blether

Saturday morning, I was late for my stained glass class and then spent the whole time drawing out my design. I missed the usual train because I was looking up something for the pattern and lost track of time, and the next one because I was sitting on the loo, not very happy. Anyway, teacher helped me out and I have a design all set, and I like it quite a bit. It has 103 pieces, which is a lot of cutting. I might well buy a cutter so I can do most of that at home and do the piecing together at class; if I don't, I certainly won't finish it this term.

On the train on the way to class, a woman leaned over and talked to me about my knitting. General compliments and then a bit of discussion on dpns versus circulars.

I have been knitting like a fiend - a fiend, I say! - and have less than twenty rows to go.

I have also knitted a few little bits for purposes of experimentation. I did and undid and did a two-colour Kitchener stitch improvisation, which looks ok colour-wise but has a half-stitch offset which is... not great. Then I did a Kitchener stitch variation - the second trick from this post - which looks fine, with a little bit of colour show-through. Um, I did the cast-off in one colour, so the stripes of the other colour have a little bit of that showing through at the join. Then I did a three-needle bind-off, which has the same colour problem, slightly more pronounced.

I think I will probably do the three-needle bind-off, as with the grey and black colourscheme it shouldn't show too badly, and it's the easiest of the three.

It's nearly done! I'm in the final stretch! Woo!

ETA: Having done another sample - a variation of techknitter's variation - I'm not sure what to do. Because this one looks quite good - possibly the best of the four - but it is more complicated than the three-needle. I think I will take the samples to knitting tomorrow night and ask for opinions.

bleh

I knitted quite a lot, with such terrible posture that my back hurts. Sixty rows to go!

I sketched out my idea for my stained glass window, and I think it will work, I'm just not sure how far I have to simplify the original design (which is a Mayan monster and incorporates glyphs and such). And it is quite curvy which is more difficult. But I like it. I will talk to teacher at class and see what she thinks.

I have a meeting tomorrow about doing a volunteer thing for a few months, and I shouldn't be nervous but I am. Ugh.

Yeah.

needles

This morning I went to the dentist. I had to have a filling done in what the dentist said was one of the most awkward places possible, the outer face of a wisdom tooth (and my back teeth are a bit crammed in - in fact, I think one of my sisters had her wisdom teeth out, or at least had the possibility mooted.) It wasn't too bad, I only gagged twice, and I can put up with the drilling etc. I think the dentist thinks I am afraid, because before my last set of appointments I had not been for a few years, but that was partly that I am terrible at making appointments etc and partly the lack of self-care often associated with depression.

I was talking to a friend of mine, who has chronic depression and who smokes. (The link between poor mental health and smoking was discussed in a fairly recent article on the bbc website, and I was entirely unsurprised.) She said: the normal arguments don't work, because you tell me I'll die ten or twenty years younger, and I say, great! I don't want to live!

So the lack of self-care on a day-to-day level is mostly apathy, but longer-term... well, it's hard to think long-term when you've contemplated suicide in the past and wouldn't be surprised to wind up in that place again. What do I care if my teeth fall out, I'm amazed I've made it this far, never mind thinking about the far side of the next ten years. Also I don't deserve any kind of goodness, but hey.

That wasn't what I was going to write about, really, but it's a thing that's true.

I also went to knitting this evening, a bit later than usual because I was running around trying to find a new ball of wool (which I haven't got to yet) and then I realised the bra I was wearing really doesn't fit any more, and I threw up my hands and whined for a bit.

I need to get new bras, but I am currently attempting - not with great dedication, I admit - to lose a bit of weight, and if I do then old bras might fit again, and it is expensive and annoying anyway, but then again I might be going to do a full-time volunteer thing in which case I should probably get a new one or two before then (because the shop is not very busy weekdays so I could go in and get fitted without having to cringe away from crowds.) But. I will think about it.

Sleeve Two is progressing nicely - should get to the split tomorrow, after which there's only... eighty-odd rows to go! with only a hundred-forty-some stitches in each!

Wow, laying it out like that is not encouraging. Still, Susan-from-knitting swears by doing ten rows a day, which would get this done by the end of next week, which sounds good to me. Well, the knitting would be done, I still have to figure out the grafting. Always something...

glass

Yesterday I slept. A lot. Like, I woke up late in the evening and wound up staying up through to morning for my stained glass class.

Stained glass is pretty fun. I had planned to have a design for my light-window but it didn't really happen; I did however get up the ladder and measure it, so I know exact dimensions.

