Finally putting my stash on Ravelry

Well, I finally got a couple totes put up in my stash at Ravelry today. LOL - three totes down, and goodness-knows how many more to go. I'm still having trouble doing a lot right now, because of whatever the problem is with my arm/shoulder. It's driving me nuts! So I thought I'd finally get started on getting my stash info input.... whew, that is a JOB! But it will be SOOOOOO worth it once I have it done!! I'm going to try to perhaps do another tote or two later tonight, and maybe if I can make myself get three or four totes finished each day, I'll eventually get it all on there!

Sigh... crocheting pain....

Well, not sure what I did, but my shoulder is really giving me fits today. I sat down for just a moment, tried to add a few stitches onto a project & didn't go 5 minutes before my arm was in agony. I think I slept on it crooked or something, and got it aggravated again....sigh....

Actually, there is a good bit of housework & other things I *ought* to be tending to, so maybe this is just a way to force me off my plump rump & make me do something else.... Not sure if it will hurt too much for housework, or if the wider range of movement involved in housework will perhaps help it ... but at least I can TRY to get some laundry & other things done...

Would much rather be sitting back stitching though..... It's just a pulled muscle or pinched nerve or something like that - nothing that won't go away given a little bit of time. Frustrating, but nothing that will keep me away from crocheting altogether... I just hate being "forced" to take a break when I really don't want to! LOL!

I did it, I actually knitted a few stitches!!!!

As I mentioned before, I've been trying to take a bit of a break here lately, to let my shoulder/arm rest. Shoulder is still stiff & gives me a good twang of pain if I move it in the wrong direction, but it's eased up tremendously from the way it was.

But of course, it's driven me nuts, so I've had to do a wee bit of stitching off-and-on!! I've added a few tidbits onto the background piece for my ocean wallhanging - that seems to be the easiest way to crochet & let my arm still rest, as I only do a tiny bit at a time, then stop to decide on another color/yarn/etc. Unlike getting in the middle of a solid project where I could stitch non-stop for an extended period of time....

BUT - what I'm so excited about -- as some of you might know, I've tried & tried to learn to knit, to no avail. I knew how the stitches were supposed to be done - but I just could not seem to manuever the yarn to DO it when I tried. Well, today I discovered that I was using the wrong method for me! I had heard & read repeatedly, that crocheters should use the Continental method of knitting, that it came much easier for crocheters than the English method. HOGWASH!!!! I could never manage to move a stitch from one needle to the other using the Continental method!

Yesterday, dear sweet hubby took me by Hobby Lobby, and encouraged me to get one of those "Learn to Knit" kits. I was hesitant, but as he pointed out, a majority of the do-dads included in the kit were items I could use anyway -- a needle guage (which can be used for crochet hooks as well...), stitch markers, stitch holders, a row/stitch counter, yarn needles etc. Almost everything in the kit could be utilized in my crocheting, other than the knitting needles & book of course.

Then I spotted two different sizes of BIG acrylic knitting needles on clearance for $1.25 / set. I thought perhaps a nice chunky fat needle might be easier to practice on, so I grabbed those as well.

Today, I sat down with the book, got some cast-on done, and with a rather skeptical frame of mind, tried to follow the instructions for doing the knit stitch (the book showed the English method) Much to my total surprise & delight, I actually did several rows of stitches!!! Very sloppy uneven stitches, to be sure - but they were STITCHES, nonetheless!!! I was SOOOO surprised & so happy! It is obviously going to take a *lot* of practice to get even tension & nice neat stitches, but at least I managed to move the yarn from one needle to the other, which I could never manage to do before, trying the Continental method! I think the big fat needles really helped too, rather than using normal skinny aluminum needles.

So, it's a *start*!!! At least now I feel that maybe I CAN learn to knit after all, it will just take a lot of practice before my stitches are nice enough to do a project at all. And I haven't even tried the purl stitch just yet - I only did a few rows of knit. I still need to practice at my cast-on, as it's still a bit uneven. But I am happy that I FINALLY managed to actually do some stitches, regardless of how sloppy they were! Practice, practice, practice..... and hopefully I'll be able to actually make something...

I hate my eyes.... sigh....

