9: Finished skeins – no.2

And here’s my second finished skein of yarn:

As you can see from the collage picture, the original fibre was turquoise, navy, and red.  I rather like the way the colours blended, both in the spinning and plying process, to give a blue-purple final yarn (with bits of red).  The fibre is Limegreenjelly BFL … and I don’t know the name of the colour.  Anybody have any suggestions what I could call the finished yarn?

It was a lovely yarn to spin with – not as soft as the merino I’m using now, of course, but I think that was good since I was trying to spin it a little thicker, and since I’m still learning.  It came out bulky weight once plied, by the way.  The one in the last post is aran weight.  The meino should be lighter weight – perhaps DK after plying?

8: Finished skeins – no.1

Still working on the bipolar post (I should stop faffing, really), and I’ve also realised that I seem to somehow be a post behind.  So, here are a couple in quick sucession.  I haven’t posted on here yet about the yarn I’ve spun, and since now is a good a time as ever… here is My First Yarn:

This fibre (Forest Fibres Corriedale Top) came with the starter pack I got with my drop spindle, but this is spun on the spinning wheel.  I spun about 50g of the navy and 50g of the turquoise, then plied the two colours together.  Ta-daa!

7: Merino soffffft

I’m still working on the bipolar topic post, so I though that this half hour I’d show you what I’m currently spinning.  Well, not currently, since I’m typing right now, but you know what I mean ;-)

I am, by the way, very much a beginning spinner, so my results aren’t fabulous, but the whole two skeins I’ve produced so far are nice enough, and definitely usable.  Which is the point, right?  The fibre I’m spinning now is really really lovely, so I hope I don’t make any horrible messes with it.  It’s 100% merino from Limegreenjelly in “Take Me Out”, and it’s really beautiful – see:

Charcoal, hot pink, deep jade green, and flashes of purple.  Yum!

6: Very Excited!!

I’m trying to contain myself from jumping up and down and running around the room in excitement. (Well, alright, maybe there was a little jumping up and down)  I’ve just had an email newsletter from Concorde2 in Brighton, and Skunk Anansie (now reformed) are playing there in October!  Eeeee!!  I’m over the moon, because I was always gutted that I never got to see them before they split.  I did see Skin play there a couple of years ago, and it was fantastic.  I have got to get a ticket!

(And now I’ll go back to working on a bipolar topic post!)

3: A yarny post

As I said the other day, I’m not only going to be talking about bipolar, but also about the knittng and spinning that I’m doing.  I’m even hoping to get some spinning done during the event (because if I sit on this computer chair for 24 hours straight, I may never get up.  It also occured to me that today might be a good day to do some finishing: sewing up and blocking of some of my knits that only need that doing for them to be finished.  Sewing at the computer is probably easier than knitting at the computer, right?  Although I could try that too.  I know last time that didn’t work out terrible well, since I need two hands to knit and two hand to type… and don’t have four hands (dammit).

In preparation for doing spinning, the current view directly to my right looks like this:

Spinning wheel - in easy reach!
Spinning wheel - in easy reach!

And the view directly behind me looks like this:

Because I obviously need supervision!
Because I obviously need supervision!

2: A short history of me

Before I start talking about the various bipolar related topics, I just wanted to give a summary of my “qualifications”.  An outline of my experience with the illness.  Something like that.

I was diagnosed with bipolar in June 2002, but I didn’t really accept the diagnosis until some time in 2003 – I didn’t want to be bipolar.  Depression I was reasonably OK with the idea of, since that could be circumstantial and therefore go away once whatever the circumstances were had been fixed or dealt with in therapy.  But bipolar was a bit more permenant, so it took me some time to come to terms with that.  I’ll talk more about this when I write the post about experiences with diagnosis.  So, that’s 7 years now that I’ve been diagnosed and on various medication, some of which has worked better than others.  Again, I’ll go into more detail on that later.

Previous to that, I can now recognise manic and depressed episodes from my late teens onwards – which once again I’ll talk about more later.  I’ve had therapy of various kinds, I’m currently being treated by the local Community Mental Health team – I see a psychiatrist every three months or so, depending on how I’m doing.  Right now I’m doing pretty well, but I’m not technically “stable” because I still go up and down a few times a year.  I occasionally go to a local drop-in centre and take part in some of the things they run, or just have lunch and a natter with some of the other members.

