Sally Comes Unraveled - The Blog

Obamacare: Why Healthcare Reform is Important to me

2012-11-04T06:01:00.003-06:00

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, and this is quite a post to come back with. I've been focusing my writing on this open letter to the President of the United States thanking him for the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a Obamacare. It's been several months in the making.

I know I'm getting into too long; didn't read territory, but I've already cut out 1,500 words, and I don't think I can paint the picture of a life lived according to health insurance without telling the whole story. Telling my story is important to me.

I've added subheadings to this version of the letter to help guide you.

So as we approach the election, I'd like to share with you why Obamacare is important to me, why I volunteer to make calls for the campaign and why I tend to get carried away with this issue on Facebook.

Introduction

November 4, 2012

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I’m writing you today to thank you for the Affordable Care Act and share my health insurance story, in the hope that it could help you and your administration defend the law and your presidency.

This is an open letter that I plan to share. It is written as much for the entire country as it is to you.

I am not better off than I was four years ago, but not because of the economy or anything the government could have prevented. In November 2010, I pinched nerve in my cervical spine that triggered fibromyalgia and changed my life.

I had just gotten a new job, and four days into training I resigned to stay in good standing with my new employer. My plan was to return for the January training class when I was better. I was never able to return.

Now that I can’t work, Obamacare is more important to me than ever. As a person with a pre-existing condition, Obamacare has eased my concerns about getting health insurance if I am unable to work full time again. If I am able to work full time, I know I can pursue something meaningful without giving up coverage.

To truly understand why Obamacare is so important to me, you have to hear my story. It’s a long story, but it illustrates many different points. I think the sum total of my experiences paints a picture of how health insurance has affected every major decision that I have made in my adult life.

You’ve probably heard lots of stories about people with pre-existing conditions who don’t have coverage. My story is about the sacrifices and work it has taken for me to maintain coverage without gaps.

My Story

My story actually begins five years before I was born in 1974. That year my mother graduated from college and my parents got married. After she graduated, Mom worked for the Graduate School of Library Sciences at the University of Texas while Dad finished up his teacher certification and tutored. It was also the year my Dad began to suffer from what turned out to be a kidney stone.

Around Christmas of that year, my Dad’s pain became unbearable. My parents went to the hospital, where they were shocked by the large upfront payment they had to make.

They didn’t have health insurance.

My father’s job didn’t offer health insurance. My mother started her job in August, and the enrollment period for insurance was in September. The deadline came up so quickly that she missed it, a mistake she blames on her youth. At the time, they didn’t think it would be such a big deal. She planned to enroll the next time around.

My Dad’s kidney stone wiped out all the money my mother had saved from her part-time jobs in her senior year of college.

After this incident, my parents never went without health insurance again, and over time my mother became the family health insurance expert. Mom told me this story over and over again to illustrate the importance of maintaining health insurance, something that would prove to be a challenge for me.

When I started college, I still had problems with moderate asthma that started as a teenager. I was also taking an antidepressant that was making a world of difference.

I was already well aware that I had a pre-existing condition, and that maintaining health insurance coverage would be extra important for me.

In 1998 I started going to college out of state at the University of Oklahoma, away from my home in Austin, Texas for the first time. In October 2000, I dropped out due to the first of several major depressive episodes. The mild antidepressant wasn’t cutting it anymore. My grades had plummeted. I missed class because my sleep was erratic. I was constantly worried.

Back then I could stay on their parents’ insurance as long as I was a student. Now that I was not a student, how much longer could I stay on my parent’s insurance? I was only 20.

The months that followed are a blur of anger, sadness and calls to the insurance company about extensions and grace periods. If I didn’t go back to school soon enough, I would be kicked off my parents insurance, and I needed a plan.

At one point I considered putting off college, getting a job and moving out on my own. I got a part time job at a clothing store, and I looked into a full time position that would have provided health insurance. However, I would have been stuck with lifetime limits on mental health visits that were more stringent for people with “severe mental illness.”

Eventually, I went back to school before I got kicked off of my parents’ insurance. I majored in print journalism at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, and I spent my entire last semester applying for reporting jobs all over the country. I wanted to move away from home and have more adventures, and I was determined not to move back home after graduation in May 2003.

I don’t know what would have happened if I had not been able to move. Would I have found newspaper work that offered insurance? Would I have had to put off my career to get insurance? Would I have been able to get any job that offered insurance?

I took a job at a newspaper in a Florida retirement community. My health insurance kicked in after just 60 days, which was better than some employers, but it was still a challenge. We weren’t sure if I’d be kicked off of my parents’ insurance right away, so we decided to act like I didn’t have insurance. Then we hoped that nothing would go wrong in that 60-day period. If something did happen, maybe I’d still have coverage.

I didn’t fill any prescriptions during those 60 days. Fortunately, my doctors back home understood my situation. I had appointments with all of them before I left home, and they sent me home with paper bags filled with samples.

Luckily, those first 60 days went smoothly. I didn’t have to file any claims.

I stayed at that job until February 2005. I left because of a complicated combination of local politics and office politics. The paper I was at was not practicing good journalism.

However, I wanted to leave the paper on December 20, 2004. It was my 25^th birthday, and it was the day my editor decided that she couldn’t take it anymore. She tendered her resignation.

We’d both been planning to leave. I admired my editor and I wanted to be loyal to her. I consider her to be a friend. I had written my letter of resignation a long time ago. I’d been applying for reporting jobs all over the country for a couple of months by then. Just like my last semester of college, I was ready to move anywhere in the country.

For a while, I convinced myself that I could get coverage without a job lined up. If my editor could live without insurance, so could I.

I called my mother to tell her I was about to quit. My income was mentioned, but our conversation revolved around health insurance. Mom succeeded in talking me out of quitting that day.

After I accepted a job at a different paper a few hours away I finally submitted my resignation. My former editor drove the moving truck.

At first I was excited about my new job. I thought I was moving up in the world. But I grew to hate working at that paper. It wasn’t until years later that I admitted to myself that I was bullied, and I wasn’t the only one.

I felt trapped because of my insurance. I didn’t take my complaints to human resources or report the bullying and discrimination my coworkers endured because I couldn’t afford not to have health insurance. Aside from the usual worries about coverage gaps, I worried about being accused of “gross misconduct” if I were fired in such a volatile work environment. “Gross misconduct” would have made me ineligible for COBRA altogether.

I got more and more depressed. The more depressed I got, the more my worked suffered. The more my work suffered, the more I was bullied. The more I was bullied, the more depressed I got.

Eventually, something snapped and I experienced the worst bout of anxiety and depression I’ve ever experienced.

One day I left work early and checked into the hospital. I took several weeks off after that. My Mom flew in several times to care for me. Finally, after an unsuccessful attempt to return to work, I was terminated under the Family Medical Leave Act in August 2006. After being absent 12 weeks, the company was no longer obligated to hold my job. This wasn’t “gross misconduct,” and that was all I cared about. I moved back to Austin.

In January 2007 I got a job (with insurance) as a telemarketer focusing on lead generation.

I didn’t have any major incidents until a Sunday night in December 2008. My parents took me to the emergency room because I thought I had food poisoning. It turned out I had pancreatitis. We still don’t know what caused it. I was discharged three days later, and I recovered without any complications.

A few weeks later I got the main hospital bill. The couple of thousand dollars I had to pay out of pocket was enough of a burden, but if I had not had insurance, the hospital stay would have cost well over $20,000. That number doesn’t include subsequent bills for things like the emergency room, lab tests, ultrasounds and doctor visits.

In 2009, my old problems came back, including the scary anxiety. I took several weeks off work.

I went into the hospital at the beginning of my time off. A couple of days in, my doctor came in and told me that my insurance wanted to send me home even though she thought I needed to stay in a safe place to make faster medication changes. The hospital could monitor me physically and mentally as I made the transition. The insurance company said I wasn’t a danger to myself or others, so I didn’t need to be in the hospital. My doctor was unable to convince my insurance company that I needed to be in the hospital, and I left early.

About a week later, I had to be hospitalized all over again.

After my second hospitalization I participated in a very helpful Intensive Outpatient Program. At one point my therapist talked about starting her own practice. Things were going well, but as her COBRA ran out, she realized she that no independent insurance company would take her. The reason? She had taken an antidepressant in the past.

She ended up taking time away from her private practice to work part-time at the hospital, where I was participating in group therapy with her. Her story broke my heart and made me worry about my own future.

I realized that unless I married the right person with the right job, I’d only be able to work at jobs that offered insurance until I was eligible for Medicare. Any of the other career moves I had dreamed about, like starting a small business, freelance writing, using my knitting experience to sell yarn, publishing a book or going to graduate school would have to happen around a full time job, no matter how successful I was. Up until then, I hadn’t realized absolutely no insurance company would give me an individual policy.

After a while, I stopped dreaming altogether. Insurance blocked me at every turn.

Then, on February 12, 2010 I was laid off from my job at the call center.

At that point I wasn’t too worried. This was my chance to move on to something bigger better. I knew I had at least 18 months of COBRA, and I was sure I’d have a new job by then.

