Thursday, June 25, 2015

I wear the crown

I now wear a shiny, new off-white crown. I'll do you a favor and not show it to you. You know that urban legend that redheads need more anesthesia than normal because they have more nerve endings? It's true ... not for every redhead, but certainly true in my case. Two injections of novocaine and I was still feeling the pain. My mouth never got that numb, either. My dentist (who is great, I love her!) can't get over how much I need. Enough to knock out an elephant ...

Anyway, I have a working tooth, and that's great. I rewarded myself with a quick stop at the bead shop down the street before I picked up O from his friend's house. (See more about beads below.)

O's poison ivy is getting a little worse. Today we tried aloe vera and cucumbers, as well as the OTC products I bought yesterday. The cucumber seems to help with itching the best, especially when we pureed it in the Vitamix, spread out out over his arms, and let it sit for awhile. Hey, gotta love a 59 cent treatment!

My brother called this evening and we had a nice chat. He's out in Oregon as a "Hot Shot" firefighter, putting out blazes caused by lightning strikes and drought. After a couple weeks of fires (which translates into $$$ for him), he's off to the coast for a few days for some R&R. I'm looking forward to him returning to the east coast this fall -- we talked about doing an overnight hike up in the White Mountains, so I'm going to look into an AMC membership. (He wants to stay in one of the AMC huts.) I will definitely be staying away from Mt. Washington this time.  ;-)

Mr. Raccoon was back last night, trying to knock over our garbage bins. I know raccoons can be pests, but he's just the cutest guy. Tried to get pictures for O, but when he heard me at the window, he took off.

Crafting

I've done some more "research" on Cecelia Campochiaro's new knitting book, Sequence Knitting. Ravelry has a page for the patterns contained in the book, which gives one a good idea of the types of fabrics that can be created, as well as photos of simple patterns for accessories. The hats excited me because some of my favorite winter caps are ones where the fabric seems textured. Example: Anne Hanson's Fartlek.

I forgot to mention the other reason why this book appeals to me and that's because Campochiaro works in the computer/tech field in Silicon Valley. She started playing around with binary sequences in her knitting and discovered that certain sequences produced interesting textures and fabrics. I'm somewhat left-brained and like math, so this concept *really* tickles that side of my brain.

Craftsy sent me an e-mail today that some classes in my wish list were priced at $19.99 or less until the weekend. One of them was Betz White's bag making class, so I signed up for it.  I have some drapery fabric remnants in my stash that would make fantastic, hard-wearing bags. Tracy, your excellent results spurred me to sign up, so thank you!

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Another Craftsy class I'm taking is Laura Nelkin's Knitting With Beads, thus why I stopped at the bead shop this a.m. (Nelkin is a dead-ringer for Annabella Sciorra ... she even sounds like her!) When I was at Stitches East last fall, I bought a skein of cream and turquoise gradient laceweight, and I'm thinking it would look lovely as a beaded shawl. I also got the idea in my head to do another mohair cardigan, but this one with slip-stitch beading around the cuffs, neckband, and lower edge/hem.

ETA: Started knitting Helen Stewart's Pebble Beach Shawl tonight with my gradient lace-weight. So far, enjoying the pattern!

4 comments:

  1. Have you tried Jewelweed for the Poison Ivy?

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  2. Apart from the red-head part, I could have written your intro. It takes gallons of stuff to numb me! I also literally have extra nerves in my teeth, which my dentist found out many years ago when dealing with my large crowns. He apparently took my x-rays to conferences!

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  3. No, but I will keep that one in my arsenal for the future. Knock wood we won't have to go through this again!

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  4. Toni, I've heard that the increased pain is because of a mutation in the MC1R gene that can also affect brunettes, though it's less common.

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