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!

 

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!

Still in my own bed

I’ve not managed to wangle a holiday at the Royal yet this week.  There wasn’t a bed available when I rang yesterday morning.  The young lady I spoke to said I should ring that afternoon or this morning.  I said that last time they’d just called me when everything was set up and she said that would be fine – which means I’m not mithering them AND I don’t have to remember to ring!  I know how could I forget but a little bit of distraction on the way to the phone and it’s next Tuesday I’m ringing in!

I do need to ring the dentist tomorrow.  I’ve got a check-up booked shortly but a tooth bothered me about a week ago – only a twinge but today I’ve developed a numb bit on my lip and chin and when I bite down my teeth feel funny.  I don’t know whether this is just me or its the same for everyone,  because I’ve never thought to ask before, but I have real trouble pinpointing where toothache is.  What I mean is the exact tooth and sometimes (not that I get it a lot but I did have a spell of it a few years ago) although the main pain is at the top it seems like the  bottom hurts – maybe that is just me.   I started thinking that I had a numbness in the right hand side of my chin last September at the same time I had the numbness in my thumb and down my right forearm however it disappeared shortly after – as they all did.  Even though the MRI didn’t show up any myeloma lesions in my jaw where the nerve that would cause it is located I just figured it was related however now I’m thinking that maybe it was a tooth infection that was cleared up by the antibiotics I got at the time so I better get this checked out just in case.  I mean how would it look going in for my next lot of chemotherapy and saying ‘I don’t need to get an infection while I’m in as I brought my own’.

In the meantime I got to go to yoga this afternoon (oh, and I had my last two stitches out today) which I can’t refer to as Armchair Yoga today as we actually did more that just the balance standing up – STANDING UP!  It was very nearly exercise – not really but it was as close to exercise as I get.  I would also point out that I was the only member of the group today who was under 60.

And yesterday I made a Buddy.  It needed to be a vibrant Buddy.  It was to be a get well gift for a lady in hospital and as flowers are no longer allowed the gifter (is that a word) wanted something bright to raise the giftee’s (what the heck it matches) spirits when she looked at it.  I mentioned a bright pink and that was acceptable and went with an equally bright green.

I just wasn’t happy with the Buddy’s mouth so I had to unstuff his head and re-do it.  I was much happier with the expression and I think he looks happier too.

I had a little assistant for the Buddy photography session.  My assistant would have liked to get to know the knitted Buddy a bit better.

 

It was after it was  requested that ‘by Easter’ was mentioned and I didn’t realise Easter was so close.  I didn’t think I’d get it done but as it is it’s looking like I might manage it  – once I’ve undone the cast off edge of the button band and cast off with a smaller needle because I’m not happy or even satisfied with the wibbly-ness of it.

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.

A little bit of knitting

I really haven’t done much knitting or crocheting this week but here’s what I have done.

Not quite another little aran baby cardigan and yes this one has has a boo boo in the cabling but you know what I did… I’m ashamed to say that I did repeated the boo boo so that it looked like the design rather than undo the front.

This is the start of a pram/cot (crib) blanket.  It’s supposed to be knit on double pointed needles (dpns) but as I’m sure  I’ve said before I don’t really do them.  I think it’s because I’m a tucker ie, I tuck my working needle under my right arm.  I’ve tried long dpns that can be tucked but it’s still too slow, I just can’t get a rhythm going and the thought of starting with 120 stitches but finishing with about ten split between three needles – urghhhh!  So I decided to adapt it so I could use two.  The first one worked fine but I went wrong with the second darker blue one and had to undo it.  Well I say undo I’d sewn it up so neatly the end was well hidden so I took a pair of scissors to it!

And that’s been it other than a few rows of crochet and I still have these few balls to knit/crochet up…

along with a ball of red and green waiting at my local yarn shop!  Better get my finger out.

I have had a thought which might help enthusiasm matters – I generally feel better later in the day from early evening so I thought I’d try and take my Thalidomide earlier tonight (I went with 8 pm) and see if that made a difference to when I perked up tomorrow.  It’s worth a go.

Other creative spaces can be seen 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.

‘There’s nothing like a day out’

B was heard to say as we got back in the car today after going to Liverpool for our first kidney clinic appointment.  ‘Yes’ I replied ‘and that was nothing like a day out.’

