Ravelympics

Ok, so by now, unless you live in a hole or don't have access to Ravelry, you've probably heard about the Ravelympics debaucle with the USOC.  To recap, the United States Olympic Committee sent a very nasty letter to the founders of Ravelry stating that their Ravelympics event fringed on their rights to use the word Olympics and was an insult to the athletes of the US Olympic team.  I find the whole thing rediculous and the apology offered by the USOC to be more of an insult to injury than an apology.  Don't piss off the knitters, I'm tellin' ya.

So, will I be watching the Olympics?  You better believe it.  I support the USA's athletes and I will never forget the experience I had in 1996 when I was able to go see the US softball team take the gold medal.  That event will always stand out as one of the most amazing things in my life and something I will always cherish.

Will I be participating in the Ravelympics?  You better believe it.  I may not be the athlete that I used to be and now I have a new thing to obsess about: knitting.  I participated in the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics when she first started it and I knit my first sweater.  The next summer olympics, I was holed up in a hotel room in Thailand with sun poisoning, so I knit 4 pairs of socks.  The winter olympics 2 years ago were spent in Korea, knitting a child's dress, a sweater, and a few other small projects.

This time, I don't know what I am going to knit.  I am toying with some possibilities of sweaters, lace, or something nice and challenging.  So, I'm going to throw this out there: What will you be knitting?

Help a girl out.  I need some ideas!

Knit on...

Fruit

My new obsession is fruit.  I always ate a ton of bananas, but that was about it when it comes to the fruit content in my life.  Since my taste has been revived so much, I find that bananas are just too sweet for my liking with no acidic bite to counter it.  So now, my fruit bowl looks like this:

Peaches from Georgia, golden delicious apples, and June apples from a local farmer at the farmer's market.

June apples...mmmm

Ok, I have a major like of June apples.  They hold a special place in my heart.  They are tart and have a slightly acidic bite to them.  They also used to grow in my grandparents' back yard until the tree eventually died from a bad ice storm years ago.  My family would drive up from Florida in June to visit my grandparents and I remember always wanting to get the June apples off the tree and pick green beans with my grandpa.  The squirrels got more of the apples than the people did, but this never seemed to bother anyone as there was always more apples than one family ever needed.

And I swear I'll eventually have some knitting content on the blog again soon.  I haven't been knitting much recently.  Sometimes you just hit a lull and need a break, and that's what I am doing now.  I am plotting some knitting olympics projects, but that is for another post.

Knit on...
Oh, and I should probably mention that this is my 1000th post!

Tomatoes

My tomato plant has gone nuts in the windowsill while my pepper plant kicked the bucket.  I had a bit of a gnat infestation that seemed to be targeted to the pepper plant, so it did not handle that well.  While I am sad to lose the pepper, when I removed it, I was struck by how pretty the tomato looked in the window:

It's now looking more like a small tree and I kinda adore it.

Knit on...

A Week In

I mentioned on Wednesday that I was starting the Skinny Rule program by Bob Harper.  Well, at the time I am writing this, I am one week in.  Here are some changes I have noticed:

1. I am not hungry even though my calorie content is lower than I have been eating.
2. My taste has come back in ways I didn't think was possible.  I think this is directly related to cutting out all artificial sweeteners.  It has been a week now and I have not had a single ounce of the stuff.
3. I have more energy and am sleeping better.  Again, I think this ties into the artificial sweeteners. 
4. My cravings are no longer for sweet things.  When I eat something sweet, it is usually fruit.  I have had one serving of homemade almond honey ice cream, made with all natural ingredients including local spring honey.  This tasted wonderful and I didn't want anymore like I do when I make it with splenda.
5. I have lost 3.6 pounds in the first week.  My weight has not budged since I have been off my feet for over a month now.  I still can't do much for exercise, but it was nice to see how my body adjusted to this new way of eating.

So, all in all, I am very pleased with the results this far.  It's an easy program and allows for many different choices.  I'm looking forward to continuing with this program and discovering tastes that I have not experienced in ages.

Knit on...

Skinny Rules

This week, I began following Bob Harper's Skinny Rules.  I'm not usually big on following a celebrity plan, but this is a common sense approach to dealing with food.  I read the book, prepared some food, and I am now ready to dive head in to my food issues.  It will take some time to detox my body from the crap I have been feeding it, so I expect that it won't be easy to say the least.

