Snap. Crackle. Pop.

So in spite of my incessant whining about my broken bits, I've managed to complete a project.

Holidazed Socks:

And made decent progress on the nacent Leyburn Socks:

About those broken bits: The snap portion of the title owes to the fact that apparently when I took my fall I snapped my jaw shut forcefully enough to crack one of the veneers on my front teeth. I broke it several days later when I nibbled on a cough drop in a vain attempt to avoid coughing. This occurred on my journey north to the Tanforan Mall location of Fredrick's of Hollywood in my search for a corset – I pretty much sobbed on my way back home, thinking how much my life sucked – then super-glued the broken veneer back together and hopped back into my Jeep.

Ugh - how pathetic is that – Fredrick's of Hollywood!

I still didn't find a corset. Well, a corset was found. Then I discovered the truly abhorrent sight of back fat. Those oh-so-unappealing rolls of flesh from all that chocolate I now so deeply regret. Somehow I didn't think any shirt/blouse/sweater/tee-shirt I owned would be capable of covering that… abundance.

The crackle portion is evidently due to my failure to keep up with my asthma meds. Lying down, my chest sounds like cellophane being crushed. Resolved to keep up on the Advair… no matter how nasty it tastes.

Pop. Well this is the unpleasant part. Tired of looking at the boxes of Christmas decorations I bent to pick up a really small, light box. Stabbing pain… ready to call 911, certain I'd punctured a lung or was having a heart attack. After a minute or so I felt fine, but then realized that certain positions or motions caused a very painful popping sensation in my chest – specifically under my arm, where the broken rib was.

Another visit to the doctor, another set of X-Rays revealed that the broken rib is now slipping out of place - thus the popping sensation. My brand newly assigned doctor (beloved Dr.H. is on sabbatical) suggests that I try to bind my ribs or use a corset. So I off to Fredrick's I go… then the tooth fiasco…

I'm not saying this for sympathy points – at the point of the broken tooth I was pretty much hysterical with the "why me!!!" attitude – but in retrospect it was pretty funny. At the time I'd no idea that the fall and the broken veneer were related; my regular dentist mentioned it only because he'd had patients successfully collect from their homeowners insurance due to falls.

The whole dentist visit was pretty surreal. I didn't get to see my regular dentist, owing to the short notice/emergency nature, so was assigned to his partner, Dr. A. I couldn't help but notice his resemblance to a very young Christopher Heyerdahl who plays Druitt on Sanctuary – and had to figuratively bite my tongue (since it was quite numb) when I discovered his assistant was also a big SciFi fan. A mumbled conversation ensued about the upcoming BSG shows; poor Dr. A. looked baffled…

Good times. Remind me to laugh next month when it won't hurt so much!

Dopey, Droopy & Prophylactic Measures

So this is me on Vicodin and without the appropriate foundation garments. The vicodin keeps me relatively pain-free but pretty dopey. I've given up on bras, both the u-g-l-y sports version and the lets-pretend-I'm-still-perky underwires. Both undergarments hurt like hell, so I've lapsed back to the cute camisoles I wished I'd worn when I was ten (but my mother thought were absurd - yet another childhood scar to recover from!). Thus the droopy part of the title. You don't get to my age after breast feeding two kids and get to look even remotely perky...

Anyhow, this is supposed to be a knitting blog, so I present to you: Knitting. Including the gory disasters!

It finally got what we California hothouse flowers refer to as cold so I dug around in my abandoned WIPs for the cute project I started during our last "winter". They are supposed to look like this:

Unfortunately when I pulled out my soon to be snuggly boots I noticed a small problem. Actually a couple of small problems:
Yep. Moths. Including a casing (eewww!) on one of the unwound skeins. The project was isolated, so I'm hoping the damage has been limited to this one project. Said project has been through the baking process and sealed tight since then. Even though my feet are freezing I haven't been able to pick this one back up yet... so instead
I spent tonight stuffing little organza bags full of cedar shavings
(aka hamster litter) to add to all of my wool storage boxes. Cute, huh?


In spite of my beyond ludicrous work hours I did in fact get a wee bit of knitting done:
Waving Lace Socks in Mmmmmalabrigo sock yarn (the sample given out at Stitches West 2008). Yum… My favorite pair of socks yet. Light, warm, and totally wonderful. Would I recommend this yarn? Abso-fracking-lutely. Buy some. Buy lots – and I’ll share the lust vicariously with you.

I’ve been creeping slowly towards finishing my Central Park Hoody(less) - less because I don’t want a hood, so plan on finishing it with more of a funnel neck collar. And a zipper, which means letting go of my inner control freak and allowing a tailor to sew in the actual zipper. (This picture is oddly washed out - the actual color is charcoal black with white and brown specks - very pretty).

I finished my Gumdrop Socks (from the BMFA sock club.) Happy project.
The socks are, however, too thick to wear with most all of my shoes. This does not in any way reduce my love for them in the slightest.

Whilst under the influence of the lovely Vicodin I cast on (successfully) and completed (successfully) the Noro Striped Scarf. This was a big deal, what with the counting to 39 and 1x1 ribbing and all.


Now that I’m habituated (for better or worse) to the lovely Vicodin I’ve returned to my Holidazed socks (gotta love that pattern name, given the circumstances), another BMFA club color. I initially had these knit up to the heel flaps in a size medium – but realized that (in spite of my instincts screaming at me) that they were too small and too tight for my freakishly high instep and double-wide duck feet, so I tore them down & with humility cast on a size large. I think that is probably my comfort ticket – size large in circumference, but medium for length. I do seriously love the colorway – “Muddy Autumn Rainbow”. I have a pair of Dansko shoes at the cobbler (being stretched, of course) that will look spectacular with these socks. I hope.

I finally lucked out with the elusive Wollmeise Yarn. Behold:
Suzanne Medium, Suzanne Dark, and Baba Jaga Dark. I do be in love.

I also placed my first order with Woolgirl - I actually took multiple pictures of my order because it was so incredibly packaged - not to mention that the yarn was splendid (but these photos were lost when my old camera was borrowed by my daughter, then stolen from the swim center locker room). I've never seen such care in a mail order and cannot recommend Woolgirl enough. Unfortunately part of my order was out of stock - but I'm oddly happy about it because I so look forward to receiving another pretty package!