And thanks to your policies, COBRA subsidies saved me quite a bit of money.

In November 2010, I got the job I mentioned earlier that only lasted four painful days. I would have been eligible for a great insurance policy had I been able to return.

I should have healed in a couple of weeks, but as time passed my recovery stalled. Physical therapy helped some. I’m definitely stronger than I was in 2011. For now, the pain and the fatigue prevent me from working. I’m waiting for the results of my disability hearing.

The Texas Health Insurance Pool: My Only Option Until 2014

In March of 2012, I exhausted my COBRA, including a six-month extension. After much back and forth and contradictory information, I discovered that I was wrong before. I was eligible for one health plan even if I didn’t have a job.

The Texas Health Insurance Pool is a high-risk pool only for Texas residents with health problems. When I started my premium was $517 a month.

On top of sky-high premiums, my most effective pain medicine was not covered by the new insurance. It’s about $140 for 40 days of pills. I save money by getting a higher dosage and cutting the pills into quarters. The price is a burden, but until 2014 I don’t have the option of shopping for a plan that covers this medication.

However, I got good news about my premium recently. It was lowered to $486 a month. It was lowered because my premium is based on twice the average premium that major insurers around the state are charging for individual plans. This is a sign that premiums aren’t skyrocketing the way my Republicans friends have said.

There are still problems with the plan that won’t be rectified until 2014. Currently, a man in my same age group, on the same insurance plan, living in the same area of the state, who also does not use tobacco, pays $365 a month. Yet my insurance doesn’t cover maternity care. I had to reread the paperwork several times before I believed it. What am I paying extra for if I don’t have maternity coverage?

Also, you must have proof of continuous coverage, or the insurance won’t cover any pre-existing conditions for the first year. People with coverage gaps are paying a lot of money for insurance that won’t cover treatment that they need the most.

The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan is a much better deal. I don’t qualify for it because I do not have a six-month gap in coverage. I understand that this plan is an emergency measure to cover more people until before 2014. I’m glad you created this program so more people could be covered while we wait for the law to go into full effect.

The Moral of The Story

I know my story is long and complicated, but I tell it to make multiple points.

First, only the richest of the rich can afford to pay for their health care needs out of pocket. Everyone hits the wall at some point. My primary care doctor charges a patient without insurance about $100 for an office visit. A lot of people can’t afford this. In 1974, a kidney stone was enough to wipe out the savings of a young newly wed couple. My hospitalization for pancreatitis, including all the charges from different departments, would have cost me close to a year’s income if I had not had insurance. A coma or serious brain injury requiring months or years of inpatient care could bankrupt a family with a six-digit income.

Thank you for tackling this issue and making real reforms. Thank you for removing lifetime maximums on insurance coverage.

My story shows how complex insurance is. It takes a lot of work to even understand what it takes to be covered. I wish more people understood that the Affordable Care Act is long and complex because the health insurance industry has made its policies and rules complex. To fix all the issues I’ve faced, not to mention problems like rescission that I’ve never dealt with, it takes a long bill.

Thank you for seeing the hoops people have to jump through to maintain coverage, and thank you for not brushing it off as a matter of personal responsibility when so many people miss those hoops.

My story shows how young people were forced off their parents’ insurance during one of the most transitory times in their lives. I’m lucky my parents’ insurance included a grace period, but I would have been in trouble if I had not been well enough to return to school on time.

At one of the Organizing for America phone banks I attended, I spoke with a woman who worked at Texas State University. Part of her job is talking to students after their grades had dropped. She said some of the students said their grades had suddenly plummeted because they were forced off their parents’ insurance and couldn’t afford their antidepressants anymore.

Thank you for helping young people maintain their coverage while their lives are in flux by allowing them to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26. My 23 year-old sister just got married in August. This provision allowed them to marry without worrying about insurance or sacrificing their fledgling careers.

My story demonstrates the power insurance companies have over our healthcare choices, like my shortened hospital stay in 2009. Decisions about what is covered, what is medically necessary, what is experimental and when to rescind a policy are made by people who get big bonuses based on how much care they deny. I wish more people would realize that they need to be worried about the decisions private insurance companies make as much, if not more, than government oversight.

Sarah Palin did a great disservice to the nation when she perpetuated the myth of government death panels. She imagined horrible scenarios of disabled children and seniors being denied care that have no basis in reality. Now the concept of death panels won’t die, and so many people have an unreasonable fear of the government making health decisions for them.

I know Obamacare doesn’t give the government the power to make healthcare decisions for individuals, but I would trust the government to make that decision before I’d trust someone motivated by profit and bonuses.

Thank you for making it harder for insurance companies to deny coverage.

Most of all, my story shows the sacrifices it has taken for someone with a pre-existing condition to maintain coverage before Obamacare. In my case, I had to carefully time a break from college, stick with employers who were unethical, keep quiet about workplace bullying, pay sky-high premiums for COBRA and high risk pool insurance and ignore opportunities and dreams.

I thank you most of all from freeing me from the prison that was created by my pre-existing condition. I don’t know what the future holds now that I have fibromyalgia, but I’m optimistic. In 2014, if everything goes as planned, I’ll get to shop around for a good insurance plan through insurance exchanges. I won’t have an excuse not to dream. Obamacare is my hope and change. Obamacare helps me move forward.

I wish more people would take the time to understand Obamacare, and I wish less people would fall for the ridiculous rumors and lies.

I wish more people understood that Obamacare will not lead to the fall of capitalism in America. Healthcare is a basic human need. We can’t let the boogeyman of socialism scare us into stopping reform.

Before Obamacare health insurance companies were increasing their profits by creating cheaper, inferior products. They stayed in lockstep with their policies so their customers would have no other choice. Rather than catering to their customer base, insurance companies refused to sell their product to the people who needed it most.

We also forget that Obamacare was a true compromise. Both sides sacrificed. Thank you for truly reaching across the aisle to make it happen.

And thank you for reading my letter, Mr. President.

Sincerely,
Sally Villarreal

FOs: Craft Show Scarf Quartet

2011-08-25T02:11:00.000-05:00

My shoulder and back have been bothering me more than usual recently, and it's interfering with my knitting and my blogging. I started an awesome cowl, but something about the way I have to hold my arms makes it hard for me to work on it for any extended length of time.

To make up for this, I've knit several simple scarves in the last couple of weeks. I've been using yarns that I've run into while dealing with the moths in my stash.

One of these days there will be another craft show, and I'm putting these in my inventory so I will be prepared. That is why I'm calling these the Craft Show Scarf Quartet.

1. Drop Stitch Scarf

Ribbon yarn is ideal for drop stitch scarves. I didn't use a pattern, but there are lots of designs that utilize the same concept. On the drop stitch row, you wrap the yarn around the needle several times (I think I did it four times) and then drop all the wraps on the next row.

I think drop stitch scarves need fringe. I made a point of cutting the fringe ahead of time. I also put a little Fray Check on the ends to keep them from unraveling.

I used US Size 9 needles and one skein of a discontinued Online yarn called Linie 118 Vision that I got in a swap.

2. Light and Lofty Garter Stitch Scarf

This one is a pretty straight forward garter stitch scarf with fringe. I actually worked on this a couple of times while I was lying in bed trying to sleep.

I used about one and two-thirds skeins of Red Heart Light and Lofty in "Cape Cod Multi." I think it came from a yarn swap somewhere along the way. I also used US Size 13 needles.

3. Drop Stitch Chenille Scarf

For this scarf, I used a different type of drop stitch than I did on the first scarf. I knit the whole thing lengthwise, then dropped every third stitch so it created a ladder all the way down.

I had some issues after dropping the stitches. The bind off (the top row in this picture) made one edge of the scarf nice and neat. However, every third stitch of the cast on row came undone, which made the other edge loose and messy. And for some reason the second rung of each ladder was looser than the first. So I crocheted along the cast on edge to neaten it up.

It's hard to explain what what I did on the cast on edge, but I'm going to try.

First, I slip stitched over the two intact stitches, leaving one loop on the hook when I was done.

Then I took the hook and twisted the first rung of the ladder around it to created another loop, so there was two on the hook.

After that I pulled the second rung of the ladder through the loop I made (the first one on the hook), leaving two loops on the hook.

At this point I think I pulled the yarn through both loops on the hook. (I might have pulled the first loop on the hook through the second, but I doubt it.)

Then I'd start over from the slip stitches.

If anyone really wants to to try to recreate what I did, e-mail me or comment, and I'll see if I can explain it better. This is one of those things that most people don't care about, but I want documented for myself.*

I have mixed feelings about the end result. If I do something like this again, I need to plan ahead more. And I need a yarn that's thinner and easier to deal with.

I used one skein of Lion Brand Chenille Thick and Quick in Royal Blue and US Size 11 needles. Once again, I used Fray Check on the fringe. Then I twisted the ends to keep the yarn from coming undone.

4. Color Waves Scarf

Finally, I made one more garter stitch scarf. This was made with one skein of Lion Brand Color Waves that was leftover from this ancient project, and US Size 8 needles. Like the Drop Stitch Chenille Scarf, I used a little Fray Check on the fringe and twisted the ends to keep the yarn from coming apart.

