I’m all out of wool, I’m so lost without it

and I’d run out of cream which was going to be my edging colour for both the inner squares and the outer rectangles.  So under duress he brought me a new 400g ball of cream aran, a pair of 4.5 mm knitting needles and the substitute cable needle.

I had found a lovely little jacket pattern at knitty.com –

I also tracked down a hat pattern at sweaterbabe.com – Cable Baby Beanie – and altered the rib to moss stitch and changed the cable stitch to match the one on the cardy.  After B brought me a darning needle in this afternoon, they both now look like this…

Needless to say finishing things off seems to usually take ages but it’s now done and I have nothing crafty to do.  I knew I should have pressed B to bring me something else in addition to the darning needle – he didn’t even want to bring me that suggesting I might prefer to ‘Have a rest’.

Now I’m not saying I’m easily bored – oh wait, yes I am actually.  Yesterday I changed my own bed – and not because I’d had a boo boo I’ll have you know.  I was about to remind the Health Care Assistants when I thought ‘What’s stopping me doing it?’  The answer was nothing and it made a change since B changes the bed at home because the bending starts my back off however with the benefit of an adjustable bed no bending was required.  I also assisted today – well I’m going with ‘assisted’ but ‘hindered’ is probably a better description.

One of the registrars called in this afternoon and asked whether Prof had said if I could go home after the chemotherapy had finished or if we needed to wait until my counts went back up before I got released.  As it turned out I got disconnected while B was here and if I’d thought on I could have pushed to go home then!  Just kidding!!! B wouldn’t have gone for it and the nurse I said it in front of thought that that was being a bit too keen – plus although B has cleaned the bathroom today he still apparently needs to wash the bed sheets.

I forgot to mention that I’m concerned that Prof knows me too well.  As I’ve said me and the steriod Dexamethasone don’t mix well so when I got my first dose last Thursday and it was the same as last time I queried it as Prof said we’d look at reducing the amount.  The nurse said she’d ask about it and shortly after Prof and one of the junior docs arrived and he informed her, to her surprise and the surprise of the nearby nurse and subsequent visiting registrar, that in view of my extreme reaction to Dex it was up to me how much I took.  There I was all geared up for putting my case across for taking less than suggested or in fact none at all and I ended up with free reign.  Prof’s method actually worked like a charm and I had to give proper consideration to the amount I wanted to take and felt I had to take some as I’d been entrusted with a completely voluntary decision and indeed when the registrar suggested that I might want to consider taking 6 mg instead of 4 mg I immediately wanted to say ‘No way’ even though I’d thought this myself.

Other Creative Spaces can be found here – at least I’ll have plenty of time in the morning to do some serious looking at other craftiness.

 

Hexagoning and Needles

While I have a bit of time on my hands I decided it was about time I shared my finished hexagonal baby blanket.  I have been unable to knit today!  {Sharp intake of breath} Don’t panic – I feel fine but my knitting is feeling decidely soggy following an unfortunate encounter with some tea this morning so it’s still drying off from its little cleansing shower.  Yesterday I have to admit no knitting got done as I was really tired and in quite a bit of pain from my right shoulder which knitting aggravated – I’m waiting on the results of yesterday’s x-ray on it.

Anyhoo back to some knitting I finished a few weeks ago.  This is Swirl and yet again is from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans.

In total it measures about 74 cm (29″) across and is in double knitting yarn on size 4 mm straight needles.

When I showed pics previously Fiona enquired as to how it was constructed here we go – please excuse a the quality of a couple of the photos – I took them on my phone and can confirm that its correctly called a phone with a camera and not a camera phone.

Now it should have been knit on four double pointed needles but as I’ve said I avoid these if at all possible so adapted the pattern to suit two.

I started with one hexagon and joined the seam on that to close it up.  Then I cast on 100 stitches and picked up another 20 along one side to join the second one on.

