I'm Blaming the Weather

This is what I woke up to on Saturday morning.

 And this is what I saw later; there's a layer of ice, a layer of snow, and then a glaze of ice on top. Do I need to mention that I didn't drive to go see mom on Saturday? Or on Sunday?

 Thanks to unusually cold temperatures, there wasn't much melting, except in direct sun, until yesterday. I knew it was Tuesday, but I still forgot to make my blog post.  There was no reporting to work for me on Monday or Tuesday. I go back today.

Yesterday we finally got above freezing temperatures so I cleaned off my car. Since I need to make a trip to the fabric/notions store, I'm driving to the park and ride today.

I woke up at 3 am, managed to doze until about 4 am and finally got up at 5 am. I was starving and thirsty and just couldn't get back to sleep.















This is the gaiter I made for Cs nephew, to match his scarf. I need to go buy buttons and sew them on.

I gave this book to my Dad almost 20 years ago. He started working on it while working nights. When that job ended, he lost track of the book. He found it recently and loaned it to me at Christmas. I scanned the pages he's filled so far and then returned it so he can continue to fill it.

 I started using my coloring page of the day calendar. I'm already behind. This is the only page I've completed.

This is the hand crocheted scarf SNS made for me. Each color is a different yarn; fiber, etc. It's gorgeous! Her daughter also introduced me to a new term 'stupid scarf'. It's a name for an infinity or circle scarf, because no matter how stupid you're being, you can't/won't drop the scarf. C said he wants one, which makes me happy. I've been wanting to make one for him, but he's been reluctant because he doesn't spend as much outdoors as he used to.

I've been reading Rejected Princesses, another of my presents. I'm still reading Drunken Botanist from last year. It was on my TBR pile and I picked up a couple months ago. I've been reading one plant per night most nights.

My date with  C went...unexpectedly. She gave me some lovely gifts from Williamsburg, Va (powdered ink, handbound journal, quill pen, and a couple coasters). However, while I was waiting for her, she called. Her car had died. I went and picked her up, we ate supper, and then her boyfriend came and got her so she could get her car towed.

I've been shopping for a lacy pattern to use the buffboo yarn CD gave me. I got the two skeins wound into center pull balls but it's been difficult to find a suitable pattern. There's three main limitations; yardage, my skill, and my knitting is on a loom. One lovely pattern called for a cast on more stitches than any of my looms have. I finally bought a book of loom knitting shawl patterns. I'm starting with Sweet on Ruffles, as it looks simplest and will get me used to working a shawl pattern. I'm using a bulky yarn and I made a decent start last night.

Since I didn't see mom last weekend, I'll go this weekend. I have her new remote control, which will helpfully fix her no DVD player problem. We'll see. If not, then I'm buying a new player for her. TV runs out quick. I also need to pick up some books for her.

And as a treat, this is JJ's corrigated boxer. She's still a puppy and she's a corgi/boxer mix. She fell asleep on my leg during the party.

Jane's TIAS starts today. I need to load my shuttles and start.

Gaming/sci fi convention and Tat It And See

I spent most of this past weekend going to, at, or returning from Scarab con in Columbia, SC. We traveled down on Thursday and the con started on Friday. It takes advantage of the holiday on Monday to last for four days. We drove back today.

We played Pathfinder Society all weekend. I signed up to run a game Sunday night. We played only two session for each day. Part of that was the big game Saturday night was a Special and we haven't played the scenarios leading up to it.

About a month or so ago I checked the game sign ups online and didn't have anyone signed up for the game I had volunteered to run. I switched to a game with 7 people signed up to play. It's up the GM if they are willing to run with seven people at the table, but 6 is an easier number to handle. I signed up to GM, too; waitlisted. Since then, someone else signed up so we could have two tables of 4 people. With walk-ins, we had two tables of five people.

Jane's Tat It And See started January 7th but I totally missed the beginning. I could not find a button, without cutting one off a shirt. I finally found one, right before we left. On Sunday, I managed to get started. Five days were out so I did them all at once and took a picture after each stage and sent all five to Jane. I have a guess what the end result will be.

