juliann – Page 4 – The Sick Chick's Constantly Crafty

FiberTudes 31 day challenge

Today is the last day of August and thus the official end of the FiberTudes 31 Day Fiber Challenge. The point was to do something fiber-related (and of course that is yarn/thread/paper not edible fiber!) for 20 minutes a day every day in August. I had to plead The Sick Chick Exemption* a few days so I’ve got three days left to do, but for the record, what I did was:

(*The Sick Chick Exemption: For any day of a challenge where you are too ill to sit upright for more than three hours, you can skip that day — as if it didn’t exist, since for you it didn’t! — and add the day to the end of the designated time. Please feel free to borrow this concept as needed and quote me as giving you permission 😉 )

design for sekrit embroidered & felted laptop case
Setting up studio & yarn stash
crochet starting dishcloth
design costume for the 29th (never made it, alas, maybe for Halloween!)
yarn shopping & general Hobby Lobby raiding 🙂
design conventioneers neck pouch thingy (sewing design)
quilt/fabric shopping esp for SCA dresses
research corn yarn, patterns, etc
pick out fabrics & style for bulletin board
organizing bead stash
sketched bracelet designs for shrink plastic awareness styles
design bracelet, watch crochet videos & more crocheting on dishcloth
loom knit on afghan
more crocheting on dishcloth, boy I am slow (hindered by kitten, as usual!)
The Sick Chick Exemption
The Sick Chick Exemption
Finish washcloth, yaaay! May add trim to it later though
play with beads, sketch more bracelet designs
loom knit on afghan
art supply shopping & watch band design
start crochet ATC
finish crochet ATC
prep (gesso) pages for art journal
practice single crochet, fail miserably, make Zentangle ATC instead
more knitting on afghan (I am sick of this one now!!)
The Sick Chick Exemption
Start loom knitting hat
Finish knitting hat and headband (6+ hrs)
Loom knit armwarmers, spool knit collar and earrings (6+ hrs)
watch quilting videos, drool muchly, learn muchly
read up on how thread is made (research for upcoming project)

So as you can see, I still have three days to go to complete that challenge, but I do have some FO’s to show off and some nearly completed items to finish, so there may be *gasp* PICTURES on this blog in the near future. (Unless you wanna see pictures of my now 10 month old kitten, in which case I can oblige almost immediately 😉 ) Quite frankly, I am amazed at how much I got done this month, as it was fairly challenging, health-wise.

I’ll give you the final tallies after I finish my last three days! 🙂

But to the ladies of FiberTudes, I salute you and thank you for this challenge and can’t wait for the lace-along to start sometime in September! 🙂

Startitis

You’ve probably heard of Startitis — the term for the state in which a person is constantly starting new projects, regardless of the number of unfinished objects awaiting their attention. A new idea comes to mind and wham! they start again, leaving the last great thing in the dust.

While this term is generally applied to crafting, I’ve discovered to my dismay that I have startitis when it comes to blogging. I have almost a dozen half-finished posts sitting around in draft form, all crying out for my attention. I’ve been quite ill this last month, admittedly, but the silence on this blog has been caused far more by the dreaded startitis. As if I needed another disease 😉

I’m going to do my best to *finish* posts now, so if all goes well there may be many in quick succession. If not, well, I think we know what to blame…. 🙂

Blog Reboot: Introducing The Sick Chick Crafts 2.0

It’s been a wild year since I stopped regularly posting. My father got worse and then better, but is still on the long road to recovery. My health has been on a roller coaster, my husband has been laid off and we’re currently living with our respective parents in the US & Australia — not because anything is wrong with our marriage but to spend time with our ill fathers. (& also because it is taking soooo freaking long to get a green card for him to join me in the US!! Grr!) Hopefully we’ll be reunited — with a green card in hand — by the end of the year.

Life changed, and this blog is going to change with it. I’ve been very inspired by Diane Gilleland’s ebook about making crafty blogs. I’m not sure that I can follow her mantra (“It’s [your blog] not about you. It’s about them.”) all of the time since I love to babble, but I shall try to keep that limited to Twitter as much as I can.

My new direction with this blog is to be more open and giving rather than self-referential. More tutorials rather than just pictures. More interviews with others than rambling about myself. And most definitely, more about the intersection of craft and illness, especially how crafts can help heal both the crafter and the recipient. Basically, I want to make this blog more about crafting than the crafter. That’s the plan, anyway. Please give me a nudge if I seem to be straying away from this.

