It’s a glum bum day

I was intending to share the whole peritoneal dialysis fluid exchange procedure today – I mean it may come in handy one day – there could a question in a quiz – if it involves a lot of money though remember where you read the answer!

Instead though I decided to do a crafty post to brighten me up as the weather, Bud and my mood turned glum as the day went on.  Actually with me it’s more tired and has nothing at all to do with a late night and early morning!  With the weather it started all bright, sunny and quite warm this morning (as evidenced by no coat needed when Bud pressured me into taking him for a wander in the wood) but by lunch time it was bucketing it down and all gloomy.  With Bud its the fact that B didn’t take him for his regular walk – due to the weather!  In fact it was Bud’s expression when he realised he wasn’t getting a proper trip out that made me think of the word glum – he sat there with the most pathetic look on his face and looked a right ‘glum bum’.

I needed a quick baby pattern to knit for one of the ward nurses who was leaving to have a baby – funnily enough.  As I’d got some aran weight cotton in I decided to give Trellis another go. I altered one of the cable patterns into a more conventional four stitch cable rather than a travelling twisted stitch…

and repeated the cable on the hat with moss stitch in between.

It got Cairngorm Reindeer Herd buttons – I don’t know what I’m going to do when these run out.

The whole cardigan is knit on 4.5 mm needles with no increases once past the ‘rib’ but this results in the following…

so on the fronts and sleeves I reduced the cast on stitches only by two or three and then put then back before I started cabling and this sorted out the wibble.

I’ve also finished my latest bits and pieces afghan which turned out a ‘bit’ bigger than I was aiming for at 84 cm x 152 cm (33″ x 60″).

That photo doesn’t really do it justice so here’s some others…

Chris, the friend who was partly responsible for my late night yesterday, said the pink and blue centred rectangle above was her favourite or wait, was it the purple and purple one?  I don’t know now – she liked a lot of them.  What we both liked though was how using the yarn like this enabled colours that you wouldn’t necessarily put together to work – well we thought so.

I had thought this would use up all my outstanding ‘bits and pieces’ and I could bin the remnants but I still have too many to throw away with a clear conscience.  Since I need a trip to The Knitting Centre before I can start the next batch of things I’m making I started another blanket to use up absolutely all of them.

I’m doing a single alternating row of four different colours (if that makes sense) and intend to just carry on until each colour runs out and then add in another one.

As you can see it results in a lovely tangle of wool – me no likey that at all.

Now although this way of doing things should also let me put all sorts of colour combinations together I think this one may be too BRIGHT.

And it’s not even my Myeloma UK Myeloma Buddy orange – this one is nearly flourescent – I’d love to know what the rest of the ball made.

Now I need to get an early night as I have my big day out tomorrow.  B said to me before ‘Will you be taking your anti sickness tablets?’  I said ‘Yes’.  Then he said ‘What about anti ageing ones?’ I said something that can’t be repeated in polite company.

Getting immoral with rumps

I think I may have done something, if not illegal, then certainly immoral with some rump steak – I made steak and onions.  Now this may be perfectly acceptable with some high folotting celebrity chef but I was brought up to make steak and onions, hotpot and such like with stewing steak and as it seems to be labelled now braising steak.

B had asked constantly today what I wanted for my tea and I had absolutely no idea.  Well okay, it was probably about twice but seemed a lot more.  At lunch he started to suggest things and at the point where he said soup I had to say ‘I think you should stop mentioning food or I’m gonna throw up’.  Later in the afternoon he nipped out for some milk and wanted to know again – but although I don’t feel queasy all the time I don ‘t feel particularly like eating.  B asked should he get some bread but the thought of bread turned my stomach at the time – indeed yesterday I made up some barm cakes for B but had some Ryvitas myself – just as well really since it turned out the barm cakes I’d used had a use by date of the 28th!

