ebrillblaiddes

Finished a WIP! Made from Kroy Socks yarn on the "bitty" size Flexee-Loom (i.e. pack of snap together peg-holding pieces).

This was a bit of a side quest, but with reasons.



It's made out of yarn left over from the project tote, to go with it because I was tired of hooks and small scissors slipping out through the mesh (which is one of my two reasons for making it), based on the Yarnspirations mosaic crochet scarf pattern but of course with far fewer repeats. Sewed on two short zippers from the stash to wrap and close it; it's not quite as smooth or adaptable as a single zipper with two pulls pointed at each other, but had the advantage of being something I could make out of stuff that's free because I already own it.

The other reason I wanted to make this up was to make something to practice mosaic crochet. A while back I got the Humble Bundle of crochet pattern books, one of which has a pattern for a tank top that I could definitely see using as a layering piece. Since I hadn't done any mosaic crochet before (though some of the stripes in the plague year afghan were definitely related) it seemed like a good idea to get some practice in instead of figuring it out while working at clothing scale.

I wonder if a virus with neurological effects might have any impact on developing reading skills.

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/14/nx-s1-5570756/test-scores-math-reading-students-pandemic

(cn: mild physiological grossness; self-treating first aid procedure that wasn't in the manual)

Just used my left fingernails to crack and drain a tiny pus pocket on my right palm, where the ant that was on the shirt I grabbed from the laundry this morning bit me. So I guess sooner rather than later I need to put out ant bait in the laundry room, bc that stings.

Hoping I got everything out that needs out so it can heal up properly overnight.

Dinner tonight was practically-scratch vegetable soup -- the chicken broth and vegetable juice that I combined to be a sort of broth were premade, and the the carrots and beans were canned so already cooked and arguably seasoned, but then there were also dry lentils, fresh chopped garlic, and frozen peppers and onions involved.

Work has been a lot lately -- by the time I get to the end of what's scheduled I don't have energy left for working on videos or jumping on to PearDeck to see if anyone needs a tutoring session. Part of the problem is the way things are going at The Day Job, where I'm concerned that our ability to have an impact and maintain an academic reputation are being vaporized.

Crocheting the cardigan is taking foreeeeeeever, which is exactly what would be expected from making a plus-size wearable item with yarn consistent with a 3.5mm crochet hook.

The soup turned out thicker than I meant it to. I wanted it a bit thick instead of stock-like, but for what I'm wanting to work toward -- making big batches to take to The Day Job in my travel mug for lunch, so I wouldn't need to clock out and get takeout, to save money and get done an hour earlier -- it needs to be a bit more drinkable.

I don't mind doing a bit of tech support in the course of tutoring, like showing someone the login screen for Blackboard or how to wrangle formulas and column sorting in a spreadsheet, but there's been a critical mass of people coming in with needing handheld through scanning the screen to the point where I have to hold myself back from saying "can you fucking read" and I know that's a me problem but it still wears me down, or ones whose professors have told them to type paragraphs into a mindmap graphic organizer template and they think that's supposed to be easier than typing into boxes in a one-slide presentation (which I suggested doing in the Google Doc Powerpoint knockoff bc it's a webapp so they can do it from any computer, and it's a familiar interface for most people)...I end up thinking, if I'd needed anyone to show me how to do these things I would've crashed and burned in seconds, and now I could really use some help figuring out some things that actually are complicated and no one's helping me with that and it seems like the rule for having anyone help you is you must not, under any circumstances, be ebrillblaiddes.

Three double crochets, a slip stitch, and two chain stitches. Four loops pulled through previous loops and each other for each double crochet. Fifteen loops arranged just so, for each corner-to-corner tile, times the ever-increasing number of tiles for that diagonal.

I think maybe, for the amount of beans and lentils and carrots, I should have used another broth can of the vegetable juice. That'll be an easy enough change to make on the next iteration, and I knew there were going to be iterations in the course of figuring out the components and scale.

Wednesday and Thursday of last week, I had students coming in for actually reasonable math help, about things like factoring that actually aren't bleeding obvious, so I got to, finally, for what isn't quite but felt like the first time of the semester, teach actual information instead of slipping tab A into slot B type stuff. And I've gotten a few new students for private classes lately, too, including one Friday for a class starting three minutes after I barely remembered to check it.  We'll have to see if it hold up, but it feels like a dry spell might finally be tapering down.

When I say the cardigan is taking foreeeeever, the fact is, it's coming along. The tiny loops are accumulating into tiles and rows; the amount I've done so far, if I hadn't decided to try to make it tunic length and all but the sleeves in one piece, could probably have been one side of the front. And that's also with starting and stopping to work on other things a bit here and there, like the loom knitting sock experiment. Soon I'll be opening up the package of yarn for the project tote bag -- it's been on hold for a bit because of reasons -- and then I'll be able to keep the cardigan handy and grab it to work on in any scrap of time here and there and threads will intertwine into something that matters.

 ...but I think this might be more.