I’ll probably not be able to write deep, insightful posts all that frequently. My health is poor at the moment and I don’t know what specifically is wrong so I don’t know how to fix it. So please bear with me if I’m not a regular once a week like clockwork kind of writer. I hope that what does come out will be worth the wait. In between I’ll probably post a lot of snippets of things I have seen, podcasts I have heard, projects I have planned and stuff I covet.

I want to hear from you, my dear readers, as to what YOU want me to write about. Is there something you want to know about my crafty life? About being a sick chick who crafts? Just ask and I will do my best to answer.

So from now, I declare this blog to be re-opened. There’s still a bit of technical dust as I redo widgets and whatnot and add pages and links and the like, but the important thing is that my mind is ready to write again and now I have a place for it.

Old friends, welcome back! New friends, welcome aboard! Let the journey begin!

The Prodigal…returns?

OK, so it’s been nearly six months since I last posted. I could explain, but you’d probably be bored to tears. Basically it involves poor health on my part and continuing poor health of relatives on my side and t’s side so international trips, etc. I’ve been very ill and still am, but at least on Tuesday they finally figured out the latest of my diseases and it’s being treated so I should feel a lot better soon as the meds kick in!

Also this little nuisance has been keeping me from crafting:

She’s a bit older than that now (4 months) but still has a yarn fetish and a sixth sense — she can be anywhere in the apartment but the moment I pull out yarn she comes running to investigate! She’s at the vet right now getting spayed so fingers crossed for her speedy recovery!! I’m keeping her shaved fur to spin, hee hee 🙂

So anyway, since I’ve been gone so long I imagine not many folks are following me anymore, but those of you who are still out there, do you think it would be a bad idea if I moved this blog elsewhere? I have my own server now with WordPress on it and other blogs I’m setting up there so it would be easier for me to have it all in the same place, but I don’t want to disadvantage my readers too much or lose too much traffic that I’d get from wordpress.com searches. (And yes I will definitely post the new address here so people can find me later!)

Thoughts? Suggestions? If no one says anything I’ll take that as a sign that I should move the blog as no one’s watching here anyway 😉

It’s my birthday and I’ll post if I want to

So the prodigal returns, at least for a few minutes before dashing off for a much-needed birthday weekend break.

I know that most people here don’t like long-winded diatribes about personal life so I’ll just say that my father has been gravely ill since mid-May and I was in the States with him and my mom at various hospitals and assisted living facilities (he’s still in the Army and they didn’t let him come home – even to visit – until after I had to get back to the UK :/ So we had to go to him.) As I said earlier I got to go to Convergence which was awesome and has gotten me to take up weaving on paper looms (no space for proper ones at this time maybe looking for an inkle soon tho). And due to the stress of the situation (Daddy was really touch and go for a while there in and out of ICUs) we did a ton of retail therapy in an attempt to keep ourselves half-sane and so I now have a starter supply of scrapooking and card making stuff. 🙂

I did get to go to I Knit Day, but sadly missed seeing most of y’all who were there. But I have proof that I went! (In my totally non-goth, non-steampunk look I’ve been sporting all summer as my mom hates goth so I’ve reverted to neohippy 😉 )

I’ve done a ton of craft projects over the summer but most are not yet photographed. I’m still completely exhausted both physically and mentally and am not really up to dealing with people still so have not been reading blogs. I am sorry and I hope to get back to it as soon as I am able. But right now my priority is my health which is why my husband is whisking me away for a short break at the (all-too-chilly) seaside for a few days for us to relax and chill out before preparing for the next hurdle: him having to go home to *his* ill father and me having to fend for myself for two weeks. That’s so scary I can barely think about it yet (and haven’t the health or wealth to go with him). All I know is that I am going to have a lot of people over to craft with me in the evenings so if you are going to be in the London area in mid to late October and want to come play let me know 🙂 But I have several hats and a mini scrapbook to make before he leaves so when I get back I have to get a move on! )

I’m also planning to be at The Big Stamp & Scrap Show next weekend and the Knitting & Stitching show on the 9th and 12th of October, both at Ally Pally, if anyone is going to either of those. I hope to be able to catch up with people I missed at I Knit due to being in a delightful haze of fiber-buying 🙂

Well, I am going to go finish packing and wait for the boi to wake up and give me presents. Wheee! 🙂

I’ll try to post more of my summer projects next week if I have any energy left 🙂

Update, organize, advance!

