Felt Hats

When I started this blog, it was the intention of having a writer's blog.  It seems now, that it's going to be more than that.  I hope that whoever reads this blog is not disappointed.  I've been tracking visitors on a Live Feed and it looks like I'm the only one reading it, so I guess it doesn't really matter.  Anyway, a few years ago I started a knitting and crochet blog.  I have lots of posts on there from several years ago.  Now, it seems I can't access it to update or do anything, so I guess I won't be able to go on there and post any more blog posts.  In that case, I guess I'll have to post everything here, knitting posts, writing posts, whatever.  There has not been much going on with me on the writer's front.  I don't seem to be inspired to actually write anything, but when I am it will definitely be on here. 

What has been going on is knitting.  Hats to be specific.  Felt hats.  A few years ago I knit and felted a hat and it came out great.

I really like it and it fits my head perfectly.  What has to be done is that the hats have to be knitted with 100% wool or a wool blend that will felt.  After knitting, the hats are basically put into a zippered pillowcase and then into the washing machine with an old pair of blue jeans to get maximum agitation.  Set the machine on low water, hot water and the longest wash session.  Let it agitate for about 5 minutes and then check to see how the felting is going.  If it's not felted enough, then put it back in for another 2 to 5 minutes, then check for felting.  What happens is that eventually the hat shrinks. 

I just knitted another hat this week using some a wool/alpaca blend.  It felted beautifully, but the brim came out quite a bit larger than the first hat I knit and I used the exact same pattern.  So, I don't know what happened differently.  I guess I could have left it in the wash longer to shrink some more, but the felting seemed just right and I didn't want to over felt.  I guess I'll just have to see what it's like when it's dry.

 

And that's if I can keep my cat off of it.  I've already had to redo it twice.  That cat.

 



Dark Days

It's been dark and rainy today.  Ever since I was in the hospital I have not been enjoying the holidays.  I'm feeling very thankful and blessed that I'm out of the hospital, but this year Christmas just isn't the same as before.  There has been some family drama that is going to prevent us from spending the holidays with Eddie's family like we have always done for the past several years.  I have always loved spending time with them on Christmas Eve because my family is so small and all of my cousins have their own families to celebrate and spend Christmas with.  His sister and her family always get into Christmas in a big way.  I always enjoyed going to their house because it's always so festive.  I even told her once that that was the best time I ever had a Christmas since becoming an adult.  Never in a million years did I ever think that they would get mad at me and then not want anything to do with me ever again.  It's really hurtful, but it is what it is.  I guess it's true that nothing good or bad ever stays the same, which is really sad.  I have to move on.

We do always go to my MIL's house for either Christmas Eve or Christmas day.  Usually it was later on Christmas day because my mother always cooked Christmas dinner for us on Christmas day in her tiny apartment and we opened our gifts with her.  Then, we would leave there and go to my MIL's house to celebrate with her.  This year my mother is not here and we will be going to my MIL's on Christmas Eve, probably, and nowhere on Christmas day.  That will be very sad and I'm sure that on Christmas day I'm going to miss my mother more than ever.  We always celebrated with her on Christmas day.  I'm even dreading it, in a way, and will be glad when it's over with.  I wish we had somewhere to go so I could just get my mind off of it.  But, as far as I know, we don't have anywhere to go, so it's going to be a lonely old day being here by ourselves while everyone else is celebrating with their families.  Not having children, really sends it home too.  At least, if we had children, maybe they would come and visit us.  But, not all children visit their parents on holidays.  I guess I'm just really having a good old pity party.  I guess I will try to have some kind of Christmas dinner for me and Eddie, but I don't know what it's going to be yet.  No restaurants are open because the implication is that people have families to go to and places to go eat.  That's really sad because not everyone does.  I guess that's why a lot of people who are alone in the world go and volunteer at a local shelter or community kitchen so that the homeless and otherwise people with no families will have somewhere to go.  If I could get up enough energy, I might clean up the house a little and ask Donnie to come over.  He doesn't have his mother either, but he does have his brother, who invites him sometimes to come over on holidays.  After being in the hospital, I just don't have the energy to even clean up my house.  Maybe I'm in a depression of sorts.  I know one thing, holidays sure do get harder as our families dwindle down.  I guess it's just part of getting older.

