Only One More Month...

... until I move back to college! In just one more month, I will be free. Free from my brother's emotional roller coaster, free from my mother's constant guilt trips, and free from my father's narrow minded views of the world and (unknowingly) me. In just one more month, I'll actually be free to be myself. Isn't sad that the one place I can't do that is when I'm with my own family?

I'm so excited to be headed back, but it's also bittersweet. The last three years have flown by and I'm only sort of excited about being a senior. I have a couple of classes I'm not looking forward to and there's the GRE to take. And then I have to take out more loans, find a place to live, start paying taxes. There are lots of days when I feel like this growing up thing sucks. But it's either that or live a lie in my parents' basement for the rest of my life.

On a happier note, one month from today will also be the three year anniversary of Nick asking me out. I think now that we're engaged I'm supposed to stop counting those, but it's better than the couples that count weeks, right?

Craft of the Week: Memory Quilt Patch

I've decided that I'm going to start doing this post on Monday and showcasing the craft that I finished the previous week. I might end up going back to Sundays, but that hasn't worked out so far, so I don't have high hopes.

Anyway, this past week I decided to start on the knitted memory quilt I want to make using old charm bracelet charms. The first patch I made was to celebrate my engagement. I used scrap yarn that was given to me by a family friend, so I can't tell you much about it other than I chose it because it is very close to the color I was wearing when Nick proposed.

The patch has a seed stitch border and a stockinette stitch center.
The charm was a gift from Nick's mother. I wore it on a bracelet for awhile before I figured out that it's only silver plated. I stopped wearing it to preserve the color, which is actually what sparked the idea for the quilt.

It was a quick project that I could finish in twenty four hours because I didn't have time to craft until yesterday. Hopefully next week's will be a little more intricate, but you might see another one of these.

Craft of the Week: Greek Letter Stencils

This week's craft was super simple since I'm at my fiance's house and don't have all of my crafting supplies. I decided to make Greek letter stencils because all it requires is a printer, some cardboard, some scissors, and some paper or fabric. I used paper because 1) I'm not much of a seamstress, so why not practice with pretty paper first? and 2) These aren't sorority letters, they are letters for my honors societies, and very few honors societies actually have members who wear lettered shirts. I love them anyway, so I found a website that lets you design the patterns and backgrounds of the letters before you buy them, chose a white foreground with a black background, print screened the letters I needed, enlarged them to the standard four inches tall, printed them off, and cut them out. This is the first stencil for Sigma Tau Delta, my English honors society.

I used the stencil to trace a sigma on some vintage wrapping paper we found while cleaning out my grandmother's house. No one else wanted it, so I saved it from inevitable recycling. This sheet was a little over four inches tall and the perfect length to make exactly three letters. I thought the sigma outline looked like it almost belonged on the whimsical pattern.
Here's where I deviated from the plan. I actually didn't bring cardboard to East Tennessee, so I traced the full four inch letter onto the paper so that I could keep the stencil intact. What I plan to do when I get home is trace the full stencil on a piece of cardboard, cut off the black outline, and trace the white foreground on another piece of cardboard. That way I have a stencil for a background and foreground. For now, however, I have a large patterned sigma with no background, which I can always change later.
And here's the final letter! That was really easy, right? The hardest part would actually be sewing the letters onto a shirt, I'm sure of it.

In other news, I'm still working on the prayer shawl I mentioned last week. It took me several cast-ons to finally pay attention to my color work, but I eventually realized what I was doing. I also didn't pack a double pointed needle for cabling, so I've been improvising with pencils and bobby pins. Not a great plan since I'm a beginner, but it's been working, albeit slowly. Hopefully progress will pick up when I get home to a variety of knitting supplies.

Happy Fourth!

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July weekend! My celebrations for the day started when Nick got home from work and took me to the park to have a picnic and see the ducks. These little ducklings are the first thing we saw when we got there! The picture's a little blurry, but their mama didn't want us staying too long.

We found a nearby bench so that we could watch the ducks while eating our vegetarian hot dogs! Even vegetarians like tradition! Doesn't it look real? Nick said it tastes pretty close, too. I don't remember exactly what a real hot dog tastes like, but I've always thought they were pretty close.
I wore my new Sperry's from my shopping trip with Nick's mom. Part of the reason I caved is because they were red, white, and blue. So perfect for this weekend!
I made Nick take a picture with me before we left. We needed a new picture together.
As we were leaving the park, this whole parade of ducks started walking up the other side of the entrance towards us. There were more in the grass to the left of the shot. They wanted to enjoy that great, big puddle in the road and go swimming in the marshy area where the ducklings were. They didn't seem to mind us walking through until Nick tried to chase one.

The day ended when we went back to Nick's house and I played the Wii for the first time. I know, I'm so behind the times. Maybe one day I will be caught up, but probably not.

Craft of the Week: Purple Scarf

I started this as a time waster while I was with Mom at one of her doctor’s appointments. I grabbed the first pair of needles and yarn I could find, which turned out to be a bad combination. I intended to make her a scarf with this yarn to match her hat, and I might still. This one might just get donated.