The update: My dad is still in the hospital in Tampa, but due to schedule conflicts Mom and I came back to North Carolina this weekend. It was a long drive but there are lots of craft stores along the way 😉 She’s flying back on Thursday for the long weekend but I can’t handle that much flying so I’ll be here on my lonesome with a huuuuuuge stash to play with! We’ll have to go back to Tampa again to pack up his apartment by the 26th and move his stuff to NC, while he is being transferred to an Army hospital at Ft. Benning in Columbus, GA. We may or may not be visiting him there, the schedule is tight as it is since I go back to the UK on the 30th.

Organizing: I have bought so much stuff! I had ordered more fiber from the Homestead Wool and Gift Farm before I found out that I would be able to attend Convergence 2008. No, not the goth one, the biennial conference of the Handweavers Guild of America. I was only able to go for one afternoon at the exhibit hall but oh my, what a wonderful experience! I don’t weave much yet (although that’s something I want to do more of in the future) but the vendors included sooooo much for spinners and dyers. Dyeing, too, is something I have only toyed with really, but I hope to take a natural dyeing course through a lovely SCA lady in the UK if she is ever able to resume doing the courses. Plus there was plenty of “weaving” (read: knitting) yarn for me to buy 🙂 So I loaded up a lot on fiber and yarn and got two new spindles, a nostepinne, a new lucet, some wooden bobbins, a sock loom from a company I’d never heard of before and several books for spinning on spindles. It was fabulous! (And many thanks to Mom for financing it all 😉 ) Mom really, really fell in love with the Ashford Elizabeth 2 but I have yet to make up my mind as to whether I prefer a double treadle or a double-wide single treadle (like on the E2). I just don’t know which is better for my knees. And anyway, I want to get a drum carder before considering a wheel! (Plus I am holding out for a reasonably-priced electric spinning “wheel” to appear in the UK, alas I can’t just get a US one because of the power/voltage issues :/)

We also stopped at 5 scrapbooking/stamping stores and one quilt store plus Michael’s had a big sale on scrapbooking stuff while we were down there and we hit a Hobby Lobby. (No Serenity looms though, do they still make/sell those???)

So as a result of all of this wonderful stash enhancement, I’ve been spending most of today trying to organize everything so that I can get the most out of what little crafting time I will have available to me this trip.

Advance! On to bigger and better things, I say! I’m really gunning to get crafting, I just have several more chores and a few doctors appointments this week and then I can hopefully get my pics off my cameras to post them and also get back to making stuff!

Hope everyone is having a great week, and happy 4th of July to those who celebrate it.

PS. Don’t miss today’s episode of Yarncraft (the podcast by Lion Brand) which is on Loom Knitting! I’m bummed that I never really got the chance to call in for it but oh well. I’m going to go listen right now!

Back in the world

I have a computer with all of my stuff on it. Admittedly, it’s still not MY computer, but that’s because we had to leave for Florida before mine came back from the shop. We’re still in Florida, we still don’t know when or how they are going to transfer my dad (who is back in the hospital after being so miserable he couldn’t take it anymore) or even where to.

I do plan to start posting and reading blogs again but I am taking today off to rest as I’ve been pushing it too hard for the past week and my body is not coping well. But hopefully from tomorrow we’ll be able to settle into a new routine for a while, until they medivac him either to Georgia or (ideally) directly to North Carolina. Then we’ll be driving back pulling a trailer with all of the stuff he has accumulated in the past seven months and will if all goes well be back in NC by the end of next week. Fingers crossed!

I haven’t done much crafting while we’ve been away but we have found some really nice shops that I plan to write about tomorrow. Until then, I have a lot of CraftTVWeekly.com to catch up on!

Update

My computer is still dead, the hard drive died entirely and after almost two weeks of trying to get life of it (and luckily getting all the data) I had to admit defeat and take it to get a replacement. It should be fixed sometime this week.

Meanwhile, my father is back in the hospital but still in Tampa, Florida. They can’t figure out how to physically transport him without risk. So Friday (or possibly earlier if he gets worse), Mom and I will drive the lengthy route down there and if we’re lucky be able to bring him back with us or at least take him to the next Army staging point which is one of their hospitals in Georgia. I will have my mom’s laptop with me but she has problems getting onto his internet down there so it may be dialup for us. (And anyway three of us in a STUDIO apartment up TWO flights of stairs — I can’t even bring my wheelchair as we’re all too crip to get it up and down the stairs — may drive us to murdering each other. At least we’re a stone’s throw from the beach!!)

