34 Years

It took 34 years of active searching to figure it out; to figure out what was wrong with me.  Really.  34 years of going to the doctor.  Of going to many, many doctors and telling them that there was something very wrong.  34 years of dislocating joints, fainting, pain, vomiting and shitting blood, vertigo, limping and schlepping on a weak leg, tremors, a cough that wouldn't go away, and I don't know what else.  I went to dozens of doctors over the years and had dozens of invasive tests. I even lost a child probably because of not knowing what was wrong. 34 years.

It was apparent even when I was a child that something was wrong.  I had delayed motor development, lower extremity weakness, small stature, poor wound healing, and neurological symptoms.  I'd also had Group B Strep disease as an infant and developed meningitis.  However, I did recover from that according to the doctors.  However, somehow, my childhood health issues were still incorrectly attributed to this illness and not further investigated.

The effort that actually was made by my parents was that I was encouraged to take part in athletic activities to address my obvious "weakness" and "clumsiness."   This did become a lifelong thing, at least until recently, and was a double edged sword.  The general level of exercise made me stronger.  That's a good thing.  However, it increased my potential for injury by a lot, and injuries I did get.  A lot of injuries.  These were not only poorly treated and misunderstood, but often non-healing and contributed to my poor quality of life now.

As I got older and gained some voice and control over my health care, I started insisting on finding medical care, knowing that something was wrong.  The first diagnosis I managed was migraine.  I now believe that I never had migraine to any significant degree, but that I suffered with cervicogenic headache and the gut problems associated with EDS, but it was a start.  That diagnosis came when I was about 12.  But at the same time I started to faint.  I also started to get more joint dislocations.

With my new autonomic problems and the joint dislocations came something new.  My first case of doctors, and my family, believing that my medical problem was psychiatric.  As it turns out, this is not uncommon with EDS patients.  It is very, very common that EDS is misdiagnosed as psychiatric.  I spent years in therapy with a shrink who believed that I was fainting for attention and intentionally harming myself.  The thing was that I could never, ever remember intentionally deciding to pretend to faint or to make myself fall or get hurt.  That only reinforced the issue.  It was drilled into me that I was doing this, and that I had an unconscious level of self hate.  I didn't think I did, but I was told I did.  So I must.  It really affected how I saw myself for years.  That inside myself lived a secret self injuring, self hating personality that I didn't have awareness of.  It was an elaborate story that I was told about myself, and my family bought this because they didn't believe in my physical illness.  Personally, I thought myself very strong and self aware.  I worked so hard at accomplishing things, at self reflection, and at becoming a better person who wouldn't do these horrible things that I couldn't remember doing.  I put so much energy into it.  I studied religion and ethics and completely changed my way of life.  The physical illness remained.


Getting into my late teens and early twenties, I asked my own doctors to investigate.  These were small town doctors and it was the late 1990's.  They diagnosed a series of "atypical" cases of autoimmune diseases.  Things like, MS,  lupus, and ulcerate colitis.  Each diagnosis was debunked when I finally did get to an academic center for testing. 

All this time I was still getting strange dislocations.  I had long, long periods of chronic weight loss or gain with vomiting and diarrhea that went completely unexplained despite who knows how many colonoscpies and barium swallows.  Lots of other things were going on, but I sometimes couldn't afford to go to the doctor, so I didn't when couldn't afford it.  I was always in medical debt, but I never, ever got any better.

It was in around 2002 that I suffered my first real "EDS" injury, even if we didn't know what it was at the time.  It started as a pain in my wrist, but quickly got so bad that I couldn't use my left hand.  I'd had a minor injury at work that just turned into a runaway nightmare because it wouldn't get better.  I ruined my life for two years.  The injury was an unusual type of trapped nerve.  I can't remember how many orthopedists I went to.  I think I saw 4 different hand surgeons until I found one who could fix it.  In the mean time, I was accused by one doctor of faking the pain and injury for financial gain of some kind.  It cost me two jobs and I nearly became homeless.  This is EDS.  Doctors telling you you're faking when they can't figure out what's wrong. 

