February | 2015 | 365 Days Handmade

February 8, 2015
by FC5 2 Comments

Day 38/365: Crocheted Coast Ripple Blanket

A Deliberately Messy Pile so that the After photos will look that much more impressive.

This weekend I’m down at the Ventura homestead instead of Morro Bay. I brought my knitting with me, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I’m honestly bored with the monotony of knitting around and around and around in stockinette on this sweater. I’m thinking about changing it up and switching to a crocheted lace pattern for the remaining two-thirds of the body, but it’s more work than I want to get into right now.

Luckily, I have another work-in-progress here: I’m crocheting my own Coast Ripple Blanket, as designed by Lucy from Attic 24. The colors really do capture the feel of the coast, and it’s an easy ripple pattern to remember. And this time I’m getting better about weaving in the ends as I change colors, having learned my lesson from The Secret Ugly Side that this afghan is still sporting.

February 7, 2015
by FC5 10 Comments

Day 37/365: Adrenaline Rush for Free

Today was one of those days in prison where alarms kept going off in various yards, and it was one code after another. We had a serious code on our yard that involved two inmates battering a third one. The C.O. up in the guard tower fired off a round to make them stop. In the meantime, the rest of the inmates on the yard were ordered over the PA system to prone out (get down on their stomachs), and luckily they all cooperated. At other institutions with more serious gang action, this sort of incident could quickly escalate into a riot: A fourth guy sees his homie getting beat up by two guys, so he runs in to help, and then a fifth guy does the same, and so on, and so forth, and then the next thing they all see is custody coming at them with batons and pepper spray and OC bombs.

Last week in my Lifers Support Group, one inmate was remembering how Jason from the movie Friday the 13^th scared him when he was little. This led to a conversation about things that they were afraid of when they were kids, and then the topic shifted to people deliberately getting their thrills by riding on roller coasters, going bungee jumping, skydiving.

“What about you, Doc?” one of them said. “What do you think?”

“I think I wouldn’t pay good money to do any of that,” I said. “I get my adrenaline rush for free, working in a prison.”

On a separate note: It’s finally the start of my three-day weekend. Every night this week I’d been knitting a few rows on the sweater, but now I have to admit that I’m getting a little bored with it. I’m thinking of starting another pair of socks. Here is just a portion of my sock yarn stash. I can’t decide which one to choose. Suggestions?

February 6, 2015
by FC5 1 Comment

Day 36/365: Why, Hello There, You’re Not Locked In

Remember I told you about the reason for Monday’s modified program? We had another modified program today. This time, somebody dropped a kite* saying that a certain correctional officer, along with my buddy the lieutenant, were going to be targeted for an assault. So the yard was recalled and no inmates were allowed outside except for the ones who had medical and mental health appointments. In the meantime, custody had to initiate an investigation, interview possible suspects, and determine the seriousness of the situation.

This sort of thing is not an unusual occurrence. With a modified program, I’m still able to see my line for the day, because the inmates are allowed to come out for their priority ducats. With a hard lockdown, though, none of them are able to leave the cell. When that happens, you either A) reschedule their appointments, thus doubling the number of patients you’ve got to see the next day, or B) go pay a house call. We call it doing a cellside. That means going into a living unit that houses 300 potentially dangerous convicted felons, walking down a long corridor in which a hundred pair of eyes are watching you through their wickets as you pass, and knocking on the door of your patient to conduct a brief mental health interview in the most discreet way possible.

The last time I did cellsides was in September, when a race riot on the yard resulted in lockdown for a week. Usually, I don’t mind conducting cellsides, because the inmates are all locked in and I’m pretty safe. This time, though, I got a bit of a surprise. I’d gotten the okay from the tier officer, made my way down the corridor, knocked on my patient’s door, and heard him climb off his bunk. I listened to him put on some clothes and shuffle his way over. He said, “Hang on, Doc.” I heard more noises, some fumbling around, a clicking sound– and then I realized, he’d been unlocking his cell door from the inside, and now he was sliding it open to greet me.

I would end the story here, but I know some people reading this would be more than a little disturbed by that, so I’ll tell you also that the facility where I work is probably the only one in the state where the inmates have keys to let themselves in and out of their cells**, and sure, this guy was doing a life sentence for murder, but really, he’d already served over thirty years in prison and I felt pretty certain that he wasn’t going to kill me.