This carried on adding 20 stitches for additional side that the new hexagon needed to join on to ie, this one had four hexagons so had 80 stitches from hexagon sides and 40 new ones…

Each hexagon had a seam that needed joining because of being knit on just two needles.

And just once there was a seam to be sewn between hexagons when I didn’t pick up enough stitches…

I wasn’t particularly orderly about adding hexagons possibly because I didn’t have any green to start with.

but after filling in the irratic gaps it looked like this…

Yes its not quite flat, and not quite as noticeable in ‘real life’ but I don’t think knitting it on four needles would have made that much of a difference.

This again isn’t a pattern I would have chosen to knit or colours I would have necessarily used (the colours are similar to the ones in the book) but I am quite pleased with it and do think it would look great in really bright colours.

Other creative spaces can be found here.

I started the DT-PACE IV chemotherapy today – my switch to peritoneal dialysis (PD) caused a bit of delay will things were thunk about.  I said to the blook pharmacist this morning that I believed I was causing them a problem, he agreed and said I was really testing them.  The renal doctor called to see me again for the fourth time, however its the first time I was actually ‘in’.  Tuesday with not having anything scheduled I’d been allowed out and after a trip into Primark would have come back with clothing if I’d been able to remember my credit card pin.  The third time the doc called yesterday morning I was having a shower.  The only concern he had about the schedule was that it resulted in me restarting the PD at midnight when he thought surely nine would have been better.  As it is I only got hooked up at quarter to one so by the time the bags have run through its probably going to be three o’clock Saturday morning that I need to start up again.  As you may have gathered I am being allowed to do the PD during the treatment, rather than having to go down for the haemodialysis (HD).  He must have thought that I looked way too enthusiastic having to get up at 12 even to pop a bag of fluid in but bascially I’m just estatic that I don’t have to go back to HD – and can only think he doesn’t know what sort irrate hours and late nights this can entail for inpatients – like the time I went down at ten past midnight so got back to my bed at 4.20 am!

After getting back from my non-shopping spree on Tuesday B took me out for tea – fish and chips which I had to stop eating part way through as I felt sick and got chastised for not asking for an anti-sickness tablet – I forgot!  It didn’t help that he knew I’d been sick at lunch time at the tiniest taste of Pot Noodle.

Oh, and tomorrow I get to have a biopsy needle stuck in the bump on the back of my head as the x-ray report says my skull is fine – which is good since when I was diagnosed the x-ray showed a lorra, lorra lytic lesions.  I’m think I may have to come up with a convicing ‘Silly me I forgot but I do know remember bumping it’ – depending on the size of the needle!

Red and denim and white and green

I love, love, love this pram blanket and everyone who’s seen it whilst in progress have loved it too – well at least that’s what they’ve said and maybe the ones that didn’t love it just didn’t say anything!  Four friends at Armchair Yoga wanted to know where the pattern came from and two friends last night described it as striking.

Although I selected the yarn I didn’t as such pick the colours – if you know what I mean. No? Well, its for the impending grandson of a lady who works at the Royal and the pram that’s been bought for him is denim outside with the lining white, red, lime green and denim so she gave me the list of colours and I went and shopped for the actual shades.

Now I’m not going to even pretend that given the whole of the Sirdar Bonus DK colour range that I would have selected these four colours to go into one blanket but I’m truly in love with it – surprisingly smitten actually since although they went together okay when still on the balls it was only when combined in the pattern that I started feeling a growing affection but only after  I’d changed the colour order.

I initially started following the order the colours were written down in on the basis that if you were listing the colours on something you might note them down in the order you saw them (apparently they hadn’t done this anyway).   However the red and denim together just looked too heavy.  So I undid it back to the denim set up row and re-ordered it along the lines of light and dark which I think works much better.

Then there was the issue of the number of colours.  Did I work each strip separately ie, cut the yarn at the end of its current use or did I carry the yarns up the side.  I thought it would be easier to cut the colours, knot them and crochet the edging over it.

