1. Insomnia
Ever since coming home from Vancouver, I have had trouble turning off the brain at bedtime. So many great ideas, yarns and patterns, new techniques. The logical solution seemed to be to go with the flow, which meant that I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning spinning, knitting, sketching or whatever else struck my fancy. I made some nice sock yarn...
...from some lovely Superwash Merino/nylon blend fibre from River's Edge Fiber Arts. I picked the fibre up while I was in Arizona and just decided that I had to spin it one night. The colors are amazing and they works well together to create a wide stripe pattern, but there is not as much yardage as I might have hoped. It is my standard 3-ply sock yarn, about 18 wpi, but there are two skeins of only 125 yard each out of the 4 oz. of fibre. Yet to be knitted up, but I'm thinking it's time to explore a toe-up technique.
There are other yarns, and other projects, most of which are in some state of semi-completion. Where they will probably stay for a while, because the inevitable result of 3 weeks of 4 hours of sleep is, yes, you guessed it, exhaustion.
Naps and early bedtimes have been the order of the day for the past few days now. Hopefully, balance will be achieved soon and life can settle down.
2. More Yarn
There has been other spinning going on, and two major projects started back in the January lull are caught up. Or, at least, one is done. The other is still waiting for plying.
But I can show off the finished one...
...my Monet-inspired cable. Spun woolen and fine, plied, then cabled to make the most of the color play in the fabulous Romney/Merino blend rovings from Lynne Anderson and West Coast Fibres. The finished yarn came out at about 3 tpi and 12 wpi. I loved it so much that, as soon as the skeins were dry, I was knitting. I am free-styling a garter stitch vest/sweater, choosing the next step as I go. A couple of those insomnia evenings were spent working out the front button placket, and the obsessive knitting continues...
3. Plumbing Disaster 2: The Revenge of the Airlock
You may recall that we had a plumbing crisis back in January. It was not a happy time, and a great deal of time and money was consumed in solving this crisis and restoring functioning toilets to the Old Homestead. And, of course, there was the little problem of the rain of sewage into the downstairs bathroom. Pipes were plumbed, vents were cleared, toilets resealed, and all was well.
Until last Tuesday. When the bubbles began in the toilet again. Plumbers were called, and as we waited, the rain of sewage began to fall. Nothing was found to be wrong, but the seal on the upstairs toilet had let loose again, resulting in the removal of said toilet and the resealing of the pipe. Steve did this job, and may I just state here that there is something about plumbing that turns my relatively calm, intelligent, and gentle husband into some sort of surly, cursing, rampaging member of the rhinoceros family. It was not pretty.
So, toilet back in place and everything clear. Flush. Glub, glub, glub. The bubbles are back. The call is in to the condo management company to get somebody out here to check our sewer connection, but they don't seem to think it is a priority. Or, more likely, they know that there are expensive major repairs to the sewer line in our row of townhouses and are trying to avoid them.
Care and caution are being exercised by all who use toilets in the household until somebody, somewhere, decides what to do.
4. Brace Yourself!
Or, more appropriately, I have braced myself. I finally got to see the doctor I had asked to see five years ago when I first fell and hurt my knee. He took one look at it and told me exactly what I had known all along. There is torn cartilage and a damaged ligament destabilizing the knee, which is aggravating otherwise mild arthritis and making me a cranky old cripple before my time. There will be surgery to repair the cartilage and rebuild the ligament in my not-too-distant future, but a fresh MRI is needed first. Even with a priority status, that means a 3-6 week wait.
So, what to do in the meantime? Wear a brace. But not just any brace. No, siree...
...the Uber-Brace! Yes, 11 inches of Neoprene, Velcro and steel, designed to keep that knee bending in the one direction that it's supposed to. And after only 48 hours of wearing this baby, I am walking the dog, going up and down stairs, and taking only half the painkillers I previously took to sleep at night!
I'm not too sure how I will feel about having this Behemoth on my leg when it gets to be a little warmer around here, but I'm so happy to be able to climb stairs and get up from a chair without a grunt of pain that I will just have to find a way to adjust.
5. Goats Across Canada
If you can find a copy of the March/April issue of Goats Across Canada magazine, check out Page 26. I will gladly autograph your copy!
So that's just a little sampler of the stuff that has been going on around here. There has been gardening, and snow, and a spin-in, and baking, and nights out, and spinning, and knitting. There have been trips to the grocery store, visits to Canadian Tire, and appointments galore. There has been life. Just life.
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