What I really want to address is my food issues.  When I lost all the weight a few years ago, I did so by literally running myself to the ground.  I literally fell on the ground from abusing my body by being too competitive and not listening to the warning signs it was giving me that I was about to blow a hamstring.  And you know what, I did.  In a race.  That I still finished despite the terrible injury.

Fast forward two years and I've gained almost 50 of those 80 pounds that I lost back.  The reason?  I never really changed my eating lifestyle.  Sure, I cut back on calories, but as I started running, I started consuming tons more of them because I could.  I started running longer distances because I could eat more.  And it worked, but it did not give me control when I couldn't run suddenly.  The weight came on very fast.  Within three months, I had already put on almost 20 pounds.  This caused me to get upset, and so I did what I always did before: I turned to sweets.

I'm going to be detoxing from sweets and the artificial sweeteners.  Nutrasweet is going to be hard for me since I drink diet drinks.  Now I will not be.  I will be only drinking stuff I prepare from scratch.  That will be water, tea, and any sodas I create in my kitchen with natural ingredients.  No more crap.

I've already started losing a little weight in the past few weeks because I started trying to eat less.  Now I'm ready to tackle what I'm actually eating and give my body better fuel.  It'll help my ankle healing and it will help me feel better.

So, here we go!

Knit on...

Weaving

On Saturday, I went to a workshop at the art museum on Navajo weaving.  Of course I forgot my camera, but thankfully the phone had one, so I was able to get a few crummy pictures of the things talked about.  I was absolutely fascinated with the whole weaving process.  This artist actually spins all her wool on her Navajo spindle and then weaves it in the traditional ways.  She demonstrated the spindle, which was of course my favorite part of the workshop.  We played with churro sheep fleece a little and then she showed us the weaving process.

I now want a loom.

I'm giving this picture to my grandfather, who I am hoping will be able to replicate this small loom so that I can experiment with another branch of the fiber arts.  I'm very excited about this possibility.

It seems very simple to build.  The weaving process is not so simple, but it's something I think will be fun to play with if Grandpa is able to build this device.

Knit on...

Sewing

This past week, I decided to do some sewing and make a skirt that had big pockets.  Little did I know, but the new pattern that I picked up already had the seam allowance in it (I would have known this if I had read it, but meh).  So, I cut the fabric and sewed the skirt together only to find it insanely large and poofy.  But, it's comfortable, so I'll give it that.  Here's my little sewing project:

Knit on...

The Garden in Bloom

My window garden is cranking up right now.  Let me illustrate:

Cherry tomato, about to be picked and eaten.

Larger tomatoes ripening and others just starting to come on.

Violet that decided to come out and play.

Pepper plants are a'blooming.

And so is the orchid.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Knit on...

Foot Update

I went back to the doctor this week and the swelling had gone down enough in my foot to take me out of the soft cast.  I am still in the lovely boot, but now I can remove it to drive and can walk around without crutches or a cane, so that makes me very happy.

I am still in the boot for another two weeks though, which is a tad bit annoying given that it is hot and the boot is even hotter.

Note to Puma:  Next time you decide to swipe my feet out from under me, can we please do that in the winter when the boot would be a welcome heat source?

Knit on...

And Now Back to Knitting

I decided that it had been too long since I last knit a sock.  Also, I just have not been motivated to work on the baby blanket now that it's hot enough my air conditioning is on.  So, I grabbed a skein of Malabrigo Sock that I had in my stash and started thinking through what kind of sock to make from it.  I knew I didn't want just another vanilla sock, even though I very much enjoy knitting those.  No, this yarn is special sock yarn, so it needed a special pattern.  After going through my previously knit socks, I decided it was time to make another Nutkin.

My first Nutkin was made out of a cotton blend from Knit Picks, and I adore the snug fit the sock has.  I also really like that hemmed cuff of the sock and have been pleasantly surprised and how well it stays up compared to my usual ribbed cuff.  So, I got to work and I managed to get this much done so far:

Still adore the pattern and I am enjoying the yarn even more.  Can't wait to have these on my feet!  I think I am going to try to get these done for the day I get the boot off as my present for having a healed ankle again.

Knit on...

A Finished Project

So I finished up my needlepoint from last week and I'm very happy with it.  It was fun to do something a little different, and I also appreciated that this was not a super large project to introduce me to needlepoint.  I made this mistake with cross stitch when I first gave that a go for a school project and realized it takes a lot more time to finish than a 16 year old might realize.  I also have a fond memory of me stitching non stop and then when my hands got tired, my mom stitching so that I could get it done in time for the class project deadline.  Thanks, Mom!

