I finished the Spring Mystery Shawl (finally!) very (very!) early Monday morning. I ordered my wire blocking kit on Tuesday, so it'll be a while before pictures will go up showing this one.

That leaves me with the Anniversary Mystery Shawl (a pi-shawl), which is the one I've ripped out a bajillion times already. I'm slowly working my way through Clue 2 and hope to be on to Clue 3 this evening. (Yes, for the very observant, it's 4:15 in the morning and I'm up, writing a blog entry....)

I've got a doctor's appointment at the very ungodly hour of 7:30am and I've pretty much given up getting any sleep before the appointment. So, I figure, I'll come home and crash afterward.

I'm expecting yarn to arrive tomorrow for two upcoming shawl projects: one is Mom's shawl. The other, is Goddess Knit's Dracula's Bride, which I purchased some time ago but finally got around to ordering the custom colorway I had in mind. I've got some concerns that the circles as I've charted them in Mom's shawl might go a little more oval-ish than I want, so I'll probably start with that one next.

There's another Mystery KAL starting Saturday--a Faroese shawl--but my yarn is delayed (through no fault of my dyer), so I'll start that one behind schedule.

I think I've missed a month or two of my reading lists for this year.... *sigh* I'll have to root around and see what I've been reading. As far as audiobooks go, I've devoured the first four books in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. That is truly outstanding listening. In fact, I would recommend listening over reading, to truly capture the places best. Davina Porter narrates the ones I bought from Audible (are there any other narrators out there doing Outlander?) and she does an amazing job.

In contrast, I had to stop listening to "The Immortals" by Tracy Hickman precisely because of the narration. The narrator? The author himself. And it's not "narration" but a sort of embellished presentation, with some sound effects added in---very very annoying. If I wanted to listen to a radio play, I would. I wish I could get my credit back on that book.

Oh, I got to get my geek on last week. We've got one of the Mac Powerbooks (codenamed Pismo), which was the last Mac I used regularly. Long ago (back in 2005?) one of the cats no longer residing with us (I'll leave it to you to decide why) managed to knock it to the (then concrete) floor---totally killing the screen. Randy was given another Mac Powerbook and we planned to swap the hard drives so I could get to my old genealogy files and do a GEDCOM dump. Only, it turns out, the free computer isn't another Pismo, but a Lombard.

When swapping the hard drives didn't work, I thought, well, maybe I can swap the monitors. Nope. Now I have the Pismo back together, minus it's "head". I think that'll be our new Halloween scary story: The Headless Pismo! I am debating bidding on the head over at ebay.

Since I just dropped *mumble-mumble* dollars on the Interweave Press Hurt Book Sale plus the blocking wires and some more books at KnitPicks during their 40% off books sale....I'd probably better wait.

Still, check out the titles I'm scoring in these two orders:

Not bad, I say! I can't wait 'til they get here! Oh! Plus!!! I just ordered several cones of Peaches n' Creme! ::rubs hands in glee:: Fun!

Oh, hey...look at the time. I've got to get up in an hour. Like I said earlier....I'll sleep after the appointment. Zzzzzzzzzz

I think I'm going to ritually burn a pattern.

Honestly, it's not the pattern's fault, but hey....someone has to pay. I'm working on the Anniversary Mystery Shawl by GoddessKnits, celebrating her store's 3rd year. It's a pi-shawl, with each clue doubling in size. I managed to get the first clue done, was halfway through the second clue and had to set it aside to work on the Spring Mystery Shawl, which was 1.5 clues behind---and I'm really eager to finish that one. I finally got within 4 rows of being caught up on the Spring Mystery and (since the last clue wasn't out yet) set it aside to work on the Anniversary shawl. Here's some pictures during Clue 4, I think:

Clue 1 and Clue 5

Clue 2 and Clue 4

Clue 3

When I picked up the Anniversary shawl last night, the stitch count was wrong. I dropped decrease stitches when frogging a row back several times. I started working on it at row 9 of Clue 2 and ended up back at row 6, then had another problem and frogged again...and again...and finally, took the whole damn thing off my needles and frogged it back to nothing. sigh

Then, today, the last clue for the Spring Mystery Shawl was released...and reading it over, I'm totally lost. Totally. Lost. So, do I work on the border which eludes me or do I cast on for the umpteenth time for the pi-shawl? Maybe a ritual pattern burning would somehow help?

On the fun side of knitting, I spent Friday afternoon, teaching a friend to knit. I learned a couple things myself. First, I am a horrible teacher. I'm a Sinister Knitter, she's a righty. Now I know what it's like for a righty to try to teach a Sinister Knitter!

I also learned that it's a process. There's a couple small things to learn and then (much like math), you build on that. So, a cast-on, the knit stitch and the purl stitch. Once you've got those, you branch out into k2tog, s1k1psso and so forth. We only got as far as the knit stitch. I'm not even sure I showed her a good cast-on. But, I did leave her several of my books which I've learned from, so she can read and learn what I didn't do a good job explaining. Still, she was knitting!

