Valerean

I started off 2025 with a terrible experience that for me took a lot of time, meditation and forgiveness to get past. That seemed to set the tone for the entire year; I'd be happily working, and then suddenly some disaster, ailment or unkindness would derail me and then I'd have to work my way through the fallout. It was that classic lather, rinse, repeat situation that never seems to improve. This past month has been a mirror to the first one, ending 2025 as badly as it began. My relationships shifted and changed, the world became colder and more hateful, and it seemed like there was nothing I could hold onto while I recovered from whatever cruel thing that had happened -- only there was. My creativity was always ready to pull me out of the poisonous to me situations, as well as my writing and my wonderful day job. It sounds trite but it's true; that really helped me manage all these toxic incidents without sinking too deeply into depression. To see some of my...

I started off December with my usual bad luck by spraining my worst trigger finger. That didn't stop me from crocheting, so I made a dishcloth and scrubbing pad out of the strangest cotton yarn I've ever thrifted. Once my sprained finger mended enough to come out of the splint I stitched the first two mini-quilts for December: an art piece using junk jewelry that I called Inner Child, and an homage to Etsy seller 14carrot, who inspired this project, with one of her lovely quilt tags. As physical therapy for my sprained finger (and because I finally learned how to do a granny stitch rectangle properly) I made this throw out of thrifted yarn in fun, non-Christmas colors. My third mini-quilt for December was this stitch practice piece with a pretty vintage Napier snowman brooch that I thrifted. This fourth mini-quilt for the month was a patchwork piece I salvaged from a pillow cover with a concealed panel during my quilt detective days. My fifth mini-qu...

Some news that is both bad and good: evidently my old writing blog, which still attracts over 3K visitors per day, isn't considered valuable enough to merit Adsense advertising, which passed on investing in it. Since my personal blog has much, much lower traffic I've removed the Adsense connection here, too. I was hoping to use advertising to cover some of my medical insurance premium costs, but I'll have to find another way. The good news is that it's kind of a relief, as I would have no control over what they chose to advertise on my blog. In other words, never mind about ads showing up on the blog -- not happening! Ha.

When I decided to clone a shop window display cardigan I had no idea it would become such a fun project. I just wanted something rather mindless to work on during the holidays that served as physical therapy for but didn't stress my right hand. I started on the project with just that state of mind. It was fun picking out the yarn for it from my stash, and then finding the right pattern, and challenging myself to get it done before the end of the year. I don't often make garments on a whim, so the novelty of working on something I could wear (right away, too) added extra joy. I am not very fast at doing anything anymore, but I am still pretty speedy at crochet. While I've been working on the cardi I've also been watching videos from young crochet business makers and what they're dealing with on YouTube. I really admire these youngsters for trying to make a living doing what they love. I am one of the very few who was able to do that with my drea...

The yarn lot I bid on at the last minute just arrived, and I got an exotic vibe just opening the box. Someone was a collector of fun fibers for sure -- and I love the medieval-looking copper basket. Here are the eighteen skeins came with the basket, and most are unused and still have labels. The majority are wool but some are synthetics and a few are very exotic. The basket itself isn't ancient, of course, but just made to look like it is (the green patina is actually paint.) It's still charming, and I will definitely put it to good use. As I suspected, the yarn is very rare and pricey. I looked up info on what had labels, and nearly everything was discontinued and now being sold for exorbitant prices. These two skeins alone are worth $21.50. This skein of Tahki Chinchilla imported from France is a mohair blend that I've never before seen -- about $10.00 a ball. I added up prices on everything that was tagged or had labels, and added $5.00 pe...

Unstoppable is one of my favorite movies of all time, thanks to Denzel Washington, Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson, a wonderfully simple plot, and almost nonstop action laced with the perfect amount of character depth and development in a film format. The premise: Based on true events, the movie depicts what happens when a slacker railroad employee makes a series of mistakes that turns a train into a speeding, unmanned runaway missile of molten phenol and diesel fuel. The unlikely saviors are Frank Barnes (played beautifully by Denzel), a 28-year veteran railroader being forced to retire with half-benefits, and Will Colson (Chris's best role to date, I think), a newly-hired rookie having family problems due to jealousy over his pretty young wife. These two start out not liking each other, but are forced to set that aside in order to chase and catch the runaway before it derails and destroys a highly populated area. This is a very blue-collar workplace sort of story that shows...