Archive for March, 2007

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I Am Not Windy. I Am Winding.


2007
03.31

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Posted in Family & Friends, Knitting | 11 Comments »

Well, maybe I am windy too?

It’s so nice to be able to wind my own yarn at home. I am realizing that I used to put off so many projects just because I didn’t have a winder and a swift. No more! I love my new swift. Can winding yarn be an obsession too? :lol: Not that I’ve wound every hank of yarn I have in the house or anything. It is just a very exciting and new experience right now.

Here’s how to wind yarn with the squirrel cage swift (click photos for larger view):


Hang the hank over the top squirrel cage.


Lower the bottom squirrel cage. Watch out not to stretch the yarn too much. Just enough so that it wraps around the cages nicely.

“Whoa! Did the colors fade,” you ask? I forgot to take a photo of the second step with the first hank. So I did a makeup photo with the second hank.


Pull the yarn through the yarn guide of the winder and start winding.


You end up with beautiful yarn cakes. This still makes me go WOW! :lol:
:: end yarn winding demonstration ::

Answer to Micah’s question… Here’s the link to how Mr. Twisted came up with the guitar cozy idea. Scroll down to the older post.

Oh Jane, I am turning on Bad Behavior again. You know, the one that caused problem for you. But they updated several times so I am giving it another try. Spambots have decided that my blog is a good target, leaving numerous spam comments everyday. I just want to turn the plugin on to stop them from making comments. Let me know if this gives you problem again.

Note: see here for a little tip on using these vertical swifts.

12 comments

One Hat Done! Many More To Go!


2007
03.29

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Posted in Family & Friends, Knitting | 12 Comments »

Yes, Odessa is done. Finally. And just in time too. Mom is losing hair rapidly :-( and I am taking this to her this weekend. I could’ve had this done earlier. But I made a stupid mistake last week when I was feeling frustrated. More on the frustrating situation in a bit. The stupid mistake happened after switching to DPNs. I thought I could use the tail end to identify the beginning of a round as usual. WRONG! The stitches shift with this pattern, and the tail end shifts with them of course. After a few decreasing rounds I thought I made a mistake somewhere due to the position of the tail end. I started picking back because I couldn’t see where the mistake was. (DUH! There was none.) Then I dropped a stitch right next to a YO and couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I was tempted to just rip it and re-knit. Instead I left it alone for two days and was able come back and figure out the fix. Phew! It is now blocking. Not sure if I like the yarn choice though. Originally I wanted a cotton blend for warmer weather but decided to go for a wool blend for elasticity. I didn’t know at the time but it turned out to be the yarn called for in the pattern. I bought Rowan Cashsoft DK. I can’t describe the color. It’s not pink, and it’s not lavender. Sort of in between. One ball is more than enough for the hat.

Now. About that frustrating situation. I can go on talking about this for days, but I’ll try to keep it short. You can probably guess, it’s mom-related. Not just about her condition, but the most frustrating part is about the kind of help she gets at home. My sister, Lily, who lives with mom and not working (Lily, her husband and kid are all living at mom’s.) volunteered to care for mom full time (with compensation of course.) Here are what happened recently:

  1. During the last doctor’s visit I went with mom, we found out that she wasn’t getting enough food and water. Mom ended up going through re-hydration that day. How could this happen when three other individuals live there with her? Especially when one of them is being paid to care for mom full time?
  2. I visited mom last Saturday and found out that she had forgotten to take her meds for 2 days. Nobody thought to check on her. And it happened again a couple of days later.
  3. Something happens every time Lily takes mom to the hospital. I go to the consultations. Leaving the less complicated visits for Lily, who lives with mom and they are only 5 minutes away from the hospital. But somehow she just can’t get things done smoothly. She would be late, or get the priorities all wrong and end up staying hours longer than necessary. No matter how careful I instruct her with these visits. There was one time that she left mom’s purse at the hospital after the chemo. $900 was missing when she picked it up. Something is fishy about that. I won’t elaborate.
  4. More than half of the time when I visited mom I found Lily up in her room, leaving mom by herself downstairs.