Illustrated Journaling

I haven't written much about writing lately on this blog.  It occurred to me that one of the best ways to write is to keep a journal.  I have started journals before, but usually abandon them.  I love to do image searches in Google for "illustrated journals".  The results are always very inspiring.  I began to think about this this week and I thought I might try my hand at an illustrated journal.  I've always had the misconception that one had to be a really good artist in order to keep a journal, but that thinking has changed for me.  Some of the images I found on the Internet were very good, but some of them really did not show a great artistic talent.  I mean no disrespect to the artists, just that it doesn't really matter if a person is a good artist or not.  They can still keep an illustrated journal.  The good thing about this is that if we can manage to write and draw in it most every day, we will surely get better as time goes on.  I do not consider myself an artist, per se.  Not a good one anyway.  I always compare myself to others and always come up very short in my own mind.  I decided to just wing it and not worry about it.  So, I have a couple of pages here that I will post, so you can see what I mean.

First, I would like to talk about the type of journal I'm using.  In the past, I have bought several journals and sometime back I bought a Moleskin journal with blank pages.  This one is about 5" X 8".  It has plain pages for sketching, drawing and colored pencil work.  I tried watercolor and that didn't work very well, so I've decided to stay with colored pencils.  Once I draw my image, I color it in with colored pencils and then outline in black with a Micron pen 05.  So far it has worked well.

 

 

This first page I did last night and I decided to make my journal entry about vanity tables.  As I said, I'm not a great artist, but I don't think it turned out that badly.

The next page I did today, and I did it on Kumihimo bracelets that I've been making.  I decided to try to draw one of the bracelets.  Again, nothing great, but not too bad.

As long as I don't obsess over the drawing and continually compare myself to others, I think this will be a very useful tool for me to improve my writing and drawing.  It will also be something I can go back and look at that will make me happy.  You might try the same thing.  Just go to Google and do the search "illustrated journals" and you will get tons of photos and inspiration.  You'll also probably find some blogs that talk about how they journal and what types of mediums they use.  Very inspiring.

Vanity Affair

I am so enamored with vanity tables.  The January 2014 issue of Romantic Homes magazine is devoted to vanity tables.  When I was a teenager I had one in my bedroom and used it every morning to apply my makeup.  I still have that table.  It is a fairly cheap one that I probably bought at a discount store, but it can be painted and dressed up to look really nice or shabby chic or whatever I want.  It also has some pieces of wood in the front that some fabric can be tacked to, to make it look even better.  Maybe with some shabby chic type fabric.  It looked very similar to this one:

I also have a table top swivel type mirror that is an antique that came from my mom and dad's house.  I *also* have my mother's vanity table and bench that she had in her apartment.  When she was alive, she sat at that table every day to apply her makeup.  As far back as I can remember, she always had a vanity table in her bedroom that she used to apply her makeup and comb her hair.

I don't know how I got away from doing that.  When I married and moved in with my husband in his mobile home, there just wasn't room for a table and bench like that.  I never had one again after my teenage years.  Now, we have a really big bedroom and there would be some room for that small table in our bedroom.  If I use it I plan to paint it white and use some pretty fabric on it.  But, when we redo our guest bedroom, I plan to put my mother's in there and I'm going to use it.

I love the idea of using vanity tables.  There is something glamourous about it.  It reminds me of movie stars in their dressing rooms and bedrooms in movies combing their hair and putting on their makeup.  I think it's one of those things that just makes a woman feel really special to take the time to put her face on, comb her hair and put jewelry on.

Here are just a few vanity tables from old Hollywood movies.

 

More Medical Issues

Wednesday night in the middle of the night around 1:30 in the morning ... I guess it was really Thursday morning ... I had to go to the ER with an episode of atrial fibrillation that lasted about 10 hours.  I had to be admitted and it seemed that no matter what they did, what kind of medicine they gave me, it just wouldn't bring my bp or heart rate down or make my heart go back into normal rhythm.  It really bummed me out and made me really distressed and nervous, which I'm sure wasn't helping the situation.  Thursday morning a cardiologist from my dr's office came in the talked to me about what was going on.  He said that if my heart did not go back into rhythm by this morning, that the would need to do a cardioversion, which means they would reset my heart rate, or shock my heart back into rhythm.  That really scared me.  The thoughts of that just freak me out.  I was very worried and was thinking that my heart wasn't going to go back into rhythm by itself.  Thank God, it did go back around 11 a.m. Thursday morning.  But, it took much longer than the last time I had to go to the ER in 2008 when I was first diagnosed with this.  So, now I have 2 additional medications to take, one of which I take for the heart rhythm and one which is added to help control my blood pressure.  These are in addition to the bp medication I already take and my Lipitor and my 325 mg aspirin a day.  I came home today and I'm so happy to be at home and hoping that my heart stays in it's normal (or sinus) rhythm.  I hope I don't have to go through all that again any time soon.  I guess this afib thing is something that I'm going to have from now on and about the only thing that can be done is to just control it and help keep it from happening.

