Rayen

Happy Halloween! Image credit: Image by Alexa from Pixabay

Here's a lot of yarn that I thrifted for $9.99. The description of the lot in the original listing was "Vintage Misti Alpaca Loops & Threads Cowgirl Blues Yarn & Yarn Tools & More", which along with the photos convinced me it was worth the price. There are two bags of what look like unfinished embroidery projects. I was curious about those. There are also at least six twisted hank-type skeins of fingering weight yarn in the lot. That kind of yarn tends to be very pricey; the Misti Alpaca runs about $16.00 a skein on Etsy. I want to try crocheting some slipper socks this winter, and thrifted yarn is best for that kind of experiment. Thing is, bidders usually snap up any kind of fingering weight yarn the minute it's listed, and have big bidding wars over it. I think they just missed it in this lot because it's hard to see mixed in with with regular yarn. We'll see if I got a real bargain in a few days when the lot arrives. Stay ...

Another thing that's nice about crochet for me: I'm pretty fast, even with arthritic hands. Here's the ripple granny stitch throw I'm working on during deadline week. It's working up quickly, and really helps clear my head at the end of each day. The stitches will look a little better once I've washed and blocked the throw, but I am having a little trouble with the turns in the down bends of the rows. Last night I had a flare in the middle of crocheting, which was a first, so the arthritis is putting up a fight against the therapy. I changed my mind about the darker colors I'd pulled from my stash and swapped them out for some lighter shades. I want this throw to have a gentler contrast between rows so it's less stripey and more, well, ripply. Yes, that blue is about as dark as I want to go. I've been thinking what to call this one, as I usually name everything, and since it was inspired by another maker's baby blanket I'...

I needed a few more pairs of long pants for fall and winter, so I checked at the thrift auction, and found these 3 pair of new with tags in my size listed for $8.99. That's basically three dollars a pair, which you cannot find in stores. I bid and won the lot for that price with no challengers. When the arrived, the only problem with the pants is that they're not my size -- the listing was wrong. Because they're too big, however, I can tailor them to fit me. Now look at the price tags. All three were originally sold for $49.50 each. That's $148.50 before tax. Although I will have to alter them I saved $139.51 by buying them from Goodwill. Thrift your clothes, my friends. Image Credit: The first image in this post came from the original auction listing at ShopGoodwill.com.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm too paranoid about situations and things that can injure me. I've been like this since my long stint working in various ERs treating folks for every kind of accidental injury you can think of, from deeply embedded wood splinters from tree trimming that got infected and ultimately cost them a finger to falls off house roofs while hanging Christmas lights that turned them into paraplegics. Sorry, I had to slip one in about the holidays, which happen to be a nightmare for any ER. Here's a ball of yarn I thrifted. I thrift all my yarn, and there's nothing to be afraid of, right? Pink, fluffy, innocent. I could use this with no problem, right? Nope. Whether accidentally (probably) or on purpose (less likely but scary) someone stuck a sewing needle into the ball of yarn. A rusty sewing needle. And you wonder why I dislike pink so much, huh? Never a good luck color. I was fortunate that I noticed it sticking out versus getting st...

For me self-care is turning out to be more than just doing nice things for myself. It's making changes in what I do and how I do it to avoid problems and be realistic as well as kinder to myself. I was looking through my photo archives and found this pic from last year around this time. I was within eight weeks or so of finishing my calendar mood blanket, and it already covered our king size bed. That was when I realized I'd made it a lot bigger than the original pattern, probably due to my choice to use thrifted worsted weight yarn, the bigger hook I employed, and my hand problems creating bigger rather than smaller stitches. As I recall I wasn't really upset about it -- stuff happens when you make stuff -- but now I think I need to start actually checking the gauge before I began a crochet project. I've always eyeballed it since, well, forever, and it's time to stop doing that to avoid disappointment. For a while now I've been forbidding myself ...