* - You could say that about my entire blog, but that would be mean.

FO: Diagonal Magic Ball Scarf

2011-08-04T03:04:00.000-05:00

Last week while I was sorting my yarn for freezing and microwaving, I stumbled upon the Bluebonnet Magic Ball that I got a yarn swap way back in 2008. Since the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket has been in the finishing phase, I've been craving a quick and easy knit. So I decided it was time to use the Magic Ball.

The label on the magic ball came with two patterns. The first one was for a "Basic Garter Stitch Scarf." I chose the second pattern, which was for a "Diagonal Garter Stitch Scarf." I considered just making a lengthwise scarf. But that would have required calculating the gauge to make sure it wasn't too short, and I just wanted to start knitting.

The pattern says to cast on 13 stitches, but I decided to only cast on 12 stitches because I wanted the scarf to be nice and long.

Both patterns call for US Size 13 needles. Because my gauge is so loose, I used US Size 9 needles.

In knitting and crochet, the term "magic ball" can mean two different things. It can be a ball of yarn that is wound with little gifts and toys in it. These are usually given away in swaps. There's a Flickr pool with pictures of Magic Balls here.

Then there are magic balls like the Bluebonnet Magic Ball I used for this scarf. They are made by tying together lengths of different yarns into one ball. Be Sweet sells its own Magic Ball. Jimmy Bean's Wool has a tutorial showing how to make your own magic ball. There are other magic ball tutorials here and here.

Since I received this yarn in a swap, I don't know much about its origins. I know it came from Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe, which closed more than a year ago, but I don't remember them actually being sold at Bluebonnet.

According to her blog, Amy made her own magic ball scarf back in 2006. She won the yarn from Bluebonnet. However, her scarf looks much different than mine. The stripes are longer, the yarns in the ball are very different and the whole thing is bigger. Her scarf is the only evidence I've seen that another Bluebonnet Magic Ball ever existed.

Aaron was nice enough to model the scarf for me. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I don't think the color scheme suits me. I may donate it or give it as a gift.

The gauge stayed somewhat steady between the different yarns. The overall width of the scarf varies somewhat. One yarn in particular doesn't want to line up with the other stripes. It's almost like the diagonal line is at a different angle than the rest, and it makes it hard to get the scarf to lie flat.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this quick knit. It makes me want to make my own Magic Ball. And it makes me miss Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe.

It Doesn't Even Look Like a Fish

2011-07-31T02:09:00.005-05:00

This past week I finally quit procrastinating and started dealing with my moth problem. That means there's been a lot of a yarn everywhere. It's on the living room floor in organized piles, double bagged and stuffed in the freezer, and, of course, in the microwave. It's nice to have it out of storage, but I think Mom and Dad are getting tired of it, but I think they understand.

While inspecting the yarn, I saw at least one ball with frays like I found before. I see specks on some of the yarn, but given the state of my apartment at one point, it's very likely that they're just pieces of lint.

I've come up with my own method for dealing with the infestation based on the information I found online. I've been focusing on animal based fibers, since they attract moths.

I choose yarns to freeze based on how much I care about them (all my handspun is being frozen), how expensive they are and how likely they are to have pests.

With the freezing, I'm going with three days in, three days out and three days back in. Everything I've read said it's waste of time to freeze if you only do it once. The second freeze gets the larvae.

The rest of the protein-based fibers are microwaved for 10 to 30 seconds. I'm taking out staples, and I'm being careful not to out in the acrylic blends for too long.

I'm cleaning the tubs themselves with vinegar and water. Then I'm making sure everything is in plastic bags before it goes back in the tub, along with some cedar chips.

I found what I assume are cobwebs on the outside of one of the tubs. I don't know if this helps identify the problem, but I thought I'd share.

I'm not sure what this is. I've been taking the tubs outside to clean them with the water hose. This was still stuck to the inside of one of the tubs after the first rinse. I saw something like it stuck to the outside of the wrapper of my Magic Ball from the late Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe.

It could be a piece of a moth, but I think it might be a baby silverfish. Mainly because I saw a grown-up silverfish crawling around the same tub while I was sorting through it. I didn't have my camera on hand, but it looked like this. I'm very confident of my identification.

Everything I've read says it's unlikely that silverfish would eat yarn. However, I've seen silverfish in other boxes that had been in storage at the same storage place.* But now that I've actually seen them in the yarn, I'm considering the possibility that they are causing the problem. The good news is that what kills and repels moths also kills and repels silverfish.

The problem is that silverfish tend to be attracted to cotton and linen. Like the cotton and linen I didn't bother to microwave. Crap.

However, moths are still a possibility. All the frays I found were in wool yarn,and the owner of the storage place advised us to put moth balls in the storage unit. I can thank Dad for actually taking the initiative to do this. Perhaps we waited too long to change them out.

I still refuse to put moth balls inside the tubs with my yarn.

Who wants some piping hot yarn?

* - We've moved units a couple of time depending on how much space we need.

Aw, Crap

2011-07-20T02:23:00.001-05:00

Last week I bound off the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket, and Katie decided to "try it on" like I did a couple of weeks ago. However, I've been stuck since then. Because...

I messed up.

It doesn't look "messed up" here, but I managed to miss an important detail when I was reading the pattern.

To do the edging and button band on the Adult Surprise Jacket (and the Baby Surprise Jacket), you have to pick up stitches around most of the rectangle, including several nooks and crannies. This requires negotiating several corners and trying to fit a lot of stitches on one needle.

I thought the pattern said to purl the wrong side rows. While I was working on this blog entry, I checked the Adult Surprise Jacket pattern in The Opinionated Knitter again, and I realized it said to only purl the stitches at the corners on the wrong side. If I'd followed the directions correctly, I would have had a garter stitch button band that would lie flat. I ended up with a stockinette button band that wants to curl.

At first I liked the idea of a stockinette button band. I assumed if Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen recommended it, it must work. But now that I've finished it, seen how it curls and learned that this is not what Elizabeth Zimmerman and Meg Swansen had in mind, I don't like it. And seeing all the neat, flat button bands on other people's sweaters on Ravelry makes me like it less.

So I decided to unravel the button band and do it again in garter stitch. Or maybe seed stitch.* I think it will be worth it.

I know I read the instructions for the bind off correctly. The pattern says to bind off in purl. I liked the look of the knit bind off on my Baby Surprise Jacket, so I tried that first.

Before I realized my mistake, I thought that the knit bind off may have been causing the curling. I undid part of the bind off and redid it in a purl bind off. They both curled anyway. You can see both bind offs in the picture above. It's hard to tell the difference.

I was glad I didn't break the yarn the first time I bound off. That left me with more options. Of course, I haven't let breaking yarn get in my way so far.

Before I finished the button band, I had to decide which buttonhole to use and how to place them. I went with the one row buttonhole.

It took some algebra to place the buttonholes. I had to account for the number of stitches I wanted at the top and bottom of the button band, the number of stitches between the buttons and the stitches used for the buttonhole itself.

I managed to avoid picking up stitches on the wrong side when I did the button band by breaking the yarn and starting to pick up stitches on the end of the row, rather than starting in the middle. It's hard to explain without pictures.

I found the trick here. It took some thinking to translate it to the Adult Surprise Jacket, since I don't have the same number of stitches

I'm going to try not to stall on the button band. It's a pain to redo the entire thing, but I've put a lot of work into this project. I don't want to see a curly button band every time I look at it. I also don't want to see it stuffed in a bag, still untouched, when it's finally cold enough to wear it.

That being said, I'm in pain. More pain. Different pain. With the bonus of more injections coming up and COBRA running out pretty soon.

And I still haven't dealt with the moths.

I need something to lift my spirits. So I'm giving myself permission to start a new project. I'll probably look for something to knit in that sweet spot of not too easy or too hard, not too long or too short and using some really nice yarn.

Parting Shot

A couple of weeks ago I had another weekend with Shiloh and her friends. I have pictures of everyone here, but I like this one of the family's new cat, Bunny, meeting Spiny. (Don't worry, the standoff ended peacefully.)

* - If you are new to this knitting thing, and want to know the difference between stockinette, garter and seed stitch, There's a good explanation here.

No Lesson Today

2011-07-10T01:28:00.000-05:00

It's Saturday night (technically Sunday morning), and it's time for me to blog. I was going to blog about knitting, but right now my shoulder and back hurt too much to do that much typing. So in the tradition of my middle school with its Channel One televisions, I'll be showing you a video instead. Enjoy.

Frayed Knot

2011-06-27T22:42:00.001-05:00

A piece of yarn walks into a bar and orders a beer, but the bartender snarls, "We don't serve your kind here!". The yarn is forced to leave.

While sitting on the curb feeling sorry for himself, the yarn is suddenly hit with a brilliant idea. Working quickly, he ties himself into a knot and unravels his ends. Taking a deep breath, the yarn marches back into the bar and orders a beer.

"Hey!" says the bartender. "Ain't you that piece of yarn I just threw outta here?"

"Nope," replies the yarn, "I'm a frayed knot."