This morning I felt like I had forgotten how to cut glass, because it really wasn't going well, but it got there in the end. I made a sun-catcher start to finish over the three-hour class (which is not bad considering it is only my fourth class) - from drawing out the design (copied off a birthday card), cutting and grinding the glass (and losing a piece and thinking it had gone down the drain and having to cut another one, only to find the original just before the end of class), sticking on copper foil and soldering. It's not perfect - I haven't quite got the hang of getting all the pieces to fit smoothly together, and I'm not patient enough to get it all symmetrical - but I like it.

Over the next few days I will figure out a pattern for the window. I mean, I could do something traditional, but I think I'll mess around a bit more. I'm not going to do dinosaurs. I have some Mayan designs I like, I'm just not sure how much I'd have to simplify them. Or I could go fannish, or celtic, or...

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Kelvingrove

Owwww... I don't know why, but my back is hurting, and not in the normal places. Usually I get tense shoulders and an achy lower back, and lately I've had a specific pain thanks to lying on one side using the laptop, but today, it's like that specific one stretched out across my back, basically where the back strap of my bra rests, and I stretched and took some paracetamol earlier, and now I have a vodka-and-coke which I accidentally made a bit stronger than usual.

So, I was out this afternoon. My sister let me know about this event, a Photographic Survey of Kelvingrove Bandstand - I'm not entirely sure why, maybe just that it's in the area - and I thought, eh, why not? Half the people on the list didn't show up, so there were only five attendees. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, actually. They told us stuff about the history of the bandstand, and the plans for refurbishing it, and about the Royal Commission and what they actually do, and about why and how they take photos of buildings etc, with some pretty cool stuff about lighting. One in particular was a photo of a Pictish carved cross, as taken with a standard flash - which let you see the cross shape on the stone, and just a hint of carving in the centre - and one with eight flashes positioned at various heights each side - which showed that practically the whole surface was covered in carved patterns.

Then we wandered out to the Bandstand. And walked around and looked at it, and the photographer showed us a couple of things with his camera, and then we wandered around taking photos, and probably getting in each other's shots quite a lot.

I want to try and make a panorama of the amphitheatre, and pick a few shots to upload to the RCAHMS website - actually, one or both of these might make the cut if I mess about with an image editor.

I got the camera last year, but I've only just started taking it off auto and messing around with the settings. It's a little digital one, a lot newer than my old one... though actually, both of them were presents from my sister, the same one that told me about this event. Hmm.

And then I came home and collapsed, and tomorrow I plan on doing absolutely sod-all.

why are we waiting...

I am supposed to have someone come and install... something, to do with upgrading my broadband and getting a TV service which I won't actually use, but the whole package is cheaper than the broadband&phone I'm currently getting. So I got up and did some panicked tidying and hoovering and now I am waiting. Between one and six, they said.

I discovered the hoover was set on Delicate, which is why it wasn't sooking much. I feel a bit dumb for not noticing that before.

Last night I crocheted a seam in a rug, so I could hang it on a curtain pole. It is very decorative - I bought it in Mexico in 2005, and since then it has been mostly bundled up in a corner. I have been planning to put in on the wall since I moved in three-and-a-half years ago; I put the pole up some months ago; now it is finally up.

Usually I go to a knitting group on Tuesday evenings. I go to my pal's house on the way; sometimes she comes with me, and sometimes she doesn't, and sometimes I persuade her when she wasn't going to, but last night she persuaded me to stay at hers and watch telly. I knitted while there, though.

Ooh, just got a phone call, broadband man en route. I don't like people in my house, I hope it doesn't take long.

ETA: It did not take too long, and the fella said it was nice and simple, and he was friendly but not particularly chatty (which I appreciated) and. Yeah. Done. Phew. Now I can have cake.

Also, here is a picture of my rug. Also you can see a bit of the toy dragon on my bedpost. The colour doesn't look deep enough but maybe that is the light or my screen or something.

Monday

The plan was to use this for drawings, but I haven't been drawing, so how about I attempt to keep track of crafty things, at least?

Today I tried to make a cardboard shelf and failed miserably. Admittedly it was a bit over-ambitious, so maybe I will try again in a few days.

I sewed curtain ties to the curtains in my front room. These ties I crocheted... last year, I think, and I sewed the buttons on a couple of weeks ago, and they are finally up, which is not bad progress by my standards, since I had no compelling deadline. It will be nice to get some light - the curtains, you see, are long and heavy and trying to pull them back on the little plastic rail is more likely to make them come off the rail, so I have mostly been living with them closed. But now I can tie them, yay.

And I knitted a bit.

Oh, and I managed not to have a cold shower - had to re-pressure the boiler and then switch it off and on again.