OK, I want to stop right here. I just don’t think she is sincere about taking care of mom. Unfortunately this might be another scheme of hers to not work but still get paid. She’s done things like that. But whatever this is it can’t go on. My other sister Angela and I are looking to find someone to stay there full time to look after mom. Meanwhile I am checking up on mom everyday. I’ll also be there for every hospital visit. I’d feel better doing that myself.

:: sigh ::

Onto happier things. I received several packages. Hmm… Am I doing “retail therapy”? Well, these are necessary things. So there! I got a package from Blackberry Ridge. Two hat kits to make more hats for mom. Four Corner Hat (the colorful one) and Swirling Leaves Hat (Vines in the Evening). I can’t wait to get started on these. But I think I need to find something more suitable for warm weather fast. Something using cotton blend yarn. Any idea? Oh, I also got yarn samples for all of their yarn.

This also came in the package. Yes. Spider Queen! I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to knit this shawl. :-) Although the yarn, Thistledown Singles, is not the thinnest I’ve ever seen. It will definitely be the thinnest I’ve ever knit with so far. There are 4 hanks of this. Yes. HANKS! That means I have to wind them into balls first. Not to worry. Other things arrived too. :-)

Yes. I also got my cotton cards, ball winder and vertical swift! I love my swift. And my winder and swift love each other too. The winder sits on top of the swift nicely. I can’t wait to see how this is going to work. I will take a few photos of it in action for an update.

I also got a craft light. But you don’t need to see that. Just something to make my knitting universe a little brighter. :-)

10 comments

Did I Tell You?


2007
03.14

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Posted in Family & Friends, Knitting, Work | 10 Comments »

No, I didn’t. A couple of things that I wanted to mention but forgot in the last post. First. Some of you might wonder, “is he moving or not?” Well, it’s still a possibility. We are still waiting for the big funding to come in before committing to it 100%. It’s still likely to be around June. We’ll see.

I ordered a pair of cotton hand cards last week, and… A BALL WINDER. Yes! Finally! I can’t do it by hands anymore. I’d rather spend more time knitting or spinning than just winding balls of yarn. I still need to get a swift though. But I don’t want an umbrella swift. That thing scares me sometimes. I want a vertical swift. You can see examples here. I am thinking of getting the one on the right.

I started knitting the Odessa hat (without beads) for mom. I don’t know if she will loose her hair or not. But I want to have something ready for her just in case. She can always use it on those days when she doesn’t feel like fixing her hair. I won’t give it to her just yet. I don’t want her to think that I expect her to lose hair.

Mom is feeling better everyday. She’s really handling the treatment quite well.

I went to A Mano and had a fantastic time yesterday. You see, I received an email from Shannita on Monday, asking if I would come in and help out. YourLA, a daytime show airing on the local NBC station, was coming to do a segment on the store and the men’s knitting group. She wanted more guys to be there. I agreed to show up thinking that I was just going to sit and knit.

Bunch of us showed up. John was there. My spinning mentor. He brought his Victoria to do some silk spinning. Chris came in. It was nice to finally meet someone that you only knew through blogs in person. He was fun… and tall! There was Brett. He teaches Japanese. hehehe Ruwan brought some sweets for everybody. Absolutely delicious. I called them Lava Cakes because the centers were all gooey and chocolaty. Mr. and Mrs. Twisted came in with a friend, Jason. (What a great name. :-) ) Mr. Twisted showed off his guitar cozy. A nice lady came in to do some exchange and stayed. (We teased her about planning the whole thing to be on camera.) Sorry. I can’t remember her name. (See Chris, I do have a hard time remembering names.) And of course, there were Annette and Shannita who, as usual, made everyone laugh so hard.