I've heard this one before, but I found this version on the Socknitters Forum. (It was post by someone named "silfert.")

This past week I got a lot of work done on the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket, but I had a problem. The yarn started breaking.

It started with my second ball of Queensland Collection Rustic Wool. I started pulling the ball from the middle. When I started to run out of yarn the ball started falling apart. (See the picture above.) I assumed the first couple of breaks were a fluke, but after the first couple of frays I realized something was wrong. I wondered if the yarn had been in contact with something with something sharp in my yarn bag.

After much spit splicing* I finished off the Rustic Wool and continued with the last little bit of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted leftover from Katie's Le Slouch. This time I started using the yarn from the outside of the ball, and the same thing started happening right away. (You can see some examples above.) The breaks stopped when I got farther into the ball.

Both balls had breaks and frays on the outside part of the ball and not the inside. And most of the breaks weren't clean breaks. Individual plies had been broken. This leads me to one conclusion...

I HAVE MOTHS!

Here are the facts:

1. Both of these yarns have been in storage since November.

2. They were in plastic tubs, but not in plastic bags within the tubs.

3. They were stored in two different tubs.

4. They're both wool yarns.

5. I've seen silverfish in the unit before.

6. We've been having lots of triple digit days recently, and the unit is not climate controlled.

7. Dad put moth balls all over the unit when we moved my stuff in. This was recommended by the management at the storage unit.

8. Both yarns have been in my stash for at least a couple of years.

I'm seeking input on this issue. We haven't been back to the unit since this discovery. I guess I've been putting it off. I'm also wondering if it could be a different pest, like the silverfish I saw before, or if the yarn is so old that it's disintegrating.

In "The Secret Life of a Knitter", the Yarn Harlot's talks about her battle with moths in her stash. It was an ordeal. She had a complicated system of freezing, thawing, freezing again and inspecting. (I seem to remember a microwave being involved at some point. I could be wrong.)

Like the Yarn Harlot, I have a large amount of yarn. Unlike the Yarn Harlot, I live in a hot and dry climate that rarely has snow (especially in June.) I don't have the option of putting my yarn outside to freeze, as she did. Our freezer is packed, so I can only fit in a skein or two at a time.

I'm planning to start by taking the two tubs that the frayed yarns were stored in out of the storage unit. They will probably get some sort of Yarn Harlot-esque treatment.

Then I'm going to ask Dad to put in more moth balls, even though I hate them. (He puts them outside the tubs, so hopefully they don't stink too much.)

Mom got fresh lavendar for her birthday. I'm considering drying sprigs and putting them in the the tubs themselves.

I know moth balls and lavender won't do much if there's already moths in the yarn. I'm wondering what else I should do. Should take out every tub and "treat" all the yarn? (We're talking about approximately 10 tubs.) And exactly what type of freezing/microwaving type of treatment should I do? Should I bag all the yarns within the tubs?

Can I use your freezer?

Meanwhile, the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket is coming along nicely. I'm at the phases where you only knit the stitches in the middle of the rectangle for a while.

I've done even more since these pictures were taken, including using that Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted with all the breaks.

The problem with the Adult Surprise Jacket is that you can't really put on your work in progress to see how it's going to fit. Mom helped me "try on" the jacket while I was lying on the floor. It was great photo op, of course.

I was trying on the jacket because I'm not sure what my desired length is. I'm supposed to go to the next phase when I'm about one inch from my desired length.

The pattern recommends using the length of your favorite sweater, but I don't have a favorite sweater. I may go by the length of my favorite t-shirt. That's why I haven't worked on it for a few days. I need to decide both the length and what color to use next. I'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this:

A guy walks into a dentist’s office and flops right down on the couch.

“Doc”, he says, “Here’s the problem. I think I’m a moth”

“Well”, says the doctor, “That certainly is a problem, but why did you come into a dentist’s office?”

“The light was on.”

-From www.free-funny-jokes.com.

* - I know spit splicing isn't supposed to work with superwash wool yarns like Rustic Wool, but it worked well enough for me.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Bites

2011-06-19T03:00:00.002-05:00

I'll get back to the title in a moment. I'm going to start with a different bird.

Mom finished crocheting this a couple of days ago. This is Kate Alvis's Funky Little Owl Potholder, made with dishcloth cotton.

Then she got on a roll and started looking online for more crochet patterns. This time she found Doni Speigle's Flower Coaster pattern. I think she's planning to make more. They may be gifts.

I lent Mom some dishcloth cotton for for the flowers. She picked some out when I went to storage to get more yarn for the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket. The different yarns looked so pretty together that I had to take a picture.

The Epic Adult Surprise Jacket is coming along nicely. I'm glad I found these colors. There's a lot of blue and green, and a big red and orange section. I think these pinks and purples will balance those colors out.

This jacket is going to look a little crazy, but I think I can pull it off.

I'm ending with something sad. I don't think I've ever mentioned Dewi, the family parakeet, on this blog. Our family had her for 11 years. Last Saturday she quit eating. By Sunday morning, she was gone. The video above was filmed just four days earlier.

We knew she had been having some problems. We took her to a bird expert at Tomlinson's back in May after she started pulling out the feathers under her wings. He contributed the itchiness to old age, and he said she was thin. We knew her time was short, but we didn't think she'd be gone so soon.

I've debated whether the title I used for this entry is mean. Since we found the other bird, which Katie and Aaron have named Pico, I've wanted to write about Dewi. This was the title I had in my head.

We wanted a male bird, since we've always read that male parakeets are friendlier and more likely to talk. We've had several parakeets over the years, and all but Dewi have been male. Dewi surprised us.

Dewi was always angry and easily frightened. It was a long time before she showed any interest in interacting with us or even leaving her cage. And she was a biter. These are traits I've always attributed to her sex.

After we had Pico in the house, I thought maybe we had been too hard on Dewi. Pico is sweet and didn't seem afraid of us, very different than Dewi. Maybe it wasn't fair of us to expect Dewi to conform to a role created by humans. The qualities that make a good pet bird aren't the qualities that make a good mama bird. Perhaps she was programmed to be more concerned with protecting her "nest" than sitting on our fingers.

I started to wonder what other birds would have thought of Dewi. What would have her role been if she lived with a flock of birds?

I had planned to expound on this further before we lost her. Now that's she gone, I can see that we accepted her, even if she wasn't what we were expecting, and in return she accepted us. Over time she began to come out of cage and sit on our shoulders while she picked at our shirts and our hair. She would get on our plates and try to eat our food, and we would let her. We were friends, and that's what mattered.

"Nothing Happened"

2011-06-06T23:46:00.003-05:00

I kept diaries off and on when I was a kid. Sometimes I'd have trouble thinking of something to write about. Sometimes, the day was just boring. And sometimes I'd miss several days, and I would be stuck with blank pages with the dates printed at the top. On these days I would simply write "Nothing happened."

Over the last two weeks I broke my New Year's Resolution and didn't write a blog post. So if you're wondering about last week, don't worry. Nothing happened.

For the past two and a half weeks I've been house sitting for the third time since January. This time it was for Lyndsey's family. That's part of the reason I didn't blog. Since all my pain issues started, I've had trouble finding a comfortable place to use my laptop. With all the furniture in Lyndsey's house, I couldn't find a spot comfortable enough to use my computer for long periods of time. And blogging takes time.

I did take some pictures. Here are:

Mercy,

Kelly

and Lady.

I also took this picture one evening of the view from their deck. I wish it turned out a little better:

I included my latest knitting project, which I somehow managed not to blog despite all the progress I've made. Remember the sweater I was dreaming of that I eventually decided would be an Adult Surprise Jacket?

I present the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket. I'm already at the armpits.

You can see pictures of the evolution of the jacket here. Between the four stitches per inch gauge and the six inches of ease, I'm a little worried that it's going to be too bulky. I think it will be ok, since I am aiming for more of a coat than a jacket.

Later on I'll list more details, including the different yarns I'm using. I'm trying very hard to choose yarn that keeps the gauge consistent.

For now, I'll leave you with two things in honor of International Yarnbombing Day. First, a sighting from the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar on Saturday. I ~~made~~ asked Katie, Aaron and Aaron's brother Jacob to pose in front of the pipe with me.

The yarn is very soft. I wonder what they used. It didn't seem to be acrylic, but I didn't have a lot of time to examine it.

Finally, I have more coverage of A Knitted Wonderland. This time it's a short movie is by Sarah E. Gonzalez.

Is This Your Bird?

2011-05-22T03:16:00.000-05:00

If this is your bird, you better claim him soon. We're working on naming him.

Last week this little guy flew up to our neighbors at the UPS Store at the corner of Westgate Blvd and William Cannon last Friday. It was like he was looking for help. Since we already have a bird, they came to us for advice. We gave them food for a few days, put signs up around the neighborhood, I posted him on Craigslist and Pet Harbor and I filed a lost pet report with the city. So far, we had an offer to adopt him, but no word from the owner.

A couple of days later the neighbors gave him to us because they were getting too attached. We were close to asking the person who offered to adopt to pick him up, but Katie has convinced Aaron to take him in.

