Feeling Crotchety as a I Crochet

Last night I was trying to get to sleep. Something most people do at night, although some people sleep in the day because they are actually vampires. Anyway, as I was nestling for a long nights nap I turned my head in just the wrong way so as to pinch a nerve in my neck. It didn't hurt too badly, but I couldn't turn my head or lay on my side, my usual way of sleeping. So I guess I fell asleep on my back staring at the ceiling. When I woke up this morning, the pain was gone but I felt as though I hadn't slept very well at all. I had wanted to get up with Mr. C to see him off on another manic Monday, make him some coffee or breakfast and just try and be pleasant but no, waking up was too difficult and he had already been gone for over an hour by the time I rolled out of bed.

Had  to make a phone call to some guy at EI who called me on Friday. Left a message with him, and sat down in front of the trusty PC to figure out what to do next. I don't want to leave my house at all until I hear back from EI. Honestly I'm worried he's going to tell me for some bizarre reason I don't qualify and that makes me nervous enough, so I figured I may as well look up some crochet jewelry to get some inspiration for project ideas.

And thats about when I pinched my neck again. The other side from last night, and I think it might have been from the awkward position in which I was sitting for hours yesterday to work out some patterns for crochet jewelry sets due to the terrible lighting in my living room, or the fact that when I wasn't working on my project yesterday I was sitting awkwardly (aside: isn't awkward such an awkardly spelled word?) in front of the computer playing The Sims 3. I popped an Advil for the swelling in the muscle in my shoulder, they are sitting quite crookedly right now, the shoulders I mean. And am forcing myself to write this even though it is mostly uncomfortable to do so.

Other things that are going through my mind... I am sad to have helped my neighbours moved because now they aren't my neighbours anymore. I don't want new people living next to me, for the past 2 years I've had two of my best friends living next door and its made me spoiled. And according to Google Maps (which is a liar by the way) it takes 46 minutes to hoof it to there place from mine. I know it would take less time than that if I took the back roads and walked along the river, but thats not the point!

On Sunday Mr. C took me to Wal-Mart to raid for supplies for projects and I was really surprised to see they were cutting back their craft department to the bare bones minimum. They had some quilting and knitting supplies, but no crochet thread and virtually nothing by way of beading supplies, which is what I was actually looking for. I had hoped by going to Wal-Mart I might be able to find a sewing pattern too but no, all the patterns were gone already. So, because I was feeling impatient to get started on some jewelry, I sucked it up and went to Michaels. I know I over paid for what I got, but Mr. C hates shopping and having gone to the back of Wal-Mart to find nothing during the Sunday Shopper crowd left him rather grumpy. I had really wanted to go to Fabricland as well, but Mr. C is stressing the lack of funds coming in with me not working and Fabricland has moved all the way to the other end of town and there is absolutely nothing interesting for him to distract himself with while I shop for fabric.

I did buy a nice big bucket of beads, seed beads and some glass beads that I'm not actually a huge fan of but I can work with them. It came with a bit of wire, a crimper tool, and pretty much everything I'd need for a few simple projects. Well, except clasps and earing hooks and straight pins. But I got it more to go with the crochet jewelry I want to make. I decided to purchase some size 10 black crochet thread, because all I have here is some bernat satin yarn not at all suitable for what I intend to make. I started off coming up with some simple concepts for rings, and I'll be carrying those patterns into the matching bracelets and necklaces and I have some cute ideas for earings too. I was inspired by the Victorian Gothic look, although I know real Victorian lace is tatted, I don't yet know how to do needling tatting. Although I know I could learn. Irish lace was a form of crochet lace made popular in the 1800's and it was known a form of macrame/crochet lace was around durring the renaissance. And besides, this isn't an historical project for once and Irish crochet lace should do for what I'm thinking for now. If not, I guess I'm just going to have to teach myself to tat.

In my search online for some cool pattern ideas for the crochet jewelry, I found some really intricate and interesting wire crochet that I'm going to have to try that integrates crochet and beadwork. I really want to try this to make silver snow flake earings, and maybe some cool copper stars. I also found this really cool blog with some needle tatting tutorials. Also, she may have cloned my cats...