So tea time-ish today I went into the kitchen and looked at the rump steak in the fridge and thought ‘I couldn’t eat that fried but I could eat it in steak and onions’ so that’s what I did with it – I have to admit without chopping it into smaller pieces – I just wopped it in a pan to brown and then covered it with stock – chicken as we were out of beef.  B peeled the potatoes and we had it with mash and what I managed to eat stayed down unlike Sunday’s cottage pie.

It was, in B’s opinion, excellent.  He wasn’t being immodest as he hadn’t made it.  I decided to tackle the mince meat while B was out walking with Bud.  I donned a pair of disposable gloves and tackled the carrots and onion – better safe than sorry on the bacteria front.  B again peeled the potatoes for the topping and I remembered to do some veg to accompany it, unlike tonight’s meal.  I was enjoying it when suddenly I felt the urge to hurl and B passed me the poop bag lined sick bowl that’s stowed at the side of the settee just in time.  I did manage to finish off what was on my plate once I’d been sick.

Buddy has a reaction to seeing a sick bowl – he gets all anxious.  In this instance B passed me the bowl and before I’d even ejected the cottage pie Bud was up off his mat and over near the curtains looking at me funny.  I think it’s because his reaction is to come check I’m okay but it results in B telling him to get on his mat and when he doesn’t do it immediately B gets louder while I try and slope off to the stairs so I’m not throwing up in front of B while he’s trying to finish his food.   So it’s got to the point where I just have to move a sick bowl and Bud reacts.

Other than being a bit off my food I’ve still felt reasonably alright.  I have felt particularly tired today and didn’t go to armchair yoga this afternoon as I just didn’t have the energy/enthusiasm.  It had taken me the best part of an hour to go upstairs to set up the printer to work wirelessly – and in fact must have been fatigued as I didn’t even have the energy to threaten the netbook/printer when it didn’t work straight away.

I’ve also been a bit bunged up.  I thought that once I was home I’d start being regular again – isn’t this a lovely subject?  It was so hard to go in the Royal especially on the toilet I ended up using from my cupboard.  More people walked past the door than go through Heathrow in the length of a day.  Plus at Heathrow you don’t get people stood outside with drip machines beeping while you’re trying to ‘concentrate’.  I think I’ve taken enough laxatives to clear out a rhino but obviously need to increase them to take care of an elephant.  I wouldn’t usually be too concerned but in light of the need to go really regularly with the peritoneal dialysis I thought I better act sooner rather than later, particularly as the fluid I drained first thing this morning was a bit low which can be caused by constipation.

Meanwhile, although I really haven’t done anything today, I have previously finished off some things I did during my recent stay at the Royal.

I’ve added buttons to the aran jacket…

Sewn the ends in on the baby blanket made in the same aran (worsted) weight yarn…

Again this is from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans.

Sorted out the ends on a granny square afghan for the crèche/hospital in South Africa at one of our GP’s receptionist’s husbands is involved with…

and cracked on with the other one I started…

I am really liking this and think the cream round the two centre squares and then again round the resulting rectangles ties it all together nicely.  I think I need to add nine more rectangles to get it to an acceptable size – which should just about clear all the tiny balls of double knitting yarn that I have left or have been given.  This is just as well as I need more storage in my sewing room for all my new peritoneal dialysis stuff.  I mean I do have room but I wanted to tidy hide as much of it away as possible so that the back room doesn’t make it look like there’s someone sick in the house!

 

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.

 

Scrappy Squarey Doh!

In answer to Fiona‘s question from yesterday as to ‘WHAT HAPPENED’ with the m-i-l and B at the doctors.  I didn’t know at the time I popped it on my blog as their appointment was only 16:00 so I was on tenterhooks as to the outcome. Well the GP ‘lol’ed at the note, and then B asked for it – so I was confronted with B extracting the note from his pocket and reading out ‘Bernard has the retention quality of a distracted three year old unless it involves pretty women.’  To which I said ‘Hey it could have been worse I was going to say Page 3.’  Needless to say it was the running theme of numerous comments between then and him going to work.

