

This is the second in a series of posts over the next few weeks where I'm sharing hats (and hat patterns) that I hope to contribute to an upcoming toy/hat/blanket giveaway.  I figured I'd just answer the question that will inevitably be asked - "What will you do with all those hats?"  😉

Feeling less than thrilled with my hat knitting last week, I went back to something that felt more natural for my fingers - crochet.  I searched through patterns I'd made before, and I quickly settled on this Stepping Texture hat:

Crocheted in Vanna's Choice, worsted weight in the colorway Silver Blue 

Video Tutorials for this hat can be found at the following links:

Yarnspirations (I like this for showing the slip stitch ribbing)

DIY Danni (While it's harder to see her work because of the dark yarn being used, this video shows making a single crochet ribbing - which is an easier stitch).

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After having success with making a familiar crocheted hat, I went back to the Benefaction Hat pattern, and ditching the idea of doing stranded colorwork, I worked up a small simple beanie.  It will probably only fit a baby, but it's a successfully knitted hat, and that was my goal:

Knit in Lion Brand Heartland yarn in the colorway, Glacier Bay 

Not being excited about the 2x2 ribbing above, and thinking I might try a provisional cast-on to get a smoother edge on the ribbing, I went searching on YouTube for the perfect tutorial.  I did find some good ones, but before I actually committed to trying the provisional cast on, I came across the concept of knitting a "double-thick brim" using only knit stitches.  

What?  No purl stitches?!?  No special cast-on?  And I can get a smooth edge on the bottom of the hat?

These two tutorials convinced me to give this a try, and I  LOVED it:

Wolly Bear Knits

yokieB Crochet and Knit

Using yokieB's tutorial and scrap yarn, I knit up this small child's hat:

Knit with different brands of pink worsted acrylic.

The hat above is more of a slouchy style, but the double brim is so soft, it can be folded up to make a fitted  beanie.  This hat also turned out pretty small - likely to only fit a baby or toddler.

Having success knitting a double brimmed hat (albeit a small one), I couldn't wait to get started on a larger beanie with more subdued colors:

The plan at the moment, is to start this as a double-brimmed hat, but finish with the decreasing rounds found in the Benefaction Hat, instead of the gathered top of my pink double-brimmed hat.  I plan to put pom poms on any hats made with gathered tops before sending them on their way.  Pom poms assembly-line-style will be the last step in my hat making.

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So now, on my growing list of things to try (when I'm not working with a goal of production over learning new skills)...

Provisional Cast-on to create a single layer brimmed beanie

Stranded colorwork 

Interesting patterned decreasing rounds for beanie crowns

That said, I'm already itching to get back to crochet.  Isn't that always the way it is...   

Or am I the only one who's so easily distracted?

  

Doilies and hats...

Crocheting and knitting a little over the last couple of weeks, I made two more of "99 Little Doilies".

Crocheted in Artiste #10 thread in the color "Peach Ivory"

Tiny little doily #31 doesn't really inspire me at all, but it will be a fine addition to a collection of small doilies in a few different colorways that I hope to finish and display together some day - even if just on a table top.

Doily # 22, crocheted in Curio #10 thread in the color "Hawk"

It wasn't until I saw this dark gray doily in a picture that I saw what I imagine to be a round stained glass window without the stained glass.  So I named this "Lead Rosette".  So glad I decided to skip all the picots in this one.  They would have driven me crazy, and I like the edges on this so much better.

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Another project has presented itself, and sounds enjoyable - as long as my neck doesn't go back into "stiff mode".   Last month we attended a volunteer dinner (as quests) where youngest son, Ben, attends a church that hosts a community  food distribution.  That night they announced they also plan to host a toy/hat/blanket giveaway in early December - and they were "calling all yarnies" to knit or crochet hats.  I placed a loose mental sticky note in my mind that I could knit some hats to donate, but honestly, it wasn't until Ben mentioned it a week or so ago (just on the chance I might be interested) that I got a bit more serious about it.

Knit and crocheted hats can be great easy projects - taking just a few hours each - some less.  At least that's how I remembered it...

Well, this weekend I started with knitting a simple Benefaction Hat, and decided I'd add some colorwork after watching a few YouTube videos to see how it's done.  I thought I'd do a "fade" pattern with several colors.

