Lots of Pictures

Dominic called me last night and told me that I had two errors in the first sentence of my last post. That should have been 'ten days' not 'twn day.' I should go in and edit it, but I don't want to. He had other editing suggestions as well, but they were style things, and I'll choose my own style, thank you very much!

Medical:

Yesterday was day one of cycle two of the Velcade treatment, so I went to the Cancer Group in Paducah for that. They are only at the Mayfield office on Mondays. I saw Dr Ginn (that's a hard G). He pulled results of Monday's MRI and bone survey off the computer. My bones look better than they did two years ago. The holes have closed up, thanks to the Thalidomide and Decadron getting rid of the bad plasma cells and the Zometa hardening up the bones. There are two vertebrae in the lumbar region that show damage, but that could be just from age, I think. He asked if the Velcade has changed the neuropathy. When we had that cold spell, I thought it may have made it worse, but when temperatures went up to normal (40's and 50's in the daytime and 20's and 30's a night) it seemed to be unchanged.

Reading:

After getting my dose of Velcade, I went to the Paducah library's book sale at the Lutheran church. Before, I've always gone on Saturday because I had other things to do in Paducah then, and I've gotten a grocery bag full of books for $1. But this time it was Friday that I had other things to do in Paducah, so I went to the sale then, when the prices were $1 for hardbacks and $.50 for paperbacks. The selection was much better than on Saturdays and I wound up spending $45. It's for a good cause, right?
These are the ones I got for Lexi. I think I'll keep them here and encourage her to read rather than watch cartoons. Perhaps she can read to me while I knit. She is a good reader, sounding out unfamiliar words phonetically.

And these are the ones I got for myself. They should keep me in reading material at least until the next book sale at either the Paducah or the Mayfield library. I always go down the rows of tables look at both titles and authors. Sometimes a title sounds interesting and other times the author is one that I like but I haven't read that particular book.

Knitting:

Now we get to what I do in my spare time - I'm retired, so most of my time can be classified as spare time. These socks are for Lexi. She designed them, selecting yarn from my stash, and I knit them. Most of the yarns are acrylic, but the turquoise and the brightest pink are silk.

Below is one of the shawls I've made recently. It's quite large (One of my cousins had LARGE on his car license plate in Minnesota. It was appropriate for him.), about 2 X 6 feet. I used a slip stitch pattern that has a definite right side and wrong side, but I like the way both sides look. I put the shawl over the top of the loom to photograph it; those strings you see at the bottom of the picture are the warp threads. Now that my ankle is pretty much healed, perhaps I'll start doing some weaving.

This is a scarf that I started last fall, set aside to work on other things, and then ran across a couple of weeks ago. I then made it my carry along project and worked on it in the treatment room while getting my medications at the Cancer Center. It is part of a special project to benefit the Mayfield Art Guild. Several of us have knit or crocheted scarves in the colors of the two local high schools - red and black for Mayfield and blue and gray (or white is acceptable) for Graves County. They are for sale in the Art Guild's gift shop and all of the proceeds go to the Guild. Most things in the gift shop are there on a consignment basis.

Now we get to the random scarves I've been working on this week. This one is not really random though. I decided that I wanted 35 rows, so i selected 18 pinks and laid them out on a table in light to dark order, worked from 1 to 18 and then back to 1. I'm really very pleased with the way it turned out. These scarves are worked 'sideways' on anywhere from 125 to 200 stitches. I use a different yarn for each row and leave about an 8 inch long tail of yarn at each end to become a fringe. I tie three to five of the tails together with an overhand knot at the edge of the knitting to keep it from loosening up. It's a great way to use up left-over yarn. I mix colors, weights and textures. I use seed stitch because I like the way it mixes up the colors, but garter stitch would work well, too.

Sometimes I mix colors completely at random, but more often I do a color theme. The one on the left is in browns and tans, while the one on the right is mainly black. Have you ever noticed how black makes colors 'pop?

This is actually two scarves that I made for Lexi. Little girls love pink. I used a lime green eyelash yarn every few rows to give it a bit of color contrast and to create a soft, fuzzy texture. The first one was on only 75 stitches and is too small to wear as a coat scarf, but it could be used as a fashion scarf with a dress or sweater. For the second one, I used 125 stitches, and it is a good length for a seven-year-old.

Here are all seven of the scarves together, again across the castle of the loom.

Oops, that should be six - had to see if you were alert, Dominic.

This was going to be a log cabin style laprobe, using three garter stitch ridges of OYGBV sequence around the R 'homefire.' However, I decided that I didn't like doing it, so the piece became a doll blanket. It is 8 X 12 inches.


I still wanted to do a ROYGBV laprobe, so I cast on 12 stitches on double pointed needles and started doing double increases at the four corners for three rounds and then working one round even. Lexi doesn't believe that when I take it off the needle it will be a flat square. I switched to a 16 inch circular as soon as I had enough stitches to do so, and later switched to a 32 inch one. I'm doing 16 rounds of each color. I currently have about 400 stitches and will have almost 600 by the time I finish.

And finally, the baby blanket I've entered in Lion Brand Yarn's contest using Vanna White yarns. The contest has been going on since at least October, and since I get a weekly email from Lion Brand, I must have heard of it back then and ignored it. However, when Lexi was here for a few days during her Christmas vacation, she was reading my emails over my shoulder, and thought I should enter the contest. The entry deadline is February 1, and entering can be done by email, with up to four pictures. I sent one showing the entire blanket and two showing details of the sun and moon motifs. The next day, we had to go to Paducah, so we stopped at Hobby Lobby and she picked the color she thought I should use. Pink of course - she is seven, after all. Actually its called 'rose,' which is her cousin's name so that may have influenced the choice as well. There are several catagories, but I decided to enter in the baby one with a small blanket. It is a stitch sampler with nine squares devided by seed stitch 'ribbons' and with a wide seed stitch border around the whole thing. There is a heart motif in the center square, and sun, moon, tree, and star in the four corners. The remaining four squares each have a different stitch pattern. The sun, moon, star, tree and heart are all worked in double seed stitch. The sun and moon are my own charts, but the other motifs and the stitch patterns are gleaned from stitch dictionaries. Lexi is sure I'm going to win a prize; she has no concept of how many entries there will probably be.