This is one last shot at finding the owner before we name him. The neighbor dubbed him "Blue Boy." I've been pushing for Geoffrey Peterson.

Comment here if he's yours.

Twice More Without Feeling (and My Weekend at Shiloh's)

2011-05-11T02:36:00.002-05:00

I feel like this sometimes.

About a week and a half ago, I House/Dog/Lizard sat for Aaron's family. You've met Spiny before. This is Shiloh. She spent most of Friday and a good portion of the rest of the weekend just like this, looking out the window, presumably waiting for her family to come home.

Shiloh is a good little dog. She rarely barks, she won't chew on your shoes and she's housebroken. As long as she stays away from other dogs, she's very well behaved. Shiloh just wants to be loved. She greets just about everyone that comes into the house, hoping that they will pet her. Once she establishes that someone is a friend, she follows them all over the house.

Shiloh doesn't like to be alone for long periods of time, especially at night. So that's why I spent the night there. I felt bad because she stayed up late with me the first night. I didn't realize that she wouldn't go sleep in her doggy bed until I went to the bedroom with her. In fact, she wouldn't even walk into the bedroom unless I walked in first, (Fortunately, she napped on the couch while I was in the living room, so she got some sleep in.)

By the second day, she was spending less time looking through the window. But she really perked up when Katie and Aaron dropped by.

Katie knew where Shiloh's clothes were, so we played dress up. There are three different knit and crochet items in this picture. Mom made the light blue dog sweater that Shiloh is wearing. She engineered it herself based on a store-bought sweater Shiloh already had. Later, Mom told me that she saw a bunch of knitting patterns online for basically the same sweater. She reinvented the wheel with this one. I'm still impressed.

In the shoe box, there's a Shiloh-sized purple scarf that Aaron's Mom knit. And the blue thing just outside of the box is a little neckerchief that Katie crocheted.

Shiloh makes me want to get a dog when I move to my next apartment. I could benefit from daily walks and waking up to a happy face and wagging tail. I've never been a dog person. When I was little I was terrified of them. I'm much better about dogs now that I'm older. Still, I don't know how I'd handle living with one. I'd need a dog as sweet and well behaved as Shiloh, and I suspect dogs like her are hard to find.

Having fun with Shiloh was a nice distraction from all my pain problems. My procedure a couple of weeks ago went pretty well. The good news is that I'm confident that the Supraorbital Nerve is the problem. There was a very distinct heavy feeling where there is normally tingly pain.

The bad news is that it didn't last. Some tingling was back by the time I was in the car to go home. Two days later, it was back to normal, if not worse. Now it seems like my supraorbital nerve is back to its usual tingly state.

I finally had my follow up visit last week. We're doing this whole thing two more times, in hopes that the steroid will build up in the nerve. My next procedure is tomorrow. I'm up way too late blogging about this. It's hard to sleep, wondering how much relief I'll get and how long it will last. And I can't wait for more trigger point injections. Those worked really well on my back and shoulder for about a week and a half.

Through all this, I'll be staring out the window like Shiloh, waiting for a permanent solution.

At least I've met my deductible.

FO: Baby Surprise Jacket

2011-05-08T02:49:00.004-05:00

I actually finished my Baby Surprise Jacket almost a month ago, but I had trouble finding a model, then I was just busy blogging about other stuff. I don't see any babies on a regular basis these days. So I made do with this stuffed gorilla that I found on stuffed in a closet.

He's no Poncho Pig. But Poncho Pig is living in storage right now, and even if he was here, his arms don't move away from his body. In fact, they don't move at all.

I used US Size 2 needles and Baby Bee Sweet Delight yarn in "Crayons Ombre" (115). I found the buttons with Mom's sewing stuff. I hope I placed them correctly. It looks like they're making the jacket gap in this picture.

Elizabeth Zimmerman recommends putting button holes on both sides and sewing buttons on the proper side depending on the gender of the baby once the baby is born. Since I will probably donate this to charity, I sewed them on the right side. Today it's more acceptable for women to wear buttons on the right side rather than it is for men to wear buttons on the left side.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm accepting suggestions for where to donate it. It's about the size a one-year old would wear. (According to Elizabeth Zimmerman, that's what you get when you knit a five stitches per inch gauge.)

If you haven't made your own Baby Surprise Jacket yet, you can buy the pattern here. It's essentially a garter stitch rectangle that folds into a cardigan. It's easy and baffling at same time. It will blow your mind.

All my Baby Surprise Jacket pictures are here, and all my Baby Surprise Jacket blog entries are here.

Crochet WIN!

2011-05-01T01:07:00.000-05:00

see more Hacked IRL - Truth in Sarcasm

Fun Fact of the Day: When I was in middle school, they put up a large chain link fence around the school with razor wire on top. A few years ago, they closed down the school. The building is now home to The Ann Richards School for Young Women. They took down the razor wire. I haven't set foot on the campus since the Ann Richards School opened, but I'm positive it's much happier place.

Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, Stick a Needle in my Eye...

2011-04-21T01:59:00.000-05:00

Earlier tonight (or technically yesterday), we celebrated Mom's birthday. I made the cake once again. I think I should have left off a design element or two, but it's more fun than your average birthday cake. Still, it's no Monster Cake. It's a lemon cake and lemon frosting, so I added lemons, things that are yellow and things that complement yellow. The lemon slices got kind of soggy over time. Next time I'll skip the fruit.

Mom's birthday is actually Apr. 21, but we moved it tonight. Partly because Dad works late on Thursdays, and partly because tomorrow I get a needle in my eye.

OK, so the needle isn't actually going *in* my eye. It's going right above my eye, into my Supraorbital Nerve. I don't know any rhymes about Supraorbital Nerves, so I've been making this joke for at least a week now.

I'm convinced this has to be it. I can't believe I've had this headache for more than a year now. This solution makes a lot of sense. This has to be the solution.

I'm still having upper back, neck and shoulder pain, but I've had some fairly mild pain days recently. Mild enough that I cut back a little more on one of my painkillers. If the headache is solved, I'm hoping I'll have enough momentum to push through and get my life back on track.

The Crafty Cripple is probably in the hospital for her surgery right now. Unlike her, I don't have a bunch of projects planned for recovery. I'll be home in the early afternoon, back to "normal" by Friday and I haven't been able to get to the storage unit for the yarn I need to continue my project. Hopefully we'll both be fixed soon.

Now it's time for my last snack before I have to fast.

FO: A Flower for Katie's Hair

2011-04-15T22:57:00.000-05:00

You may remember that I added a Little Flower with Leaves to my Tree Sweater. Katie saw it, and said "I want one."

"For what?"

"I don't know. To wear in my ponytail?"

So I planned on making her a flower and sewing it to hair band for her birthday. Of course, I waited until the very last minute, and she showed up before I could finish crocheting. I only needed about ten more minutes to finish on time, but the cake took longer than I expected. I finished it up a few days later, but it took while to have a "photo shoot." I only wanted a picture with it in her hair, but she kept asking me to wait until she washed her hair.*

I used very small amounts of Lily Sugar'n Cream in Hot Blue, Hot Green and Hot Orange and a US Size H/5.00 mm hook. I thought the cotton yarn looked better than acrylic for something she would wear. More handmade than homemade. I sewed it to a hair band, which looks homemade from the back.

We're debating whether this flower is upside down in the first picture. I say the leaves should be on the bottom. Katie says it doesn't matter. Most of the other flowers have the leaves closer to the middle, but the petals would have covered them up if I had placed them there.

This didn't take very long, but next time I'll start earlier.

* - I'll be nice and point out that she does wash her hair more often. I just kept seeing her on the days she hadn't washed it.

The Trees are Naked! (and a Baby Surprise Jacket update)

2011-04-08T22:14:00.000-05:00

All good things much come to an end, and on Friday, March 25, A Knitted Wonderland* ended. That evening Mom and I took down our tree sweater and Dad came to help us carry everything and take pictures.

We had just gotten started when my friend Stephanie saw us while she was walking through the plaza. She works downtown and walks past the Blanton Museum almost everyday. She walks a lot. Recently she walked a marathon. I don't know where she gets the energy.

Anyway, Stephanie stopped to talk, help us take the seam out and take a picture or two. I had started at the bottom of the seam, Mom started at the top and Stephanie jumped in in the middle. It went pretty quickly.

While we were working, we saw one of UT's famous Albino Squirrels. Several people, including Dad, took pictures of it. In fact, Dad took more pictures of the squirrel than he did of the Capitol.

We were one of the last groups to take our tree sweater down. We had a couple of people stop to ask questions and take pictures of our tree. I know at least one group came specifically to see our trees, but they didn't know that that we would already be taking down the tree sweaters. I saw one guy stop and take a picture of Flat Stanley with our tree, which was awesome. I wish I asked him to send me a copy of the picture.

I had a hard time deciding what to do with our sweater. The group in charge collected sweaters from anyone who didn't want to keep them. Half were going back to Magda Sayeg to be unraveled and used for future projects and half were going Emancipet to be unraveled and used to knit dog sweaters. I had considered holding on to ours and using it for a wall hanging. Katie had expressed some interest in keeping it, and she wasn't there to weigh in. It would have been an easy decision if they weren't going to be unraveled.