Day Five

Day Four

Day Three

Day Two

Day One

While I was standing in line, I was tatting a heart (clearing my shuttles for the TIAS) and someone noticed. She (Mary) was entranced and loves to crochet. I gave her some info about tatting (Here Be Tatters, Georgia Seitz, YouTube, InTatters) and the heart I'd made.





I've made progress on the knitted wristlet. I'm past the recommended 36 rows, where the thumb hole should be. Since 36 rows were too small, I've kept going. I need to measure my hand.

Sorry about the peculiar formatting. Editing on my tablet has odd results.

365 project

I'm trying to do the 365 project. It's simply take one picture a day.
Here's my picture from yesterday.

size 30 DMC, variation on motif from Aug 1998 Tatting Times

I missed the 1st, so I guess my first day is January 2nd.
And here is my picture for today:

It's the same pattern, in size 20 HDT (from Shuttle Lab Trends, but I lost the label).

Here's the thread I'm using for Jane's TIAS 2013.

Isn't it pretty?

Remark from last night's Stargate 1889 game: There's pneumonia, old monia & now Classic monia.

Half the party was still captured but the airship we were on was attacked and we were 'rescued' by more canal Martians, from the Red Martians. Now we're out of the hands of Red Martians and are meeting a new political entity. Hopefully our departure from them will go more smoothly than our most recent one.

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years

Thanksgiving was spent with my mom, my aunt & my uncle down at my aunt's & uncle's house. Mom picked me up Thanksgiving morning and we drove down. We got there after lunch. Mom and I hit a few stores before heading for the grocery store, just to learn that they closed before lunch. My aunt had not been able to go before we arrived, either. Guess what we had for Thanksgiving supper? Tuna salad sandwiches!

We laughed about it. After all, we had shelter, something to eat, and each other. It wasn't as bad as some people had it and we considered ourselves lucky.

We had a nice visit and I took an extra day to spend with them. I did learn. My mom really loves to shop. We went shopping every single day; Thursday, Black Friday, Saturday, Sunday & one place on Monday. We went out 'late' on Black Friday; not until about 7:30 am. We missed the crowds except in 1 store. It was nice.

I spent the weekend before Christmas with my Dad, brother, etc. It SNOWED! I don't remember the last time it snowed in December. Everything was fine, just cloudy, until I was only a county away. It went from 'hey is that snow?' to 'OMG it's snow!' just that fast. My vision went down to only about 6 car lengths. I was not happy. I was frankly mad at my dad for not warning me. Then I got to the county line for my Dad's and the snow almost disappeared. There was some snow there but not that bad.
Dad's yard:

I drove down to my aunt's and uncle's for Christmas weekend. It snowed again! Luckily, I had Monday off or I would have taken a weather day. I drove home on Monday instead of Sunday, as I'd planned. Here's the progress of the snow.

 I cleaned off my car about mid-afternoon.


The week between was very slow. New Year's was so exciting (/end dry tone). I went to a friend's house and we watched movies until after midnight. The next day C and I went to my High School friend's house. After we spent time dealing with a broken dryer. We ended up leaving home about the time we meant to arrive. *sigh* We got to there, finally.

We opened presents; and Namesake loved her lace tiara and scepter. J gave me a bromeliad in a re-used lightbulb. A & L loved their Gingher shears and scissors. All around, popular presents.

We had a great time and drove back Monday.

I made a few bracelets.

Black size 20 thread, seed beads and moss agate cube beads. These are 2 different bracelets, check the seed beads.

Here's a bracelet with green outer beads and silver/clear inner line of beads

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 Here's a bracelet that I started with the moss agate beads but I didn't like it with the red thread

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I've started Jane Eborall's latest TIAS.So far, it's just the introduction

Supplies: thread & beads

testing technique

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TGIF & TIAS

I managed to get home at a reasonable hour last night, after gaming at Sci Fi Genre. The Living Forgotten Realms game went pretty well; we felt challenged. My character, an avenger, did her part; took damage and dealt it (striker/defender).