Then one of the Armchair Yoga ladies queried this as she wasn’t at all envious of all those ends to deal with and I explained that I didn’t want to spend ages un-tangling the four balls but since I had about a third to go I decided to give it a go.

I have to say the later was the better option.  Not only was it neater but it was way easier to edge over.  Fortunately I’d already decided to edge in denim but had I chosen the green or white I would have had to change my mind as the stronger colours would have peeked through.

The edging was the single crochet (US double crochet) first round and a second round of sc (dc) worked backwards – it’s so simple and every time I’ve used it I’m always pleased with the result.

I’d done the six rows I didn’t like by Sunday morning and this was when I undid five of them and started again from the set-up row and I finished edging it today – which shows it’s quite an easy pattern that grows quickly.  Mind you it’s not like I’ve been doing tons of other stuff although if I hadn’t gone out for my tea yesterday I could have had it finished then.  (I didn’t go out with B by the way but two friends one of whom was a bit worried about me going as B told her I’d been sick yesterday – which I had but apparently the way B told her she thought I’d literally just up-chucked but it had been in the morning.  As it turned out I was fine and really enjoyed the food – I had stilton and garlic mushrooms and then lamb shank with mash and green beans- sometimes anti-sickness meds are just wonderful.)

The blanket measures 75 cm (29.5″) x 95cm (37.5″) and the pattern is Greenway from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans – again!  It’s a good job I don’t have to pay royalties – I’ve never had such use out of a book of afghans.

Other creative spaces are here.

I may smell shortly

Here’s what I’ve been done this week.  I finished the Fish Ripple Pattern pram/cot/crib blanket from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans.

Yes, it is slightly ripple-erey down the edge and also when you look at in top down or bottom up for that matter – well it is called Fish RIPPLE

and it looks okay from this angle.  It ended up 75 cm x 95 cm (29.5″ x 37.4 “).

I also got these finished.

 

I just couldn’t find the mitten pattern – I looked through the magazine holder where I keep my individual patterns divided by category and knew that as I’d used it recently it should be at the end of the baby section – no it wasn’t.  I checked somewhere I keep odds and ends of patterns for all sorts that don’t fit anywhere else just in case – no it wasn’t there either.  Oh, I wasn’t sort of choices of mitten patterns but the one big difference was none had a thumb so it would be an obvious difference.   I looked through the magazine folder again and it still wasn’t there – no wonder really it turned out that it was in the Sirdar baby booklet I’d knit the jacket and hat out of – Doh!

 

A bigger pom pom than on the last one had been requested and it did indeed start off very big but it had a little accident coming off the pom pom maker and ended up quite lob sided so by the time it had been evened out it was a tad smaller than I’d intended.

Sorry about the photo quality – must have been an off day.

I’ve also done more on Swirl, also from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans (I’m really getting my money out of this book).

This hasn’t been without its share of boo boos, like this one…

I don’t know about you but I think I did really know that a hexagon should have six sides so I’m not sure how I only noticed this one had five once I’d sewn it up.

Plus there’s been the insertion of some hexagons in the wrong positions – that’s happened at least three or even four times but I think everything’s in its right place now.

I had my peritoneal catheter/cannula put in yesterday and I don’t know what I was getting my knickers in a twist about – I did opt for the sedation and only really ‘came to’ when the cannula was actually being inserted which was okay.  There was some pushing and then I’m sure I felt one of the stitches but only a bit and the ‘new’ doctor from last week was actually really nice and very good.

Turns out that what I should have been fretting over was how it feels today!  Yesterday going home with Auntie Ann I had to sit carefully with the seat belt away from my tummy but I thought, well actually I didn’t think what it would be like after AT ALL.  I know that might sound odd but having had a Hickman, PICC, femoral and dialysis neck line I just thought it would be similar (okay the femoral did hurt a bit after but I’ve just let that slip my memory).