It did reaffirm my love of Kitchener stitch, though. It was my second experiment with Kitchener, and just a quick refresher as to how to start it was all I needed. Hooray for YouTube! Here is a close up of the Kitchener:

Sorry the pictures are so dark, they were taken in my fiance's windowless bedroom. I knit it on size 10 1/2 needles, and it just didn't suit the baby yarn at all. I should have used a smaller size needle to make the rows tighter, but I've been using this pattern for years to make blankets and I've never done it on anything smaller than an 11. By the time I realized that wasn't going to work for a scarf, I had already invested too much time. Either Mom will love it because she's my mom, or I will find an organization that will take it and knit her one that actually matches the hat.

Next I am going to start a prayer shawl for one of my mom's friends. She is the mother of the girl I just finished a shawl for, and she was recently pre-diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called Sarcoidosis. Her shawl is going to be mostly brown with a turquoise cable running through the center. It will be my first solo attempt at cabling, so wish me luck!

Arthritis Facts

May was National Arthritis Awareness Month, so I made my status on Facebook each day a fact about arthritis in honor of my mom. I promised to compile a complete list with sources in a note, but I thought I would post them here, so that anyone who stumbles across my blog will also be informed.

The following facts were taken from questions on "Arthritis Quiz - Myth or Fact?" found here: http://arthritis.about.com/library/quiz/blarthritismythfactquiz.htm

* “Arthritis or chronic joint pain affects 1 in 3 adults.”

* “According to the American College of Rheumatology, virtually everyone over the age of 75 is affected by arthritis in at least one joint.”

* “According to the Arthritis Foundations, less than half of rheumatoid arthritis patients under 65 years old who are working at the onset of the disease are still working 10 years later.”

* “Arthritis is not a modern disease. Arthritis has been found in ancient Egyptian mummies and Neanderthal man.”

* “Regular, gentle exercise can reduce arthritis pain and discomfort.”

* “Inactivity may cause arthritis patients to be out of shape, weaker, less flexible, and have more pain. It is important to remain as active as possible.”

*“Arthritis is treatable. There are many treatments and medications which help control arthritis symptoms and reduce joint deformity.” There is no cure for arthritis.

These facts were taken from the Middle TN Arthritis Walk page found here: http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=424480

* “Juvenile arthritis is one of the most common childhood diseases in the United States.”

* “Arthritis is the most common cause of disability in the United States.”

* “Arthritis affects more than half of adults with diabetes and heart disease.”

* “There are more than 100 forms of arthritis and related diseases.”

* “Half of all adults will develop symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee at some point in their lives.”

* “Arthritis results in 9367 deaths [and] 992,100 hospitalizations annually.”

* “39 million physician visits and more than 500,000 hospitalizations are attributed to arthritis.”

* “Arthritis and rheumatic conditions cost the U.S. economy $128 billion annually.”

* “Two thirds of the people that have doctor-diagnosed arthritis are under the age of 65.”

* “Walking 30 minutes a day can reduce your risk for certain kinds of arthritis.”

* “For every 1 [pound] you lose it is 4 [pounds] less pressure on each knee.”

* “By 2030, an estimated 67 million Americans aged 18 years or older are projected to have doctor-diagnosed arthritis.”

* “[66 million] adults and nearly 300,000 children suffer from arthritis.” (I put this one last because I updated it with information taken from the next source. Please note that we are 1 million away from the projected 2030 number 19 years early.)

The next source was "101 Interesting Facts about Arthritis" found here: http://www.arthritismd.com/arthritis-facts.html

* “Many types of arthritis are systemic, i.e., they are not limited to the joints. In such diseases, practically any organ of the body may be affected, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, and skin.”

* “Arthritis is second only to heart disease as a cause of work disability.”

* “Almost half of those afflicted with arthritis have one of the two most common types of arthritis, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.”

* “Injured joints are more likely to develop osteoarthritis than joints that have not been injured.”

* “Rheumatoid arthritis, the most common chronic inflammatory arthritis, accounts for 22% of all deaths due to arthritis.”

* “Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis has two peaks of onset: between 1 and 3 years and between 8 and 12 years.”

* “Not all arthritis is persistent and lasting. Many are limited and of brief duration.”

The final facts were taken from "Arthritis Facts - Fast Facts About Arthritis" found here: http://arthritis.about.com/od/arthritisthefacts/a/arthritisfacts.htm

* “Arthritis literally means joint inflammation. ‘Arth’ refers to the joints, and ‘itis’ refers to inflammation.”

* “The most common form of arthritis is osteoarthritis, sometimes referred to as wear-and-tear arthritis or degenerative joint disease.”

* “Osteoarthritis affects more than 20 million people in the United States.”

* “Rheumatoid arthritis is...an autoimmune disease [that] affects 1.3 million adults in the United States.”

It's not MLA, but it's credit, so I hope it appeases any format police out there :D