Spinning: Turning a skein of this (in the, not pictured, fuschia/plum/turquoise color scheme) into something that averages 20 wraps per inch (for comparison purposes, the yarn for the sock below comes out about 12 WPI). Might ply it, haven't decided. Also have a few colors of Tuff Puff kicking around (I seem to end up getting roving yarn to use not-as-intended for spinning) and a few balls of yarn made from them, which I wouldn't refer to as a WIP exactly bc there's not a particular plan, and it's not going while the other is going bc I only have the one spindle, but...it's kinda sitting here looking at me.

Knitting: Pretty much exclusively loom knit as opposed to needle knit, since turning up with carpal tunnel (ergonomic needles are much more challenging conceptually that crochet hooks or loom knitting hooks bc the yarn goes down the needle in knitting). Wanted to be able to take up sock making for serious zoning out purposes, tried to fire up the ol' interchangeable circular needle set, which didn't end well, but it turns out Flexee-Loom Bitty works with Kroy Socks yarn but you really need to make sure the right side of the loom bits is facing out if you're going to purl such as part of a rib (the groove makes everything easier, but purling in particular is a female of genus canidae without it).

Crochet: *horrified giggling*

• Hyperbolic coral -- green/magenta/chartreuse/purple ombre with fed fake-fur strand stuff tucked in to stick out on the underside -- I was further along on this but had tried using hdc instead of dc and it was just not ruffling up, and set it aside a while back; unravelled it to start over maybe about a week ago
• Amigurimi cat -- TBH I'm finishing this up to get it over with; I was in a pattern testing group and there were things not shaping up right for me about this pattern, there were a couple rounds I tried and unravelled so many times with pre-diagnosis carpal tunnel and the counts were just not working and I asked for help then gave up and got kicked out of the group (and finding a group is hard when you're well out of school and your interests are niche and your local area is, TBH, the kind of place people like you try to get out of). Shelved it for quite some time, got tired of seeing it shoved into the corner of my stash, finally decided to finish and donate it so at least someone will get something out of it.
• Corner-to-corner cardigan -- had started making it up out of this and the plan was for it to be that all over, but they stopped making it before I could stock up enough. Got a few balls from eBay and I'm striping in this (the blueberry color) to stretch it. Hoping to get it done by spring, so...
• Tote bag -- with this many things to make up, it sure would be handy if I had an easier way to keep something handy to work on, so I grabbed a couple balls of pretty standard cotton worsted, one solid teal and one teal/white twist and held them together, made a long oval, then started sc'ing up the sides. Then I realized that was absolutely eating yarn so decided to make a bit at each end just the twist, and a big panel in the middle sort of mesh-lacy also out of the twist, bc I have more of the twist than the solid teal. Then even that was going through it pretty fast, especially with stranding in the solid bc having it in there for reinforcement all over is more fit for purpose than tucking in ends at the edges all the way up of what's going to amount to attached straps. So...ordered more solid yarn (of a few different colors to make something like a gradient).

Weaving: got a warp about half put on for what's intended to eventually be throw pillow covers, made out of leftovers from this. It's been sitting half-put-on toooooo long bc warping a loom is not a whilst falling over ded type thing.

(Those weren't affiliate links, I'm just too lazy to properly describe most of the yarn and gadgets.)

 > They've been conditioned to perceive any alternative to their mediocre lives as a threat to their freedom. Meanwhile, it's the endless cycle of consumerism that's keeping them trapped.

https://www.okdoomer.io/its-an-extinction-burst/

For a minute there in spring 2020, I thought we really could do better.

> These days, the phrase "mental health" refers to your ability to engage in surface acting. It has very little to do with your actual emotions or sense of wellness. It has everything to do with how well you can continue fitting in with a group and how much you can contribute to the economy.

https://www.okdoomer.io/weve-got-mental-health-all-wrong/

Daaaaaaaaaamn

In spring 2021, the thing that got me to tell the clinic I needed some lexapro again was I needed to stay employable: when you're pushed to the margins anyway of a system that is doing its best impression yet of the wheels falling off, finding the spoons for keeping or catching up on paperwork is hard, dammit.

The thing about it is I'm still pushed to the margins of a system that is doing its best impression yet of the wheels falling off, but because I can medicate myself into tolerating the situation, it's considered enough.

This is not sustainable; the situation has to change.

Either is valid, you've gotta do what's right for you, but, I've always considered myself to be on Team As Needed rather than Team Perpetual as to lexapro scrips due to a history of medicating myself into tolerating situations for longer than I should have, which led to a bigger splat rather than an orderly exit, but I've been on the stuff for two and a half years this run bc this time the unreasonable situation I'm tolerating is the universe. Thinking about tapering off next summer, I always try to time tapering off for summer so it's not on top of winter -- IDK if I would qualify for a Seasonal-Affective Disorder paperdx but definitely have traits -- bc I am getting close in on a point where the disorderly splat will be an option so I need to get out ahead of that anyway.

And if it all goes splat, I'd like to get out ahead of that too.

The other people in the study group I stumbled into, working their way through Lie Algebras in Particle Physics, know more science than I do to the point where I need to do some catching up just to formulate the questions, which leads to watching this:

"The miracle is that when you take 10^27 electrons, they behave like cheese"