I’d inadvertently cramped our dining possibilities by telling Auntie Eleanor at weekend that B would pick her up and bring her to visit this afternoon.  Since our appointment was 11.30 I didn’t think it was physically possible to get to the Asian restaurant that had been recommended, by a friend of Sean, eat and get back.  We’d only said on Friday it’s four months since we actually ate out and when we asked for my blood counts on Saturday my neutrophils were high enough to deal with bacteria laden restaurant food – though with all the spices potentially involved it would probably have been a safe bet anyway.  I’d had a GCSF injection on Friday and my neutrophils on Saturday were 12!  Yes 12 – normal range is 2.0 to 7.5 and I don’t know when mine have ever been near the higher end of this so it took a bit of digesting before I remembered the neutrophil boosting injection.  As it turned out I’d decided that I’d rather see Auntie En than eat out on this occasion so I wasn’t waiting for din dins.

I’d thought that after a long day yesterday we’d just nip out to the Royal today, have the appointment and get back home in under three hours.  Yesterday no ambulance transport had turned up by 7.00 to ferry me to dialysis so I rang and they confirmed that the team had left and I was on the list.  They then rang back at 7.30 and said they’d sent a taxi.  In the end I was only hooked up to the dialysis machine at quarter to nine so finished at quarter to one but didn’t have to wait that long at all for a lift home.  The trip home itself however involved a visit to a nearby hospital to collect and then drop off another patient and then a stop of an hour and a half at another hospital as the patient there couldn’t be located.  They or rather we, went to every conceivable collection point.  It turned out that another team had collected her hours ago but no-one had told our crew that she was no longer their responsibility.    At least I know that if I go AWOL at any point they won’t leave without me.  B had decided that he was going to come get me and when I rang him to say that we were finally on our way it turned out he was nearly there – although he didn’t tell me that.  The first I knew was when we pulled onto the main dual carriageway and stopped at traffic lights and my attention was caught by someone shouting outside.  My attention was peaked further as I thought ‘I know that voice’.  B was stopped at the side and was shouting to the driver ‘I’ll take Paula home’.  They pulled over at the nearby bus stop and one of the ambulance guys carried all my bags and coat to the car and explained/apologised to B.  So from being ready at just after six AM it was half three when we got back home.

As it turned out today we did do it in under three hours.  Well, we did the trip to the Royal and the trip home but we didn’t get the clinic appointment.  No, it wasn’t me, I had the right date/time.    We’d waited for a bit in a busy waiting area and then decided we’d go for a drink.  The receptionist said we should check with one of the nurses as there was only a few in front of me in the clinic I was in.  The nurse asked what time my appointment was (11.30), said that they were up to quarter to ten and gave me two free tea/coffee/cup of water tickets.

We had our free cup of tea/coffee/cup of water and in fact I hadn’t quite finished mine when our buzzer went off and we headed back to the clinic.  The receptionist said that the doctor had just left and the nurse would have a word with us.  As it happened a very apologetic health care assistant came over and explained that she’d weighed me and taken my wee sample but had put my file in the transplant pile rather than the renal pile and the consultant had gone without seeing my notes but they were going to see if one of the registrars would come down and see me.  About five minutes later we got called in and told that the registrar was in a meeting but either someone could see me on dialysis tomorrow or we could come back next week.  B is back at work next week so we opted for tomorrow.  I said ‘Well at least we got a free cup of coffee’ and she said ‘Well you would have got that anyway’.  WHAT! – we’ve never had a free cup of water let alone tea or coffee at the blood clinic and we have an ‘ology in waiting there.

On the upside all this transportation has meant imposed craftiness time and indeed after making a denim and white stripped Myeloma Buddy for a member of the Royal catering staff a friend of hers asked for two too…

and the catering lady asked for something else for her first grandson who is due in May.  She was telling me that her son and his girlfriend are going to give the baby her younger son’s name as a middle name since her younger son had died a few years ago at 19 after being ill since he was six weeks old.  You know that old saying about treating people considerately because you never know what things they are dealing with is sometimes so true.

Anyhoo, we opted for a little aran type jacket age six to nine months which I started yesterday…

but there’s a boo boo! I noticed something was amiss when the pattern on the front wasn’t finishing at the same point as the pattern on the back.  Now I had trouble working out where exactly I’d gone wrong and I’m pretty sure it’s not that noticeable and I could probably get away with it but could I live with that?   Probably not.

And here’s a photo of Bud that I’ve been meaning to take for ages but have never seemed to have the camera to hand at the right time…

he starts to get off the settee and then just stops with this front legs on the floor and back legs, stretched or bunched up, or in this case 50/50 still on the cushion and then just stands there for ages.  His Auntie Chris told him he looks like a dork but I find it quirkily endearing and it’s not like I’m biased or anything.