The nightmare didn't stop there.  It's really been nonstop.  I've been given low dose Chemo therapy for the lupus I didn't have.  It took 7 years to diagnose and get surgery for a trapped nerve in my lower leg.  It was very similar to what happened in my arm, and I went to doctors saying I thought it was a trapped nerve.  Every single one but the last said it was a strained muscle.  For 7 years that muscle was strained.  Because when you have EDS, you can't possibly know what's happening to your body.  My extreme dysautonomia has been misdiagnosed as everything from anxiety disorder to malingering to intentional faking.  This was to the point that I stopped seeking treatment for that problem until it became life limiting.  It took two years to diagnose my life threatening neck injury.  By the grace of G-d, I survived long enough to have that fixed.  When I had a partial hip dislocation and went to a hip doctor, he not only refused to examine me, he told my husband that I was faking and refused to refer me to another doctor, and this doctor knew I had EDS, unlike everyone else I've mentioned.  I did end up needing part of my pelvis fused so that I could walk again.  Didn't I mention that I couldn't walk?  No?  He thought I was faking that.  This is what happens when you have EDS.  It's so bad that even doctors don't believe us when we come in with horrific injuries right in front of their eyes.  I cannot figure out what it is about this disease that sparks the incredulity.  It's not a pretend or controvertial disease.  It's a well established diagnosis and accepted to exist, but when many doctors see it, they seem to be in shock or something.  Generally, they tell me that they just don't believe that EDS can look or be this bad, so I can't possibly be as sick or hurt as I seem.

And then there was my pregnancy care.  My first pregnancy ended with the death of my child at birth.  I was 40 weeks pregnant.  It was horrific.  Yet when I was having my third child, I was denied specialty care because I didn't have a serious medical problem.  At this time, the connective tissues at the base of my skull and in my pelvis were literally falling apart and after the pregnancy I needed them fused.  But they said I was fine and needed nothing but routine care.  This is AFTER my diagnosis.  AFTER.  Even when they knew what was wrong, they said I didn't need care.  Hold on a second.  This was my third pregnancy and two years after we found out I had EDS.  The obstetrician knew I had it, knew about what happened to my first child, and said nope, EDS patients aren't really sick and don't need any special care. 

My diagnosis came after my second child was born.  An experienced pediatrician saw something in me or him and referred us to a geneticist.  We went.  The geneticist asked me a lot of questions and examined my son.  Then he looked at me and said something to the effected of "I don't know if your son has Ehler-Danlos Syndrome.  We can't tell at this age.  But you do."  He explained what it was.  My body doesn't make the structural collagen in my connective tissues correctly.  The ligaments and tendons in my joints as well as my skin are VERY fragile.  This makes are joints what they call unstable - they dislocate and fall apart, and it's measured on a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 being the very worst.  I score a 9; this is very unusual.  He says I'm the walking picture of the disease.  The diagnosis has since been conclusively confirmed, and second and third opinions had.  I don't even have an unusual case, unless you count an unusually bad one.  I have very typical, very severe EDS.

People with EDS have fragile bodies.  Our joints are fragile. They come apart, rupture, dislocate, and get arthritis easily.  Sometimes it happens in really unusual and even life threatening ways, as happened with my neck.  Our internal organs can rupture.  Thank G-d this has not happened to me.  We have a high risk for very bad obstetric outcomes of all sorts, from premature birth, to uterine rupture, to fetal death.  Our skin literally rips and tears, and it doesn't heal properly.  Our brains can herniate out of our skulls (this is not happening to me, but it does appear to be starting to happen to my son).  Our digestive systems can stop working, like stop moving, so that we have to be tube fed.  Mine does appear to be in the process of stopping.  I have problems swallowing and my stomach does not empty properly.  And I am in pain all the time.  This is my life.  It took 34 years to diagnose this.

And I can still walk into a doctor's office and still have them not believe me, even with a note from my geneticist.  I'm not inside the doctor's heads, but it seems like doctors are trained utterly incorrectly about EDS, in as much as they are trained.  It's genetic and rare.  Okay.  I get that.  But it's about as common as Cystic Fibrosis.  You've heard of that.  So have doctors.  But most doctors I've seen have barely heard of EDS, and tell me things like that I don't LOOK like I have it.  Well, I do actually.  They're either thinking I should look like a Marfan's patient, which is a related problem, or like the rubber people in old circus side shows.  You know the ones who could stretch their skin inches out?  Yeah, they certainly had a form of EDS.  I don't have that form.  But I do have the typical EDS facial features, and the typical hand and feet features, but you have to look.  They're subtle.  They also just can't believe, I think, at how staggeringly bad it is when they actually see it.  EDS makes your limbs fall out of the sockets and your head come loose at the neck.  For real.  It hurts.  Bad.  I think they're not told how bad it is, and get the impression it's mild.  Worst of all, honestly, is a general failing in how doctors are trained.  In general, if a patient has more than a certain number of symptoms at once that are from different parts of the body, many doctors are trained to be skeptical of the patient's story at all or to think of a mental disorder.  So if you show up saying that your shoulder comes out of the socket, you have chronic diarrhea, vomit a lot, you faint when you stand, you have burning pains in your hands, and a bad headache in the back of your head, there are many doctors who will just refer you to psych or say to just get some rest.  For an EDS patient, this could mean that you have multidirectional instability in a shoulder, cervical instability, gastroparisis, dysautonomia from any number of causes, and possibly that your brain is literally falling out of your skull.  But you didn't get a workup at all because your doc didn't believe you because you were too sick.