Any questions you’d like to ask?  Just leave a comment.

1: And they’re off!

Well, here I go… the blogathon has begun!  And of course I’ve suddenly realised I’m disorganised: I’d meant to make a links list of some fellow ‘thoners, and praise my sponsors in the sidebar, and all that.  So I’d better go and do that in a minute!  Although while I’m here I shall start by sending out much love and appreciation to my wonderful sponsors-so-far:

Thank you guys! :-D

Topics for the Blogathon / Q&A

As I said yesterday, one of the things I’m planning to do during the Blogathon is to talk about some of my experiences with being bipolar, and I was hoping that people would ask me any questions they have about the subject so that I could have a go at answering and maybe make some things clearer.  I’ve thought of some possible topics to start with, so here’s a handy poll:

[poll id=”2″]

Or do you have any other questions or related topics you’d like me to expound upon?  Is there anything specific that you’ve heard about bipolar, or gathered from the media, that you want to know about?  Or do you want to know about stupid things I’ve done while manic?  Or what knitting has to do with it?  Feel free to ask absolutely anything (er, about bipolar / being bipolar) even if you think it’s a bit personal – if I feel it’s not something I want to talk about then I’ll say so, but I’m going to try to be as open and thorough as possible with this.  Anyway, leave any other questions in the comments.  Thank you!!

And as well as that whole topic, I’m planning to post about:

  • Knitting: what’s on my needles, recent finished objects, and what I want to do next.
  • Spinning: it’s the last two days of the Tour de Fleece!
  • Books, film, TV… maybe.  Things that I’ve been reading or watching recently, which may include fanfiction.  (Funnily enough I’ve just started reading Harry Potter fanfic again, which is what I did during the first Blogathon I took part in back in 2003.  Oh the synchronicity!)
  • Links to other ‘thon-ers (mostly likely when my brain has shut down in the middle of the night ;-) )

I think that should keep me going!

Blogathon 2009

Blogathon.org

So, rather later than I’d originally intended (July, where did you go?!), I have signed up for this year’s Blogathon.  Which is this coming Saturday and Sunday, 25th-26th July.  What does that actually mean?  Well, I’ll be blogging an entry every half hour (or thereabouts) for 24 hours, starting from 2pm Saturday.  It’s for charity, and like the last time I did this two years ago, I’m blogging for MDF the Bipolar Organisation.  They are a marvellous organisation which I’ve been a member of for a few years now, and as their mission statement says, they work “to enable people affected by bipolar disorder / manic depression to take control of their lives”.  That includes supporting and funding self-help groups around the country, running courses, providing information and advice services, increasing awareness of bipolar, and much much more.  In short, a really worthwhile charity.

Now comes the begging part: I need sponsors! The way the Blogathon works is, if you’d like to sponsor me, please please click through and make a pledge on the Blogathon site (you can either click that link, or the banner above and then look me up on the Blog List).  You can either sponsor me for a lump sum for completing the ‘thon, or for every hour.  Once I’ve completed then ‘thon, you’ll get an email from the Blogathon site letting you know, and giving you the link to make a direct donation to MDF.  Easy-peasy!  MDF doesn’t have a minimum donation amount, and even a pound or two goes towards providing important services.  Donations are handled via Paypal, and even if you don’t have an account you can use your credit or debit card.

I know this is a little late in the day, but hopefully someone will be able to chip in.  The Blogathon people did a Charity Spotlight on Medical, Health and Awareness charities, listing the blogs who don’t yet have $10 sponsorship.  I’m one of them!  (Thank you for the publicity Blogathon people – now I’m doing my bit!)  I would rather like to break that ceiling if I can, at the very least.

Anyway, let me know if you happen to be Blogathoning too, or if for any bizarre reason you’re going to be up all night Saturday – I’ll be signed on to every chat thingy I have.  And look out for a new site design: I’m just in the process of putting one together and it should be up before the ‘thon starts.  Which might be famous last words, of course.  I’m also intending to come back tomorrow and tell you what I’m going to be blogging about – this is another thing I’m leaving way too late, but I wanted to ask for questions about bipolar that I could answer during the ‘thon.  Mainly because I was thinking that rather than writing one enormous long post about it that takes too long (I have to post every half hour, remember!), doing a question or topic at a time would break it down better. And I can do other stuff in between.  But that’s for tomorrow!  Which is now technically later today.  Good night!