* kite: prison lingo for a note or letter; a form of written communication

** There is a master switch that keeps them all locked in at certain times; it just happened that this time was not one of them.

February 5, 2015
by FC5 3 Comments

Day 35/365: Keeping It Real

I knew I didn’t have any photos for today’s post, so when I got home from work this evening, I grabbed my sweater-in-progress and went out to the deck to take some pictures. The sky was overcast, and the sun wasn’t cooperating to provide any good natural light. My digital camera kept insisting on using the flash. After a few attempts to get some decent shots, I gave up and went back inside.

I uploaded the digital camera shots onto my computer and looked at the photos of my sweater. The first thing I noticed was–Ack!–the rusty nails and the peeling paint of our deck. The second thing I noticed was the yarn: clearly one hundred percent cheap acrylic. I thought, I have hundreds and hundreds of dollars’ worth of yarn in the stash–natural fibers like wool, cotton, linen, even cashmere–and I pick acrylic.

The other day, I was doing a Google search for a secret craft project that I’m planning, and I came across one of those hipster craftster websites where Everything Is Just Perfect. In the carefully staged and professionally captured photos, the people and items looked like they belonged in a catalog or in a print ad for a magazine. I found myself scrolling through that website and feeling bad about my little blog, thinking it was so basic and amateurish.

I thought about that website again when I was looking at my own photos this evening and feeling like I couldn’t use any of them for tonight’s post. It occurred to me: Sure, those professional quality photos on that website told a nice story, but what story was it telling?

What story was I buying into?

As you may have already figured out from my previous posts, I’m usually not one for bullshit, particularly in my line of work and the population I deal with. I don’t like small talk or smokescreens. I like honesty and authenticity and, as I say to my patients, keeping it real.

So what if my photos weren’t taken on a fancy expensive camera, and so what if my sweater is acrylic and not an expensive cashmere-linen-soy-and-bamboo-cotton blend? Who am I trying to impress? Why should I give a shit? Because when it comes down to it, the most important person whose opinion matters about me is me.

It’s something I’m still working on. Just like this sweater.

Click to enlarge and see everything in all imperfect glory.

February 4, 2015
by FC5 3 Comments

Day 34/365: Shanks and Shivers

Still working on this sweater.

Yesterday our yard was put on a modified program (i.e. lockdown), but I missed it because Monday is my day off. I heard about it today from one of my patients. He didn’t know why the yard was recalled, but he was telling me about the lockdown to illustrate his point that you can’t count on a regular routine every day; the program is always changing.

On my way to the bathroom this afternoon, I passed by the sergeant’s office and heard him call out something to the lieutenant about the weapons that were found yesterday. Naturally I took a detour and headed straight into the lieutenant’s office, which is right next to the sergeant’s.

“What weapons that were found yesterday?” I asked. Because I’m actually friends with this particular lieutenant, I am completely comfortable with going into his office and asking nosy questions like this one.

“Here, I’ll show you,” he said. He pulled up the photos on his computer.

I looked at the evidence photos and got the shivers. These were inmate manufactured weapons that weren’t fucking around. The handles were made out of wood, and the blade portions were fashioned out of metal that had been sharpened and twisted and designed to have uneven, serrated edges.

“Do you have any leads on who made them?” I asked.

“They’re checking for fingerprints.”

“Shit,” I said. “That’s some scary stuff.”

“It’s a good reminder to always be careful,” the sergeant said. He’d come into the lieutenant’s office to drop off some paperwork. “Don’t forget that these inmates are in here for a reason.”

February 3, 2015
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Day 33/365: Third Completed Pair of Socks for 2015 (Orange and Black Striped Socks)

I was expecting a small package in the mail, and it still hadn’t arrived. So I checked my email this afternoon, found the tracking number, and went online to look up the status of my package.

According to the tracking number, the status was Delivered, In/At Mailbox on 1/24/15 at 12:54 PM in Morro Bay, CA.

I went outside and opened our mailbox. It was empty. I closed the mailbox and opened it again, peering all the way to the back, but of course it was still empty.

