Nayu's Project Progress #44 Sunshine sock

 

Here in the UK we are currently having a little heatwave which is wonderful for me as I actually don't need my heated blanket during the day! It's nice not to be permanently cold. Making sure I have refreshing food and drink like chopped melon in pretty My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic cup to stay cool. Also got windows wide open to try and keep my beautiful guinea pigs from overheating. 

Craft wise not done loads recently but when I last had a day for craft I decided to get working on my sock knitting. 

Using 4 needles (3 to hold the stitches, one to knit with) isn't as complex as it looks, I promise. It's just like with 2 needles, only there are extras to go round on. 

You can see the final progress here, will be a slow burning project (which all mine are at the moment) but there is steady progress! Hope you all stay cool in the heat. 

Nayu's Craft Time #234 October 2022 Update

 

It's been how long????? (Madoka surprised in the anime Aikatsu!)

Massive apologies as I thought I had posted sooner than April this year. Life is happening, albeit it slowly. I mostly chat on my Twitter feed. I will be back here with craft posts hopefully soon. There's life stuff ongong that I can't talk about which does affect my daily life a lot. I hope one day I can talk about it, and it's why I'm sporadic with blog posts. While technically I am anonymous here I could say what's going on but I feel until the issue is resolved (no clue when that will be) I don't mention it online.

However, I do have some upcoming posts I hope to share soon. I have started a new weekly (if the next issues turn up soon) crochet project, it's a Disney Crochet magazine with weekly magazines providing yarn and pattern for squares in a crochet blanket. I also finished a cross stitch project of an old fashioned looking girl (think sepia tones) and started a cute hamster which reminds me of a guinea pigs.

My girls Tulip and Snow are doing wonderfully. We survived the heatwaves this summer much better than I expected. My flat stays relatively cool, I only used my fan twice to keep the temp down. I did wrap ice blocks in fleece and pop them in the cage but they mostly ignored them. Snow kept having haircuts since she is long-fur, she looked rather funny at times! My two zebra finch males, Tomoya and Hibiki are both doing great too.

I am gaming as much as ever, trying to read more, and relaxing as much as possible.

Unfortunately due to the Queen dying, my intended ketamine infusion on 19th September couldn't happen. My next one is in a few weeks, it is much needed now and dealing with extra pain is not fun but I'm managing.

Hopefully the next update will be really soon! Take care until then. 

Ramadan 2022

 Ramadan Mubarak! Happy Ramadan to all those celebrating. The crescent moon was confirmed in Saudi Arabia on Friday so the first day of fasting in this holiest month of the Islamic calendar started yesterday. Due to health reasons I do not fast, I donate money instead. Ramadan celebrates the Quran being revealed to the Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him).It is a time to focus on God, prayer, charity and spending lots of reflection time. 

I love Ramadan ever so much! Mine is a bit different as I'm the only Muslim in my family and don't really have many Muslim friends. It's my first Ramadan in my own flat which is super exciting. I have several Ramadan goals, which are personal, and do include reading the Quran, but one I can share is I want to hand sew a Ramadan banner as a decoration. 

 

I may not fast in terms of food and water, but I do change what I watch and read during Ramadan to be romance free and focusing on good qualities. I have started my annual rewatch of the anime Princess Sarah, I have the French version as it was what was available and yes I understand French really well. I prefer the anime version to the original book which was published early 1900s because Sarah is sweet and gentle, whereas in the book she is a bit selfish sometimes. The anime Sarah is treated like a princess at a boarding school as her father is rich, she never is bossy or overbearing. Things change when she learns her father is dead (her mother died when she was a baby) and that the diamond mine that he had had, had indeed never existed. 

The headmistress of the boarding school wants to put her on the streets (it is Victorian England) but she is persuaded to keep Sarah on as a servant. Sarah is treated poorly, but is already friendly with the other young maid, Becky, as well as other friends in and out of the school. Due to a chance happening slowly Sarah's life as a maid begins to improve, until eventually her wealth is restored because the diamond mind did really exist, and her benefactor never stopped searching for her but didn't realise she was living right next door to him. It is a beautiful tale, with the headmistress being the antagonist as well as a snooty boarder whose personality is ugly.  The series is 42 episodes long, and I'm at the part where her father is dead. 