I managed to finish up a few shawls that were gifts, but have been having a little trouble crocheting for any long stretch lately. Due to my failing vision, I have to hold my work up pretty close to my face to see the stitches. I don't know what the difference is lately, but over the past few days, my right arm has gotten to hurting quite badly, and that's the only reason I can think of for it.

SIGH.... so I'm going to TRY to take a break for a day or two, and give the arm a rest to see if that makes a difference. My sweet hubby suggested that I put some pillows next to me to prop my arm on, perhaps that would help.

This vision stuff is frustrating beyond words. OK, I could deal with giving up some finely detailed work when it first began. I used to do some beadwork & counted cross-stitch, had to give those up quite some time ago. But for whatever reason, the vision problems seem to have accelerated over the past 6 months or so. I can't see clearly enough to do the precise cutting needed for quilting so I haven't done that in some months now. Drawing has been out of the picture for the last few years. It seems that little by little, all the things I enjoy doing are slowly being taken away, *frustrating**!!!! As long as I hold things up about 4-6" in front of my eyes, I can focus on it, but further than that, it's all a big fuzzy blur. LOL, when I'm on my computer, I'm sitting here with my nose literally about 4" from the screen, so I'm sure that exacerbates the problem, but what am I supposed to do - just not use my computer at all? Bah!!!

On a hopeful note, hubby's retirement reinstatement has just been turned over to the final leg of being approved so **MAYBE** within the next 6 months or so, they'll finally get that taken care of & we'll have our medical insurance again. At which point, one of the first things we're doing is getting the eye surgery I need, that will *hopefully* clear up my vision to some extent. (At the moment, I'm "legally blind" due to cataracts that keep getting worse all the time....) I've always been very near-sighted all my life. Had surgery on both eyes for detached retinas in the past, and had cataract surgery on my left eye already about 7 years ago - the lens replacement wasn't quite right though, so when/if we can, I'll probably have that eye re-done. But my right eye was always my "good" eye, so it wasn't a problem until the cataracts kicked in heavy on my right eye.... sigh, oh well, you gotta take what life throws at you & work around it as best as you can, I guess..... I just hope to goodness that maybe before too much longer, we'll have insurance again & I can get the surgeries done.

I'm going to try his idea of propping my arm up on some pillows to see if that eases the strain of holding that arm up at such a high angle while I crochet. I am NOT going to give up crocheting, no matter what it takes to be able to keep on with it.... that's my "mainstay" hobby & blind or not, I am not going to lose it too....

Sorry for the vent - just frustrated w/ this at the moment....

Just DO it!!!

I've been such a silly goose lately. I came into a wonderful bunch of lovely yarns, gifted to me by some incredible ladies over at Ravelry. As opposed to my typical "big box store" or "dollar store" stash, these are all lovely fancy expensive "yarn store" yarns - the kind of stuff that I would never be able to go out & buy myself!!

I've made a few little things - but for the most part, I have spent sooooo many hours scouring over patterns, project photos, etc etc etc trying to decide on WHAT to make! My biggest fear is "wasting" the yarn somehow -- either making a project that I won't use very often, or messing up on a project somehow, or ??? There isn't a lack of patterns to choose from out there - luckily, crochet patterns abound online, so I have plenty of choices... maybe that's part of the problem too, I'm overwhelmed with fear of wasting the yarn & overwhelmed by too many options as to what to make from it! LOL!

Enough is enough already though..... I need to start USING more of this lovely yarn. I do love making shawls - even though I already have several made up, sitting here homeless, that I still haven't figured out where they are going. I like to do charity stuff, but donating a hand-wash mohair shawl to a homeless shelter is not a very practical idea! LOL! I could try to sell a few things in my Etsy shop (haha - that's a joke - never did have luck w/ Etsy in the past) but that seems kinda wrong, to try to sell anything made from yarn that was *given* to me!

I think I'll make a few more shawls, just because I enjoy making them - then I'll just pay it forward - mark my projects on Ravelry as "free if you want it, just pay postage" or something like that - giving first dibs to my wonderful "yarn angels" Yep, that might work.

