Just an update on things

Isn't this just beautiful. My hubby took this picture on a fishing trip last weekend with out oldest boy. I have this as my desktop picture now. I have taken to sitting here working on a loom or needle swatch, with this as my window. It looks so inviting on my 17" screen. This is Four Mile Lake in Oregon, way up in the mountains. This use to be a very nice quiet place to go but it has been discovered. It is no longer peaceful. Too bad. He and the son left early due to all the loud blasting competing music. He said with so many people it wasn't a nice place to fish anymore.

First since it has been so long since I updated this blog, I want to let you know how the hip problem is going. I finally switched off of any of those stupid meds the doc wanted me taking. They just were not helping and the possible side effect of them scared me. I would like my heart to stay as it is and not impacted by some nasty thing they wanted me taking. I sure am tired of quacks acting like they know everything and hiding the truth from us. There is more to natural then the medical industry (and yes is it an industry, a huge expensive to us one), wants you to know. A little research and I am now taking all natural stuff to help. I think I mentioned the Valerian Root and the Curcuminods, plus MSM, but I have now added a catalyst water to the mixture. I am currently only using it as a local spray for the leg and hip but believe it or not it works. I developed a rash that just was not going away with any store bought salve. Now a couple of sprays a day with just water and less then two days it is almost gone. Amazing to me that's for sure. We also bought a colloidal silver machine. Did you know that before the days of antibiotics that silver was given for infections? Interesting reading on what silver can do for you. We thought why not give it a try.

So what's on my loom and needles. I haven't had lots of time for sitting and working on projects. I am working a bit more on a loomed afghan for my grandson. That's the scraps of red that I am doing it in. It is getting close to being done, I think I am about 3/4's done with it. I need to get it done soon.

Beyond that I am playing with a small project. I just finished a swatch on a size 11 needles that is called the Palladian stitch. The needle version turned out really nice. Now I am working on the loomed version. Even though I have done several conversions for people in needle to loom stitches, those have only been a line or two here and there. This is a complete pattern converted over to the loom. I have written it out for myself and have now finished one set of rows and am into a second set. It just isn't big enough yet to tell how close it comes to the needle knitted look. I hope to get more time for working on it today.

I am finding that it is a bit harder to do the loomed version. On the needle it is easy to see if you have done a purl or a knit stitch. Not so with the stitches I am using on the loom. So I wind up having to frog rows because I let myself become lulled in keeping an eye on what I am doing. You know, people talking to you, that show on TV, the phone ringing. LOL

The stitches I am using on the loomed version are the purl and the knit stitch. I thought about using the e-wrap but that would not make the swatch stitches be the same as the needle stitches. I have found that using the method that has been posted to yahoo groups for doing the knit stitch, where you pull the yarn down through the existing stitch to create a loop (as for the purl but from the top not bottom), then lifting the stitch off to the back of the peg, and placing the loop back on the peg, to be working quite well. Doing the knit stitch in this fashion has prevented that possible tightening of the stitch so that on further rows it becomes impossible to knit off the stitches.

There is as I have found another advantage to doing the knit stitch as I just mentioned. That other advantage is in frogging a stitch. It is not the easiest thing to frog the knit stitches on the loom, that is till now. Now since I am frogging so much more I discovered a plus to making the knits and purl stitches the way I am doing them. If I grab the stitch on the peg and pull it off, and as I am removing it giving a little tug forward brings the old stitch popping up so that it can just be pulled right back on the peg. My current swatch is 29 pegs and I can frog the entire row in under a minute. Yea that fast.

The bummer is that I cannot remember the first person who mentioned this method or if that person was even the one to discover this way to do the knit stitch (often called the flat knit stitch). I wish I knew who did discovered it to say a proper thanks. So I have to just give a general thanks to you if you get a chance to read this. You have opened up a whole new door for me to explore from your little way to do this stitch (and to those who would be interested, at first it seems slow but you soon pick up speed and you can knit quite fast with it). For those of you who want to check this method of doing the knit stitch out, Isela, from decoraccentsinc.com, also learned how to do the stitch from those who told us, and she made one of her little videos to show others how to do this. Isela is great with her little videos. It just isn't her fault that by the time the videos have come around I have already had to learn from the written word. Still that's good, if I can continue to figure things out that way, then I won't be handicapped by having to have a visual to do things. Ah those little things that make things easy can also be a downfall if you learn to rely on them too much.

Today is the party for my grandson Mason's birthday. He turned one last Tuesday. I can hardly believe that he is already that old. Time sure has flown. His mom has planned a pool party for the kids. Oh just a little blow up pool at the park (she got prior permission), so the kids can play in a wading pool. It might be a good thing today as we are again expecting high temps, not into the triple numbers (at least I hope not), but very close. As the heat is still bothering me a lot I probably won't stay for the whole afternoon. I hate this, I have always been a lover of the hot summer months. Now I find myself wishing for the cold winter days.

My other new baby is now almost two months old. Noah is being a very stubborn baby. He has been a nursing baby but mom went back to work so part of the day he has to have a bottle. He really doesn't mind taking the bottle as long as mom is the one giving it to him. With others he pushes the nipple out of his mouth and just cries. This is a very difficult time of life for him. He is growing at a very fast rate. Even the nurse at his doctors office still cannot believe how fast he put the weight on. He is almost 12lbs now, that's over the 6lbs 3oz he left the hospital at. We just hope that he soon gives into the taking of the bottle from others. I hate hearing his cry. It is the sound of a baby in such distress. He has now also taken to whimpering and that is even worse then the full screaming crying he does.