Finally, with some gentle nudging from Mom and Stephanie, I put it in the Emancipet box. They use old towels and blankets for the animals to snuggle with. I hope if they have too much yarn they'll keep mine intact and give it to a pet. Or maybe I'll see a dog around town wearing my former tree sweater. Maybe they'll keep the flower intact and use it to embellish the sweater.

At any rate, that's one less piece of clutter in my life, and Katie didn't mind that we donated it. And there will always be lots of other chances to make wall hangings. Wall hangings that fit my wall better and don't curl.

All my pictures from "A Knitted Wonderland" are here.

Baby Surprise Jacket Update

My Baby Surprise Jacket grew pretty quickly. Since the last update, I knit the center stitches only for rows 80-99. In rows 100 and 101, I picked up the rest of the stitches, including stitches along the gap you can see in the picture above. The problem with picking up stitches along the gap is that a ridge is created. Because you pick up one side on an odd row and one side on an even row, the ridge is on the outside on one side and the inside on the other side. (Say that last sentence 10 times fast.)

I cast off on row 114. I'm not sure exactly when I did the button holes and how I spaced them out. I lost track of that somewhere along the way.

This is the finished knitting piece before the shoulder seams. I asked Dad to try to fold it in to a sweater to see if he could figure out how. (Elizabeth Zimmerman actually suggests this in her book.) He did pretty well. He got half the sweater right, but couldn't quite get the other sleeve to do the same thing.

It took me a while to figure out the best way to do the shoulder seams. I used this tutorial on Pamudom's blog. I think the Yarn Harlot uses the same technique, but I had trouble with her tutorial because it has pictures only. I guess I'm a verbal learner. The one ridge (two rows) to one stitch ratio worked well.

A couple of nights ago I worked on placing the buttons by placing bobby pins where the buttons would be. This gave me a chance to make adjustments. I plan to finish sewing on the buttons tonight.

All my Baby Surprise Jacket pictures are here.

* - Mom, Katie and I volunteered to knit a tree sweater for "A Knitted Wonderland." If you're tuning in late and want to find out more about it, I recommend reading all my tree sweater blog entries.

Bring the Pain

2011-04-03T01:33:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged much about the pain I'm experiencing since New Year's Day. Since it's affecting pretty much every aspect of my life, I think it's time for an update.

After my night in the ER, I followed up with the pain clinic I've been going to since September or October. My neurologist referred me to a pain doctor there for my constant headache, because he had exhausted all his options.

The pain doctors have not been very helpful from an emotional standpoint. Every time I asked about my prognosis or how long it would take for me to heal, they'd just shake their heads and say "I don't know." Part of me was mentally preparing for a life of chronic pain and disability, but I didn't think it was time to give up on finding a solution.

A few days into the new year, I saw an orthopedist specializing in the spine. He gave me me some very good news. My overall prognosis was good. I was just taking a long time to heal. And there was no reason to believe that I had cervical arthritis, as a nurse practitioner at the pain clinic had suggested. He prescribed physical therapy. This was good to hear after about six weeks of people shrugging their shoulders. I cried because I was relieved.

I've actually enjoyed physical therapy. I like my physical therapist. I like doing something proactive. I like having lots of time to ask questions. And for a while I was making steady progress.

The doctor in the ER told me he thought the headache would clear up as the back pain healed. That hasn't happened. A few weeks after I started physical therapy I followed up with the orthopedist. He said to continue with physical therapy, but he didn't know what else to do about the headache. He said I needed to see a neurologist. Like the one who said there was nothing else he could do. I cried because I had no hope.

My physical therapist has done some work on the headache. He calls it "joint mobilization,"* but I call it "pressing on things that hurt." We were doing this a week or two after my depressing visit to the orthopedist, when I pointed to an especially tender spot in my left eyebrow. My physical therapist said there was a nerve there. I said I knew about that nerve. It was my occipital nerve, the one they'd already done nerve blocks on. Right?

No. He said it was my Supraorbital Nerve. It's associated with Swimmer's Headache. This makes sense on so many levels. Especially since I stopped wearing glasses because they hurt my face.

I was really excited about this discovery. After talking to my neurologist, who talked to my pain doctor, I scheduled a nerve block on my Supraorbital Nerve on April 21.

Of course, now that I'm hopeful about the headache, I feel like the progress I've made with my back, neck and shoulder has plateaued in the last few weeks. I think I may have pushed myself too much with some of the physical therapy exercises, because my right shoulder was getting tighter.

On Friday, I tried to remedy this by having Trigger Point Injections on my right shoulder, shoulder blade and latisimus dorsi. I also had a spot on the left side of my neck that I pulled when I turned my head the day before. (You read that right. All I did was turn my head.)

In the past, these injections have been a miracle, although a temporary one. Right now I'm trying to decide how well they've worked. I'm still sore from the injections themselves. The spot that hurt on the left side of my neck is much better. My shoulder did loosen up for a while, and it's still pretty good.

And that's pretty much where I am. I do the best I can to push myself to do things even if they hurt a little without re-injuring myself or making the pain worse. My entire life is in a traffic jam behind my pain. I'm trying to figure out when I can go back to work. Working at a computer for any real length of time exacerbates the pain. I can't imagine using a regular desktop. Right now I'm sitting on my bed with my back against the wall while I use a laptop on some stacked up pillows. I doubt I'd be able to sit like this at a real job.

Also, I'm on a lot of pain medications. Most of the day, I'm pretty foggy. The sad thing is, despite all the medication, I'm still in a significant amount of pain. Mornings are especially hard, even after adjusting my sleeping position.

I'm also using this:

This is a TENS Unit. I got it a couple of months ago. It hasn't been a miracle cure, but it's helped me cope with the pain without additional medication. It has improved my quality of life, and I would call that a big success.

And my insurance doesn't cover it. Ever. Under any circumstances. My insurance company doesn't have a code for it, therefore it doesn't exist. My two month trial period is over now. Mom and I are debating whether we're going to send it back or spend $400 to buy it at full price.

I also have a prescription for Flector Patches. They are less effective than the TENS Unit. But insurance covers them at $2 a patch. ($60 for a box of 30.)

As I wait for April 21, I've been enjoying reading The Crafty Cripple. I surfed in while looking for Baby Surprise Jacket information, and I noticed that she mentioned using a TENS Unit in one of her entries. She has been dealing with pain longer than I have, and she uses knitting and other crafts as a way to cope. It's given me some hope and reminded me not to spend too much time thinking about my pain.

She has surgery scheduled for April 20 that will hopefully help with her issues. That's the day before my nerve block. I'll be thinking of her.

* - There aren't any joints in my forehead, but the cranial sutures count.

"The Magic of Amigurumi"

2011-03-28T22:03:00.003-05:00

Aaron sent this to me this through Must Have Cute a while back. I think I know how they did it.*

* - They unraveled the crochet and played it backwards.

How to Make a Monster Cake

2011-03-23T02:33:00.000-05:00

Katie's birthday was on March 6. I knew I didn't have much to spend on gifts, so a few weeks before her birthday I offered to make the cake. I wanted to do something creative, not too difficult, and made with a cake mix. This is what I came up with:

It's Monster Cake with a side of Om Nom Cupcakes.

It took me a while to decide what to do. I considered making this Rainbow Cake after hearing about it at a party, but I decided six layers were too many. I also considered a different Rainbow Cake, but I didn't like the idea of a cake made from cake mix and Sprite. (Later on I read the directions more carefully and found out that it should work with regular cake batter. But by then I was already sold on monster cake.)

While I was brainstorming, Mom showed me a Taste of Home magazine that featured monster cupcakes for Halloween. These looked too difficult for me to make, but they inspired me to make this cake.

I needed a cupcake for the eyes, and I was going to have a lot of extra batter, so I made a "side" of cupcakes. I think the "Om Nom" on top complemented the monster.

Katie had suggested a rainbow chip cake a while back, so that's what Mom bought, along with white icing that came with sprinkles. (The icing had a catchier name than "White Icing with Sprinkles" but I can't remember it.) Mom bought it before I decided what my cake would look like. Luckily, it worked.

I think I used a nine inch round cake pan. It may have been eight inches. Whatever it was, I learned the importance of flouring the pan after you grease it. We ended up with some crumbly spots around the edge.

I used cupcake papers for the cupcakes, so I didn't have to worry about greasing the cupcake pan.

(Putting the candles in the mouth was Mom's idea. I wanted to put them in two of the cupcakes.)
I mixed the batter according to the directions on the side of the box, filled the round pan and poured what was left into the cupcake papers. I ended up with really big cupcakes, so it may be possible to get seven cupcakes out of the rest of the batter.

Once everything was baked, out of the pan and cooled, I started assembling the cake. I cut one of the cupcakes into three rounds, and iced each one with the white icing. These would be the eyes.

Then I mixed yellow and green food coloring into the remaining icing. I used the ratio recommended on the side of the box for "lime." If I were to do it over, I would have made the icing darker.