Oh, hi, Happy New Year!

And…. oops! I completely gave in to the Dreaded Lurgy, and failed to keep up with my BloPoMo challenge. D’oh! I did make 22 entries (23 including this one) though, so that’s ¾ of it achieved at least. Yep, let’s look on the positive side of things! Also on the positive, I’m pretty much over said Dreaded Lurgy and can now speak (and breathe) again. Well, I think that’s a good thing ;-)

I didn’t do much for New Year – mainly I was huddling indoors keeping warm! But that’s fine, I didn’t have any big plans that I had to cancel through feeling grotty, so I was quite happy with watching the Hootenanny and drinking hot chocolate.

I haven’t done much knitting since Christmas, either. I’ve done a bit on the second sock for the fifth Pentathlon pair, but I didn’t get them finished (obviously) by the 31st December deadline so I’ve slacked off on those again. And I’ve cast on for E’s second mitten now that I’m no longer coughing all the time. But that’s pretty much it! I have had some post-knitting-gratification, however: I’ve found out that both the hat that I made for little H, and the fingerless mitts I made for my brother are getting lots of use and are very much appreciated and liked. Wheee :-D

Anyway. Since this is now the Twelfth Day of Christmas, even though I didn’t manage to finish the challenge, I now declare my BloPoMo officially over! I am going to make a new blogging resolution, though: to blog, um, more often. I think I should probably be more specific about that, but I shall have a think about what’s reasonable and likely for me to maintain. I could say three times a week, or I could pick specific days of the week with the option to swap if I had something specific to say. Not sure which would work best. Hmm. What to do, what to do?

How many voices, now?

Huh, yeah… you remember how I was babbling about different voices. Or ranges / registers in your voice, I suppose. Well, my chest voice is now still about as much use as it was the other day, but my head voice has taken itself off as well. D’oh! I probably sound rather silly. However, I feel quite a lot better, so yaaaaay! I haven’t gone back to knitting anything because I don’t want to cough over it and make it all germified… although I spose if I do my Pentathlon sock it won’t matter since that’s only for me anyway and the needles should be perfectly washable.

Anyway, here’s what I did get done for Christmas:

Photo of M's Christmas fingerless mitts
Some fingerless mittens as a surprise for my brother, since their flat is really cold! He also thinks they’ll be good for when he’s on his bike. [RavLink]

And some rather less finished….
Photo of E's Christmas mittens in progress
… mittens for my sister-in-law-to-be (I have got to find a snappier way of phrasing that, but “brother’s financee” is almost as long to type!). I did actually finish this one, but I forgot to take a photo. D’oh. Anyway, I gave her that one as an “IOU”, and as soon as I’ve stopped being all yuck, I’ll get the other one done. At least I now do know that I had the sizing right! [RavLink]

I think they both liked them – I wasn’t quite sure what my brother would think about a (*gasp*) hand-made present, but he actually seemed pretty pleased :-)

On the second day of Christmas…

… my brother brought to me:
– Some non-drowsy Sudafed
– And a packet of Panadol Extraaaaa.

Ahh, sweet relief! I’d just run out of painkillers, and I was very glad I didn’t have to drag myself down to the chemist to get some more! Thanks, M :-)

Thanks to those, I’m feeling somewhat more with it this evening, although I am having a bit of a catch-22 with having a tight chest: I need to take my inhalers, but every time I try, I have a coughing fit. Bah.

So anyway, I haven’t really done anything productive again today: I don’t want to germ-ify any of my knitting, and I don’t really feel like reading or watching telly. What I have done, though, is used my new MP3 player. It’s both adorable (so ickle!) and clever, and it has a speaker in the back so I don’t have to wear headphones (which I also don’t feel like doing). So it’s been podcasts for me, and in a moment I think I’ll go and listen to an audio book. Although I’m a bit worried I’ll doze off or zone out while I’m listening. I’ll try not to, though.