 I would love to hear how you celebrate Ramadan if you participate in it.

Nayu's Craft Time #323 Explained Absence

 

Mimi Citron from the French version of Strawberry Shortcake series

Hello! Part of my not new year resolutions is to blog a bit more. I realise we are halfway through February and this is the 2nd post of the year - sorry for that. Life was a little busy, but then recently I haven't been well. A mix of it being winter, and, sadly, me needing my next ketamine infusion. It was due on 7th February, then for reasons I do know but am not explaining here it got rescheduled to 11th March, and as of Friday pushed back to March 21st. The rescheduling is for an understandable reason, I am just thankful the clinic is fitting me in vaguely soon as if I'd waited for my usual consultant clinic I'd be waiting until at least May. 

I'm not looking forward to a whole month and bit before getting that important pain relief, as the wait after a few months makes matters worse and me feel rubbish. I can't do anything though, I have gone through a similar wait last year so I know can survive. Just might be quieter than planned. 

Not today, but soon I will post as I have some fun craft things I'm making and stuff will be happening in my garden too! I'm loving living in my own little flat ^u^ 

Over on Nayu's Reading Corner #28 Time to catch up!

 

A windmill (no idea where or who took the photo) because I like them!

Well life has ticked along for me, I know I haven't been regular in updating but hopefully I'll be more frequent in posting. I know it's been a while because Blogger has changed how some elements of my blog are posted, which is a bit weird and will take time getting used to but doesn't affect anything I post. 

Time to catch up with links to recent reviews and posts on my other blog Nayu's Reading Corner! These are in order that they appeared, not sure if it will be forward or backwards yet. 

Mizuki from Aikatsu!

Some major news that explains a big stress I've had over the past 18 months is looked at here.  

 

 

A guest blog post from an author about their book: Guest Blog Post: Children of the Periapt: Escape from Elmsmere by Cimone O'Byrne (Children's, 9 years +)

 

 

A blog tour stop where I review a fun and interesting new novel Blog Tour: Listen, Layla by Yasmin Abdel-Magied (Children's, 9 years +, 10/10E)

 

 A very cute picture book gets reviewed Blow, Wind Blow! by Dom Conlon and Anastasia Izlesou (Children's, Picture book, 10/10E)

 

 

A review for a sweet and uplifting tiny book that everyone needs in their life Little Bunny's Book of Thoughts by Steve Smallman (Poetry, non-fiction, 10E/10E)

 

 

Finally a book about a sibling's viewpoint of gaining a sibling with health issues Perfect by Nicola Davies and Cathy Fisher (Children's, Picture book, 10/10E)

 

That's for now, hopefully I will have more catch up posts for you next week :) 

Akari from the anime Aria

 

 

 

Happy New Year!!!!

 

Morning! Happy 2021 (or 0021 as I initially typed). I'm sorry for being so silent for several weeks. Me and winter don't get on at all, add on to that current events that were present in 2020 and yeah, I focused on surviving.

This year I'm trying my best to blog more regularly. I tend to think I have blogged, then realise all I've done is posted updates on Twitter. It's the sole social media I'm on and I use it daily. I know not everyone is on it, so I'm sorry for not keeping this and my other blog updated. I am going to try harder, even if it's just a couple of sentences to keep you up to date with life.

Today I'm patiently awaiting a fun parcel. Although I wish I didn't have to buy it, I am excited about it's contents. I'm getting a new Nintendo Switch Lite! Yes I still have the one from last January, but unfortunately I'm experience the dreaded Joy Con Drift. It isn't as easily solved in a Lite as it is in say the original Switch where new joycons can be bought and used. The Lite is my favourite console of all time. I play on it over 6 hours a day. It truly is important part of my life, and I do rely on the games I have to help my mental health. Yes I have other hand consoles, and yes I had wanted to wait to see if there would be a new version of the Lite this year. Unfortunately the third party PowerA wireless controller that I have did not work well with all games - Super Mario Odyssey I'm looking right at you. It was a case of buy a pro controller, or for 4 times the price of a pro get a new Lite. 

