Valerean

While we were down in the city last week I asked my guy to stop by a Michael's Craft Store a few miles away, as I needed a couple things I had to see in person. I have not shopped at a craft store since JoAnn closed, and I thought I'd look at their new yarn prices. Hooboy. I thrift 99.9% of my yarn, so I am not used to the price tag of new, but everything in the yarn section was SO expensive! $14.99 for these Caron cakes -- I thrifted two latte cakes for less than a dollar per cake last year. Wool Ease is now up to $9.99 a skein. That's crazy. I thrifted three skeins a couple months ago in a big bag of yarn for five bucks. Even the clearance yarn was $7.00 per skein or higher. I'm sorry, but I just can't justify spending that kind of money on it on a material I can usually thrift for less than a dollar a skein. What did I get while I was there, you may ask? Not much, and no yarn. This bunny basket was marked down 70% and was still $7.99...

Last Thursday I saw my diabetes doc, and while I have a couple of minor issues to work on (getting my A1C down to 6.5; losing the last 20 lbs.) I am in very good shape. Even my habitually low blood pressure was lower, which means the exercise is still paying off. He was quite pleased, and it's always a relief to have a good checkup. As I've been rather anxious over all this, and also deeply upset over recent events in the world, I gave myself the next day and the weekend off to take it easy, especially as the following week was my deadline week for my first day job project of the year. At present I'm working up the last of a skein of variegated yarn into a no pattern moss-stitched clutch for my art supplies, mainly so I can see the color changes in this yarn (Bitty Stripes by Red Heart Super Saver in Moonbeam) and use up the rest of the skein. After that I'm going to make a quilt for my nephew's dog. Maybe. I'm trying not to put any more pressure on myse...

Today I'm going to the diabetes doc to get my bi-annual check. After that I'm going to get started on a little quilt using these dragon novelty prints. I'm also going to try to make it entirely by machine. Wish me luck on both fronts. :) Sometime in the next few days we'll be heading into the city with our nephew to visit IKEA and have dinner out. His house build is going very well, and he's on track to move into his new place in June, so I want to show him some room designs I like (not that I think he'll paint black polka dots on his walls, lol.) While we're there I'm going to pick up another one of these hanging organizers for my yarn stash. This one has worked out so well I wish I had a dozen of them, but I have room for only one more.

After several scary medical emergencies back in 2018 I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I was not at risk, nor had I any idea I was sick. In fact I had just lost a lot of weight while exercising daily and closely watching my diet. I had probably developed it after my last pregnancy, and my condition went undiagnosed because I had no real symptoms. I would just get shaky or dizzy on rare occasions, but I put that down to my perpetual dieting. Because I was careful with my diet anyway that probably managed it for about five years, until it finally flared out of control as I got older. I was horrified to discover I'd become a diabetic, as I know how debilitating and harmful the disease can be from seeing patients suffering from it during my medical career. The nurse at my doctor's office said "Some people just get a crap roll of the genetic dice." I know she meant that to make me feel better, but since I don't know who my birth parents were that hurt ...

The final steps of making the April tote was to sew on the crochet handles and this gorgeous embroidered quilt tag made by my favorite Etsy seller 14carrot . Here is the finished tote, which I completed on Easter and dubbed the 14Carrots Tote. I worked on it for five days, which made it the fastest quilted tote I've made to date. Another reason I was able to finish it so quickly is that it is an art piece, not something I plan to use as an actual tote. It will be hanging in my home office to remind me of my friend and how much happiness she's brought to my creative life. I also got a much-needed reset for my enthusiasm for my calendar project by making this. I tend to get very, very complicated when I make totes and I need to be less ambitious and have more fun. April's tote definitely taught me that. :)

I can usually read a book in a couple of hours. If the book is on the longer side, at most a couple of days. I started reading History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat on September 18th of last year. I read at least two to four pages every day, and finished it yesterday. Since the book is 800 pages long it's not an easy or light read, and it's so packed with the history of food that I didn't want to read it quickly. Now I feel as if I've completed a master course on the subject over the last six months. The author takes you on a lengthy journey through the human experience of collecting, preparing and eating food, from the time we were of the tree dwelling variety that picked up anything that looked edible and put it in their mouth. She is not especially enthusiastic (or even kind) about human beings, but she does know and love the foods we have eaten since literally the dawn of our history. The amount of research that went into this magnificent book ...