I've had to stop working.  It's about time.  I owned a business that I'm shutting down.  I spent a lot of time trying to shore it up.  I spent money trying to get training so I could built a part time job so I could control my own hours and work around my disability.  I really wanted to find something that would keep me among the working and tried everything.  This has all failed.  The training cost money.  I also had to get therapy that wasn't covered by insurance for this last injury.

Is there hope?  Well.  Yes.  My illness cannot be cured.  The next injury is around the corner.  What I can do is to spend what time I have with my family and children and try to enjoy the life I have.  But a meaningful career is not in the picture.  I need at least two more surgeries I know of right now: one to fuse another part of my neck and another to fix another trapped nerve in my hip.  I'm at the doctor at least once a week.  You can help.  You can help with the debt we have from trying to get me working when I was still hopeful of being able of doing something, and from the bills.  We have a fundraiser here.  Please share it if you can.  The Chesed Fund

To find out more about EDS please see: http://ehlers-danlos.com/

The Fibers are NO GOOD

I don't think I ever put it up here.  It was four years ago when a geneticist figured out what was wrong.  We knew that something was wrong for a long time; if you've been reading this blog a lot you've seen it, too.  There were tummy problems and joint problems, and then the mystery of the death of my first child.  The problem had gone misdiagnosed for years as a series of autoimmune diseases that didn't quite fit, or as psychiatric illness (read: that I was a faker who wanted attention).  The solution started with Saul.  When he was less than a year old, an older, more experienced pediatrician at Walter Reed sent him to a geneticist.

I took him.  The question was whether Saul had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.  The geneticist looked at Saul, pinching his skin and examining his joints.  Then, he turned to me and said something to the effect that he couldn't tell if Saul had that disorder, but that I did.  I was the walking poster child of the illness.

It's in the fibers.  Literally.  The fibers of my body were bad.  There's a tough fibrous substance that holds you together called collagen.  There are several types of it.  My body was making it incorrectly, and causing me to be sick.  My internal organs are too stretchy and therefore don't work just right.  My joints are weak and literally come apart, never to heal.  My skin is like putty and shreds.  That's the problem. 

It's my fibers.  The irony, right?

So I get some pretty strange injuries, and I get them for seemingly no reason.  My latest injury was that the first two vertebrae at the top of my neck came apart.  They came apart from one another just from holding up my head for 39 years.  When I say apart, the surgeon told me that the joint space was about 1cm when he opened me up.  It should be almost non-existant with the two bones just about flush. 

I did get that surgery at Walter Reed, and it was right after my last post.  Within a couple of days, they called and said I needed to pack my bags and get on the operating table.  It couldn't wait anymore, and there was a room available.  Actually, it was a life threatening injury, and we all knew it.  I was on the list to get the next available neurosurgery slot. 

Now the bones are permanently bolted back one on top of the other, and I'm recovering.  This operation was a major one, and I'll be out of commission for a long time.  Along with the rods and screws in my neck, the bones have to knit themselves together.  I'm stuck sitting in a rigid neck brace while this process happens.  Normally I'm a process knitter, but I can't say I like this particular project. 

This Always was a Knitting Blog - The Sexiest FO's of 2015

I did a lot of knitting in 2015.  The truth is that after the birth of Saul, I didn't knit for quite a while.  Then about this time last year I needed an operation to fuse some bones that had come apart in my pelvis - that'll probably be a recurring theme in my life from now on, getting bones fused back together.  I took knitting back up at that time in a pretty big way.  Actually, it was a little before the surgery, when my mobility became limited and I was sitting more.  As I was recovering from that operation, this latest thing started to become apparent, and I started getting pretty sick with it.  The sad truth is that I've been pretty much a shut in the last year as this instability in my neck progressed.  But I've had the time and attention to really become a master knitter, and have tackled several of the Starmore ladies' patterns in the last year:

The project pictured above I finished around Purim last year.  It's Elizabeth Woodville from the 2013 edition of Tudor Roses.  It was made in Virtual Yarn Hebredian 2 ply in the Solan Goose and Driftwood colorways.  I knitted this one specifically while I was recovering from the operation I mentioned, and it was selected to be easy, mindless knitting.