Ever since I bought my Lite last year I knew this could happen. Nintendo recently told me my gaming time, and with over  2000 hours of gaming clocked up it has more than paid for it's price tag. Once everything is trasnsferred onto the new Lite, and once a week or two has passed to get through the post new year rush, I will send the faulty one to Nintendo and pray they can fix it for me. If they turn round and say they won't, or if it will cost a lot of money then I will say no thank you and just keep it as it is. I'm praying they can fix it for free - I've never used them for repairs before. I have bought new joy cons when my old ones started drifting. I've never had to buy a new controller in my entire 30 years or so of gaming, which is pretty reasonable, so I think the problems are just a build up of my being so lucky with controllers. 

May 2021 be filled with more hope and joy than 2020

Anyway, that's it for today. Craft...yeah let's just say I need to slowly build up my craft skills again. Like I said, unless you lived under a rock you know what 2020 was like. Begin extremely high risk from the virus, living with two key workers one in a hospital, plus some other life stuff I'm not yet at liberty to say but I will share later in the year when it's hopefully all sorted, means life is rather stressful for me, despite not having to work so I can stay isolated at home. 

I know 2021 still has the issues of 2020. But just by being a different year there's more hope. I pray that it is a great year for all of you. And here's to regular blogging!

Nayu's Craft Time #320 Crafting is happening!

A 4mm clover hook (don't think the photo is by me)

I feel rather bad that I have barely blogged here all year. I am sorry! I shouldn't neglect this blog for Twitter, where I do share all my news. I am making the effort to post more regularly - I get new followers each week and want content for you all to enjoy. I blame the weird way that 2020 has panned out. Certainly nothing any of us expected. And, in truth, I think it has changed life permanently. But that's pretty much all I'll say on the matter. I am high risk for covid, but I am alive which is a blessing.

Time to show you some craft work which I did not post on Twitter but I did do yesterday (Friday). Friday's are my time to work on a secret craft project involving a needle and thread. Unfortunately when the weather is really hot (which, for the record, my malfunctioning body lives for - being warm is a real joy! Not to need a blanket is a rare and precious occasion) I don't sew because thin needles feel too weird against my skin. I have always been like this which is why I haven't done much embroidery lately.

Crochet I can do because I don't really touch the metal part of the crochet hook. I dived back into working on a crochet blanket for a local cat charity, Cats Protection who always need blankets for each new arrival and have branches all over the country, so see what items yours is taking for donation and please help them out if you can. It is lovely to hear the blankets go with the cat on to their new home, so they have something familiar with them. I do not know when I will be able to give them the blanket, but I plan on making a few then donating them, which will be some time. I added 1 row which you can see here, created some more pink squares, and turned a skein of yarn into a proper ball.

I love crochet because I use the same stitches for the granny square, a few chain stitches and treble stitches (UK terms). I use the join by crochet method of attaching the squares together. They had been in alternate colours, but yesterday I got so engrossed watching the wonderful American Pioneer series Little House on the Prairie that I forgot to pay attention to which square I chose. Ordinarily I d unpick it, but because it is a patchwork blanket, and not all the squares will be the same colours I left the out of sequence square where it was. The cat who gets it won't care what it looks like, only that it is warm and cosy.

As much as I need the hot weather for my health, I do hope it gets cooler because I have so much fun embroidery to start! I will talk more on that in another post. Hope you all have at least one fun thing to enjoy this weekend, and I hope to post again in a few days. Side note: this is made using the new style of Blogger, which is certainly different to the old style, but it mostly makes sense. I will get used to it soon enough. I am less keen on the new Windows update, it seems I can only crop and reduce a photo, I can't simply remove a bit from the top or bottom, so I edited the blanket picture on my phone which does what I want it to.

I firmly believe this! Picture artist/photographer unknown.

Nayu's Project Progress #40 Here be embroidery!

Colourful kitty project!

If you follow me on Twitter you'll already have seen the pictures in this post. It is more for those of you who don't follow me on Twitter - I don't want you missing out on seeing what I've been working on craft wise! 

