My Hand Aches

Note to self: Don't do bead crochet non-stop for 4 hours without taking proper rests. My left hand hurts like crazy. I got so excited about what I was doing I dropped into 'obsess' mode and forgot to come up for air. I have a lovely bracelet for my efforts though.


It was a good weekend. On Saturday morning Ruth came home for a visit. It was so good to see her. We didn't do much. Watched DVDs, took a trip to Costco, mostly talked. That was the best part. Talking with her. As my daughters get older I enjoy them more and more. It's great being able to have grown up conversations with them. They're so intelligent and whatnot that we can talk about really interesting stuff. Oh yes, we went to International House of Pancakes for lunch yesterday. I had Fruit Crepe Fever. Heh heh. They were scrumptious!

I taught my Right Angle Weave class on Saturday. I only had one student, but it went well. She had a finished bracelet at the end of class time. She really liked doing it too. I'd say I've created another obsessed bead weaver. She bought lots of beads to make more bracelets before she went home.

Ruth brought home a couple jewelry items she was hoping I could repair for her. One was a necklace made of black cylinders, washers, and round pewter beads on a leather cord. The leather was toast. It was pretty easy to fix. I just got some cord (satin instead of leather cos it'll last longer), restrung the thing, and voila!

The second jewelry item was a bracelet I think was a gift from one of her friends. She got it caught in her printer a couple years ago (an accident-it fell of the desk into the printer and got caught in the paper rollers). It consists of some enameled metal medieval axes connected together by oval jump rings. There were a few pieces missing, and the clasp was broken. I don't have any oval jump rings so I used round ones. There was an ax missing too. So what I did was remove the 6 oval jump rings that were still on the bracelet, put round jump rings in their place, then put the oval jump rings on the ends between the bracelet and the clasp (3 on each side). I put a toggle clasp on it. Then I hung a little pewter dragon charm on one link near the clasp (dragons and medieval go together, right?). She loves it. I'm so happy.

Sunday afternoon I got a bee in my bonnet for bead crochet. I've been wanting to make a bangle bracelet using size 8 beads.

It all started when I taught myself tubular brick stitch last week. I've been wanting to try it because it looks like bead crochet. I was kind of hoping for a texture similar to crochet too. Alas, tubular brick stitch is quite stiff, even though I tried my best to be loose about it. It's pretty, but I doubt I'll do it again.

My disappointment in that charged me for the crochet. I strung and crocheted the whole thing last night. It was fun. I much prefer using the 8's rather than 11's.

My left hand sure aches now. I've always had left hand ache problems with crochet. I probably need to grip things a little looser. I tend to squeeze the life out of it.

I managed to get a little bit of knitting done. I've added a bit to the Mystery Sock, and I'm just about finished with the back for the swimsuit cover.

This morning I headed to Cindy's for our weekly walk. Unfortunately, I did not check my cell phone for messages before I left. Turns out the walk was canceled. So I came home and took the boys for a walk on the Parkarosa. I wore them out. They're both sound asleep now. I wouldn't mind taking a nap myself.

Have a great day.