The next project I finished was Loch Lomond, also a Starmore pattern, in the original kit from Virtual Yarn.  I HEART this sweater.   It took about 6 or 7 weeks of knitting, and took first place in ladie's colorwork cardigans at the county fair.  I consider it my fanciest piece of clothing and like to wear it to shul.

After that came some knitting for the kids.  Also Starmore.  I made BBK here a coat last spring.  It's Secret Garden from The Children's Collection, and I ordered Hebridian 3 ply for it in Driftwood.  I had to try the 3 ply out.  I had big plans for another project, and wanted to get the feel of the yarn.  She loves this sweater and wear is regularly.

Do you know, she's 2?

And this one.  This one took two ribbons at the county fair.  One was first place in it's class, but it also won the purple rosette for best in show for children's knitted garments.  It's another Starmore.  Surprise!  This from Aran Knitting in Bainin.  Boy, I don't like the Bainin yarn.  It was made in little kid size for my son.

Over the summer I knitted Starmore's Oregon Hat and the cowl, too.  Don't have any picture of the cowl.  It's a gorgeous pattern with 10 or 12 colors.  At this point I have one and a half of the gloves done, but I've found I detest knitting gloves, so no matter how much I will them to be done, they just sort of sit there without me working on them much.

Then throughout the fall I made a push to finish some more sweaters that were either new or sitting on needles.

The first was Elizabeth of York (2013) in Tormentil and Lapwing.  I made it with a Ravelry KAL starting in late September.  This little vest is actually probably the most technically challenging project I've made.  I had to totally rework the increases on this stranded knitting.  I got about 6" into it the first time and found the increase scheme to be totally inappropriate for someone not 4'9" tall and built otherwise like a Barbie doll.  It also has three different sorts of knots in the knitting as well as purls on the out facing side of the knitting.  It made for a challenge to keep consistent tension on a garment later expected to fit.  I got the brass buttons at a shop in Colonial Williamsburg, so they're meant for historical reinactors and fit with the garment nicely.

Unfortunately, you can see that by this time how skinny I'd gotten from my illness.  I've been having trouble eating the last year.  Swallowing has become difficult, and I've lost about 50lbs.  It was one way to lose the baby weight.  Fortunately, they've finally scheduled my surgery at Walter Reed, and I hope to be getting better soon.

The next project I finished was Alice Starmore's Eala Bhan.  The Amazing E gave me the kit for this the previous Hanukkah, but I didn't get to it right away.  I finished it in November.  It's in Hebredian 2-ply Mountain Hare.  The buttons are Swarovski crystal.  This sweater is a major undertaking, but well worth it.  It's knitted to 7 or 8 stitches per inch and is cabled all over, so it'll take forever.  But it's gor-ge-ous.

The next sweater never should have happened.  I promised it would never happen.

Years ago, E asked if I'd knit him a sweater.  I told him I never would.  It would take two long.  And when I say I'll never do something, he knows that hell will freeze solid long before it is ever likely to happen by my hands.  Well, now I knit like the wind, and I decided to knit him a sweater for our 8th wedding anniversary.  That's right, I said 8th.  And I did it in secret.  He had no idea.  This Na Craga (also from Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting), was knitted in Hebredian 3-ply in Tormentil and took me 4 months of secret knitting time.  He wasn't even happy when I gave it to him, just shocked.

Hold on.  I'm almost done.  This was a fast knit.  It's Anne of Cleves from the 2013 edition of Tudor Roses.  It's soft and fluffy in Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora that was sitting in my stash forever.

And my last project of 2015 was not by either of the Starmore ladies.  It's a mini version of Koolhaus by Jared Flood.  I made this one to fit BBK in Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand dyes.  I knitted this up in an afternoon.

I'd Thought It was the End, but Jeremy Clark-Erskine is Back in the News

I'd sort of figured that last post was the last of the blog, finishing up that Rheingold wrap after six years and becoming a suburban mom.

Maybe not so much.

So yes, in 2006, after he'd escaped from prison in Indiana, I met Erskine in the Chicago area and dated him for a few weeks.  I let him into my home and he must have used any small amount of time I spent taking a potty break or any other thing taking documents and credit cards out of my desk.  He spent thousands of dollars on my credit cards in just a week or two and stole my car when I became suddenly and mysteriously ill enough to need to be hospitalized.  I still don't know if it was coincidence or not.

Late last year I got some more emails and comments to this blog asking for updates on Jeremy Clark-Erskine's whereabouts.  There wasn't much to say.  He served out his last sentence and was released in November, 2015.  As far as I knew, he still owed the fine State of Indiana, who has allowed him to escape jail twice, some time on forgery and escape there, but for whatever reason they didn't take him back like they could have.

