Fifth Time's A-Charm?

I finally have this thing done and how I like it!

Here is the front and back of what I plan to be the outside of my Swiss Cheese Headband (or it could be a cowl for someone with a skinny neck).  There is some yarn left over, but I think that is a good thing.  Why is it a good thing?  I love this yarn so much.  It was donated yarn with no tag, so I can't just easily look it up.  I am going to take some of my left-overs to my various knitting groups and see if anyone has any idea what it might be.  I knit this on size 5 needles.

This is the inside.  It looks kind of similar.  You can also see the difference in picture quality between my tablet and my camera.
To make this I cast on 100 sts and worked garter for 8 rows.  I then *knit 10, cast off 10, then used a knitted cast on to cast on 10* across the row to make the holes.  I did garter for 7 rows before doing another hole row, only with the cast off/on before the knit 10.  At the top I did 8 more rows of garter before using a sewn bind-off.
I hope that, along with the pictures, makes some sort of sense.  I know it does to me, but it might not to other people.

My short and mostly fun trip to the ER.

So here is a little more to that.  The sunburn on my arms, face, and hands was getting better nicely.  The burn on the upper part of my legs still hurt, but was slowly coming along.  The burn on my calves were a whole other story.  They were swelling and turning a darker color.  I took one day off but then went in yesterday.  I shocked everyone with the purple hue.  A few people said that they thought it was sun poisoning.  I called my mom to see if she would drive me to the doctor in the morning.  My dad overheard and said we should head over sooner rather than later.
After work my mom met me at my house and we headed to Urgent Care...two actually.  Turns out Urgent Care was closed at 11pm.
We then headed to the ER.  Turns out it was the same one I took Bill to when he had bronchitis.  It was pretty dead, so we got seen really soon.  Though it was really funny because I had to use the bathroom and the nurse checking me in was like "We probably won't need this, but since you have to go..."
My mom was shocked by the fact that they had an iPad and free wifi for me to play with while I waited.  They doc walked in and gave my legs a 'what is this?!' look.  He asked me about it and I told my story.  He asked what I had put on it and kept asking 'if I was sure that was ALL I put on it' and if I had put it on only on my shins or not.  He poked various parts of my legs and felt the temp difference between my purple area and my feet.
He kept going 'hmmm...are you sure that is everything you put on it? Hmmmm...'  I could even tell the nurse was shocked as to the color my legs were.  I felt like I should sell tickets, haha.
The doc decided that the closest thing he could think it was was "dermatitis due to sun, cellulitis, and leg swelling" and decided that since he didn't completely know what was wrong we were going to do a double whammy on it.  So I now have anti-biotics and steroid cream to fight what is either a skin infection or a reaction to something that touched my skin.  Overnight the first dose of cream has already taken me from purple down to pink.  It is still a very angry pink, but a nicer color non-the-less.
Another funny thing is that the nurse was named Cheryl.  I work with a Cheryl and I know that she has another job, but I didn't know what it was.  Turns out this one wasn't the same one, but she also found the story funny.
The lady at the all-night RiteAid even asked me to step back so she could see my legs better.
I'm super glad that I got someone to cover my shift for today.  I don't have to tell anyone else about how I saved kittens from a burning building (since sun burn sounds so boring) and I get to relax and heal.
Next time there is going to be a tube of sunblock with me at all times.

Ruffles Have Ridges.

Though there is not going to be a lot of crafting updates, there is going to be a lot of fun mentioned.  I am just going to list each day since that will make it easier.

Thursday

We all met at my place and loaded the car and motorcycle before heading out to Shenandoah.  Since we could not check in until 4pm we decided to take the longer scenic route.

It was very misty out so we did not stop at each lookout point, but there were quite a few ridges.

We arrived at The Cabin and the first thing I noticed was the porch.

Hot tub!  There is also a hammock in there too.

Just remember, it's no fun to be lonely in the hot tub.

We got welcome chocolate chip cookies!

After a quick unpack we made dinner and played some card games before throwing our swimsuits on and hoping into the hot tub.  It was very nice.

Friday

We had talked about canoeing or some other fun water activity.  It was supposed to rain, but not until later that day.
Though when we got there it was starting to rain.  A few of the other people decided that they wanted to do it the next day, but we figured a little rain wouldn't hurt us.  It stopped raining not too long after we got into the water.  Unfortunately for me, it then got sunny.  The rain had washed off most of the sunscreen I had on and then it was sunny for the next few hours of the ride.  The first third was kind of boring but the other two had some small rapids and faster bits.  I knew I was getting super sunburned though, but there was nothing we could do.
Water logged we waited on the other end for the bus back to our car.  Once we got back I cooked us some dinner and we lounged around watching our sunburns set in.