One thing I've learned about this afib thing is that sometimes there is no rhyme or reason for what causes it to happen.  Sometimes it just comes out of blue and oftentimes when I am at rest.  I don't even have to be exerting myself for it to occur.  It makes me very scared and depressed because I never know when it's going to happen.  I've always been very active and independent and it makes me afraid to exercise for fear it's going to happen.  I guess it's just something I'm going to have to live with.  It is what it is.

Shingles

Shingles, which has absolutely nothing to do with reading or writing.  I haven't written in several days.  I don't really think it much matters since it appears I'm the only one reading this blog.  And that's fine.  In that case, I'll just do it for myself and if anyone else reads it and feels inspired ... or not ... that's fine too.  I need someplace to write my thoughts about reading, writing and other things going on in my life and I guess at this time, this is it.

This past week, I've had an outbreak of shingles.  I've had it before and this particular type must be a chronic thing for me, meaning that apparently it's going to flare up now and then with no notice, or apparent rhyme or reason.  I've had it about 3 times in the past 5 years, and none of the times I felt like I was under stress.  But, I guess that our bodies react differently to stress.  Maybe we're under stress when we don't even realize it.  It's strange to me that it didn't flare up when my mother was sick and passed away and during the stressful time of her funeral.  So, I went to the dermatologist yesterday and she prescribed me some medicine, both topical and oral.  Today I noticed that my face feels like it's breaking out and I don't know if it's stress, or the shingles trying to break out on my face.  It's bad enough where it is, which I won't say.  I just hope this oral and topical medicine clears it up.  The dr. looked me over pretty good and said that I have mild rosacea, which I didn't know, but I have noticed form time to time that my cheeks get red sometimes.  She prescribed something for me for it but I'm going to look and see if there is anything over the counter for that.

Another thing that happened this week is that my MIL was in the hospital and she has a couple of places or tumors or polyps or something on her pancreas.  The dr's told her that it could be cancer, but it might not be and they wouldn't know for sure unless they did an endoscopy to see for sure.  She elected not to have that test done.  Why, I don't know, but she's 92, so maybe she is either afraid of the results or she thinks she not going to live much longer anyway and just decided to let nature take it course.  Another thing that happened is that one of my best friends was diagnosed with lung cancer this week.  Just such a shock.  I've been really sad and bummed out about everything, the shingles, my MIL, and my friend.  Also, that fact that there are 3 other people that I love who have been diagnosed with cancer this year.

This wouldn't be a writing blog if I didn't say something about writing or books or reading so, on a lighter note, I learned about a new book that is coming out in January by Sue Monk Kidd.  The title is The Invention of Wings.  It looks really good and I can't wait to read it.  I haven't really been doing any writing this week.  Just haven't had the motivation or mood for it.  I will get back to writing, hopefully when things settle down some.

One day last week I was in Walmart in the craft section and I ran across a neat little tool called a Kumihimo foam disk.  Having never seen one before and being intrigued, I read a little about it and since it was only $3. I bought it.

There was also some findings, etc. and some satin type cord.  I bought a roll of that and a bag of findings.  I thought, what the heck, it was only $3 each.  When I got home I went to the website for the manufacturer for this particular disk www.cousin.com and watched a video for how to make a bracelet.  After that, I went to Youtube and watched more tutorials and realized this is very easy.  So, since then I've made about 6 bracelets and 2 necklaces.  I don't have them all photographed, but I did take a picture of the first one that I completed.

 

I have really enjoyed making these.  I was able to find the satin cording at Hobby Lobby and I also found some at Joann's, but the end caps are not as easily found, nor are the lobster clasps in large quantities.  I ended up ordering the end caps online.  The lobster clasps come in packages no larger than 4 to a pack, which is definitely not enough since I'm planning to sell these in a local shop.  If I were just going to make one or two, that would be fine, but I really want to bling these up a little and sell them, so I'm going to have to find a source that sells larger quantities of the clasps and end caps.  I will post more pictures as I finish them.

 

A Notebook and My Favorite Pen Du Jour

Today I subscribed to receive an e-newsletter with poetry prompts and inspiration from Poets & Writers.  When I went to their webpage I found a link that took me to an article written by Andrea Bates.  This was a really interesting article about carrying a notebook and a pen everywhere we go, so that we can jot down favorite quotes or words and phrases that inspire us.  I really love her opening lines:

"No matter what happens, I always carry a notebook and my favorite pen du jour. No matter what happens, I write it all down. And if not all, then at least the parts I remember. This year more pages detailed the things I would prefer to forget. But the writer in me must bear witness. No matter what."

She then goes on to list some of the quotes she has written in the past in her notebook.  I think this is very inspiring and I'm going to think about carrying a notebook with me.  I've thought about it before, but then I forget it and leave it at home, but I'm going to have to do a lot better about that.  It's a really good tool for writers.