I forgot to show pictures of my impromptu picot gauge. Here it is, along with my progress, through day 8 of Jane's TIAS. It's a piece of paper, folded to the correct size.

This morning, I was feeling so good and so on top of things, I decided to do day 9 of the Jane's TIAs. I had no problem with the first four split rings. I was in the middle of the fifth and looking for the picot on the chain. It had disappeared; another problem with that black thread. No problem, I can see where it was. As I finagled the hook of my shuttle between two knots, everything suddenly loosened. The thread broke! Again.

For a second, I just looked at it. I said a couple impolite words and ripped the thread off the shuttles. I'll be starting the TIAS again, with different thread instead of the black.
Here's a close up of the break:

Change of subject: they're still predicting snow for tonight. At this point, they're calling for 5-7" starting between 8 pm & midnight. We'd planned to go to see Avatar tonight. Not anymore. We'll try again next week.

I've starting downloading the pdfs from DriveThruRPG's Gamer's Helping Haiti special. Wow, there's a lot of stuff.

It's been a bit of week, between migraine, work stuff, etc. I'm profoundly glad it's Friday, even if I will be trapped in my house the next day or so. I debated wearing my new snow boots but I haven't broken them in & I won't need them today. However, between tatting disaster & shoe decisions, I managed to forget my lanyard. The one that has my work id/key/food money and my bus pass. Luckily, I had some cash in my pocket, but it was not a good start to the morning.

Someday, I'll resume my Colorado posts. Just not right now.

TIAS, the weather and gaming

I just missed the bus last night, so I was working on day 6 of Jane's TIAS by streetlight. Or I tried. Both threads broke, not just the chain thread. I was disgusted by that point, so I tied in a knot and kept tatting. It won't be pretty, but it will be done. I got the point where I needed to add the bead and realized that I could not do that in the poor light. I finally finished day 6 at lunch today. I almost shredded the thread getting the bead onto the ring.

I managed to get day 7 done and was working on day 8. At one point, I was trying to make a join on ring 12 & realized I had lost a picot. It was a very small picot. Why, oh why did I choose black for my 2nd color? What was I thinking?








I finally finished day 7, but as you can see it's not pretty.

Here's part 8, done. Sort of. Sorry about the loose threads. Remember what I said about threads breaking? Here's proof.

The weather was really, really rainy last night. I had my wipers on full a few times, from the rain. There were also a couple instances in which tire spray played a role. There was a stretch of road where the lane markers pretty much disappeared. The only saving grace is that there's a median separating the two directions.

I made it to, and from, gaming last night safely. But my legs, arms and lower back ached with tension. At least my character was able to thoroughly whomp some bad guys. They were hard light constructs (ie no one alive in them) so no punch pulling, just slice, dice & whack.

Tonight a couple of us are going out to a quick supper and then on to see Avatar. It's not a 3D theater but from what I've heard you really don't want to wait for the DVD on this one. Unless you have a really big screen at home, of course.

Tomorrow, it's more LFR. I hope that I remember how. I ended up canceling the last time I had planned to play. Luckily, it's a really simple game.

Sunday, it's R's game. I've decided to enter the notes that I have as an adventure log on Obsidian Portal. That will make it easier for me to track NPCs etc.

A picture or 2, and other developments

As promised, here is a picture of the vest that I worked on this past weekend.

As you can see it has a lot of beads & embroidery.

Here is a detail of the embroidery that I fixed. Can you see what I did or where? If not, then I did it right.

The bugle bead that I did not replace is one from near the hem (you can barely see the area in the bottom of the photo, rice beads & bugle bead motifs). As you can see, it won't be too noticeable to be missing one.