Let’s just say its a soupcon tender.  I got out of bed in the early hours of the morning for a visit to the bathroom and forgot initially then WHAM ‘That hurts’.  This morning I could barely sit on the settee initially but after the two paracetamol and two tramadol kicked in it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay more tolerable.  Its tender like a BIG bruise and at the moment it’s not lying as flat as it will once settled due to the various dressings so things are pressing on it more than they will do.

BUT worst thing ever is that I can’t shower for four, or rather FOUR weeks – FOUR WEEKS!  Nobody told me this BEFOREHAND.  I thought when the nurse said don’t shower yesterday he meant just yesterday but NO – FOUR WEEKS – did I mention that already?

Oh, and I can’t drive for approximately SIX WEEKS – B’s done a happy dance and put the flag out.

 Other creative spaces can be found here.

More Twisted Cables

I finally got round to block… oh, I didn’t I dried it flat,  the cardigan I started during my last holiday in the Royal.

It was from Designer Knitting (which is what Vogue Knitting is called in the UK) Winter 2009/2010 and looked like this…

Not a particularly good picture but enough of a resemblance that it needs to be borne in mind for later.

There were a few teething troubles…

This was my first attempt at the back which had an untwisted bit at the bottom of the first twisty cable – I did notice this and thought ‘Hey I’ll just do an untwisted bit at the top end’ – and then I got to the above point and suddenly realised that I should have had five twisty cables instead of the four I had.  So  it should actually have looked like this…

And then there was the collar.  I picked up the stitches and knit it the other Tuesday when a friend was visiting so it didn’t have my undivided attention and it was the night I was really tired so the attention it did have was probably less than adequate.  This was the first go…

This was the second go…

much smoother with evenly distributed stitches.  I knew when I was doing it it would probably go pear-shaped but carried on regardless.

Anyhoo, here we have the finished article on the dress form and remember the picture from the magazine – closely fitting tailored style silhouette

nipped in waist, fitted looking, mmm, slightly loose round the bust maybe but still I’m probably bigger than the form…

We’ll ignore the little creases under the back cables from where it dried – I was going to say they would drop out but let’s face it there the least of it’s worries…

Perhaps I could just get some shoulder pads and longer arms!

Here’s some things that are going a bit better.  The crochet blanket I started last week which just needs another 15 cm (6″)…

but I did get a bit fed up with this which translates as I made a few boo boos – I’m blaming it on my haemoglobin level, lack of circulating oxygen must affect concentration, so I dipped into my bits box and started another granny square afghan…

Other creative spaces are here.

Lots of Buddies

We’ve had a spate of Myeloma Buddy production going on over the past few months.  If I’m a bit stuck for something to take out with me or just need something small I knit a Buddy.  When I was thinking of posting the pics I realised that I’d never said where the orange Myeloma Buddy army went last year.

The 100 Buddies were ordered by Myeloma UK – orange or rather ORANGE being their corporate colour.  They are available direct from them and are listed in their site shop right here.  They’re also for sale at their Info Days.

While I’m at it there’s also a link to my Buddies in the FUNdraisers section of the IMF site (International Myeloma Foundation that is not the better known but less fantastic International Monetary Fund).

Mmm, wonder what one would look like in fabric?

Other creative spaces are here.

When I went for dialysis today I asked about the results of the 24 hour wee collection from Monday.  Apparently the level of toxins in it that my kidneys had filtered is not yet normal but is going up.  The blood test showed my calcium level is on the low side even though my Calci-chew dose was increased three weeks ago from 2g a day to 4g so the nurse said she’d get a doctor to review it when I went in on Saturday.  

Twisted cables

I knew I’d have to do it – maybe if it had been for me I would have fought the urge but as it wasn’t I undid the back and rectified my cabling boo boo.  Then I undid it again as I’m obviously still behind with my sleep (well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) and made another boo boo when I reknit it because I couldn’t do two things at the same time – don’t tell B he readily accepts with me as a prime example that women can do 16 things at the same time whilst men can’t do one and a half.  Two of our neighbours called round yesterday afternoon and while knitting and chatting I missed another cable twist out of the new knitting.

