Lots of progress!

Ariann is done and blocking…I’ll spare you a picture because the black against the black doesn’t make for a good shot. I’ve gotta say, the soak-in-the-washer-then-use-the-spin-cycle-to-dry process is SO much easier than my old way! I knew it would be, but I was always afraid of somehow screwing up and felting whatever I was trying to wash. Modeled pictures on…Tuesday probably. I changed the collar again – I didn’t want a collar at all, so I continued the ribbing from the front and just made a band of ribbing around the collar instead of a fold-over style collar like in the picture. I also (again) didn’t make the belt. I just need to add some buttons and she’ll be done! I’ve changed it so much that it doesn’t look a whole lot like the picture, but I love the body pattern.

My malabrigo Clapotis is coming along – based on how much yarn I have, I’m 1/4 done (just finished the 1st skein). I’m not sure if it’s going to turn out as big as I hoped, so I may end up buying another skein (its varigated, so it doesn’t matter if it’s from another dye lot).

Tonight I also started another adventure – dyeing some of my handspun! I’m going to use the knitty instructions for the “hot pour” method, but hopefully get a little more of the yarn covered than in the picture. Two skeins are soaking in vinegar water in my crock pot as we speak 🙂 I’ll document the process and report back once I see how it goes.

The fan man is coming on Tuesday! The weather here has been beautiful but since our house has very old screens, we can’t open the windows or sliding doors because the bugs will get in and the cat will get out. This makes it pretty stifling at night. We bought a new fans for the kitchen/bedroom/living room when we first moved in since the old ones were gross – the living room went perfectly, but the fans in the kitchen and bedroom were installed….rather sketchily. (that’s a word, right?) As in drywall screws with sinkers directly into the ceiling above my bed. So we’ve had no fans in those two rooms for a while now and are having to make do with a portable fan (not the same). Well….the fan guy is coming Tuesday to install real actual safe fan boxes (that won’t cause the fan to come crashing down on us as we sleep and chop us to bits) and we’ll be able to tolerate the house again 🙂 Next step: New doors/windows/screens.

A little drama this week…Wednesday night at work I had sudden pain in my left flank/side area and a low grade fever…and ended up in the ER because I thought I had a kidney stone or kidney infection. Luckily all my labs came back OK and the cat scan didn’t show any stones, so the default diagnosis was a muscle strain. Doesn’t explain the fever, but they gave me some antibiotics as well just in case the WBC count just hadn’t started climbing yet. As long as its not a kidney stone I can deal with the pain – which has pretty much gone now as well, thank goodness. My darn veins wouldn’t cooperate – took them three tries to get an IV and draw blood! I have some purple bruises coming up on both hands now. Oh well – at least I’m colorful. And pain free.