I am very happily getting to grips with embroidery. I have almost finished a kit which uses different stitches that I received as a gift from a family member. Look how cute the cat is! I started with the stitches I knew, backstitch, and learnt the other stitches when I reached them. I am forever grateful to a Youtuber who I can't remember, whose video about French knots explained them perfectly, and they are no longer a stitch I fear. As you can see I got to do a lot of them in the cat kit (small round dots on the tail). They are super fun to do and I look forward to using them, instead of dreading them and having to create my own version of the stitch. 

All finished!

At the same time as working on this kit I started new embroidery projects - I wanted something I could do with stitches I already knew, rather than having to learn new stitches when my brain fog makes me fuzzy headed. I transferred patterns from a book I will feature in a future post, using the iron on method of transfer. I use varigated thread (a thread which has a rainbow effect of colours dyed into it) and took great delight in practicing my lazy daisies, back stitch and straight stitch with a few french knots in this purple creation. 

On finishing that I changed colour to the other varigated thread I'd bought and started this now almost finished mandala. Think I prefer the colours and style more than the angled one. I am going to try all the patterns in the book before repeating them, but already have plans to tweak this pattern as well as work it with sepearate colours for each row/each type of stitch.  Not sure how I will frame them yet - I may even create a quilt like blanket from all of them! 

I hope you like these and stay tuned for more! I think embroidery is helping me stay as sane as I can in these crazy times, as is gaming, but embroidery helps me watch something pretty grow, which is important. 

Happy 2020!

Apologies for the extreme lack of posting for well over a month. Winter has been rough as usual and I haven't had enough brain power to blog. I have been sharing my gaming choices and my craft progress on Twitter, which until the weather improves is like a super mini version of blogging. 

I hope you are all staying away from germs and have had a good start to 2020! My plants are already flowering! The image used is from previous year so not exactly what I am looking at but very similar. It is amazing it is alive with my very random waterings, but it has survived for 4 years now! 

I have already started 1 new type of craft this year! Not a project, a type of project. I will blog more once I have had more practice/made more progress. You can see my crochet projects on Twitter though. 

Anyway, sorry to be short but the weather is so cold my body feels like it has flu (it doesn't). Hope to be back as soon as the weather improves! Will be reading more then too. Gaming is a bigger distraction with pretty images.

Nayu's Craft Time #318 Necessary flu jab & lots of gaming

Not got wellies but my boots will keep my feet dry today

I am around! You can find me on Twitter most days. I had the flu jab which affected me sooner and stronger than it usually does, that was last week. I have been a bit busy, I am about to head out to town and a car service but here is a gaming post over on Nayu's Reading Corner to find out what I'm enjoying at the moment, if you miss my tweets/aren't on social media. Craft is happening slowly too, no update photos yet but hope to do some today. Have a super day! 

This is hilarious!

Nayu's Product Review #11 Snowdrop Lantern from Glasspirations

For at least a year I have admired the beautiful work Tracy from Glasspirations has created on Twitter. The other week I saw this stunning lantern which gave me a magical fairytale vibe and I had to get it. At just £15 it is such a bargain! I am useless with imagining dimensions so thought it was smaller than it was (10cm by 6cm) but that didn't matter as it is a decent size. 

Just look at the snowdrops! Snowdrops are one of my favourite flowers, they seem full of hope and simplicity. 

Picture source unknown

I have always admired the tradition of glass work, creating masterpieces big and small with glass is talent that needs to be nurtured and preserved in the modern world. I hadn't realised it had a tea light in - yes I really did just see it and buy it straight away! I am not a massive candle fan so probably won't use it for that purpose. 

 Tracy is gentle to the environment by reusing boxes to package the lantern with packing stuff too. She makes it look like a gift despite the obvious recycling! 

. Do check out the rest of the Glasspirations products on the website and follow Tracy on Twitter.

Nayu's Craft Time #316 What happened at the pain clinic in August.

Hoping rainbows are in my future (not my photo)

A few weeks ago the scene from my window of blue sky with no cloud could easily have been a balmy heatwave day which I enjoyed without the need for blankets Today the same scene requires blankets to keep me warm and I am totally getting a hot water bottle when I get some lunch within the next hour. It is cold! Yes it may get to a high of 18C today, but it started a lot cooler around 8C which my body is very aware of. This is why I hibernate as much as I can in winter. The day may get warmer but my body won't be fooled. 