The host and the producer didn’t let anyone get off easy. They interviewed EVERYBODY! I nearly fainted when it came my turn. I did it, but I don’t remember the details. It was almost out-of-body-like experience. Maybe they’ll cut my interview out. :lol: I had a great time though. It was good to get out and get a few hours of knitting fun.

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More Updates


2007
03.07

Posted in Family & Friends, Misc. | 5 Comments »

I haven’t felt like blogging much lately. Not that I am depressed or anything. Just tired. Last weekend was a busy one. Saturday was an important Buddhist holiday. Sunday was the last day of the New Year’s celebration and we had a family get-together.

A bit of good news. Mom started the new therapy last Friday. It consisted of three drugs. Two injections and one oral medication. The procedure took six hours to complete. She seems to be taking it pretty well. She had stomach problems the first day. But now she is just tired and sleepy, which the doctor said would be the case. Now we just wait and see what the long term effect is and if the therapy is working. She will go through this every 21 days. Plus she has to take a weaker dosage of the oral medication everyday.

Thank you MonkeyGurrl, Jane, Sylvia, Marianne, Micah, Kathy, KnitPicking and Kerry for your kind words and well-wishing. I am very very thankful to have your support right now.

Oh, I decided to learn Japanese. Thanks to Francesca. She keeps showing us beautiful Japanese books on her blog. Actually, I tried Japanese once, about 20 years ago. It didn’t take. I gave up when I started learning about particles. Funny that I didn’t get it, because Chinese uses many particles too. Maybe I should think Chinese when I learn Japanese? Anyway, I totally blame thank Francesca for this renewed interest in Japanese.

I haven’t knitted or done anything fiber related since I last posted. So I’ll leave you some pictures that I took. I took lots of photos for my photo blog that I haven’t processed. The first one is a possible source for pine needles to make baskets with. I actually found several good spots for them.

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Updates


2007
03.02

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Posted in Family & Friends, Knitting | 10 Comments »

Wow! It’s been a while since I last posted. Ever since I got my driver’s license back, I’ve been hitting the road. Guild meeting, yarn shop, the temple, but mostly family New Year get-together and taking mom to the doctor’s. Mom hasn’t been feeling well. She is a lung cancer patient and has been doing different chemo therapies for the last 5 years. Less aggressive kinds so that she could go about doing things almost as usual. But lately the tumors started increasing in size faster. The doctor made a decision to try more aggressive treatment to get them under control. We are keeping positive, but it is very scary and worrisome this time. I especially can’t stand thinking how scared she is right now. We are keeping positive. We are keeping positive.

I’ve been doing more knitting on “The Sweater Workshop” sampler. It’s almost done and I can’t wait to start knitting the real thing. Here’s a photo of the recent work. Click for larger picture with descriptions.

I am surprised that I could do stranding holding yarn in both hands. I mean the knitting was going smoothly at the end of the two-color pattern. I thought I’d have a terrible time or something. It did make my hands really tense though. They will eventually relax with practice I am sure. Can’t wait to do more!

Above is yarn for new projects. The one in the back is KnitPicks’ Gossamer, 100% Merino, lace weight. The color is Leprechaun. What timing! I plan to knit a lace stole with it. Pattern not yet determined. The Mission Falls are 100% Merino, Superwash. These will be for a secret project so you won’t see any of the knitting until they are done and given away. :-)

Shoutouts: Marianne, I hope the divot is healing nicely. And no, no more New Year celebration. The party is over after all the New Year money was given out. :-) MonkeyGurrl, looks like you got your own partying going on right now. :-) Micah, yep, he did fall asleep at the table. Sitting up the whole time actually. Amazing. Jane, Happy Belated Chinese New Year. Hmmm… how long did we celebrate New Year in the past? It went on for days I think. You know that parents always wait to give out the “Red Envelope” until late anyway. Kids would stay up for that. :-) Cat, thank you for the compliments! :-)

A special note. Kathy just posted an update of her progress on knitting Sharon Miller’s “The Princess Shawl“. Incredible work! I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to knit it, but I hope to get a copy of the pattern when it’s available again.