The "fade" is where things started getting a little challenging.  The concept of stranded knitting (especially on this level) is simple enough, but I need a lot of practice to get my stitches and tension more consistent in that part of the knitting.

To a non-knitter's eye, I'm not sure this looks all that bad, and some of the unevenness can be blocked out, but I don't think I have it in me to finish this.  And I'm not sure I like the colors I chose, so there's that, too.  I may hang onto it, and use it as practice later, but since the more immediate goal is to actually produce some hats (not improve my knitting), I'm moving on.

I looked back at my Ravelry project page, and I see the last hat I crocheted was in September of 2020.  The last hat I knit was almost a year before that.

Armed with that knowledge, I suddenly feel kind of rusty and am wondering if volunteering to make some hats was a good idea.

Ah well...   the evidence will present itself here over the next 4 weeks.  I've pulled out lots of colors of yarns from my stash, and I've given myself a goal of wrapping up hat making by mid-October.  Come October 13th, I will either be relieved to be done, or feeling very satisfied with what I accomplished - maybe both.  Either way, it does feel good to have a purposeful project to throw myself into.

 

Eight more days of summer...

I had such good intentions of posting a bit more regularly at the beginning of September, and now here it is half-way through the month, and I have been waylaid from that good plan. 

Shortly after I posted my last post, I ended up getting a whopper of a sore neck.  I reviewed my activities leading up to that point, and honestly, I don't know which or if all of the things I did put my upper shoulder and neck in a bad spot.

The day after my last post, I started out feeling fine, but I had a dental appointment in the late morning, and oh my goodness...  I spent way too long in the chair.  At one point, I asked to be put upright so I could give my back a break.  The thing is, as much as my back hurt then, it didn't hurt in the spot that later flared up.

 

Picture of dentist tools taken earlier in the year when I was getting a root canal

Two days after being in the dentist's chair, I found myself in my dermatologist's chair getting a spot removed from the side of my nose.  My back hurt then too - but, again, not exactly in the place I was later sore in. 

It was later that week I finished up the baskets I showed in my last post.  At no time while I was crocheting those did I feel sore, but sometime the week after my last post is when I got the worst pain in the neck I think I've ever had.  

Then I remembered...  over the course of the week before my sore neck took hold, we had some beautiful weather.  I took advantage of the reprieve from summer heat to take care of some late summer garden chores.  

Those chores may show up in a bit more detail in future posts, but to keep this post from become a total monster, here is the Reader's Digest version...

First, I started pulling green beans plants.  In retrospect, that decision was possibly a little premature, but they weren't producing as prolifically, and I had grown weary of watering them nearly daily.  I also wasn't crazy about the Kentucky Wonder green beans - more on that in another post, possibly.  I simply didn't want to can any more of them.  I was ready to be done.

All but one trellis of green beans were pulled and carried over to the fire pit where I painstakingly unwinded twisted vines from rusty wire.  A tedious, but oddly satisfying job.  

This actually happened over the course of two days as I had the time.

I think it was a completely different day that I decided to start pulling out no-longer-producing tomato plants. The roots were surprisingly long, and it took a fair bit of pulling to clear the garden of most of the 25 tomatoes I had planted in May.  I then tried to dig around and wrangle the wooden stakes loose before I finally cried "uncle" and asked hubs if he could get them out.  It was hard work for him, but compared to my struggle, he made it look like a piece of cake.

There were 8 tomato plants left with still ripening fruit when I finished pulling those first ones out.

The day of tomato plant pulling, I also trimmed or entirely removed things that had become infected with powdery mildew (zinnias, yellow squash, fading zucchini plants...)  Anything with powdery mildew got bagged and taken to the curb. 

In some of the newly opened spaces, I planted cucumbers, kohlrabi, cabbage, pok choy, radishes and zucchini.  A fall garden is a total experiment for me. I'm guessing because the nights are cooler, and the angle of the sun is already more southerly in the sky, the plants may grow at a slower rate.

And add to all of the above, I also thinned out the strawberry patch. That involved a lot of bending over, bending forward, getting up and down from my knees... Exhausted at the end of that, I raked the refuse up and bagged it for trash collection.

I would have blamed any one of those things if my sore neck had followed directly on the heels of them, but the pain seemed to come days after I was finished with all of that work. 