After finishing this baby blanket I was inspired to make one of my own, as the stitch is pretty and the ripple is one of those mindless no-count one-row patterns once you get past the first row. I also need a mindless pattern to work on as I'm finishing up another project for my day job this week. I pulled these worsted weight colors from my stash. I have more white if I need it, which will be every other 7-row stripe. I'm going to see how the colors look worked up with the white before I decide on whether to do one or more rows in those shades. I crocheted about 6-1/2 rows or 6" of the throw in one evening, so it should take me ten or so evenings to make. If you'd like to try making a granny stitch ripple throw, Yarnspirations has a free printable pattern here .

Last night (October 11th) I had a very interesting dream. I was in a place like an iphone store with dozens of young people sitting around long tables and talking. The atmosphere had a young, college-age feel to it (even though I never went to college, I have visited them), and everyone was dressed nicely and behaving themselves. At the far end was a Starbucks type coffee shop, where I went I make myself some coffee (I'm not sure but I guess I worked there.) While doing so I came up with an ingenious way to make coffee into delicious edible cubes which had the consistency of cold butter. I began mixing up my coffee to see if I could create them, and ended up with a cup of the cubed coffee. I decided a fine brand name for them would be "Jolts." I took my coffee with me as I went to talk to two of the young people, a boy and girl in their twenties, and we discussed the differences in the intelligence of our generations. I pointed out how much more clever and t...

Since I had a lot of fun making a basket this month I decided to try another, this time a cube-shaped basket by Jayda in Stitches using three strands of yarn and a jumbo hook. I chose these three colors from my green stash and went to work. Working in straight rows rather than in the round was a bit of a challenge; you really need to count and keep track of your stitches and rows for this project so you make the cube shape. The fact that it was different from her other basket pattern was interesting, especially as the big X shaped piece of crocheting grew thicker. Definitely sturdy. Here's the finished basket (I opted not to make the side handles for it as I'm going to use it as a cubby shelf bin. It doesn't stand up quite straight, but one of the skeins of yarn I used was a softer worsted, and that may be the problem. The video tutorial was quite helpful, and it used up almost 3/4 of the three skeins of yarn. Although you do have to track your work mo...

You remember the messy yarn lot I thrifted for $7.99? If you want to know how I sorted it, check out my album of pics here .

This is the yarn lot I got for $7.99 from the online auction. It is a bit of a mess, but there was very little smell and no serious soiling (I expected worse from the listing description.) It was also filled with little crochet and knitting treasures, including four incomplete projects, nineteen skeins of yarn, a cone of light blue chenille yarn, and three scrap balls or partial skeins. The original owner evidently had a habit of sticking her crochet hooks in a skein, so I was the lucky recipient of two nice new ones. Here's the other. Also two pair of these connected knitting needles. The other treasures are two stitch markers, a package of brand new bamboo knitting needles, a jumbo pair of knitting needles, and two blunted yarn needles (I don't own any, so I was super happy about finding these.) What I thought was a granny square turned out to be a nice-size baby blanket made with granny stitch in a ripple pattern. Since I have some of the yarn use...

Today I will (hopefully) be starting an eight-day vacation before I dive into the fifth and final project for my day job, which is due on December 31st. I missed my last vacation due to being sick with the flu, so I'm really looking forward to this one. I am beseeching the universe to give me a pass on the usual holiday horrors so I can complete this project and wrap ip 2025 on a positive note (workwise, anyway.) The other thing I have to decide is whether or not to retire next year. I'm inclined to keep working for as long as I can, and my publisher agrees with me on that. I have a fabulous editor and work with an amazing publisher, so I love my job. It provides an extra income for us which is helpful in these expensive times. As long as I work we only have to pull the minimal required dispersement out of our retirement accounts. On the other hand, my guy will be 76 in December, and he's having some health and cognitive issues that indicate he will likely need ...

