Valerean

Since I did the No Thank You post here is: Ten Things I Would Like for Christmas Card: Little known fact about me: I love cards and keep all the ones I'm given. I also reciprocate and (if my hands are working well) I'll make your card. Hand Cream: Not the perfumed kind, please. Something for old, dry hands with natural ingredients would be lovely. Handmade Anything: some of my most prized possessions are those that were designed or made by the giver. Anything quilted is a bonus yes, please. Magazines: Art, Crochet or Quilting magazines make me very happy, especially the vintage kind you find cheap at a flea market or garage sale. Poem: No one writes poetry anymore. Compose something for me. Bonus points for handwriting it on pretty paper I can frame. Quilted Anything: It doesn't have to be a bed-size quilt. I love pot holders, mug rugs, book covers, bookmarks, or anything that has been quilted. Recipe: I love the idea of exchanging recipes ...

Last night I accomplished something I've been trying to learn to do for years: making a granny stitch rectangle. I've tried about a dozen different printed versions that never turned out right; read blog posts that made no sense to me, and attempted it on my own a dozen different ways with no luck. This is a beginner crochet pattern, too, so it really annoyed me that I couldn't figure it out. I learn best by watching someone else and imitating what they do, so I found a video by a Canadian maker that showed step by step how to work this simple pattern. Following along proved ridiculously easy. Now I finally get it. This isn't the time of life when I am happy abut what I can do. It's more about trying to hang onto what I can already do in the face of diminishing abilities and vanishing dexterity. Learning how to do this pattern really gave me a nice spiritual boost. If you want to learn how to do the same, here's the video.

I finally got around to measuring all the fabric that came in my yarn & fabric lot. The pretty silk-like synthetic linings totalled 5-2/3 yards. I also got 4-3/4 yards of this dark gray denim synthetic that would make some nice trousers or shorts. I found a brand new pillowcase wrapped up with the twin-size flat sheet, and together they add up to almost four yards. Finally, this gray synthetic suiting fabric measured five yards, certainly enough to make a jacket and skirt. All together the fabric in the lot totalled 28.64 yards, much more that I'd imagined. I'd price it at $3.00 a yard resale, or $85.92. The twelve skeins and nine scrap balls that came with the fabric would be worth about $65.00 resale; add that in and the lot value totals $150.92. I paid $8.99 for everything. Savings: $141.93.

Back in October I got a single skein of Sugar n'Cream Scrub Off yarn in one of the lots I thrifted. It looked a little strange to me, as it was a cotton that appeared to be part smooth and part eyelash (I rarely use cotton yarns.) I also thought it was soiled, because some of the white eyelash yarn sections had patches with a brownish tinge to them. Judging by this retail image I found the brown is deliberate, maybe to give it a vintage look. These skeins retail for $5.99 each on Yarnspirations , so they're pretty pricey (to me, anyway.) I used the yarn to crochet a dishcloth and a scrub pad, and they came out looking a bit strange, too. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experiment, and I used up almost the entire skein. The ssecond image in this post came from the product listing on Yarnspirations.com.

I don't get into bidding wars on the thrift auction site because there are bidders who will run lots up to ridiculous prices to get what they want. There is generally nothing I want that badly, and I can usually buy it cheaper retail anyway. Generally. Usually. I was the first bidder on this lot of yarn, which included five new-looking skeins of Mandala Ombre yarn in my favorite shade of Serene. I would have added it to my latest round of wannabuts, only the skeins retail for $8.99 each and they're very hard to find locally. I also love this yarn, which is a dream to crochet. I knew there would be a bit of a bidding war over it, but I'd just gotten a nice royalty check, so I set my max bid higher than usual. Obviously new yarn attracts attention, but only four other bidders came after the lot. I did a couple of things to keep from igniting a bidding war with them that would drive the price over my max limit: I didn't react at first when I was outbid, but...

This is a rant post about arthritis, so if you don't want to read a lot of whining and whinging just skip it. Some backstory: I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in both hands back in 1983. There were no treatments except physical therapy and a lot of drugs I didn't want to take. That diagnosis put an end to my military career and my hopes of going to medical school and becoming a surgeon. At the time I was an award-winning writer and artist, too, but I also faced losing the ability to write, sketch and paint. It was a very bitter pill to swallow, but there were many more challenges to follow. On top of the diagnosis I developed a rheumatoid nodule that rapidly grew into the size of a baseball on the back of my dominant left hand. It took two surgeries to remove it altogether, and because the surgeries didn't go well I was left with only about 10% use of my hand. I had to relearn to do everything my right hand, and while I taught myself how to write again, ...