So it may remain quiet around here for a while yet. Thankfully I have had a lot of crafting time and a 30+ hr round trip drive (maybe more if we have to detour to the other side of Georgia on the way back) will give me plenty of time to get my sock knitting going. If anyone reading this as Isela’s basic toe-up pattern (that you get with her sock looms) and knows how many stitches to cast on to start, I’d love to know — it looks like 18 but then peg 19 is supposed to have a loop on it already so I am confused. I’m going to have to keep going cuff-down until I figure that out.

And we’re not even going to talk about the mountain of crafting supplies I’ve bought since I have been here. My luggage is going to hate me!!

But enough of that, I have my diabetes classes this week so have to be up bright and cheery, plus the CFS/Fibro self-help course starts tomorrow too, so I need my beauty sleep!

I haven’t read blogs since I got to the US but I hope everyone and all their loved ones are healthy and happy. Best wishes to you and yours.

Safe and almost Sound

Just a quick note to say that I am safely arrived in America (despite an unusually gruelling trip). However, my computer did not arrive intact and needs to go to the shop to fix (or worst case replace) the hard drive. I have my data backed up so this is more of an inconvenience than emergency. But still, I may not be online much until it gets fixed — or maybe I will as Mom’s work is loaning me a MacBook Air until my Mini is back from the shop, wheee 🙂 But I may still have problems accessing Mail and the like depending on how much I can recover from that hard drive before it goes into the shop as my backups are in the UK and will take some time to get here if needed.

Have done a ton of crafty shopping today, mostly books, magazines and second sets of supplies that are going to live here at my parents house so I don’t have to keep dragging things back and forth across the ocean (beading pliers, Knifty Knitters, etc.). And 10 skeins of Lion Brand Homespun, at last! Now to find a Serenity loom if we make it to a Hobby Lobby (sadly, an hour or so away from here), or to ponder an afghan or prayer shawl loom from somewhere else if it would get here in time before I leave (which may be as soon as 9 weeks from now). Meanwhile I have the Fine Gauge double rake from Decor Accents to play with and 15 balls of Peaches and Creme so many dishcloths are in my future! Still waiting on the DA single rake and sock loom which should get here in a week or two.

Oh and did I mention that mom gave me a yarn budget of $200? (Not counting the Homespun or anything else that is being made for her.) Yaaaaaaay! I love being a spoiled only child!!

BTW the trip to Tampa, Florida is back on but Pennsylvania is still cancelled. My dad’s colonoscopy is on the 29th so fingers crossed that the news is good. They did find that he had a massive infection of the intestines requiring IV antibiotics so maybe, just maybe, that was behind the mass they had seen on tests before. *hope hope* It may be something like Chron’s or Diverticulitis but those are very manageable and certainly less life threatening than cancer. So he’s not coming home for the summer and we’ll have to go visit him. He retires from the Army in December so will finally get to come home for good then, no more tours of duty!!

But first up I have to finish the item for the Functional Felt Swap and mail my ATC for the Creative Mom swap. And get my computer fixed. So until tomorrow…

News

First, thanks to those who donated for my Fibromyalgia walk, I am pleased to announce that I exceeded my goal thanks to the help of Denise Layman talking about it on her blog and offering a raffle prize 🙂 Pictures will be forthcoming once I steal them from t’s Flickr.

My dad’s health is getting weirder. They couldn’t find the mass/alleged tumor on the CAT scans so now he’s scheduled for a thorough colonoscopy on the 29th. Maybe the mass went away? It’s a medical mystery at this point. But until we know what it is, the Army is keeping him down in Florida, so it looks like I will be headed to Tampa after all. Don’t know for how long.

My health — which I try to avoid talking about too much for fear of turning people off — is getting worse in a number of ways and my mom and t think that since I’ve already cleared my schedule for four months it might be worthwhile me staying in the US for some private treatment that I can’t get here on the NHS and so that we can do family weight loss efforts together since it’s getting to be life threatening for my dad and so I’d still be there to support/harass him (if they let him come home or I go to him). I’ve only managed to lose 8 pounds in the 10 weeks since I was diagnosed with Diabetes so I need to step it up more too as there’s still 40 more to go to be officially in the healthy range.

So it’s still unknown just how long I will spend in the US, what part of the US I will be in when (NC or Florida) and whether I will be over there for my treatments or my dad’s or both.

Thus I may be fairly quiet here until I get to mom’s house on the 25th. I have swaps to make stuff for, packages to get out and the gargantuan task of trying to pack for 2-4 months in one suitcase and one carryon.