While sorting through my stash I looked through my scrap yarn bin, which was overflowing. I wind leftover yarn into balls and save them in case I need just a little bit, but there are too many. I looked through some of the projects for yarn scraps on YouTube, but I ended up starting another one of Jayda in Stitches' big beautiful baskets so I could test different shades of pink and gray with white for next year's calendar blanket. I needed a bigger container so I'm planning to use this one to hold scrap yarn along with my other little bin. The finished basket. Holds a ton of scrap yarn, too. :)

I completed my pearl and abalone Sea throw on October 7th, so it took me eleven evenings (and one trip to our dealership) to crochet it. I'd say about fifty to sixty hours total from start to finish. This is some of my best crocheting this year as far as consistency and speed, and it's the first throw I've made with V-stitch. My throw is a half-again larger version of this free pattern ; I also made mine with fewer and wider stripes. For the throw I used six complete skeins and one partial skein of thrifted yarn (the partial did not come to me with a label.) This yarn was clean, odorless and worked up beautifully. I'm happy to keep it out of a landfill by working it up into something useful, too.

Earlier this month my guy and I went into the city to have our car inspected and get the oil changed. It's a bit of a haul, but our car dealer happens to be wonderful, and they have a nice big lobby stocked with snacks and a neat coffee machine for their customers. Since I have nothing to do but sit there and resist the snacks I took along my crochet WIP in progress to work on. I don't often work on my projects in public, and I'm a bit shy about attracting attention, so I chose a table in the corner where I could keep my back to the room. The throw has gotten pretty large, so it covered half the table. An older woman walking past smiled at me and complimented my work, which was nice. Then a younger woman came over to do the same and ask me questions about crochet. Turned out she had a treasured blanket that needed repairs, and she was wondering how hard it would be to do that. She also wanted to learn crochet. Not everyone has a grandmother like mine, alas....

This is an end-of-the-year photo collage I made for my old blog back in 2018; I cobbled together pics of the best of the quilts and quilted objects I made throughout that year. I did this for some time until my arthritis started seriously damaging my hands, and I couldn't quilt as much as I wanted anymore. I like seeing at a glance what I have been able to do in a year, and it reminds me that all in my life is not negative. For self-care maybe I should revisit this habit in some different ways. I did a couple of quick mock ups to see if I have enough pics to put together (I would wait until the end of the year and redo this one before making it official, obviously.) I'm crocheting a lot lately, though, so an annual crochet collage would be fun. I could also do seasonal themed collages of the different projects I make, as well as fun thrifted finds. I tend to only put any value on my quilting, but I do a lot of other things, too, so everything doesn't have to b...

I had a wonderful dream last week about being part of a group of female guests at a wedding in another country. These were women of all ages and ethnicities (not unusual), and they included me as if I were their sister (very unusual for me.) The wedding was being held soon, so I went with the others to a huge mall, where we purchased the gowns we were going to wear at the ceremony. We went through many, many shops, which seemed to take an entire day, and the other women helped me pick out my gown. These were voluminous layered garments, and the style was sort of a cross between a kimono and a sari with five or six different separate pieces made of vibrant printed organza. I had no idea how to wear mine, so back at our hotel the other women helped me dress, joking and teasing me the entire time. I admired the others's gowns, and one woman added a dark leather bodice with hers that was a kind of signature look. I'm not a group-joiner, but I was happy to be part of ...

For over fifty years I wrote in journals for many reasons, including composing story ideas and poetry, documenting my life, and dealing with all the problems of my career. This shelf of journals represents just a couple years of that habit. Giving my shy self a place to safely vent was a big help. I loved it, and it was an excellent means of self-care, but I stopped hand writing in journals some time ago because of my arthritis, which makes it difficult to hold a pen. As my first step on the wellness path I decided to invest in a beautiful handmade art journal and start journaling again. I'm focusing on documenting my self-care routines and how well they work versus griping about others. I know it's a safe place for me but I also want it to be a joyous place. Sort of like an anti-toxic people fortress into which I can retreat, if that makes sense. So far I'm doing okay with the hand-writing, but if that becomes difficult again I'll type my entries ...