Long Time No Blog

It feels like it's been ages since I've had a new entry here on the blog. It has in fact been over a week. I had a house full of visitors from Minneapolis. My sister, my niece, and the three little people were here for just over a week. I'm not usually one for having house guests, in fact the last time members of my family visited I put them a hotel. It's not that I don't love them, I do, I just don't like house guests. Incidentally, I also dislike being a house guest. This time a hotel just wasn't feasible, so they stayed in my little house. Despite that, I was able to enjoy the time with them very much, we played, we ate ice cream, we hit some thrift stores, and in general had a great time. But I just couldn't get anything else like blogging, done.

Until yesterday it was almost a week since I'd done any knitting also. Unheard of I know, but I had a minor injury. I was hanging out in the yard doing a little yard work with the mutts. The mutts were having a fast and furious game of chase and headed in my direction. I could see what was going to happen next, but I couldn't do a thing to stop it. Little Layla deeked just at the last possible second, and Big Mike barreled right into me. I fell, heard my shoulder make several strange popping sounds, felt an amazing amount of pain, yelled out, tried to lift my hanging arm, heard several different strange popping sounds, felt a little less pain, and pulled myself together. The dogs had stopped to stare. My sister says she heard or read somewhere recently that orthopedic surgeons are seeing as many rotator cuff injuries from knitters as they are from athletes. I wondered how many they see from knitters with very large, very fast, and not at all graceful dogs named Mike. After a week the shoulder still aches, and I still can't hook my own bra, but as of yesterday knitting was possible again. Thank goodness!

In celebration I went to my Tuesday afternoon sit and knit at the LYS. I had missed last week, because of the bum wing, and the house full of guests. Only this week I didn't knit. Instead I learned some basic crochet techniques. I've been doing a lot of free-form, make-it-up- as-you-go-along knitting lately. Mostly it's taking the form of skinny scarves, lariats, necklets, and necklaces. They're nice little diversions from the progress I'm making on "Sizzle" and the Branching Out Lace Scarf. When I get tired of following the patterns, I make a lariat. I wanted to be able to mix it up a bit with some crochet. And so yesterday I learned how to make baubles, and loops, and few other basics that will allow me to improvise with a crochet hook.

I also added to the stash, just a little. I've been absolutely fascinated with Habu Textiles Yarns lately. I fondle them, and smell them every time I'm at the LYS. I love , love, love the textures, and the amazing earthy colors. They were the perfect thing for me to continue to improvise with. I promise to post photos of the finished objects soon. I should be posting progress photos of Sizzle and the Lace soon also, I'm a mere few rows from having the back complete on Sizzle, and more than half done with the lace. Now that the shoulder is allowing knitting again, and the house is deplete of guests, it should be soon.