Mind you it’s not like I need much of a distraction at the minute I also had to undo the left front twice last night and in fact somehow the right front ended up as the left front (ie, the v-neck slope was on the wrong side) and vice versa – so although the right front was ‘right’ it should have been ‘left’!

Fortunately the sleeve turned out to be a sleeve AND had the correct amount of cabling.

It’s not just knitting I’ve been having trouble with.  I tried a logic puzzle last weekend – just one of the simple ones at the very beginning of the puzzle book that only have three answers and with a great deal of effort I got the first one right and the second one completely wrong.  It would have been easier trying to plait fog.  I can’t say it’s got much better since.  However a friend who called round on Wednesday night said that she was glad to see I had my ‘Paula sparkle’ back as it had been a while.  I must be at my best at night as I’m pretty sure B wouldn’t say I sparkle in a morning!

And now I have some potentially very good news from the visit from the renal doctors yesterday.  Basically my kidney function is borderline for coming off dialysis.  I’m having dialysis as usual tomorrow then I get to wee into a container again for 24 hours from 6am Monday to 6am Tuesday and go in for blood tests on Tuesday but no dialysis.    It could be that the amount of dialysis can be reduced if it can’t be stopped altogether and the dialysis type changed and I could do it at home.  I have to admit the brief description of tubes in tummies didn’t exactly have me saying ‘Yay, sign me up now.’  I was home from dialysis yesterday by 12.30 as B came and picked me up.

I’m still getting the migrainy visual disturbances but fortunately no follow up headache.  In fact last  night I got the netbook out to blog and then couldn’t see the screen clearly enough – indeed it’s going funny again now.

My mouth is a teeny bit sorer which may, or may not, have something to do with Sherbet Lemons!

I would also like to point out (and I think that as I can I need to blame either disturbed sleep patterns or medication for this) that it doesn’t constitute a REAL fire unless you need to call the fire brigade – even if the flame is a foot high and it nearly makes your husband enter a state of shock.

Other creative spaces can be found here.

Cobweb Lace

I started this shawl back in September when I abandoned the shawl I’d started the previous summer – yes that would be summer 2010.  If I hadn’t touched it for over 12 months it wasn’t going to be finished any time soon.  I don’t knit much lace because I find it a bit messy, or maybe it’s because I don’t really have any reason to do lacy things or it could just be that I don’t really like knitting it – loath as I am to admit not liking anything knitty other than circular needles and intarsia (that’s multi colour knitting for the non knitters and should not be confused with fairisle).

Anyhoo, after deciding I wanted to knit a lace shawl, and even though the first one didn’t get very far,  I searched for another pattern on Ravelry, which again to the non knitters is kinda like Facebook for knitters but with added extras.  You can see how finished items look not just as per the pattern but as knit/crocheted by other knitters.  I’d once seen a blanket pattern that I just loved and after having checked it out on Ravelry and seeing finished articles it put me right off.

It turned out that the majority of the shawls I liked were all by the same designer, Birgit Freyer.  So I tootled off to her website and selected myself ‘Flamenco‘.*  Now I have no trouble knitting with fine yarn but I do like knitting it on fine needles, so cobwebby yarn on 4.5 mm needles I find a bit, you guessed it, messy and fiddly as well.

I have been perservering, and undoing – which is extra fiddly and here’s how it looks so far…

The big plus is that I’ve got plenty of yarn for when it tips me over the edge and I throw it out the window and start again.

Other creative spaces can be found here.

*  When I went to Birgit’s website to link to the pattern and saw her beautiful finished article I could have cried!

