a few belated updates
3 Jan 2025 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneSupplementary information to a few past posts:
1. Peppermint (candycanes) update: we actually found candy canes, on the 23rd, in a supermarket we had already looked in. They were manufactured in China and are kind of crappy (I bought some). The full size candy canes, an entire box, were all pre-broken into a bunch of pieces in the wrapper. The small candy canes are out of proportion and like... almost U-shaped, and too fat, and insteaad of being wrapped normally they're each in a little clear plastic envelope. All of them are pink and white instead of red and white and they don't taste that great. I will try getting the peppermint drops from that place in Sweden where they invented them perhaps next year.
2. Cat update: Tristana refused to sleep with me in the bed for three nights after the night when BIL's cats were kept in our bedroom, but she is back now. Behavior wise, she seems about the same as before all the visitors arrived. No further progress, but hanging out fairly close to the gate (when she is activated and before she gets too cold and has to go huddle inside someone's blankets or clothing or a radiator tent).
3. Sneezing update: I tried rinsing my sinuses with two of those little tiny individually sealed packets of sterile saline solution and it worked really well! I've never had such a dramatic affliction to test them on before, though. I only had two more sneezing spells after. So I guess I had inhaled some kind of physical irritant. I do not have a cold.
4. Knitting update: I have been knitting the same sweater since about 20 Dec. I've wanted a brioche sweater for a long time, but brioche uses twice as much yarn over the same yardage and twice as much time to execute because you knit each row twice. This is a benefit for some things obviously and a problem for others! IMO, it's a peerless fabric for scarf/shawl to wrap around my neck in the winter, but sweaters risk being too warm, obviously. I am trying Drops Air, an Aran-weight blown yarn that is fuzzy and hairy (mostly baby alpaca and merino). I've been meaning to try it for years and never quite got around to it. The key point is that a blown yarn is made with a very fine knitted tube of synthetic fiber as an armature and the natural fibers are attached to this, so it has the ability to be much lighter and cooler than a traditional yarn of its circumference, because it's hollow. It remains to be seen whether it will be too hot or not. I had trouble with the pattern and had to decide how I wanted to make the sleeves for myself as a result, and this meant a lot of knitting and frogging and knitting again on the first sleeve. I hate knitting sleeves and I decided to knit this sleeve in the round, which I hate even more because it's a little tube (I have mostly knitted sleeves back and forth and then sewn up the underarm seam afterwards in the past few years, and I am happy with that procedure, but I didn't want to try it with brioche because of the complications introduced by the double thickness of yarn). So what with having to knit twice as many rows, I was kind of trapped in an endless sleeve through the whole armpit between Christmas and New Year's. I initially bound off the body before doing the sleeves, according to pattern instructions, and for no earthy good reason I actually used the Italian or sewn bind-off as recommended by the pattern when usually I never bother with that; and then after I made the sleeves I was like, why did I do that? I want this sweater to be longer than usual, if anything, and I spent basically an entire day unsewing that bindoff with a crochet hook and frogging the bottom ribbing back so I could make it longer. But I am almost actually done now.
1. Peppermint (candycanes) update: we actually found candy canes, on the 23rd, in a supermarket we had already looked in. They were manufactured in China and are kind of crappy (I bought some). The full size candy canes, an entire box, were all pre-broken into a bunch of pieces in the wrapper. The small candy canes are out of proportion and like... almost U-shaped, and too fat, and insteaad of being wrapped normally they're each in a little clear plastic envelope. All of them are pink and white instead of red and white and they don't taste that great. I will try getting the peppermint drops from that place in Sweden where they invented them perhaps next year.
2. Cat update: Tristana refused to sleep with me in the bed for three nights after the night when BIL's cats were kept in our bedroom, but she is back now. Behavior wise, she seems about the same as before all the visitors arrived. No further progress, but hanging out fairly close to the gate (when she is activated and before she gets too cold and has to go huddle inside someone's blankets or clothing or a radiator tent).
3. Sneezing update: I tried rinsing my sinuses with two of those little tiny individually sealed packets of sterile saline solution and it worked really well! I've never had such a dramatic affliction to test them on before, though. I only had two more sneezing spells after. So I guess I had inhaled some kind of physical irritant. I do not have a cold.
4. Knitting update: I have been knitting the same sweater since about 20 Dec. I've wanted a brioche sweater for a long time, but brioche uses twice as much yarn over the same yardage and twice as much time to execute because you knit each row twice. This is a benefit for some things obviously and a problem for others! IMO, it's a peerless fabric for scarf/shawl to wrap around my neck in the winter, but sweaters risk being too warm, obviously. I am trying Drops Air, an Aran-weight blown yarn that is fuzzy and hairy (mostly baby alpaca and merino). I've been meaning to try it for years and never quite got around to it. The key point is that a blown yarn is made with a very fine knitted tube of synthetic fiber as an armature and the natural fibers are attached to this, so it has the ability to be much lighter and cooler than a traditional yarn of its circumference, because it's hollow. It remains to be seen whether it will be too hot or not. I had trouble with the pattern and had to decide how I wanted to make the sleeves for myself as a result, and this meant a lot of knitting and frogging and knitting again on the first sleeve. I hate knitting sleeves and I decided to knit this sleeve in the round, which I hate even more because it's a little tube (I have mostly knitted sleeves back and forth and then sewn up the underarm seam afterwards in the past few years, and I am happy with that procedure, but I didn't want to try it with brioche because of the complications introduced by the double thickness of yarn). So what with having to knit twice as many rows, I was kind of trapped in an endless sleeve through the whole armpit between Christmas and New Year's. I initially bound off the body before doing the sleeves, according to pattern instructions, and for no earthy good reason I actually used the Italian or sewn bind-off as recommended by the pattern when usually I never bother with that; and then after I made the sleeves I was like, why did I do that? I want this sweater to be longer than usual, if anything, and I spent basically an entire day unsewing that bindoff with a crochet hook and frogging the bottom ribbing back so I could make it longer. But I am almost actually done now.
(no subject)
Date: 3 Jan 2025 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3 Jan 2025 04:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3 Jan 2025 05:02 pm (UTC)Glad to know you don't have a cold after all!
(no subject)
Date: 3 Jan 2025 05:24 pm (UTC)