NLS Stitches

(c) naturallycaron.comYay!!  In summer of 2008 I attended my first ever CGOA Conference in Manchester, New Hampshire.  I had an absolute ball, and scared myself silly meeting all these editors and publishers!  What?  Me waste their time with my piddly designs?!  After seeing all the marvelous things other people can put together?! 

Well I sold two patterns to Caron International Yarns that year, Cabled Crossroads, a scarf that was renamed Aqua Blue Scarf, and Wandering Cables, a throw that was renamed Eugene.

Aqua Blue Scarf came out on Caron's site, Naturallycaron.com, this past fall, and Eugene has just now come out on the site last nite/early this morning.  WOW!  The pictures of this throw look great!!!  :D

                                                     Eugene wa(c) naturallycaron.coms done with 12 skeins of Naturallycaron.com's Country yarn, a mix of microdenier and merino wool.  It's super soft, and easy to work with.  It also shows off the stitches nicely!

I also have my first-ever "for sale" pattern up on my new site, NLS Stitchings.  You can find it in the "Store" department.

It's a mother/daughter hat and scarf set, with the sets being available in three sizes.  Molly was my little model, along with her youngest sister and her mother.  Molly was a little imp, of the bestest sorts! (c)www.nlsstitchings.com

Everything I asked her was answered with a smile/smirk and a negative shake of the head.  Until Mom said she really means yes, even when she says no. 

Right now I'm working Molly's payment for modeling - another hat and scarf set in her favoritest color - (bet you can't guess what it is!) - pink.  But not as dark as the hat and scarf.  Just like her shirt.  That's the perfect pink color.  Ask her, she'll tell you which is the right one!  lol

Missyboo's official pathology tests came back on her leg saying she was cancer-free, and that at this point, there's no bone infection.  So the drs. are chalking up the questionable areas of her Xrays and MRIs to a weirdly crazed stress fracture.  Hurray! on the initial test results!  She will still be donating blood for testing to make sure there's no bacterial infection going on, and getting more Xrays during and after her "casting" days.  Did I mention that she's wearing a hot pink, full length, cast?  Oh yeah, baby!  This thing is sooooo bright, that in the bright sunlight, it's almost an orange color!

The casts these days are nothing like what I had as a kid!  Plaster of Paris and all that!  This new stuff is like sheet rock tape with water activated glue embedded in the mesh.  Quick, fast, not very messy, fast-drying.  All done.

But the one problem we found out about with this type cast is that it's pretty rough on any other skin that comes in contact with  the outside of it.  Poor Missyboo was getting "cast rash".  She has to wear a dress for school, and the inside of her good thigh was being chafed from the cast.  So Mom (me!) got into action.  I crocheted a "casting cover", and tied it around Missyboo's cast.  Works like a charm!  No more chafing, and more Missyboo smiles!  :D

I made two drawstrings that were measured to length around her cast, crocheted a couple of rows for the body, added the first drawstring, then crocheted around that string to finish the body.  I then folded the last three rows down over the second drawstring and sewed it shut.  The cast is rough enough to keep the cover from doing any slipping, and the folded over drawstring edge gives her a bit more of "cushion" at the top edge of her cast  for sitting down.  She's happy with it.

Have a nice day!  :D

Well the first new thing for this year is one of my patterns that was sold at the CGOA conference in 2008 iscoming to light!  This one is also with Caron, using their NaturallyCaron.com Country yarn.  This stuff is nice!!!!  It's a mix of wool and microdenier, and crochets up beautifully.  I don't know if it will be on the "front" page, or in the crochet patterns section, but it's supposed to be up on the Naturallycaron.com website sometime this month, so if you see a red cabled throw, it's mine!  lol   I'm really excited about seeing how it photographed!  My pictures of it were taken at night, and night time photography and I usually don't get along too well. 

Then late in January I was contacted to do some contract crocheting for another CGOA member I met in Buffalo for a men's sweater.  We were about in the middle of the pattern when I realized there wasn't going to be enough of one particular color.  The designer was told there was no more of that color, it was a mill sample.  So between tweaking the pattern to fit the amount of yarn available, frogging to fit in the tweaks, and meeting the deadline, Missyboo had a doctor's appointment.

She was then sent from that appt. to a bone specialist in the Bronx to review her MRI films and give an exam.  We were told everything was presenting itself as Ewing's Sarcoma, a malignant tumor on her leg.  Missyboo was admitted to the hospital that afternoon so she could get a contrast MRI and contrast CAT scan of her chest done before morning.  The dr. wanted to do a biopsy the next morning, and as an outpatient, the scans couldn't be done the same day. 