What have I been doing?  Sitting around knitting and trying to take care of my kids.  It's not easy lately.  You see, I've developed a pretty nasty complication of my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.  It's cervical medullary syndrome and a really bad case of altantoaxial instability.  The first two vertebrae at the top of my spine are coming apart so badly that it blocks blood flow through my vertebral arteries when I turn my head.  It's also putting pressure on the top of my spinal cord and giving me trouble with important things like swallowing and regulating my blood pressure and heart rate.  My body sort of can't do those things anymore well.

Right now I'm waiting for surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.  They have some really good neurosurgeons there who know how to do this operation because aside from suburban moms with EDS (or rheumatoid arthritis), other people who get atlantoaxial instability are guys who have been blown up or in crashes.  Walter Reed is also home a major amputee center and where our most seriously injured combat veterans are sent for treatment.  My family also gets our general medical care there because The Amazing E is an active duty service member and stationed in the area.  I bring my kids to Walter Reed for their sore throats and other owies and see, every single time, dozens of men and women who have been blown up in service to the United States.  I'm in a lot of pain, and pretty disabled right now.  My surgery has been delayed because the neurosurgeon who was going to do it got deployed to Afghanistan and we had to get the other neurosurgeon up to speed on my case.  I'm still waiting, hoping for my turn in an OR at Walter Reed.

And I got a phone call today.  It was from a reporter in New York.  Erskine has been arrested again. He'd been out of jail for less than 2 months.  I'm told that when he was arrested, he was posing as a wounded warrior and hoping to profit from it.  His car had Purple Heart plates.


It sticks in my craw.  I don't know what exactly he's being charged with this time, but perhaps they'll find a way to not cut any deals, throw the book at him, and to keep him in jail forever. 

Rheingold Wrap: The Saga Ends

Six years.  Six long years later the Rheingold wrap is done.

As you may recall, I bought the kit from Virtual Yarns with the intention of knitting it for my wedding.  I would have made it, two, except that we moved the wedding date up by three months.  When it was not done, in my despair I cast it into a bin.

There it sat for two years until pity on the beautiful thing freed it for another go.  That is, until I started getting sore hands.  Another two year sentence freed the wrap again, only for it to be cast aside due to an error. It's the only error I can see in the garment.  I skipped a row in the second pattern repeat on the second half.  The error was only detected after I'd knit another few inches, and I was too distraught to tink it all back.  Or to look at it.  So back it went until I decided to finish it.

Damn it.

When I took the wrap out of jail for the last this past April, eight of the twelve pattern repeats were finished.  I worked on it with the monogamy it deserved until the knitting was done, even adding two more pattern repeats.  Then I found that I'd lost the finishing instructions.  After three emails to Virtual Yarns, they ACTUALLY emailed me a copy!

I did make a few other modifications:

14 pattern repeats
Grafted center seam in two colors
Applied i-cord edge in Lapwing
Modified color scheme for fringe
Sewn in lining of a silk/cashmere pashmina wrap

The finished wrap is about 66" long, excluding fringe.

Oh, and check it out in the final picture.  We've had a girl! I actually finished the knitting while in labor with her.  How's that for a labor of love!

New Twisterino Colorways for Fall 2011 at Rock Creek Yarn

When you're in the yarn business, with the fall festivals comes new stuff. Here are several new fall and winter themed colorways in Twisterino sock yarn.

First, we have Twisterino in Pumpkin Pie. Remember, Twisterino is our squishy, springy two ply 100% superwash merino. Pumpkin Pie has kettle dyed shades of crusty biscuit and sweet pumpkin custard topped with spicy brown speckles.


We're celebrating Samhain with orange Twisterino overdyed in spooky black.

Can you see it? If you look really carefully you can find a skein of sock yarn in Woodland camo colors.

Or try knitting gifts from cheerful holiday colorways of cool Winter's Tale

And Sugarplum Fairy

A Cheesitarian recipe: Enchiladas Salsa Roja

Some of us need dairy only meals now and then. This one is for the cheesitarians out there. For this one, you'll need:

1/4 cup olive oil
8 corn tortillas
1 yellow onion, sliced
1/2 pound jack cheese, grated (2 cups of grated cheese)
1 tbs ancho chili powder
1 1/2 cups hot water
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp salt
1 yellow onion, finely diced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbs all purpose flour, browned in a 400 degree oven for 5 minutes
1 medium tomato, diced
3/4 cup vegetable broth or water
1 tbs red wine or apple cider vinegar
red pepper flakes to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat 1 tbs of the oil to shimmering in large skillet. Add sliced onion and saute until clear. Remove the onion and set aside.