A Non Bare Bear

Darn, as Ernie pointed out I missed a prime opportunity in the title of my previous post when I could have gone with a play on a Bare Bear!  Anyhoo said bear is now fully clothed – well nearly.  Although he looks fully attired his goggles need a press stud and are just tied on and his little jacket needs an open ended zip/zipper.

Oh, and his jodphurs require a bit of white shirring elastic but other than thathe’s fully dressed!  The pattern is again from Teddy Bears: More Than 25 Irresistible Designs for Knitted Bears by Debbie Bliss.

As you can clearly see I got the loopy knitting finished whilst at the hospital yesterday.  I did have to adjust the pattern as keeping to the instructions was only sending me loopy not the yarn.  In fact I also managed to reknit the goggles as the first pair were 12cm/4.76″ short.  And then I ran out of knitting, seriously I had nothing left to do, no book to read, I did write out my Christmas present list again, got about five cups of water (they are very small cups) and went for a wee – which was a feat in itself let me tell you due completely to my choice of attire – and then fortunately my Auntie Ann appeared – but back to my clothing.  

When we have an appointment with a doctor/prof at the clinic I make at least half an effort (although they may disagree) due to the fact that, as you may recall, we go into Liverpool for a meal but when I go to the Day Unit, for treatment or when I’m feeling ruff, I go casual to the point of completely un-ironed in some instances.  So yesterday morning I was all of a do-da – an appointment with the Prof but in the Day Unit – what to wear? Anyhoo, the decision was made for me – I ironed a pair of trousers only to find I didn’t have a suitable clean t-shirt so I ended up wearing a dress with tights.  I also ended up getting two units of blood and let me tell you, if you don’t already know, it is quite a performance dealing with tights while you have a cannula in the back of one of your hands – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I got there at 10.50am for my 11 o’clock appointment – I was early as B wasn’t involved, my Uncle Ray provided transportation.  I saw the Prof and he asked me how I was.  I said I didn’t feel ill but had been tired – and he said yes I would be because I was anemic.  So I got to have two units of blood – I could have gone back today but whilst I was already there I said I might as well stay plus if I did I’d feel better sooner.

Due to my haemoglobin count (7.6 – normal min for women 11.8), white blood count (2.6 – min 3.5) and neutrophils (1.00 – min 2.0) the next cycle of Revlimid has been delayed.  I go back to the clinic a week tomorrow (11 November) and will, hopefully, start cycle two then but this may be reduced to 10mg every other day or 5mg a day.  On the upside my kidney function has improved again and my PP (I think rather than my IgA – you’d think I’d know definitely wouldn’t you) has gone from 15 to 10! We’ll just need to wait until my next bone marrow biopsy to see if it affects (ie, squashes and stomps on) the plasma cell content of the bone marrow.

My appetite was better yesterday I’d managed half a sandwich for my lunch with a bag of french fries (which are a crisp/chip) and for tea I’d been craving spag bol (which is so much easier to type than spaghetti bolognese).  Due to the tiredness I fortunately hadn’t decided to make this from scratch so B had got a ready made jar to go with some mince. However subtle hints to B on the phone such as ‘Are you going to make the bolognese?’ hadn’t worked so I got home at 9.10pm (hence my Auntie Ann collecting me as B had gone to work) to find the meal still in kit form.  And you know what I did – I made it!

I’m not going to say it was without incident – I ended up with about a quarter of the spaghetti I started with due to a colander and sink incident – but I really enjoyed.

I’d done the mince and the sauce before going upstairs for a shower and realised we had a couple of phone messages.  So I had a quick shower, put the pasta on and phoned one of my friends back and had to do something I rarely do, I had to say I couldn’t stay on the phone long as I was cooking pasta.  When she called round this afternoon she said she got off the phone and said to herself ‘She’s been out nearly all day, she’s not been home long, it’s 10 o’clock at night, did she really just say she was cooking pasta?’ but apparently I looked and sounded a lot better today – totally like someone who could deal with cooking pasta at that time of night!

More creative spaces can be found here.