Ibuprofen and Tylenol were of little help.  Hubs gave me deep massages where I could point out knots; I spent hours with a heating pad around my shoulder and neck.  I'd start feeling a little better, then it would come back with a vengeance and a headache that radiated up from sore muscles - usually at the end of the day.

After at least a week of that, finally desperate for some lasting relief, I called and got an appointment with my GP, hoping she'd write me a prescription for a muscle relaxant.  And then the very next day (the day of the appointment) I woke up with a much improved neck.  Not perfect, but not nearly as sore.  I had been able to turn over in bed the night before without yelping with each little movement.  There was still a remnant of pain in the morning, but I woke up with a motivation I hadn't felt for over a week.   

I cancelled my doctor appointment.

This calling the doctor, and suddenly feeling better is not the most satisfying of treatments, but it does seem effective.  Nearly every time.  Am I the only one for whom this is true? 

I realize my injury is surely healing itself slowly, and knowing that, I try to patiently wait it out - looking online for things to help me feel better, and reading opinions about how soon to call a doctor.  Here's the thing...  it doesn't seem to matter whether I call as soon as I feel it's legitimate to do so, or if I wait a week or two beyond that, the result is almost always the same...   I don't call until I'm desperate for pain relief, and I almost always feel better within hours of getting an appointment with a doctor.  It's frustrating and greatly relieving at the same time.  

It feels like a phenomenon that should have a name.  

I'm back to crocheting and knitting and have a little progress to show on Sunday.  Today is the first time I've been on the computer in nearly two weeks.  I'm cooking and grocery shopping again, and I'm toying with pickling the most recently harvested banana peppers this weekend.

What's left of my 25 tomatoes plants are looking shrively and brown, some green tomatoes hanging on have me wondering if they will ever ripen.  I'm still picking sweet peppers, and cherry tomatoes, and enough green beans off of the last lonely trellis to serve them up once a week.

My once lovely garden looks sad now, but I'm so thankful for the strength it gave my body as I worked it, and, in the end, the speed at which it helped the summer to fly by.  A few weeks ago, I thought I'd be sad to see summer end this year, but as normal, I'm already eagerly anticipating autumn.

And look what just arrived in the mail!   

I'm going to wait until our heat is passed (it's supposed to be 90 degrees tomorrow!), but I am sooo looking forward to getting this German Extra Hardy hardneck garlic in the ground and trying to grow these new-to-me leafy greens.

Just eight more days of summer!

Soft baskets...

Last week, I wrote that I was making a crocheted basket, and I was wondering how difficult these might be for me to make - having some arthritis in some fingers.  While I did need to give my hands breaks and stretches more often than normal, I didn't suffer later for some of the manhandling required while wrangling multiple strands of yarn together and pulling it hard through the stitches below.  In fact, after I finished my first one:

...having plenty of this yarn left over, I felt compelled to start a second basket.  This time I crocheted handles into the last two rounds:

While these probably aren't practical for holding really heavy stuff, they certainly could carry pretty much anything. It's just that large, heavy items would tend to pull the soft side out of shape, and they might not look so great after a while. 

Into the larger one I put our collection of "medical equipment" that have become common use items.  Things like blood pressure cuffs, an oxygen meter, and a digital thermometer.  

We don't use the thermometer or oxygen meter very often, but this is a handy (and kind of hidden) way to store these items together so they're easy to pull out when someone wants to check their vitals.  Curious...  are we the only ones who've made a party game out of passing the blood pressure cuff and oxygen meter around the table after dinner and some laughs over a table game?   Or are we the only ones who have this much fun?

Or, maybe that's just what happens when you keep these things in the dining room.  

I love that this stuff now has an attractive container - where they can be kept handy, but hidden from view:

Now I am looking around the house wondering where else might I tuck more of these cute baskets, and what colors would work where.   The real fun of making one of these is combining colors and watching those colors change as the basket grows.  

And there is great satisfaction in knowing I'm using up a bunch of yarn that previously had no obvious use.  I'm pretty pumped about these baskets on several counts.  Be on the lookout for more to show up here eventually!

I provided a link to the video I followed in my last post, but here it is again in case it's helpful:  Artisan Market Basket crochet tutorial from Crochet Southwest Spirit. Great for craft fairs! (youtube.com)