Tatting: I finished the motif for my secret project (for some reason, every time I hit the quote mark key, the search function comes up *shrug*). I managed this despite 1) running out of thread on my shuttle & 2) running into a knot as I reloaded the shuttle

I started to do day 6 of Jane TIAS but my thread broke. I will need to do some retro tatting, adding a new thread & then I can continue. (still cannot use single quote mark " works though).

The weather has turned cold & rainy. At least it is not ice. Mutants & Masterminds tonight. No ice means that I will be playing. Good.

TIAS Day 5 & not much else

Here is Day 5 of Jane's TIAS














And here's Day 1 & 2, with Day 5 (which includes days 3 & 4)

Sign that your headache is actually a migraine. You take pain medication & your nausea disappears.

I'm off to Jacksonville, NC for a 3-day weekend. Family time. Don't have too much fun without me.

Haiti & other matters

Here are two other craft people who are doing a little something for Haiti; Shore-House Chic and Reclaimed Home. Both are running auctions, the former for a tote & the latter for a necklace, in which the winning bid goes to a charity for Haiti. Proof of donation sent to the artist has her shipping the item to the winner, at no further cost to the winner. Isn't that just nifty.

I could not find any solid Olympus #40 thread to go with the multicolor that I used for the 1st 2 days of the Jane's TIAS. Talking with A on the phone, I had the brainstorm to just start over; in a thread that did match. I found some multicolor size 10, along with a couple balls of solids color.

Here's original Day 1

And here's the new Day 1 & 2

Along with Day 3 & Day 4

I'm in a Funk

Which is soooo much fun for the people around me. Luckily, that amounts to none, right now. I'll do what I can to get out of it by the time C gets home tonight.

I'm 2 days behind on the TIAS. I suddenly realized that I don't know if I have any solid color thread the same size as the multicolor that I used. Some days it doesn't feel worthwhile to have gnawed through the straps. I have thread that might be the same size, but it's a different number, by a different company, from a different country...so I just don't know. My eye isn't good enough to see more than obvious differences.

I could moan & groan about the little things that have gone amiss today, but next to what's happening in Haiti, I have it so good it seems ridiculous to complain. By the way, if you're wondering what you can do; here are links to the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. If you have text capabilities on your phone then you can ext "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to RedCross relief efforts in Haiti ($10 posts on your bill, Std msg rates apply). Or you can text YELE to 501 501 and $5 will be donated to help those in Haiti.  

There are a lot of people doing little things (this week, $5 from each sale by this Etsy vendor goes to help Haiti)  and that will add up to a lot. And Jeri Smith is donating a copy of her book, Bad to the Bone, to the 1st 20 people who donate $15 to MSF (Doctors w/o Borders).


Speaking of 'I don't really have it bad', a friend of mine has been spending time since New Year's at hospital etc. He's the primary care giver for his mother. She's in good shape, for her age; and that's the key phrase. Anyway, she fell December 30th and broke her other hip. As a result, she was in surgery New Year's Day. Now isn't that a crappy way to spend a holiday.



I'm driving down to see Mom this weekend. She's staying with her sister at the coast and hopefully her sister from Miami has come north (kinda bad timing, temperature-wise). I have Monday off and that means I can stay 2 nights instead of just Saturday night.


My namesake has been enjoying her Wednesday presents. Although her father is not too happy about the glow in the dark (plastic of course) scimitar. She's not quite old enough for live steel, although she should get her own pocketknife soon, IMHO.


I've been reading The Double Daring Book for Girls. I wish I'd had this when I was kid. As it is, I'm sorry, niece, I'm keeping this copy. I've already used one bit to use an old map (instead of a paper grocery bag) to make a book cover. I'd forgotten how to do that, which seems a pity, because it's soooo easy.


I'm worried (not in a tear-my-hair-out stress and panic way) about my iPod mini. It's 5 years old, or maybe more, years old and I think that battery is on its last legs. I had it fully charged yesterday but it only lasted through about 5 songs this morning and died. Maybe, just maybe, I had it accidentally turned on in my coat pocket. I'll keep better track tonight and we'll see.


No pictures today. Maybe in my next post.