Thursday: clean house
Friday: fieldwork and/or labwork
Saturday: Maybe a trip to McKinney
Well, that all changed. I decided to start my "Only every 2 weeks until the asters start up" part of fieldwork this week because of events somewhat beyond my control. Saturday, when I got up, I was tired enough that going to McKinney didn't appeal (also, I was sore - not just my mouth but my upper back, from being tense).
So I stayed home instead. And I worked mostly on this:
These English paper-pieced quilts (as opposed to the machine-done kind of paper piecing, which I'm not so fond of doing) are nice for when you're tired. It's not like working on the machine, where things can go wrong if you're inattentive, and if you're REALLY tired, you can just trace and cut more fabric bits for it.
The quilt is growing, but it's still only maybe 1/10th the size it needs to be:
I laid it out on my bed (yes, those are books stacked next to my bed, stacked higher than the mattress, actually) to see how it compared in size to the quilt on there - yes, it'll take a good long time until it's done but I don't really mind. It's nice to clear out a lot of those "This is too big to throw away but really too small for most things" fabric scraps, and it's nice to revisit some of the quilts I've made in the past by using the scraps from them. (I have bought a few small pieces of fabric that will "go" with the colors and styles I'm using - yesterday, I got some red-background fabric with little sheep on it, and a Jessi Jung print of tiny stylized peacocks that I didn't even realize was peacocks until I pulled it off the shelf)
I didn't go to McKinney, but I did go to the local quilt shop - they were handing out 10% off coupons for them at the quilt show last week, and while 10% isn't a LOT, still, it's an enticement.
And I felt like I needed a "fluster." (Standard disclaimer: I have never ever met anyone else whose family called it that, despite my having been told "It's an old German custom" by relatives....essentially, if you have to undergo something particularly painful and unexpected, or if you are very good during something unpleasant, you get a small treat. When I was a child, it tended to be something like an ice-cream cone or a paperback compilation of Snoopy comics (I have a bunch of those - I had plantar warts removed when I was in seventh grade which took several painful bouts with liquid nitrogen, and I remember my dad buying me the Snoopy books as a reward for going through it.))
As an adult buying my own "flusters," I can decide what the budget is. (One of the small consolations of single adulthood: your "allowance" is larger than when you were a kid)
So in addition to the fabric, I bought this:
I had looked at this yarn pretty much every time I was in there recently (it's a more vibrant peach color in real life). I don't know what I will do with it for sure - 440 yards of an aran/worsted weight yarn. I just liked it. It's a bit rustic for a cowl to be worn right next to the skin, so it will probably become a scarf. Or, if I can find a worsted-weight shawlette requiring that amount....I don't know. (Clapotis takes 600-some yards, so perhaps a small triangular shawl could be made of 400-some). Alternatively, if I couldn't make a big enough shawl of just that, I could go back and get a coordinating color (they only had 2 hanks of the peach) and use that for an edging.
(I also stopped at the Sonic on the way home and got a small peanut butter shake, on the grounds that I had not eaten much Thursday evening into Friday.)
I also broke the stall on another project, and finished up (finally!) the front of the Basketweave sweater:
Knitting that divided front was a pain; juggling two balls of yarn while planning decreases and continuing in pattern isn't so fun.
I started the first sleeve but didn't get so far yet, but it was enough to get me dreaming about "what sweater to start next" and flipping through the "Best of Interweave" book I was using the Basketweave pattern from, and I saw the little "Pearl Buck Spring Jacket" and thought, "Wait....I bought yarn for one of those a while back" and went and looked in my main stash area and found it - a Laines du Nord yarn, dk weight, in a sort of a bluish red. (I think of it as "lipstick color" but it's really "the color of lipstick I should wear if I'm wearing bright lipstick" - I need reds with blue undertones in them, for a red to look right on me). I pulled it out and it might just be my next sweater project. (I think I need a break from knitting on blues and greens for a bit.)
This is a well-aged yarn; I bought it on an early Stitches N Stuff trip, maybe around 2005? High time I knit it up. (And I should have plenty; I bought what was needed for a size bigger than what I would make now - back when I was still mired in my "fat girl needs tentlike sweaters" phase, and when I was also still relating sizing to my knowledge of sewing clothes of woven fabrics, which have less ease....)
ETA: While I know consulting Dr. Internet is never a good idea, I decided after the fact to look up allergic reactions to sulfa drugs. Hives, yup - they seem to be the most common sign of allergy. (There is also a very frightening skin reaction that some people get if they keep taking the drug. I'll spare you what it does....) And also, there are a couple of anecdotes of people thinking they were "going crazy" while on the med, even after just being on it a short while. So likely it wasn't just that I was alone on a holiday weekend and scared about my tooth being jacked up that I called my mom twice and cried, hard, over the phone both times. (When I called Dr. Wright - the retired dentist - I was able to keep it under control, though).
So yeah. No more sulfa drugs for me, ever. (The tetracycline derivative I'm on now seems to be doing the trick without bad side effects - the red areas around the bites have pretty much faded).
I will admit I was a bit scared to take that first tetracycline; partly I think my brain was still messed up from the sulfa, partly I had this fear of "What if I'm allergic to all antibiotics now?" and partly because I remembered my mom had a bad reaction to tetracycline when I was a kid. (When I brought it up to her the last time I talked to her, she noted that my dad had been a lot more freaked out about it than he needed to be - she had mentioned her throat felt "scratchy" and like she had a lump in it, and he threw us all in the car and drove like crazy the 30 or so miles to the ER in Akron - I remember it as being much more serious than I guess it actually was) But I was thinking, "If she can take sulfas okay but not tetracycline, what will happen to me on tetracycline if sulfas messed with me that badly?" I guess allergies are very idiosyncratic to the individual....
No comments:
Post a Comment