I showed her my mom's favorite dishcloth pattern, so she could work on something that only needed knit stitches. I just had to show her how to do a yarn-over. I was reasonably sure I couldn't work on lace while teaching, so I worked on the beginnings of my own basic dishcloth. I'd forgotten how soothing mindless knitting can be. In the process, I think I simplified the pattern, so there's less "which row am I on?" Instead of increasing at each end every other row, I decided to increase at the far end every row. Now, there's no need to stop and check "which row is this?"

With the reminder of the joy of mindless knitting and me becoming an "Auntie", I think there's going to be a baby blanket in my future!

I'm just counting the days until my doctor's appointment on 9 July. *sigh* I need to sit down and count out my remaining meds and see how many more days I need to go half-dose on. My pain levels are up, I'm not sleeping well, and the house looks like hell. Mentally, I've got a list of things I'd like to get done, but physically I'm just kaput.

The ferrets are out and about right now---and they are wild. I'm worried about how much Theodore is getting picked on, so I'm trying to keep an eye out for him. I found a neat new toy I want to buy the ferrets. Take a look:

If you click the image, it'll take you to the site that sells them. I want one of these for the ferrets. Aren't they awesome? And from my reading, it is good for their mental stimulation and for their muscles.

I'm still knitting. I'm mostly working on lace right now. I do have a couple pairs of socks on the needles (most of them are hibernating). I'm about half done with the second sock in a pair for Randy. As for the lace, I've got to finish the previous clue for GoddessKnits Spring Mystery Shawl and then do the clue which came out on Saturday. I'm also struggling to cast-on and begin GoddessKnits Anniversary Shawl---it's a pi-shawl and the center start is a bit fiddly. I've already changed from the KnitPicks yarn I'd purchased specifically for this shawl, to some gorgeous 10/2 Tencel I bought from Yarntopia Treasures on Etsy.

That's about all the update I've got for today. I need to attempt to get some laundry done and maybe kitchen clean-up too.

I started to write a post, just to get rid of the snail egg pictures at the top of the page every time I load the site. Ugh. But the act of creating this entry reminded me that I do have something to share!

I've completed the main portion of the pattern for Mom's Trinity Wedding Stole! Yes, I have pictures....sorta. See, so far, it's just a pattern. I grabbed some screenshots from OpenOffice and worked them up in Gimp. There are three panels:

This is the center panel. It's viewed on its side (knit from the bottom of the image to the top, but worn with either the left or right side "up"). The center design is of Borromean rings, which evokes the Trinity. I also use it here to represent another trinity: that of husband, wife, God in the marriage, based on the Christian tenets I'm familiar with.

This panel is placed below and above (upside down) the Borromean rings. The idea for this is Mom's love of the overlapping/interlocking rings design. I'd hoped to do multiple rings overlapping, but it would have begun to rival the train on Princess Diana's wedding gown at that point!

The final panels in the main portion are at either end of the stole. This is perhaps the most familiar motif, the Claddagh, usually seen as a ring. I'm tickled I could bring this into the design and connect to Mom's Irish heritage.

All that remains (from a design perspective) is the creation of a border. I'm putting that off as I'm in a KAL where I think a border will be added last---and I want to understand how they work before trying to design one.

I'm already talking to Susie about the colorway to use. I decided on Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18, so that has simplified things a lot. As soon as I'm done with the GoddessKnits Spring Mystery KAL, I'm hoping to cast on for this, using more of the "bottle green" Zephyr as my test-knit.

In other news, I'm counting the days until my doctor's appointment for my fibromyalgia. See, I forgot about the three-month wait to get in for new patients---and I've been gone long enough that I count as a new patient, darn it! I've already called my SC doctor for a refill, which he graciously called in. But it was only for 30 days. And since I'm rather scared of going completely off the Cymbalta, I've been taking only half my dose 2 out of 3 days. I need to count out my remaining meds and see if I can go back up to the full dose again.

And here I was wondering if I'd be able to go back to the 90mg/day, instead of the 120mg! Not bloody likely, I'll say!

So the house is less clean than I'd like. The kitchen isn't staying immaculate and the two rooms with carpet aren't getting the once-a-week I'd like them to get. With the gate blocking the path into the laundry (we're afraid of the ferrets getting outside via the laundry vent), I've been asking Nick to help with hauling laundry to and fro and having him play with my brand-new machines. *sigh*

And I've been knitting a lot of lace. *huge grin* Let me just say this: if you dye yarn (especially Zephyr) but don't/can't knit lace, then contact me and we'll make...arrangements *knowing nod* Mmhmm. That's what I'm saying.

I've been listening to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series via audiobook/Audible. Davina Porter narrates this series---and she's doing a bang-up job of it too! Half the time, I'm walking around with a thick Scottish brogue in my head, talking to the "wee bairns" in the fish tank, calling the ferrets, "wee lassies and laddies", and thinking, "Och, aye" to everything around me. Mmhmm. Hehehe.