You know how, when you’re looking for something and you can’t find it, you start getting so desperate that you do things like look in places where you know the thing couldn’t possibly be, but you figure you’ll check there anyway? Like under the bed and inside cookie jars and behind the front door and in the back of the closet. I was starting to feel that desperation. My neighbors’ mailboxes were lined up next to ours, and I opened each little metal hinged door to peek inside and see if my package might have been delivered to the wrong address. Nothing.

In the past, I’ve received mail addressed to a woman who lives on the next street over. She has the same house number as ours. I thought maybe my package was accidentally delivered to her mailbox. So I walked down to her house and knocked on the door.

She was very friendly and we chatted for a little bit, but no, she hadn’t seen my package. I said goodbye and walked back up the street to my house, just as my next-door neighbors were turning into their driveway.

They were sympathetic to my plight of the missing package, but they hadn’t seen it either. I thanked them and went back inside the house. I was trying to manage my anxiety, but the panic was mounting. Where had the package gone? Who had it now? Did somebody open it? Why hadn’t it been returned to me? Would the company be understanding and send me a replacement item, or was I just shit out of luck?

I went back to my Outlook and found the email with the tracking number again. I clicked on the link and was redirected to the package’s tracking details online. According to the website, my package was In Transit. The estimated delivery date was Thursday the 5^th.

I couldn’t understand it. I looked at the email again. And then I realized what I’d done earlier: I’d looked at the wrong email and followed a different tracking number for another item– one that had already been delivered on 1/24/15 at 12:54 PM in Morro Bay, CA.

Doh.

February 2, 2015
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Day 32/365: My First Completed Quilt

I knit a lot today. I worked on finishing this second sock, and I added several more rows to this sweater. The problem with knitting, though, is that it takes a lot longer to finish a knitted project than it does a crocheted project. It took me about two weeks to crochet, join, and finish this afghan, but I’ve lost count of the number of hours I’ve already put into knitting the aforementioned socks and sweater.

Anyway, rather than show you photos of my two current WIPs with one of them looking like no progress was made, I am sharing a photo of my first quilt instead. This is the patchwork quilt that I made in my Beginners Quilting class back in September and wrote about in this post. And that is our deck that needs painting and where you can see this view. Today was a really beautiful day with a clear blue sky and a flat, glassy ocean. If you’re ever in town, let me know and we can visit on the deck and enjoy the view. We’ll talk, knit, or crochet. I’ll pour you a glass of iced tea.

February 1, 2015
by FC5 3 Comments

Day 31/365: Top-Down Sweater and Heated Leather Seats

Top-down knitted sweater with increases for raglan sleeves. I swear, I’ve been knitting around, and around, and around, and it still looks like it did on Wednesday.

Sean and I got into his new car to head out for breakfast. The car is actually a 2012 Prius that he purchased from the original owner back in September. Compared to Sean’s previous 12-year-old Nissan truck and my now-11-year-old Honda Civic with the manual transmission, manual door locks, and manual crank-that-handle-to-open-and-close windows, the Prius is a luxury car. It’s so equipped with new-and-different-to-us features (cruise control! power doors and windows! automatic locks!) that I’ve dubbed it The Rental.

Sean turned on the power. It was still early in the morning that the windows were covered in dew. “I can’t see out the back because look what’s blocking it,” he said.

I twisted around, expecting to see some large object in the backseat obstructing his view. The backseat was empty. Nothing there, just a thin layer of morning dew covering the back pane of glass. And then a windshield wiper popped up and started swiping the dew away.

Sean gave a big grin. “Don’t be jealous because my car’s got a back windshield wiper.”

He put the car in reverse, and the little computer screen built into the dashboard lit up to show the back of our driveway. “Don’t be jealous because my car has a camera so I can see if any neighborhood cats are in the way.”

I gave him a dirty look. It was early, I was hungry, and my sense of humor was still asleep. “Oooh, I’m Sean. Look at me. I have a fancy new car with fancy back windshield wipers. I have a fancy rear-view camera… You Prius-driving, vegetable-eating, energy-saving—“

He cut me off and his big old grin got bigger. He leaned over to activate one more special feature, my favorite thing about the car. “Here. Let me turn on that heated leather seat for you.”

The guy knows just the right buttons to push.