Put the rest of the oil into the skillet and heat until shimmering. One at a time, fry the tortillas in the oil until pliable, but not crisp. Set aside. Drain oil until only a little coats the pan.

Add the ancho chili powder, salt, red pepper flakes, and garlic to hot water and set aside.

Saute the diced onion until clear. Add the cumin and browned flour and toast for a moment. Add the tomato. Saute 5-6 minutes until tomato is tender. Add the chili, garlic, and water mixture; broth, and vinegar. Simmer for 5 minutes to let the sauce thicken.

Add 1/4 cup of sauce to a 9x9 baking pan. Dredge one fried tortilla in the sauce left in the pan. Place on work surface and top with 1/4 cup cheese and a few slices of onion. Roll up the tortilla and place it in the pan, seam side down. Repeat with the remaining tortillas. Top with the rest of the sauce and any remaining cheese. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the oven.

Serves 4.

Cause I've been real busy

I haven't written.

Well, Saul was born on June 1. And I've been real busy since then.

Why the silence?

It's been pretty quiet around here for several months. Very quiet.

No, I didn't stop knitting, but I have been working on something else for the last 34 weeks and I haven't wanted to talk about it here. Until now.It's another boy, and G-d willing he'll be born in mid June.

Why the silence?

It's been pretty quiet around here for several months. Very quiet.

No, I didn't stop knitting, but I have been working on something else for the last 34 weeks and I haven't wanted to talk about it here. Until now.It's another boy, and G-d willing he'll be born in mid June.

Leek and Potato Soup

Eeek! I've forgotten to post for some time.

After last night's soup and latke dinner, I've had some requests for my leek and potato soup recipe. Here it goes.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pound potatoes
2 leeks
4 cups vegetable broth
3/4 cup half and half
pinch of nutmeg or 1/2 tsp of dill weed
salt and pepper to taste

Slice white and green parts of leeks into 1/2" rounds. Place in a colander rinse under cool water, separating the layers with your fingers. Leeks tend to have a lot of dirt and sand inside, so they must be well rinsed.

Peel potatoes and quarter.

Pour the broth into a large soup pot (at least 6 quarts). Add leeks, potatoes, and dill or nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Turn on heat to medium and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 40 minutes until potatoes are soft.

Remove soup from heat. With an immersion blender, puree the soup. Return to low heat and add the half and half. Stir until well incorporated. Serves 6.

Some tasty additions can be made to this soup to make it more hardy. Add 8 oz of cubed salmon fillet and place over low heat until cooked, 5-7 minutes. Shrimp also make a nice substitute. For a smokey flavor, garnish with a bit of smoked whitefish, smoked salmon, or crumbled bacon.

Jeremy Clark-Erskine Sentenced

Has the saga of this scoundrel finally come to an end? Jeremy Clark-Erskine was sentenced in Federal court in relation to his crimes out west last year. Will it be the end of this guy? I don't think so. He'll eventually be out, but this should slow him down in a few years. According to the FBI press release, which can be found here: http://www.justice.gov/usao/mt/pressreleases/20100927145224.html, Erskine is sentenced to:

• Prison: 81 months

• Special Assessment: $400

• Restitution: $49,118.95

• Supervised Release: 3 years

Now, this is good but I don't think this is great. That's not a whole lot of time compared to the grief he's caused, and if he does pay his fines and restitution I'd worry about the source. The best news in this sentence are that due to truth in sentencing laws, he's likely to actually serve about 7 years. Also very cool were details made known to me by the FBI. The first is that the judge was really pissed about Erskine's impersonation of an Army officer while committing his crimes. According to the official I spoke to, part of the judge's order was that Erskine has to write a him series of letters detailing the lives of actual war heroes who died for our country. The other cool thing is that when Erskine is done in Federal prison, Indiana still wants him on a number of other charges. So he's not going to be walking among us for some time.

For any law enforcement who might be reading this, I'd ask two more things. It's about his supervised release. His victims, past and present, deserve to know that he won't hurt people during his supervised release and that he actually is supervised for the three years the judge ordered. Please make sure that as part of his supervision that he does not have access to computers and that he is made to wear a GPS device. You know his history and how he commits his crimes. These measures will allow the public to have the three extra years of safety from this jerk.

199 skeins of sock yarn

Take one down! Pass it around!

It's that time of year again. Time for the fall yarn shows. Creek Yarn will be at two. The first is tomorrow and Sunday. The Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival is in Berryville, VA, and hour to an hour and a half from most of the DC area. This is a really cool show, and I'm doing it for the third year. Shenandoah has really expanded what they do. It's now a weekend of large and small fiber vendors, livestock sales, contests, demonstrations, classes, and food. Last year they even had a winery. Seriously, either day you go is going to be a good one. Take the drive.