This needlepoint took me a few days of working on it and not knitting at the same time.  So, without further babbling, here it is:

Cute little coin purse, and I think my friend will enjoy this.

Knit on...

Books

This week at the college, they have been weeding out some of the older books to make room for new ones that students have requested.  Before they donate the books, they gave the employees of the college a chance to go through them and pick out anything we wanted.  I hobbled over to the book table and found some that I thought needed to come home with me.  Most of them were books like this:

The Shakespeare books are from the 1930s and have notes scribbled in them from past students.  I have enjoyed flipping through them to see what the students were writing about then and what they found interesting about each work I picked up.

I also picked up a Rudyard Kipling collection of short stories and poems from 1926 and a volume of poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from 1884 that is stamped with the old school name of the Kentucky Female Orphan School, which I found very interesting.  Here is my haul:

Knit on...and go read something!

Yarn!

While I am very upset that I can't use my wheel right now (darned double treadle) without my other foot (should also mention I could probably use it, but I like the double treadle action and I'm not very coordinated as evidenced by me being in a cast.  I probably couldn't keep it going very easy with one foot), I did manage to finish a skein of the Bob's Favorite Bird before I fell.  If you didn't see the story of how this colorway got its name, you should read the comments from a couple weeks ago where Yarn Geek explained it.  It's worth a read!  So, without further ado, here is approximately 213 yards of a fingering weight Shetland yarn for your viewing pleasure:

Knit on...

And Now For Something Completely Different

While being laid up with the foot, I decided that I would dig through some of the craft cabinet and see what new thing I wanted to make.  I wanted something other than knitting since I had worked non-stop on the shawl for several days.  So, I found a needlepoint coin purse I had picked up at Hobby Lobby ages ago.  I've never done needlepoint before, so I figured, what the heck?  Might as well try something new and get ahead on a Christmas present for this year.  I'm not very far along on it, but here it is:

I am enjoying it so far.  I've done cross stitch pieces before, so I'm not new to needlework, but this is different.  It's rather fun though and very simple.

Knit on...

The First Fruits

My tomato plants have started producing now and I'm happy to report I have harvested the first few fruits from them.  Here are my little ones:

These are going to go wonderfully with some tuna for my lunch!

Knit on...

When You Have All the Time in the World

What do you do when you can't drive, can't go up and down stairs easily, and there is nothing decent on TV?  Well, you grab some yarn out of your stash and start a new project, of course!  I had a long weekend away from work because of Memorial Day, so I decided I wanted to knit another Citron shawl.  I did complete the shawl over the weekend and now that I am able to block it (the protective boot on my foot has made life much easier even if I am still on crutches), here it is:

The yarn is from my stash and is Patons Lace Sequin.  I actually kind of adore this yarn even if it is mostly acrylic and I usually have a bias against that.  The sequins were just fun and added some entertainment to the very simple knit.  It took 1.5 balls of the yarn and now I have to figure out what to do with the remaining yarn.  I'm leaning towards sparkly coin purse or headband.  If I have enough, maybe both!

Knit on...

A Wee Problem

So, on Thursday last week, I had a bit of a problem.  You see, I have this invisible puma that follows me around according to DF.  It lies in wait, just being patient for that one moment when I am vulnerable.  Thursday was one of those moments.  I was walking into Renee's back yard, when suddenly the puma struck.

I heard a snap, I went down, and I went down hard.  I thought I had broken my ankle for sure.  Renee grabbed some ice and I hobbled over to the chair where we took assessment of the situation.  The puma was long gone at that point, and I was left with a decision: To ER or not to ER.

I chose UTC instead and Renee drove me there.  They were pretty sure I had not broken the ankle, but that I had a high ankle sprain.  They wrapped the foot in an ace bandage and sent me on my way.

Fast forward to Wednesday of the next week when the ankle was doing worse and was even more swollen than it had been before.  I went to a foot and ankle specialist who took x-rays and assessed the foot.  She was horrified that the UTC people had not casted my foot given that it was a high ankle sprain.  So, I left the doctors office in some high fashion footwear:

The doctor was concerned that I couldn't move my toes.  I am happy to report that as of Friday, the piggies are moving again, so hopefully the worst of this is over.  I go back on Wednesday to make sure that is indeed the case and to have them figure out the rest of the treatment for this lovely puma-induced injury.

So that is the fun story of how a puma kept me away from my blog and all the people that I like.  Damn you, puma!

Knit on...