IN HONOR OF HALLOWE'EN ...

I found my inner pirate ...

 

    My pirate name is:
   

 

    Mad Mary Cash   

 
 

    Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You're musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine.    Arr!
   

  Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network
 

Best witches, everyone! 

TEASER

I really hoped that I'd have the cowl pattern ready to upload this morning, but no such luck. Yesterday kind of got away on me, and we've had River overnight, so ... here's the picture, though:  :-)

And I whipped up a Gibson-sized pair of socks in the last few days, too ...

This morning I'll get Riv to school and then our friend Mike will be here from Galiano!

GOOD LUCK, JEANNE!

While I've been laying around whining about my leg, a 67-year-old grandmother by the name of Jeanne has been aboard her sailboat here in the harbour preparing for the trip of a lifetime. I was hoping to get over to meet her before she left, but instead I drove over yesterday just in time to see a local whale-watching boat ready to tow her to the start line at Ogden Point.

It was a drizzly, gray day, but apparently perfect for her to catch the outgoing tides and currents for the Juan de Fuca, and to be out to Cape Flattery (where she'll turn left, more or less, to head south toward Cape Horn) by the time this weather system passes by us.

Normally we'd be in our  dinghy for an event like this, but between the weather and my leg, I had to just park at Ogden Point and get the best vantage point I could... here's the buoy (centre of the photo) which is her official start line:

 And now you can vaguely see that she has one sail up.... the dark sailboat was just accompanying her out to the start, I guess.

 And she's away! All being well, she'll sail back in to this harbour in about seven months, but I'll be following her blog here.

I'M HAVING A COWL

... Actually, this weekend, I knit two of them.

I've been designing my own knitted stuff for about 3 years now -- but once I'm finished knitting something, it's so hard to go back, figure out exactly what I did, and then write out the pattern so it can be duplicated. But back in August I designed a cowl, and this time, after so many people told me that I should publish the pattern, I'm finally doing it! It *is* a fun pattern incorporating three of favorite things in the world of knitting .... merino wool, lace and beads. :-)

I've test knit two more from the written pattern this weekend, and I just have some tweaking to do before I turn it into a .pdf and make it available. I'm also working on writing out my baby blanket pattern, which will be free -- but I think I may sell the cowl pattern for a few bucks. I'm pretty excited about this -- I'll have pics tomorrow, and hopefully an announcement about it!

I did make it to the Cowichan Fleece and Fibre Fair on Saturday, and converted  taught four more people how to knit. It's always fun to wander around the booths and see old fibre friends, and make new ones.

In between knitting sessions yesterday, I also finished a long-overdue paid editing project, so that felt good. It's completely pouring rain outside so it may be a lazy day today... lots of time to get that leg propped up, and more knitting. Works for me!

COWICHAN FLEECE AND FIBRE FAIR

Cowichan Fleece & Fibre Fair
NEW LOCATION : ISLAND SAVINGS CENTER 2687 James St. Duncan
Saturday, October 23, 10 am to 4 pm

Knitters’ Circle: Free knitting lessons with needles & yarn. (That will be me)!

Ongoing demos, displays. Special fibre activities for the kids!

Vendors! Rovings, yarns, dyes, spinning wheels, needle feltingsupplies, and more. Locally handcrafted knitted,felted and woven articles of wool and alpaca, duvets,and many other items perfect for Christmas gifts.

Join our Spinners’ Circle! Bring your own wheel or come and learn to spin on one of ours.

For more information call Annie 246-4600. Or just come and say hello!

BACK IN THE LOOP

"Put a good moisturizer on that twice a day, and you're good to go."

So said the home care nurse, day before yesterday, and you could have heard the sound of my slowly exhaling breath for miles around, I'm sure.

What I didn't tell you (mainly because I didn't want to help it 'exist') is that this was a life-threatening infection I had. If it hadn't responded to the antibiotics, if I'd had a reaction to the antibiotics and had to backtrack and start again, if I'd waited another day to get treatment ... well, as recently as four days ago I was reminded that if I didn't do exactly what I was told to do, medically, I could lose my leg. Or my life.