Next weekend is Yarncon in Chicago, IL. This will be my first (and probably only) year at YarnCon. This small show is part of the hand made movement in Chicago and features small produces like me. If you're in Chicago, come out for it. Really. There will be lots of products there that you probably can't find in local yarn stores. Yet. Let's hope for some scouting from LYS's. Small hand dyers make some really great products that should be featured more in stores. Ask your LYS to send someone, and come with!

So here is is. The stock. That's 199 skeins of sock yarn that are coming with me to Shenandoah. There's some more that's note quite ready that will come with to YarnCon as well. Besides all the sock yarn you know, Rock Creek Yarn will be featuring some new colorways as well as the Silk Sock. Our laceweight selection is also expanded.

YarnCon will be our last show for 2010. The next time you'll (hopefully) see us is at Homespun Yarn Party next year, if it happens again. Make sure you show your support for that show, and offer to volunteer or sponsor it, if you can. It is another show dedicated to allowing small fiber producers to sell retail directly to the public. Shows like YarnCon and Homespun Yarn Party are really the bread and butter for us and allow us to be in business.

So what else for next year? Decisions. Rock Creek Yarn has to make a number of business decisions. First, I would like to expand into more local yarn stores outside the DC area. If you'd like to see Rock Creek Yarns in your store, please make the introduction between me and the owner. Second, I will start carrying things other than sock and lace yarn. Right now, The Yarn Spot in Wheaton, MD has a whole bunch of a kettle dyed DK silk/merino blend. Look for that direct from RockCreekYarn.com next year. Third, I'm working on learning to use my new drum carder to make art batts. Fourth, patterns; I'm days away from publishing two sock patterns with more to come. Lastly, a big decision regarding shows. I'll let you know about that one later.

New yarn: not just for socks

The fall shows are coming up in the next few weeks, and I've got new yarn. I'm calling it Silk Sock, but it's not just for socks. I'll prove it.
The new yarn is a 4 ply fingering weight blend of 50% superwash merino and 50% silk. That means it's very fancy, shiny, and drapey, but also machine washable. I thought that made it perfect for a cute little baby dress. So here it is. I'll have some of this yarn at the fall shows to see how things go, and then it will go up on the website.

P.S. This is a message about my excitement over new yarn. Nothing else.

St. Brigid

At long last, I'm knitting Alice Starmore's St. Brigid. I'd intended that this summer be my Summer of Starmore, knitting this pattern , finishing my 3/4 done Rheingold wrap, and starting either my Luskentrye kit or perhaps even an Elizabeth of York. I love the Starmores' patterns, and it looks like my Summer of Starmore is likely to turn into an Autumn and possibly a Winter of Starmore.

The danger of the Starmores' knitting patterns is that they take longer than 6 weeks for me to knit. I knit fairly quickly, but these are time consuming projects. I cast on St Brigid on July 14 and have worked on it (nearly) monogamously for all the time since. The back and most of the sleeves are finished, but I've reached the six week mark.

This is a problem.

After six weeks of exposure to a project, I develop a dreadful disease. Perhaps you've experienced it? I call it Project Fatigue. If it's not done at the six week mark, and project is likely to get pitched to a dark corner with a promise to myself that I'll pick it up again. Of course, no project ever has another 6 week go in it, as it's a progressive disease. After I first develop...this allergy... to a project, further exposure to it causes the disease to return faster and faster.

Project Fatigue has claimed several projects. A few, like my Green Tea Raglan, got finished. Some have eventually been frogged. Others, like the Rheingold Wrap and my Oriole Lace Blouse, sit waiting for a treatment for my disease. Indeed, this disease has been such a burden to my knitting that it has prompted me to try to learn things to like cabling without a cable needle and the Yarn Harlot's method of cottage knitting. The cabling thing helped. I still have not mastered the Harlot's flying fingers, but I still study the videos.

So here it is. The back of St. Brigid.As you can see, it's a great Aran geansai. However, unlike the authentic Arans I was dressed in as a child, it will not be a hair shirt. I'm making this of Rowan Cashsoft Aran. It's on US 4 needles, so it's pretty dense and is intended to wind up as my new fall and spring jacket. If the disease does not get too bad.

Clark-Erskine's sentencing delayed

I received a message from an official involved in Jeremy Clark-Erskine's (Jocko Angus Abramovitch) federal case that the sentencing has been pushed back until September 8. This official was not able to talk about the specifics, but it appears that they found other things that Erskine was up to.