If you're at all interested in historical/romance/time-travel fiction, you've got to check this series out! It's listed in the science-fiction section on Audible, but I think it's more "historical romance"---though not a "bodice ripper". And it's loonnnnggggg! I think the books are up to 40-some-odd hours. *contented sigh*

Which brings me to my schedule-flipping. See, I settle down to knit on my lace around 2 or 3am (earlier if I can). I was doing a good job of just knitting for an hour and then going to sleep. Then I started this series and that's all gone to pot. Now, I'm knitting until the sun comes up. Or rather, I'm knitting for a couple of hours, tired enough I'm afraid I'll screw it up but I can't stop listening, so I'll pick up my sudoku book and work several of *those*....while the sun comes up! So insane.

On Tuesday morning, I finally went to bed at around 8:30am. I slept until 8:30 that same evening. Around 12:30 Wednesday morning, I went to bed, still exhausted and slept fitfully. I finally got up around 4:30...or was it 5:30?...with the headache from hell. I was hurting so bad I was crying. Two Excedrin and two mugs of Earl Grey tea later, I wasn't quite so miserable, but defnitely not ready to dance a jig. I managed to almost repeat Monday night's stupidity again, but finally just hit the pause button and turned my light out. *sigh* How old am I? I should know better!

Maybe I should just go knit now and get my fix in before bedtime!

Last night (22 May 2008) we discovered something rather creepy-looking in our aquarium:

It was definitely making my skin crawl!

However, a quick web search made the "Ewwww!" turn to "Awwwwwww" as we learned we're going to be "parents" to more Apple Snails! Yep, this fellow:

....is actually a gal! I think.

See, I have one Ivory "Mystery" snail (that's how they sell them at PetSmart) and one Blue "Mystery" snail. I recently (about a week ago) added a second Ivory snail. And suddenly, eggs. Now, if I'm doing all my reading correctly, the male is smaller, the female larger. The female's ovaries darken as she's ready to lay eggs---and this is more visible in the Ivory snail because of how translucent the shell is.

So, apparently in about 5 or 6 weeks, we'll have babies. I've got more reading to do. Thankfully, no knitting is required---that's a lot of babies to knit for!

A long while back, I posted excitedly and extensively about the new character sheets I'd been studiously working on. Believe it or not (I'm always amazed when this happens), someone came across my blog and is interested in how these sheets are working for me. *grin*

We haven't played as much as I would have liked, but I've got to say I love the sheets. It is a challenge finding the data you need since you can order your pages any way you like. I'm trying to create a standard "basic order", which puts the more detailed information to the back and the handier "in combat" information up front. Still, there's a lot of information.

The sheets are layed out in portrait mode on US letter paper (8.5 x 11). Each one is only about half the height of the page, so I have two layed out on one page---no wasted paper! I have the binding at the top of the character. But the Rollabind rings aren't working as well as I'd hoped. They pop off too easily and suddenly, I have a mass of loose sheets which need to be re-collected---and there's no name space on most of the pages!

I'm wondering if there's another method----a small 3-ring binder?---which would work better. I originally wanted to be able to put all the characters who campaign together in the same binding. I could still remove them, but one "book" would bring them all together. The reason I haven't is that I want to be able to flip the cover of such a binder all the way behind out of the way.

My favorite sheet right now is what I call a "Time-Stop sheet". When we call time-stop for the session, I grab this sheet, tally coin treasure and items collected thus far, list the characters in the party, whether they are now available for other campaigns, who's DM/GM for the campaign...and most importantly, Campaign notes which remind me what the hell we were doing the last time we played (which, unfortunately, can sometimes be far and few between!).

For Billie, who recently commented, and a few others, if you'd like to email me at the address on the top right, I'd be willing to send you a PDF with all the sheets (it may actually be a series of PDFs, I'll have to look) and let you play test it.... with the requested expectation of detailed comments on (all?) the pages.

What does "detailed comments" mean to me? Is there enough room in each place for writing what you're expected to? Does the order/layout make sense? Does the page try to do too much? Not enough? Would you move elements around---if so, where and why? Is there a page not here which you think should be? Which page was most useful for each character you tested with? Did you try other bindings? What and how did it work for you? What did you print on --- white? a color? Did you use "generic copy paper" or a heavier paper? Add every little detail you'd like and then some. Try to bore me to tears. As I've said before about this system, I'd like to offer them for sale (just before version 4 comes out, of course!) and I want to know if there's a demand/desire for such sheets.

One neat trick which I've found useful is to take those 3M (or whoever) transparent colored flags, trim the sticky end to an arrow point and set them to the left of the active weapons. For my Ranger who is skilled in two-handed fighting, he's got two flags, each a different color. When I select dice for my hits, I use colors similar to his two flags to represent his left and his right hand hits (since each has different bonuses).

It's interesting this whole topic comes up now as I'm preparing to start Ptolus (finally!) this Memorial Day weekend. My game crew consists of Randy and Nicky, who are also the principle members of my Game Sheet Fan Club. *grin* So, I'm really eager for anyone who wants to play test to let me know.

Hmmm... now that I think about it, I'm not sure where the large Ptolus map ended up post-move. Maybe I should hunt that down this week.