Little black rainclouds

I'm starting to think there's a little black rain cloud following me around. It's not like we're not already having financial troubles or anything and stressing over that.

Well, I got a phone call yesterday around 2pm from the eldest's school. It seems some older, bigger kid came running around a corner and mowed the eldest down. When he fell, his wire rimmed glasses tore a nice gash on his forehead. I got him, practically threw the youngest out the car door at his grandmother's and headed for the doctor.

I wanted to go straight to Scottish Rite hospital but the hubby said to call the doctor first and see if they could take care of it. I called the doc on the phone and they said "We can't do stitches, you'll have to take him to Urgent Care" and they gave me the phone number. I then drove to the Urgent Care place. Once there I heard "I'm sorry, but we don't take your insurance." So, I called the insurance people as I got back in the car and was told to go to the next location. Got there finally, and was told "We can't do this, you'll have to head to Scottish Rite hospital."

By this time, I was absolutely fuming. All I wanted was to at least get the Eldest some kind of pain meds and then stitches. Of course it was 4:30ish. I had to go and fight afternoon Atlanta traffic (rush hour starts at 3:30) to go to the hospital. I should have done what I wanted to do all along and head straight there.

We finally got someone to look at him. It turns out the gash on the forehead was almost down to the bone. Poor baby. He was a real trooper the whole time. He got 10 stitches in his forehead. He was absolutely starving during all this and they wouldn't let him eat or drink the whole time we were there (which was a while). He hadn't eaten since 11:30 that morning. We didn't get home until after 8:30pm and he was losing it emotionally thanks to low blood sugar, exhaustion and the trauma of it all. And to top it off, I forgot to grab my knitting out the door. Although, I did get to watch the doctor do some stitching on the kid and that was so cool!


Here's the eldest in all his stitchly glory:



That was yesterday. But wait! It gets better.

Today around 5pm I walked into the garage and it was flooded. Turns out, the hot water heater busted and water was everywhere. We flew into action and started throwing towels and blankets down and moving boxes around. Our garage is packed with boxes and junk. not good. You know things are bad when the emergency plumber comes over and says "Holy Moly!"

I am trying to contain the kids inside now and stay out of hubby's way. He's not the happiest nicest person right now. Stress pretty much brings out his evil side.

Do we have cash to pay for the past two days? No. But we do have a credit card! yeah for credit cards!

On the bright side, we get a nice shiny new hot water heater! Maybe, just maybe, I will be able in the future to take a shower and not get scalded or have my body painfully soaked with cold water when someone flushes the toilet. Got to love the bright side!

Annie Modesitt Silk Corset Top

Well, I had a choice yesterday. I could blog or I could knit. Knitting won. But only because I was so freakin' close to finishing the Annie Modesitt Silk Corset Top. Except mine is done in bamboo, not silk and was worked size 7 needles, not size 6 as called for in the pattern. I have to do the single crochet around the neckline today and I still need buttons, which I plan on getting this afternoon. I also plan on getting some grosgrain ribbon to sew in behind the button band to stabilize the opening and keep it from gaping. I may end up sewing the two sides together if the grosgrain plan doesn't work and just put it on by sliding over my head. We'll see. This thing is so beautiful. I'm very proud of myself. I didn't think I'd ever get this project this far.

Word of warning to the beginning knitter about this pattern:

1. Annie is a damn genius when it comes to yarn and sticks, but this pattern is not written for beginners. I consider myself somewhere in the beginning Intermediate range of knitting skills and it took frogging it 5 times for me to finally get the pattern. She assumes that you already know how to knit.

2. Some of the directions were not self explanatory. The mini-cables come to mind. Simple once you figure out which stitches to cable, but she doesn't exactly point this out. She also is not very clear on repeats of each section and how many times to do each.

3. When you do attempt this pattern, use lifelines and lots of stitch markers! I could have saved myself a world of trouble if I had bothered to do this after and or during each section of the pattern.

4. Also, it is critical that you look very closely at the long written out instructions about each section as you go along. This makes you have to constantly flip between the beginning of the pattern and the charts/knittese (my own made up word for knitting language).

5. This pattern requires concentration. This is not a pattern to do in the company of others while chatting. Also not good to do on the side of a basketball court when the basketball players are all 6 and 7 years of age and have no control over the ball. just sayin'.

6. One more note about the pattern. This comes in a .pdf. It prints out really wonky too. I know she mentions how to put it together, but this never worked for me. I just cut out each page, put it in the right order and made a booklet out of it with staples.

Those things being said and warned about, I loved this pattern. It's beautiful all knitted up and you don't get bored during the knitting process. (Possibly frustrated, but not bored.) I learned a ton of stuff during this project, mostly about reading my own knitting.

Here's some pics of the corset so far. Please remember this has not been completely finished and has not been blocked.

Overall view. pre-blocked

View of the lace-worked ruffled bottom edge./pre-blocked

View of the Neckline - pre-crocheted. pre-blocked

Knittingfool

This post is mainly a note to myself, but feel free to look this up yourselves!

Thanks to the Knitty forum, I found a fantastic site for knitting stitches. As described in the forum, it's kinda like the online version of the Barbara Walker treasuries. You can see it here at the Knitting Fool.