What About Naomi? The Afghan edition

Anybody besides me remember Love of Chair? For some reason, it stuck with me even after the rest of the Electric Company is just a distant, faded dream of a memory.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Naomi's afghan is finished. Here's a picture:



I decided not to add the lavender racing stripes to either side of the butter-colored stripes because I thought it would look too busy.

Here's a close-up of the texture:



This was easily the most pain-in-the-ass pattern I have ever worked on. The cloth is not as tight as I was envisioning, either. But the colors are nice, and it does I do like the look of the texture. Please note,this picture does not include the egregious error that I made in the first three rows of bobbles, but you actually have to be looking to find them.

So, Naomi, before Christmas! Yay, me! Please drop me email (lydy at demesne dot com) and to arrange to take custody. I can bring it to you, or you can come to me, either works.

Speaking of afghans

So, here's a better picture of Carol's afghan. DDB took the first picture when I wasn't home. When I pointed out that it was showing the wrong side, he said, "Wait, afghans have sides?" And then, "Why did you make a wrong side? Shouldn't you have done it right on both sides?" He's very cute, my David.



And here's a better picture of the texture:



I really, really like the texture of the green panels, which is also a nice, tight fabric.

At some point, I need to take this over to Carol.

Afghans all the way down

So, I fell in love with this variagated yarn (now called an ombre, no idea why) by Caron. When I realized that it was in Pamela's colors, it ended up being Pamela's afghan. This picture doesn't quite do the yarn justice, it's a little brighter than this. I may try to get a better picture, as well,since this doesn't quite show the shape. It's done in hexagonal pinwheels that get sewn together. It was a lot of fun to make, and Pamela likes it, so that's all good. Possibly this pattern looks better in a solid rather than an ombre, but boy was that yarn fun.

Complimentary God-daughter will get an afghan, WIP

So, evidently if you date DDB, you get a complimentary god-daughter, absolutely free! Or at least, I did. I didn't find out until a number of years later that Toni Brust, David's god-daughter, simply understood that since I was dating David, I was of course also her god-mother. Toni being Toni, it didn't strike her as at all odd that she had three god-parents. When I expressed surprise that I was her god-mother, she asked me why I had taken her to Valley Fair if I wasn't her god-mother. I had no good answer.

By the way, she's the best god-daughter, ever, so there's that.

So, in the way of things, I'm making her an afghan. She chose a pattern called Woven Marvel, which I think is weird, but she likes a lot. And it's fun to make, so that's all good, too. It's made of 63 squares, each of which is two colors woven together. First, you make a half-squid. Then you make another half-squid. Then you wave the ten legs together. Eventually, I will sew all squares together, accomplish a border, and it will be an afghan.

I'm particularly happy with the colors on this, since I chose them myself, and yet they do seem to go together. I was quite doubtful about the purple, but could find no other suitable color. Once I'd worked it up, though, it seemed to be fine. The moderating influence of the grey is key, I think.

Here's a picture of the three different blocks:



For those of you playing along with yarn choices, the black and the grey are Loops & Threads Soft and Shiny, the blues and the purple are Caron Simply Soft. I really love the grey, which you may remember from the first afghan that I made. (Hey, Patricia, I'll try to repair the problem tonight so that you can have it soon.)

And that's all the afghans that are fit to print.

Thank You, Graydon (Therapik edition)

So, the Therapik doesn't do much for week-old bites. But I stayed over the last night, and I have a new crop of bites to experiment upon. Alas.

On new bites, it does not immediately eliminate the itching, more's the pity. But it does, after a bit, definitely reduce or eliminate it. Bites treated with the Therapik itch less over time and seem to heal faster. (I had a mosquito bite on Sunday that I treated once, and it has bothered me no more.)

The bad news is that this thing eats batteries like they were going out of style. It uses a 9-volt battery, and I've had to replace it once, and the thing only arrived last Saturday. DDB does say that creating heat is simply power-intensive and there isn't much room for increasing efficiency, so it's not surprising that it eats batteries. However, if the preliminary results hold up, this is so totally worth it. While cremes offer varying amounts of relief, they seem to require frequent reapplication, and I usually reapply more often than is recommended. And while the relief is welcome, when the itching returns, it is with the same intensity. With the Therpik, if the itching returns, it seems to be of lesser intensity.

As I said, we'll see if these results hold up.