And those of you who know me know that doing what I'm told to do is not exactly one of my finest characteristics. But I did. And although the long-term recovery plan is actually a tad more complicated than just using a good moisturizer, the most important words there were 'GOOD TO GO' and I can't tell you what a relief that is!

Enough about that ... I've been knitting:

   

Two pairs of socks completed during many hours in the recliner doing what I was told to do. The ones on the left are a 3-color 'tweed' stitch from an old Harmony Guide -- it was easy and fun to do. 

Much to catch up on now that I'm back in the loop -- work AND play -- but I hope to be back to regular blogging at least!

NOT HAVING FUN

Well, I got 'discharged' from the hospital yesterday, which now means that I'm back on pill-form antibiotics until the end of the week, and have to have a visiting nurse in twice in the next few days. It's still all a little bit scary, but it's mostly SO annoying to have no energy and to be in pain, when I'm always so 'gung-ho' getting back from holidays, to work - on paid and not-paid projects!

I took this picture of a poster on the treatment room wall before I left -- thought you'd get a kick out of it!

I can finally show you my holiday knitting (I'm able to sit at the computer for 30-45 minutes now, yay)! This is three hats for charity, two pairs of socks, a headband and a moebius scarf made from some home-spun I acquired a year or so ago.


This is one more pair of socks, and two blankets -- the brown one is a lap blanket Rosemary was working on when she died, so several of us knitted on it and I finished it while we were away...

... and the navy blue one is a new lap blanket for the back of Michael's chair -- it's my own pattern, called 'Window Panes' (which I hope to publish this fall -- that would be *one* of the projects I'd like to work on)! I used a cable that resembles a ship's rope:

... and in the bottom left-hand corner is an anchor motif. It's hard to see, but it's there...

The whole blanket is a rich navy blue, which you can't really tell from these photos.

Today I'll be spending the required four hours in Michael's recliner with my leg propped up -- lots of knitting time -- and in between, hoping to get back to some work. I'm going to Tofino on Sunday to teach knitting classes at the new yarn store there, and I'm pretty excited about that!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING CANADA

Hope everyone's having a great weekend, and eating too much turkey! I know I did -- Jason and Kristin hosted the family this year in their new 'loft' apartment in Chinatown, so that was fun -- I put the turkey/stuffing in the oven early and didn't have to do another thing all day except keep my leg up...

...which would be because I'm still having to go to the hospital every morning at 7:30 a.m. for an IV antibiotic treatment -- it's been 10 days now, and although it's better, I'm not totally out of the woods yet.

So I've been knitting. A lot. I'll even have pics to prove it. Soon. Right now I can't sit at the computer for longer than about 15 minutes without too much pain in my leg, so it'll have to wait. Thanks to those of you who have called or emailed to see how I'm doing!

OCTOBER!

We got home from our September adventure on Sunday afternoon, but it's been pretty crazy around here since then, as you can imagine. To make things worse, on the third-last day of our holiday, while I was sitting in a beautiful anchorage looking at this....


... I developed a serious fever, and Michael had to get me in to Ganges, where a nice man from the Coast Guard station drove me to the hospital.... where I was diagnosed with a pretty severe bacterial infection which turned up on my right leg, of all places. So - I have been going to the hospital every day (Saturday in Ganges, then Sunday, Monday, and in about 10 minutes, here in Victoria) for an hour of IV antibiotics -- and when I'm home I've been ordered to have this leg up at about a 30-degree angle for at least 4 hours a day! I guess the universe decided I hadn't had enough rest yet?? The prognosis is that it may be another week before I'm good as new.

By the way, here's what happens when you hit the wake of a big freighter unexpectedly:


I have lots more great pics, and hope to get on here more soon, but I am happy to be home, and getting back into the fall routine!