The biopsy plug was examined in the operating room, and initial exam indicated it was clean.  Several other samples were also tested from around the area because the Xrays and MRIs showed a white-shaded area on the bone and in the surrounding soft tissue.  Now we wait until Thursday to do a follow up visit, check her dressings on her leg and to get the official pathology reports.  I'm scared shitless right now, but fingers are crossed that the initial operating room testings will be like the ultra sound tech telling me I was having a girl, then delivery confirming I did.  Not the opposite.

In the meantime, Missyboo is "running" around here with a pair of crutches since she's not supposed to be putting any weight on that leg.  I tease her about entering her in a crutch race and naming her Crutch Demon.  That makes her laugh.  Which makes me feel a bit better.

Have a good night, and give your kids an extra big hug telling them they are loved.

I was browsing around online the other day and came across this site.  It's called Wolfdreamer off the Hook, and  Linda Potts has made some the neatest Mario Brothers characters and Pokeman characters plushies I've seen in ages! Actually I've never seen any plushies of these characters before, at least not crocheted one.  Here's one of her pictures of the Mario brothers, Mario and Luigi.  She has patterns of almost all the Mario characters up and running on her site, along with quite a few other characters, all beautifully done.

Missyboo and I both have a few of the Mario games.  For Missyboo's birthday last year, Hubby found Yoshi's Island for Nintendo DS.  For Christmas, he found one                (c) Linda Potts                for me, saying he didn't want to hear any more of "Mom, you've got my game!"   

This year Nintendo, working with Wii, came out with the new Super Mario Brothers game to be played on Wii.  Up to 4 players, and I'll tell you, it's VERY interactive.  Just ask my aching head from Missyboo jumping on it!  lol  Even Hubby got in on the action the other nite.  He found out that if you hit the "A" button before being completely killed off, your character will be "bubble-ized" and float to safety.  Then you just need to worry if someone else will pop you bubble for you and let you out!   So you'll have to excuse me while I go make up some mascots for game night!   ;D                                                     

I went to work this morning, in the dark, dark of morning, no rain, dry roads, no snow.  Six hours later it was snowing so hard, it would have been easy to get visual vertigo watching out the front window of the train.  

I'm pretty sure the person who did the visual effects for Star Trek was a Northerner, as watching all the stars when the Enterprise went warp speed is the same as watching the snow come flying at you thru the window of your mode of transportation at the moment.   This was my backyard when I got home today!  Pretty cool, eh?  Yes, pun intended!  lol

I finally caught up on all my Christmas gifts that needed to be crocheted up.  And I always tell myself that I'm going to get them done early in the year so there's no last minute, frantic, stitching going on.  Of course, that never works for me.  It didn't this year either.  So.....the week and a half before Christmas, I found myself with  hats that needed to be made up.  I succeeded.  Barely.  Family Christmas this year was on Sunday, and I was still weaving in the last of the tails when everyone started arriving.  Wheewww!  My hands still hurt from all those stitches!

I put all the hats into a pile and starting with the oldest first, let them pick which coloring they wanted.  I used the same pattern on all of them, my Reversible Strands for Men, but switched up the coloring.  I had four skeins of Caron's Simply Soft, and got eight hats from that.  I still had some leftover from making Jalapeno Sunrise jacket, and got two more hats from that! 

Out of those 10, I needed 6.  The remaining 4 are going to a friend who's son is in the the National Guard Reserves, and most of his unit is being shipped over to Afghanistan shortly.  She's been doing a collection of hats and scarves for each member of his unit, with the first people being shipped over getting first choice.

As this year comes to an end, I am still surprised (and happy about it!) that the Reversible Strands for Men seems to be a popular hit with crocheters on Ravelry, based on the amount of downloads this pattern has generated there alone. 

It's been a quiet year, crochet-wise for me, but still busy.  Hopefully the new year will bring new wisdoms and ideas for me to make new patterns that others will like just as much if not better.

I know there are are least two new things I want to accomplish for 2010, and they both include cables.  Another thing is that I would love to finally get the hang of doing pattern sizing, as quite a few people have expressed their wish to have the pattern for a top I had made.  But...right now I only know how to make things my size.  Or Hubby's size, or Missyboo's size.  I haven't been able to quite get my brain to accept that sizing is mostly a matter of mathematics - # of stitches/rows per inch.  Never one of my strong points.  (sigh)

But here's wishing you all a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to you and yours!

Have a good day!  :D