I AM going to finally get up the nerve to pop my first attempt at felting into the washer today, I will, I will, I will!!! It's been sitting there waiting on me, & I've been afraid I would mess it up during the felting process, as I've never felted before.... If it turns out, I definitely will do a few more bags, I could USE a few nice bags/totes/purses, so that would be a truly practical project....

Still tinkering along w/ my seascape idea too - that one will be ongoing for a long time, I'm sure, but it's fun to mentally plan what I want to do with it, and toy around with different ideas, seeing how things work out....

OK - I'm going to tear myself away from this computer today & STITCH more!!!!

Tiny start towards my seascape project!

Well, I got a small start on my seascape project! It's only one little bit of seaweed (or coral?) but hey, it's a *start*!

The yarn is a gorgeous "Dusty Olive" colorway of Malabrigo - a small tidbit I had left over after making a few other items. The photo doesn't show the lovely colors - it's a deep olive green with bits of lighter tan/pinkish/greenish bits in it. It's really beautiful yarn , but my photography skills leave much to be desired!

LOL - I don't know if I'll be able to pull this project off & create anything even resembling what I'm picturing in my mind - but I'll have fun trying, and we'll just see what the end result it. I have a feeling this will be an ongoing project for months.....

Gorgeous yarns - ambitious project idea...

I was the incredibly lucky recipient of an amazing amount of luscious yarns, by some wonderful ladies at Ravelry. I'm still juggling things around, trying to get everything organized * just so*, moving older "cheap" yarns out of some drawers and re-sorting stash to keep track of all the new goodies. Maybe I'll finally get stash photographed & listed on Ravelry, after meaning to do so forever!

The tough part - trying to decide what to make! I don't want to "waste" any fancy yarn on the "wrong" projects! It's mind-boggling, so many yarns, so many potential projects to choose from...

One thought is that I want to make something that will be used and/or seen the very most - not just another dozen scarves that will be tucked away until winter or something *too* fancy, that I'd only wear once in a blue moon, I want to come up with something that will be used frequently, or seen all the time, to be able to appreciate the beautiful yarn constantly!

I love the ocean & everything connected with it. I miss the gulf coast of FL soooo badly. LOL, we of course were never wealthy enough to actually live right on the coast, but no matter where you live in FL, you can get to the coast in little time so we used to try to spend time over on the central gulf coast area as much as we could.

We have a couple nice bits of artwork in our home that reflect seaside scenes. The other day at Ravelry, I stumbled across some photos of freeform crochet - and there was a mural done in crochet/fiber work that just blew me away. And I had also just received the most beautiful turquoise handspun - gorgeous color that made me think of water/ocean.

Hmmm..... it might not come about, but what I would LOVE to do is create a piece of artwork to go in our home, reflecting the colors/feel of the ocean & shore life that I love so much. I'm not sure if I could do an actual pictorial mural, or if it would have to be more of an abstract collage style piece, but I really want to give this a try. Along with crocheted sealife and yarn sculpting, I could incorporate some small shells & other genuine items from the ocean into it.....

LOL - I've got this vague vision in my mind of what I would LIKE to create - I need to firm up the ideas to more specific elements & see what I can do..... **IF** I could create something like I'm envisioning, it not only would be something to remind me of the ocean, but it also would be a way of using some bits of these beautiful yarns, in such a way that they would be on constant display & be seen/appreciated ALL the time, not hung in a closet or tucked in a drawer.

I'm excited about this idea - and very very leery about whether I can pull it off or not. I know it's likely to be something that gets dabbled & tinkered with for months, but *hopefully* I can do something along the lines of what I'm visualizing...... I think it could be a lot of fun & I'm going to start looking around for specific ideas/inspiration for individual elements of the piece....

Trying to bring some focus...

I obviously have not kept up with this, nor made any rhyme-or-reason of the few posts I have made....

I'm going to try to keep this up better & perhaps have a bit more focus to my entries. Since my main passion is my crafting, I ought to focus on that I suppose.... maybe if I link this to my Ravelry account, it will give me the incentive to post more often....

Sigh... but how many times have I thought I was going to keep up with some sort of blog or journal - LOL, I just never do it. Let's see how it goes this time....