Anyway, this afternoon I will be gaming! Had to sort emails and a blog post this morning, got 2 minor chores to do before lunch then I will relax with a mix of My Little Pony  Friendship is Magic and gaming. I would do craft, but I have to go out tomorrow so the less concentration I do the better, to help save my energy for when I need it. 

I'm going to give the short version of what happened at the pain clinic in August. I take my mega meds, ketamine, at home, under the tongue for pain relief (I spit it out after 10mins. It tastes foul if I get it on the wrong part of my tongue. I have been doing this for years, it means I can have pain relief whenever I need it, for instance if I have a flare up. Before I had it I was in agony and felt suicidal on a daily basis. I don't talk about my mental health issues either online or offline, as they are personal. However I need to demonstrate what happened before the magic of ketamine. It was bad. Very bad. I never wanted to go through that again. Unfortunately that could be my future. 

I knew my consultant at the pain clinic had retired and I had a new one. I have always felt uncertainty about how long I would be able to continue my ketamine treatment - it is just the impression I got as it just takes the edge of my pain and it isn't originally used for continued pain control that it could get stopped as a pain treatment in the future. 

I got dealt two big blows at the pain clinic. The first is no one is allowed to have ketamine at home. Ever. There were a few incidents with other patients, not me. No one died, but whatever happened made the highest level of authority in the hospital trust decided that ketamine can only be given in a medical setting. I don't live close to the pain clinic. It would cost so much money to go every 5 weeks or so, a little less in winter, which is how often I have ketamine. I wouldn't be able to have it in a flare up. I possibly would have to wait longer than 5 weeks depending on space in clinics. 

I was absolutely devastated. It takes away my pain relief Independence. It brings back memories of a time in my life I don't want to revisit. There's a lot of fear about my pain relief in the future. However there is hope. The pain clinic in London is going to try and get me transferred to my local pain clinic, which does ketamine infusions and is under 30 minutes away from my house. I have to wait to hear if I am accepted, then presumably have consultation appointments to find out the details of my continued ketamine treatment. I have a few doses left so I won't be out of ketamine until next year. Until I get transferred to the new pain clinic my old pain clinic are giving me an infusion early November to help prolong my supply until I am fully transferred to the new one. 

The second blow was discovering that unfortunately there is currently no other pain medication that I can try for my condition. I always thought there were stronger meds if the ketamine had to be stopped. 

So yeah, the pain clinic appointment sucked beyond belief. I won't talk about it after this post, other than to say when (hopefully not if) I am transferred to my local pain clinic, as that will be a happy day! I am doing my best to stay distracted from how rough life may get next year if the worst case scenario plays out. Terrifying is an understatement. 

I do have coping mechanisms now that I didn't have when my severe pain first started, as I did see a pain psychologist to help with the situation that until it was under control made me suicidal. I do still have depression but I won't talk about that online or offline apart from with God and my doctors. I wasn't going to say anything online, but some of you may have wondered if I did have depression, given I was suicidal a few years ago which I feel I had to mention in this post to explain how devastating the August appointment was. That is why I was offline for a few days as it took time for it all to sink in. The situation sucks. The waiting sucks. Thank God for gaming, craft and dvds!!! Thank you for being patient for me to be able to tell my story for those of you not close friends and family. I appreciate all the support.

Working on staying balanced with what I love

Nayu's Project Progress #39 The blanket grows!

Tada!

As promised a few posts ago, it's time to show you what I'm working on at the moment! Making a cute blanket for myself with white and cream separating the colours. I tend to work on it a bit in the mornings as I wake up while watching something, as a gentle start to the day.

Zooming in...

Apart from the larger area of cream which I can't be bothered to undo, I am doing 2 rows of white/cream between every colour. So far my favourite colour in it is the pink yarn. What's yours? 

Nayu's Craft Time #303 And so winter continues

View from my bedroom window during the snow sprinkling

Hey guys, I hope you were ok if you had snow last week which brought part of England to a halt. For once we were in the crazy zone with lots of snow and chaos ensued as it always does. It was pretty, and got melted away by rain. Oh this is being posted simultaneously on my other blog, Nayu's Reading Corner to save me time and energy.

