Afflicted

Itchy!!  I've been so itchy the past week. Poison ivy got me and there's a rash on my leg, on my shoulder going up to my neck, there was a bit on my arm and a smidgen near my eye. It feels like ants crawling on you and you can't scratch. I used calamine lotion, and over the counter antihistamines and the best thing of all was plain ole Benadryl. The meds do take a toll though, and I've just felt flat all week. No spunk. Jim nicked named me Itchy-bitchy.

So how did I get the itch on all these different locations? Well, the one on my leg was the primary contact with the plant, I can tell because it's the worst one. I think the rest came from secondary contact, from something that I touched that touched the plant, but it took me a while to figure out from where. The new spots of rash kept occurring all on the left side. I was thinking about this as I was walking the dog and realized that his dangling leash could easily have dragged through the evil plant.

I couldn't get home fast enough! I threw the leash in the trash, washed down with some rubbing alcohol, then plain water, then a full on shower.  So far, so good, no more rashes.

To cope with my affliction I amused myself with stories of how much worse it could be. And I treated myself to some bright colors, spinning some FatCatKnits fiber in the colorway nerds, then knitting it up into these precious mittens:

They are size 6-8 and I'm going to put them aside for Christmas. The superwash BFL will make them easy for even a muggle to care for.

I was supposed to be tackling the zipper on my Folklore, and I tried, but it was ten stitches to the inch. I did three inches and it took an hour. Seriously? Times two sides?  Not happening.  So today, I took the sweater to our local tailor and he tells me he can do it, no problem, and have it done by September 9th, all for $28. It sounds like a great deal to me. Of course I'm nervous that something bad might happen to my knitting, but then again, if I were to do it myself, something bad might also happen. You could even say a bad something would be more likely to happen in my hands than in the hands of an experienced tailor.

Well, it's in his hands now. I'll try not to think about it.  Lets just look at mittens again.