I iced the cake with the green icing and placed the three cupcake rounds along the top of the cake for the eyes. The rest of the icing went on the five other cupcakes.

I made a trip to Central Market while the cake cooled to get cake decorations and some gifts (including chocolate covered orange peels and chocolate covered gummy bears.) I wanted to get some prepackaged icing already in the tube to add the details, but the options at Central Market were pretty expensive. I ended up getting some embellishments from the bulk candy section instead.

I bought Strawberry Licorice Pinwheels for the mouth and the "Om Nom" on the cupcakes. I unwound the pinwheels. There was a nice groove down the middle of the licorice, so cut them in half lengthwise. I cut the licorice into pieces for the mouth and teeth. The monster ended up with such a big mouth because it was easier to go with the curve of the licorice rather than trying to reshape it.

By the time I got to the cupcakes, I was tired from cutting the licorice lengthwise. Stirring the food coloring into the icing and cutting the licorice were the two parts of the process that hurt my shoulder and back the most. So the pieces I cut for the N and M's were fatter. I used the swirly middle of the pinwheels for the O's.

The pupils in the eyes were those Gummy Raspberry and Blackberry Candies with candy "seeds" on the outside. I picked out three blackberries and put one in the center of each eye.

Finally, I spread the sprinkles on the three remaining cupcakes. My creation was complete.

(Yes, they have matching shirts.)
Katie liked the cake. She was surprised, especially since she had forgotten that I volunteered to make the cake in the first place. I'm pretty proud of myself. There are lots of cake ideas on the Internet, but I came up with an original idea. And now it's on the Internet for other people to use.

As usual, there are more pictures of the cake and the party on Flickr.

Parting Shot: Other People's Projects (OPP)
Katie and Aaron just finished sewing their own zafus this week, with some help from Mom. They wanted to make their own to sit on in their martial arts classes. Of course, I had to take a picture of the finished products.

WIP: Baby Surprise Jacket

2011-03-17T18:45:00.000-05:00

I've been so distracted with "A Knitted Wonderland"* that I've gotten behind on my blogging. I have two FOs, a cake and a new WIP to talk about. I'm starting with the WIP.

It's my very first Baby Surprise Jacket!

Back in January I said I was daydreaming of a sweater made from my stash. I wanted a cardigan that was seamless or almost seamless. Mom suggested that I look through her old Wool Gathering newsletters for patterns. When I saw the Baby Surprise Jacket pattern, I immediately knew that was what I wanted to make.

In The Opinionated Knitter there's a pattern for an "Adult Surprise Jacket," the Baby Surprise Jacket's grown up counterpart. It's perfect for my epic stash sweater.

But first, I'm taking the author's advice and making a Baby Surprise Jacket before I embark on a larger sweater. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the pattern.

The Baby Surprise Jacket is both very simple and very complicated. Basically, you knit a wonky rectangle, fold it, seam the shoulders and end up with a cardigan.

At the beginning of the jacket I had no idea what went where until I did a row of increases to create a cuff. At that phase it was hard to imagine that I was knitting sleeves. A little while later, I was binding off a few stitches for the collar. It started making sense in my mind.

There are diagonal increases and decreases that work well with variegated yarn and makefor some interesting stripes. I went with some variegated yarn from stash. I would have liked to add some stripes, but I don't have anything that works with the yarn I found.

I'm using Baby Bee Sweet Delight from Hobby Lobby. I bought it ages ago for because I liked the bright colorway. So far, I'm happy with it. It's a nice for a machine washable synthetic yarn.

There's a point where the increases and decreases meet in the picture above. That's the armpit. If you fold what I have so far, you get this:.

This pattern, like most Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns, is more like a recipe than a set of instructions. Specific row numbers aren't listed. So I want to leave some notes about row numbers, increases and decreases for myself and anyone else who's interested. If you follow her original instructions exactly, you'll probably have the same row numbers.

The original pattern suggests a gauge of five or six stitches per inch. I'm knitting five stitches per inch, mostly because that's what I got with this particular yarn and the first needle I could find. Five stitches per inch makes a size for a baby around one year old. Six stitches per inch will get you a newborn size jacket.

I think row ten was where I did the increases for the cuff. I spaced them out so that there was no M1 next to the marker.

At row 43 I found myself with 91 stitches, not 90 as the pattern says. I looked carefully at all my decreases. I think I decreased by two stitches instead of three in the first row. So on row 44, the first of the "work three rows even" I knit two together at the corner where I made the mistake. I think it'll be fine.

Row 47 started the increases, and I think row 60 was where I added the increases to add fullness in the back. I don't think I did a very good job of spacing them out. I miscalculated and one M1 was too far off to the side.

On rows 72 and 73 I did the neck shaping. As of right now I've finished row 79, and on row 80 I'll be doing some more mind bending shaping.

If you're new to the Baby Surprise Jacket you're probably still confused, I'll leave you with "Baby Surprise Jacket - The Movie." It's a short (14 second) video that I posted for the first time in 2008. I tmade it when we found an unfinished Baby Surprise Jacket that Mom had started years ago.

* - We recently found out that our display will be up another week. Now you have until March 25 to see the the installation.

"A Knitted Wonderland" Part 2 - FO: Tree Sweater

2011-03-15T02:09:00.000-05:00

Here is our finished product. Tree 34 with it's sweater and its team, Katie, Aaron, Mom and me.

To recap, this is our tree sweater for A Knitted Wonderland. I recommend reading all my tree sweater blog entries if you missed them the first time. That way you can understand the overall project and see how we got here.

We used the assigned yarns, I Love This Yarn in Orange and Turquoise, Red Heart Kids in Pink and Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Olive. I used US Size 7 needles for my portion. I don't know what size hook Katie and Mom used for their portions.

I had two sections with cables. I used a the large middle cable from the Braided Cable Scarf by Miriam Felton in the center, and put two simple cables on either side.

Katie used half double crochet for her portion.

Mom used single crochet on her portion, and Aaron helped us sew the whole thing up.

In this picture you can see the button and the crochet flower I added. To make the flower, I used the Little Flowers with Leaves pattern by Mimi Alelis. I wish I had added a few more flowers around the top. I think it would have added interest without being too distracting.

The day after installation day was the official project debut at Explore UT. Katie and Aaron had to work and Mom didn't want to fight the traffic. We were all pretty tired, and Explore UT is a massive event. But I wanted to see my tree in action badly enough to pay for parking and deal with the crowds.

I followed the arrows (like the one above) and caught the last part of Magda Sayeg's talk. I even helped answer an audience member's question about how long it took to make the tree sweaters. (Basically, I said it took me a month to make half of our tree, but it's hard to break that down into hours.)

After the talk I spent some time outside watching our tree to see if we had any tree huggers. I saw a few people take pictures with it, including the woman above. She took a picture of two little girls posing with our tree. This woman took a picture too. And that's just what I saw while I was sitting on a bench.

Some group was filling rubber gloves with helium and handing them out like balloons. They were all over the place. I saw one kid accidentally let go of his glove/balloon under our tree. It ended up stuck in the branches. The boy tried to knock at the balloon by tossing his water bottle at it before he gave up.

It's amazing the sense of ownership that developed after we put the sweater on the tree. I wasn't too worried about the glove/balloon, but I felt like it was my responsibility to do something because it was in my tree.

I wonder if it's still there. It seems like it would have lost helium and fallen out of the tree by now. Or eventually someone in charge of maintaining the campus would have seen it and gotten it out. There's no way I could reach that with my ladder. (Not that I had it with me during Explore UT.)

On Friday, March 18 it all comes down, and that makes me sad. But my family and I got to be part of something really cool. I'm glad I saw the link on Facebook, otherwise I would have missed the whole thing.

There are links about this project all over the Internet. I'll leave you with a link to all of my pictures and some coverage from The Daily Texan.

A Knitted Wonderland from The Daily Texan on Vimeo.

"A Knitted Wonderland" Part 1 - The Installation

2011-03-09T23:18:00.001-06:00

Last Friday was installation day for A Knitted Wonderland, and I think I've spent more time uploading pictures to Flickr than I did sewing up the sweater. I have so many pictures, I've decided to share them over two blog entries.

In case you're tuning in late, "A Knitted Wonderland" is the latest project by Magda Sayeg, who is known for her yarn bombing work. In January she invited knitters all over the city to help her cover the 99 trees in front of the Blanton Museum. I've written more about it in greater detail in previous entries.

Mom, Katie, Aaron and I arrived in the afternoon not long after the installation officially began. I packed the leftover yarn, some carefully selected knitting notions, safety pins, water, an old sheet to sit on, sunscreen (that we didn't need) and a ladder.

I couldn't wait to get started when I saw the very first people sewing up their tree sweaters. I went to the front desk to get our tree sweater and signed in at the table. All four of us had to sign waivers, one for using ladders and one allowing people to take our pictures. Apparently someone is filming the process for South by Southwest. They had drinks and cookies, although they went fast.

Mom was the one that suggested safety pins, and that was a good idea. I was thinking we'd baste the sweater, but pinning it was easier. We were told to leave some negative ease, so it was pretty tight. We were worried at first. I knew we'd figure something out. You can see the big gaps here.