Because of all the weather I'm having my super strong meds a bit earlier than I normally do - my body really hates snow. So there won't be a blot post for a week, which I know is currently the norm (I'm truly sorry for that, I hate not posting much), but I need the rest to get over the initial side effects of my meds. Unlike my cat I can't just sleep through winter! 

As always, I can be found on Twitter @Nayuleska I tend to tweet a bit less during my mediine down time, only because initially I do get pretty hyper and don't want to be repeating myself or gushing over a game too much. 

The familiar green Yoshi comes in many other colours, but this is the most well known.

I am hoping that we've had our coldest time of year. Our winter usually does come in February rather than December, but I'm praying that's the only insanely cold spell.Warmer weather = bit more energy + can concentrate on stuff = more craft! & other stuff in general. Until then, it's reading and gaming for me. And anime.I'm having so much fun with my game rental service, currently on Yoshi's New Island on the Nintendo DS (or 3DS, can't quite remember) I want to complete it so I can play the next game in the series, and then hopefully the new one out this march! The next one is based on yarn so I'm very eager to play it. The little green dino is adorable, especially the way it can eat enemies and turn them into eggs that follows wherever it goes. 

Love Obelix (left) and Asterix! )

I've got a nice mild romance series to read, along with a pile of Tintin and Asterix books. As for anime, I'm watching the usual favourites of Winx Club and Aikatsu! which I always watch. I'm rewatching Neo Angelique Abyss, both seasons, but in looking it up online I discovered there's another spin off series: both anime series are spin offs from a game series. I'm on episode 5 of the one I haven't seen, and while the rewatch will always have a special place in my heart, the new one is pretty good, and I understand why certain things happned in the one I've seen now I know more backgorund info.

See you on the next one!

Nayu's Craft Time #299 The wonderful distractions of gaming

A random picture from online that I discovered on my laptop! I love silhouette pictures.

When this post goes live, I'll be in the middle of recovering from my mega strong medicine which I had Tuesday night. Staying horizontal, still, and quite is a must, so craft is out of the question. This is a post kind of more suited to my other blog, Nayu's Reading Corner, but I want to explain a bit more here, and the game I'll be playing the most is all about crafting items! I've recently found that gaming during recovery is a really good distraction. I have to be careful which game I play because playing the wrong game can make me feel worse which include: 

• any fast paced game (brain can't keep up) like Splatoon 2 (which I featured in my previous post because I found a cute keyring in Aldi) 

• any game with fancy loading screens that zoom in/out Animal Crossing (which seems an obvious slow game choice, but trust me it isn't) 

• any rhythm game because you have to concentrate (which are usually my 'go to' games of choice) 

• any game whose graphics can be a bit weird and wonderful 

Thankfully I have a few slow paced games which I can work on - yes they are on my Nintendo Switch, which is extremely handy at times like these They include: 

Cattails

Try and bring 3 warring cat colonies together: not for squeamish people as you do have to hunt and kill a lot of animals to survive. There's no blood or anything, but it's a large part of the game. There's lots of explore and collect, and it's a bit like the following game, Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley

Found the picture online

Not my picture but my stable is in a very similar place

A fun farming simulation game that I didn't think was for me for many months, but then I got kind of hooked on it. The simple graphics make it ideal for me.

The main game I'm now playing because it's out on 20th December in Japan (I have a Japanese account) is...

Dragon Quest Builders 2

This game is ideal because while there are monsters they are fairly simple to complete, the building is therapeutic and I'm sort of in control in what I see happen, the camera movement isn't too crazy and the repetitive music is soothing.

People build incredible structures, this one was including in the promo pics before the game launched

The first game in the series is my most favourite game of all time, and I know this will take it's place with the incredible new features that I'm eager to try! It's all I'll be playing for a while ^u^ Yes it's in Japanese, the English version should come out next year, but I couldn't wait, and can understand some Japanese so I'm going for it! It will be slow progress especially while recovering from my mega meds but totally worth it. 

Find out more about DQB2 in a post about my impressions of the demo here.