Saturday

This was the day of much laying around and putting on aloe vera.  My burned legs had both fused into one skin and walking was a lot of not fun.  We watched a few mini marathons on TV and relaxed.

I started this thing a few times.  I did not do a test swatch so I was kind of winging it.  First I wanted to make it into a head-band, but then I cast on too many.  After I took that out I re-cast on but then found I didn't like how the pattern I was trying was coming out only binding off five stitches, so I had to make it a multiple of 20 not 10.   After that I decided it would be too wide as a headband, so I cast on for a short cowl.  That is where I am now...the picture was the second try.

Once it got dark we decided s'mores were needed.  I didn't get any pics, but image four people sharing one stick and singing loudly to Weird Al in the woods at night.

Sunday

The last day.  We ate some leftover steak for breakfast and after packing went to Luray Caverns.  I had gone once when I was younger, but it has been a bit.  I had to ride in the car because my calves were starting to swell and my legs were still too tender to wear jeans.
Since it is so pretty and I took so many pictures I am just going to throw a bunch at you at once.  Remember, these are not all of the ones I took.

Money Donations.

Let me just start out this post by going:

 Look, it's us!  If anyone had found this blog because of this, welcome!
I have been complaining to the hubby that I feel like I don't have enough time to make enough things to donate.  While I know it isn't a competition and every item I make is one more that didn't exist before, I still want to make more.  One group of ladies made over 500 small teddy bears in a month!  I am keeping in mind that they are a group and I am only one, I still feel like a slacker.
Here is the hard part about getting money donations for me.  I don't know where to really start.  I do have that cute little Donation button on the side there, but people will only see that if they come to the blog.  I also don't know if that shows-up on the mobile page.  There are so many websites people can use to get money for various reasons.  I could make a Kickstarter project to get enough money so that I wouldn't have to go into work for a month or something.  The problem with that one is that it is kind of a one shot deal.  Once the time is over, it is over.  I have also found both Go Fund Me and Just Giving.  I haven't looked around too much, but they seem kind of similar from my few looks around.  I also don't know if one is more popular than another and would get more interest.  There is even this webpage that lists the top 6 personal fundraising websites.
I feel like I need a whole month just to research these things.

I also just wanted to mention Don Ritchie.  How cool was this guy?  He was just amazing.  I'm glad they have information about him online so that people everywhere can read about what he has done.

I'm not 100% sure when this fire happened.  But this happened near my house.  I was thinking of asking some of their neighbors if I could help these people in any way, but I'm a hugely shy person at times.  As you can see they are already starting to take down some of the damage from the townhouse that wasn't as damaged.  I really, REALLY hope no one was hurt during all of this.

Thinking out loud a bit.

I have been trying to think of fun new ideas.  Not for the things I make, I already have a ton of those, but fun ways to meet people.
I go to a lot of anime conventions (ok, only three a year) and I was thinking it would be fun to try and have a meet-up or something.  People could bring things to work on or things they want to donate.  Then I had to figure out how this is going to work.  The best bet might be to just post a "Hey, I will be here from some time to some other time, come hang out" since the other options would be a bit more difficult.  Getting a table in artist alley would require money and someone to sit at the table for most of the convention.  I like wondering too much and don't have any assistants or lackeys.  I would probably not get approved for a panel and I wouldn't want to limit the time that way.  Knowing my luck I would get it for 7am on Sun or something.
I know I would have a shirt with my logo and stuff so I could also say that if they saw me out of the time I decided to meet that they could give me things that way too.

No idea if I will really try this or if I am just thinking of fun ideas.  Another fun idea would be to try and get a bunch of funding, take a long time off of working and just go crazy making stuff.

I don't have a picture of it, but I am making progress in the Universal Kite Shawl/ette(Ravelry link).  It is getting so big.  It is hard to show someone when they ask what I am making at this point.  I am about 5 rows into the ribbing edging.  I do need to double check to see if I am supposed to do 1.5" of ribbing or some other amount.  Though the nice thing about this pattern is that you can kind of wing it if you want to change parts.  As long as you increase every other row, it seems to be happy.

Otakon has come and gone.

Events are always odd to me when it comes to time.  Once it is done it doesn't feel like it was long enough, but while you are there it feels like you have so much time.  I brought some knitting, but there was less down-time than in past years.  It looks like the Swiss Cheese Headband is going to have to wait.
On Saturday I actually got to be a handler for most of the day.  I have not done it for so long before.  It was tiring.  My job as a cosplay handler was to make sure she had water, protected the costume from people walking into it, holding her things, handing out business cards, being a portable fan if needed, and fixing things on the costume is needed.
I had so much fun though.