But once we started sewing, it started coming together.

We started at the bottom and worked our way up. We could get away with being a little short on top, but not at the bottom. It ended up being about the right length. I found that sewing was easier if we moved the safety pins to close the gaps as we seamed. That way we didn't have to pull together so much fabric at once.

I used the Mattress Stitch on the knitting section, and the stitch was close to invisible. I showed Katie and Aaron how to do the mattress stitch, and they both caught on pretty quickly. (I think Mom already knew. I learned it from The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques a while back.) I think Aaron did a big chunk of the seam in this picture. We took turns sewing, so I've lost track of who did what.

As you can see, we just whip stitched the crocheted sections. We didn't know any awesome techniques for seaming crochet.

Getting the seam straight was easier because we pinned the tree sweater first. You can see Mom straightening out the tree sweater here.

Despite all our measurements, the tree is kind of unpredictable with all it's knots and bumps. There's one area in particular where my cable looks pregnant. But that's part of the fun, and knitting is forgiving.

There was one team* that managed to get everything almost perfect. I wish the picture I took wasn't so blurry. They made a little "skirt" at the bottom and left a hole for an especially large knot. They may have been the only team to use all ribbing, which is smart. Ribbing will stretch as much or as little as you need it to. I was impressed. We weren't nearly that precise.

Off and on we all took breaks and went to run around and see the other trees. I ran into Alicia from the Austin Meetup Group sewing the tree sweater for her team. I also saw Sandra Singh and helped her find a tree 55. She took our picture and put it on her blog.

I have all my pictures here. I'm going to share some of my favorites, like the one above. This team added sleeves to their tree "sweater."

This tree has a different stitch pattern for every color. We debated doing something similar, but I don't think we could have gotten it this uniform.

I really like this one. This group managed to do a lot of colorwork while following the guidelines.

I also saw stripes within stripes, people with matching accessories and a snake. I wish I could have taken a picture of every single tree.

I was worried that we wouldn't finish in time, but we got to the top faster than I expected. For the record, I did do some work from the ladder. I couldn't reach up this high for very long because of the pain from the pinched nerve, but I wanted to say I did it. (Mom did most of the work from the ladder.) I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to do this because of the pain. Of course, frequent breaks, three people to help sew and carry everything and a Flector Patch helped.

At dusk, we were finished, and we had time to spare. Installation was blast. I talked to so many people. Two men visiting from New York asked us a bunch of questions about the whole project, and several knitters complimented my cables. We had a great tree ready for Saturday.

And Saturday is a story for another entry.

* - I'm assuming these were teams. I know a few people knit entire trees all by themselves, but most people worked in groups.

Tomorrow is Tree Day!

2011-03-03T23:58:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is the installation day for A Knitted Wonderland , and I'm both excited and nervous about sewing up our tree sweater.

I blogged about the project about a month ago when we were still putting it together. A couple of weeks ago we finished our sweater and dropped it off at the Blanton Museum. But not before we took lots of pictures.

As planned, I knit two 21-inch pieces, Katie crocheted one and Mom crocheted one. This should cover seven feet of tree.

I was the one who sewed the whole thing together. Overall, I think I did a good job, especially when you account for having to sew the knitting and crochet together and the small differences in length and tension. I don't think there is a name for the sewing technique I used.

I have pictures of the other two seams as well. There's another fairly neat seam, and there is a messier seam where my cast on was too loose.

I also added a button and a crocheted button like I mentioned before. They are sewed at the top of the tree sweater, so they shouldn't be too distracting. For the flower, I used the Little Flowers with Leaves pattern by Mimi Alelis. I'm pretty sure the button was once on a pair of my pants, since it has "Venezia" embossed on it.

I managed to mess up Mom's piece. Apparently I sewed it "wrong side out." I'm adding quotation marks to that phrase because I had no idea that single crochet worked in rows had a wrong side. If you look closely, the rows line up into nice pairs. Mom made a point of changing colors between those pairs to avoid breaking them up. Since those pairs of rows are staggered, the pairs are broken up on the other side. On this picture you see the right sided folded over onto the wrong side.

If you can't see the difference, I don't blame you. It took a while for me to wrap my head around it. Basically, my Mom is a perfectionist.

All three of us will be out at the Blanton tomorrow putting this thing up. If you have any tips, let me know. I'm not sure whether to start at the top or the bottom of this thing. We're planning to sew it up, but I may bring a crochet hook just in case. (They've officially said no to zip ties.)

I've never sewn anything together while balancing on a ladder before, and I'm still hurting. I don't know if we're all planning to sew, or if one person is going to sew while everyone else helps hold things in place and steady the ladder. We haven't gotten that far yet.

The installation is officially "open" on Saturday, March 5 as part of Explore UT. The Austin American Statesman had a special section for the event in the paper today, and it included a blurb about "A Knitted Wonderland."

So come for the knitting, stay for... just about anything else you can imagine. Seriously. There's a really long list of activities for Saturday. Go check it out.

Parting Shot
When I wrote about my Centipede Scarf, I forgot to include my favorite picture in my favorite pose. I guess it's better late than never. Enjoy.

FO: Centipede Scarf

2011-02-27T00:51:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to finish more of my UFOs, so tonight I have yet another FO to share. And I'm just now realizing that I haven't blogged about it yet.

Way back in 2009 I took a break from my blog, and life in general, due to illness. This included a hiatus from work.

At that point the Photogenic Scarf was my main project. It was simple but not too simple and I loved the yarn. It felt good to knit. And I left it in my desk at work before I took time off.

So I decided to start knit the Malabrigo Waffles Scarf by Sarah Florent. I used Malabrigo Merino Worsted in "Curacao" from Gauge. I used one and a half skeins, just like Sarah did with the original scarf.

I had trouble choosing a gauge for this project. I ended up using the pair of US Size 8 wooden knitting needles that I won at The Knitting Nest's Ravelry Weekend. The nice needles enhanced the knitting experience.

This picture shows both sides of the scarf. It's reversible, but both the sides look different. However, I think the mostly stockinette side of the scarf looks sort of like the "right side."

The whole pattern is only a four row repeat. This would be a good pattern for beginners.

I stalled on this project a long time ago because I couldn't decide on the length of the scarf. It was getting pretty long, but I wanted to keep knitting. I finally cut it off at about five feet or so. Some people have suggested that a scarf should be about as long as the person is tall. I usually "measure" scarves by holding them up to the top of my head and seeing if they hit the ground. Most people are taller than I am, but 60 inches seems like a nice length for most people.

Besides, the Photogenic Scarf was already really long. How many really long scarves do I need?

This is a stockinette based stitch, so it tends to curl. I gave it a light blocking. I used my usual blocking technique. I washed it in Eucalan (with minimal bleeding), pinned it and let it dry. I tried not to worry to much about getting the edges perfectly pinned. It's not perfectly flat, but it's good enough.

I'll leave you with this picture so you can see where the name of this particular scarf came from. Jules named this one. He said it looked like a game of Centipede. Of course, most Atari games from the era looked like this. But I can see the resemblance.

You can see all of my pictures of the Centipede Scarf are here.

FO: Multnomah

2011-02-17T23:51:00.000-06:00

I haven't blogged in much detail about my Multnomah shawl. It's been one of those projects that you start because you need to work on something that feels good. I started it in October, and last Wednesday I finished it.

I started this so I'd have something to knit on a church retreat. It was a few of hours each way, I wasn't driving and there would plenty of time to knit while socializing. After much debate, I settled on Multnomah because it was in that sweet spot where the knitting is not too boring, but it's easy enough to work on while talking or watching television. Also, it was small enough that I only needed a 100 gram skein of yarn.

I ended up using a skein of Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Sock Yarn in "Birds in Paradise" (HS03) that I bought during my trip to Unwind. I used almost the entire skein.

When I washed the shawl with Eucalan the yarn bled a little bit, but it wasn't a big deal. They intensity of the color didn't really change.

I used a US Size 2 Addi Lace Turbo Circular Knitting Needle that I also bought at Unwind. (I think.)

I did my own version of wet blocking with this one. Basically, I washed it, and then I pinned it. Pinning Multnomah wasn't nearly as difficult as pinning the Strangling Vine scarf, but it took me a lot of pins and a lot of time to get the scallops nice and round. Mom and Dad let me take up some floor space in front of the television and use one of the "good" towels.

I was a little sore after all that pinning, but being able to do stuff like this is a good sign that my back is healing.

I'm wondering about the best way to wear this. It looks great from the back, but I can't quite figure out how to tie it in the front. I need a shawl pin or a nice broach. I considered wearing it to Walmart one day because it matched my t-shirt, but it didn't work with my baggy pants. I tried it again for a church potluck with leggings* and it looked better.

If anyone has any fashion tips for wearing shawls, let me know. The fact that it's a "shawlette" makes it more difficult because there's less fabric to work with, but I enjoyed knitting this so much that I'd like to make something the same size like Citron or Coquille.

You can see more pictures of Multnomah here.

* - I ordered some more leggings online, so hopefully I'll look less like a bag lady soon.