If you have any information that might be helpful in prosecuting this undesirable or even just his whereabouts from June, 2009 to January, 2010, please contact the Helena FBI field office at (406) 449-0195.

Hugs across the miles

I've been keeping this one to myself to savor for a couple of months. Actually, I'm so touched that when I think of the kindness of knitters, it still brings a tear to my eye.

A couple of months ago I got a surprise package in the mail. It included some do-dads from different places and an afghan. A very special knitted afghan.

It seems that after the loss of our son, my wonderful friends got together an knitted us a special blanket. This wasn't just one knitting group. It included girls from SNBWB, South Suburbs SnB, and other knitting friends who now live in Ohio, France, and Japan.It's so special that hugs are built in.

I'm just speechless everytime I see it. The outpouring of from people the last few months has been incredible. Knowing the amount of time and love these ladies put into a gift like this is so comforting. Special thanks to Knifty Red, AJS, Knitterary, French Kitten, Luciousluka, Llunar Llama, and Gurski who all knit parts of the afghan. Thanks. Just. Thanks.

A new adventure in the Bag o' Crap

What was it, three years ago that I swore off the Bag o' Crap yarn sales? This was after I got burned by the Cherry Tree Hill annual sales of Bags 'o Crap. After purchasing their yarn grab bags to expand my stash on the cheap, they sent me two really lousy ones in a row. By that I mean that I got 5 pounds or so of yarn made of shredded Muppets. I still have that yarn and now believe that I will eventually use it to make stuffed animals for children.

And then last week came an ad for 2.5 pound Bag's o' Crap from Dontbuynewyarn.com. They are an offshoot of Cherry Tree Hill. The bag was advertised to contain over a kilogram of discontinued Classic Elite yarn for $25. At the retail price of Classic Elite, I thought I'd only need something like three good skeins that I can actually use to get my money's worth. So I threw caution to the wind and ordered one.

Today my Classic Elite Bag o' Crap arrived.I am impressed. Really. I like more than half of this stuff. Not all of it is labeled, but I seem to have gotten:

• Some patterns I am totally uninterested in.
• Two skeins of Minnie. This can make a nice scarf.
• Four skeins of LuLu. It sucks. Something had to.
• Two skeins of something I cannot identify. It's at least aran weight and 8 or 10 plies of several colors. But it's soft.
• Two skeins of a very springy 100% wool in a cream color. It says "Remateks" with the numbers 3238 and 7202. It's nice.
  
• 4 skeins of what I believe to be Bubbles in two colors. Not bad.
• Two skeins of BamBoo in pink. it's nice and I'll certainly do something with it.
  
• Two skeins of Fame in different colors.
• Two skeins of Classic Silk. This is the real highlight. I was already planning on getting more and doing a striped sweatshirt type thing out of it. Now I have a head start

International S n B

Early in my knitting career, I knitted with a great group of ladies in Wheaton, Illinois. This was even before I knitted with the girls in Tinley Park. Both groups, mind you, were made up of really great ladies, and I've remained friends with them even after moving away.

The Tinley Park groups is still fairly intact. However, the Wheaton group was flung to the four winds over the years. We're all over the place at this point. Except for last Sunday morning when we all shared the same space on the InterTubes.

On Sunday morning, the group met together on video chat. The Essing and Beeing took place with knitters signing in from three continents:

Merry Gentlemen from Maryland
Llunar Llama from the Chicago area
Theory of String from the Chicago area
French Kitten from rural France
ajs from Ohio
KnightthatsayKNIT from Misawa, Japan

Isn't technology grand?

At long last

Long before I ever learned to knit I had an affair with my one true love.

Clay.
I was a potter. I had my own wheel and kilns and everything. Then tragedy struck. I royally messed up my left arm. What happened was a work related injury that robbed me of use of three of my fingers for a couple of years. Eventually, I had surgery that fixed the problem but by then I'd moved into a condo and was back in school. I didn't have time for pottery after my hand and arm recovered. Luck for me, my dad was kind enough to keep my equipment in his basement.

Last year I moved into this house that has a barn in the backyard that is perfect for a small pottery studio. In a flurry of excitement, I drove the truckster back and forth to Chicago twice to get all my stuff. However, I discovered that my wheel, which was already second or third hand when I got it, was in pretty bad shape. I couldn't start throwing. Then I got pregnant. My return to pottery was delayed for another year.

Until today! My brand new pottery wheel came today!The new wheel is on the left. My old one, which can still be used in a limited fashion, is on the right.

I'm so tickled. Look for this to become a place for yarn and mud induced mishegas.