Woman versus machine

It has baeen a while since I posted. The Remeron seems to have peaked with the body healing part and now I am moving on to learning new lifestyle changes. I have found through the years that when a medication is helping, it takes about 3 months for my body to do some healing, then another 3 months to adapt to a new way of life on the new medication. I always give things 6 months to stabilize before I give a thumbs up or down. I got thrown for a bit of a loop this time because my old pharmacy had me on the wrong medication for a month and I had to recover from that.

Lately I have been back to my first love, machine knitting. I had my first machines back in 1985, 2 Brothers which my ex disposed of when I left him. Then I lost my machines again 2 years ago when I left my abusive son, including my beloved Passap. I have started building up again and have a Brother 260, and Singer 560 and a Singer 700. I never really worked on the Singers before now and I do have to say that I like them, especially the lace carriage, which transfers and knits in the same row. I find it so much easier to push and it sounds gentler on the needles than the Brother did.

I was trying to finish off a sweater last night. I am making Primula by Carl Boyd. I happened to have some Crocus Yeoman Panama on hand and Carl was kind enough to help me lengthen the top. I also found that I could use lace card #6 on my Singer for the lace pattern, as long as I remembered to advance it one row every second row to eliminate the extra plain knit row. I was happy, especially after hand transferring the first sleeve.

So yesterday afternoon I sat to do the lace around the front and back neck. Easy enough, right? Not! The machine and my brain wouldn't cooperate. I must have ripped that piece out 6 times before I finally got it right. I had stitches dropping, I forgot the edge pins, dropped a stitch somewhere, etc. etc. But woman did win out over machine and I got the front and back pieces done. Now I just have to sew everything together.

In the meantime, after many years of wanting to do this, I made leggings to wear under my pants in the winter. One pair are sewn together and I have two others in various stages of finishing. I am still enjoying the feeling that I was able to finally bring an idea that I have had for about 10 years  to fruition. Yup, the Remeron seems to be helping a lot! Now most of my resting time is spent sewing things together because I am knitting faster than I can finish!

Yes, some days life is good!

Peaches & Creme is here!

It has been a long struggle and there is still a lot of work to do, but I am happy to announce that the new web site is up. I am endeavoring to bring Elmore-Pisgah yarns into Canada and I hope to expand from there.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the yarns, they are mostly cottons ranging from size 10 thread up to a double worsted weight. The Peaches & Creme line is comparable to Bernat Handicrafter but I personally find it softer and there are many more colours to choose from.

I would be delighted if you would take a look and follow us along at http://napaneeyarnstore.com/

Look forward to continuing changes and additions as I get more added to the site and don't be afraid to let me know if you have any questions or comments. See you there!

Making Progress

Things are going along albeit at a slower pace than I would like. My web site should be up shortly (fingers crossed). I was told it would be up yesterday, but it still isn't up .

In the meantime I have been working on the two Vortex shawls and a top for me.Am I ever glad I found my mistake when I cast on the shawl for Deb. Things work in mysterious ways sometimes. I am working the shawls continental but I find that I am having trouble purling, so the top is done in English style. Without realizing it, I had changed how I tension the yarn in my left hand. I just happened to look one day and I was tensioning it differently. Talk about letting your fingers do the walking!

Here is the Kauni Vortex shawl. I have to say that I really like this yarn. It is a bit course, like Shetland, but the colour changes are long and there is no sudden change in the colour way like I have found in other self striping yarns.

This is going to be big and just beautiful!

I have switched needles for the Colourmart angora/merino shawl which is coming along nicely. I had a bit of a problem tensioning at first because the yarn is a laceweight, but I am getting the hang of it now.

As you can see, with the finer yarn the holes open up a bit more. This should be a good size shawl as I have 1500 yards to work with.

A night in the dark

We had a thunderstorm last night and this is what I did for two hours in the dark with one lonely candle.

This is another Vortex shawl that I am knitting up for a friend. It is laceweight yarn from Colourmart, and beautiful angora/merino blend. She is a beginner knitter and wasn't all that comfortable with the fine yarn and the lace.

The power outage actually reminded me that I need to make more candles! I had one lonely candle to work by but I am glad that I at least had something light coloured on the needles which was easier to see. So today I will hopefully get some more candles made to have some just in case.

I had to chuckle. I was in the middle of making a sock on the knitting machine when the power went out. I merrily continued on for my 50 round leg without a problem and stopped when it came time to make the heel. I love hearing the sound of the knitting machine clicking past those last stitches so you know it is time to start the next row :)

First top for me!

I have a problem getting tops to fit nicely. After muddling through a bunch of 3/4 finished tops, I realized three things. Firstly, I need a top to be at least two inches longer than design programs or patterns call for. Secondly, I need to decrease the armhole measurement by 1/2 and inch to an inch. And thirdly, I hate tops that hang like sacks!

Since starting on the Remeron, I have been playing with my machines more. And actually enjoying them.So I took a top that I had made and didn't like, ripped it out and made this one.

Here is a close shot of the detail at the neckline.

I have to thank everyone at KMaholics for walking me through a new edge. It is awesome!

Boy did I goof!

Remember the Vortex shawl that was coming along? Something kept nagging at me that there were too many increases and not enough decreases. Today while casting on the shawl for a friend I found my error. I had misread the second line of the pattern where there is a decrease stuck in . So here is the Vortex shawl now.

I have cast on again and decided to go up to a 5.5 mm needle for a bit more drape. It should go faster this time since I ended up with about twice as many stitches as I should have had for the length. No wonder I was panicking about running out of yarn! I was at 800 stitches and about 32 inches across and 3/4 done my 960 yards of Kauni.

This just seems to have been a week of do overs. Everything I try to knit I end up pulling out for one reason or another. Just one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right. And now I am going to vent ...

I have been having some problems with my pharmacy and changed to a new one about mid August. My doctor has me on birth control for hormone regulation and I noticed my pills from my old pharmacy were a different colour this month, but chalked it up to the company changing the colour. Well I have had migraine after migraine and it dawned on me today that maybe the old pharmacy had sent me the wrong pills. After a long day of calls they finally admitted that yes, they had made the mistake and were sorry. Oh, and would a $25 gift certificate be acceptable for my pain and suffering for the month? I just wanted to choke and I am going to look into what I can do legally. All I can say is that I am glad I have a new pharmacist now. So please, if you feel uncomfortable with the service that your pharmacist gives you, please find a new one. This episode could have very easily had more disastrous consequences.

The newest additions to the family

I am a big cat lover as well as a dog lover. Pudge is my 9 year old Burmese, adopted from a bad family when he was a kitten. He survived distemper and almost died from an intestinal tract infection. He is the boss and everyone knows it.

Sasha is another rescue, the queen of the house. She is a bit stand offish and only lets you pet her when she wants. Then a month ago I adopted Jinx and Jasper, two delightful brothers. I wasn't sure how the other cats would take to them, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here is Pudge and Jasper.

Sasha playing with Jinx while Pudge looks on

 Pudge and Jinx