With regard to the m-i-l, my behind is safe from being exposed to shoppers, as the ‘fungal infection’ was a just a big fat nail that needed filing.  {smug expression}

So to my creative space this week – it’s a bit of a tip, but better a creative mess than neat un-productivity (or something like that).

On the ironing board is a backing for a quilt whilst on the window ledge is 83 Share a Square squares…

Which brings me up to 149 with the total requested from any participant being 150.  I had a bit of trouble with my 150th.

Its one and one quarter rounds short of a full square – I must have been over generous with the tails on the last batch.

Fortunately I found this novelty yarn and with some creative usage (and a tail of about two inches left of it – phew) I managed to finish square 150.

The quilt backing is for some scrap quilts I must have started at least three years ago.  I did finish the top for one…

but since I had all these left from dresses I’d made years before (my Great Auntie Bet always told me to save excess material just in case the garment needed a repair in the future – what I don’t know – but she was alive during WWII rationing and so on numerous occasions was able to show me that a pattern positioning was wasteful and if I did, this, that and that I’d have plenty left over) and since they are in the main lovely crepes I’d hung onto them, even past the expiry of some of the dresses.

All I managed to do yesterday was fill the 3′ x 4′ backing with pieces…

Yes I know they need a serious pressing but they have been screwed up in a box for a long time.  I thought if I could get them finished this weekend they could go to South Africa with the other stuff I’ve given to our GP’s receptionist.  We’ll see.

I have an appointment at the Royal this afternoon regarding the numbness in my forearm, that’s still there, and I also have a numb bit on the right side of my chin and an intermittent numbness to the pad of my left thumb!  I’m going with a friend and I forgot to ask if there’d be eating out involved.  Doh – I must get my priorities right!

Other Creative Spaces can be found here.

Looking up Shawls

Today, well this evening in fact, which is probably the reason I am currently so tired I could cry and am cutting it fine to post a Creative Space Thursday post, I finished my

KAL stands for knit a long (just thought I’d let any of you who were uninitiated know – this included me for the first two weeks of it).

I had a little assistant when I took my photos – I think I may have left a boiled sweet stuck to the shawl because he was being very inquisitive (rude) looking up the bottom of it.

And it cost me the price of the pattern.  The purples were given to me by a friend and were part of her machine knitting days and the green from one my fellow armchair yogaists.

I would also have liked to share my latest afghan made up of my ‘boo boo’ squares made last year for Share a Square when I had a little misunderstanding between worsted and double knit but Bud had other ideas…

(Please note he is still pointing in the general direction of the shawl – he has such a hectic schedule – standing on crocheting and looking up a shawl in the same evening!)

So more on that when later.

Other creative spaces here.

Share a Square

I think I can safely say I know why our broadband provider came bottom of the list in a recent customer satisfaction survey!  In fact after being unable to connect yesterday I was on the brink of ringing the national news this morning when I realised I’d missed the opportunity to vote in Kim’s Knitters’ Hunk yesterday but relented when I was in fact able to vote – I can only think it had something to do with the time difference.

So my creative space this Thursday is red, cream and blue.

The 900g of yarn I bought last Thursday for Share a Square has been transformed into 66 6″ squares – uhh ohh ‘666’ – look like however I managed to avoid the devil by keeping my hands un-idle!

Somehow it was equal numbers except for the blue – my tails must have been longer on those – which resulted in a dual coloured square…

Speaking of ends, I remember last year having to undo a big tangle after the squares had been washed so this year what did I do?  I threw them in the washing machine anyway on the handwash cycle and look what I got…

Mind you, I got this after untangling them!  Has this put me off popping the next batch in the machine – of course not.  However this time I’m going to plait them to see if that makes a smaller or bigger tangle.

Yesterday I also knit clues 1 and 2 from this…

Roo mentioned it on her blog last week and I thought I’d give it a whirl. I’m unable to provide a photo of my progress but am able to show the yarns I’ve chosen to use…

Hopefully the purples won’t be too similar.

Other creative spaces can be found here.