Where I left off a couple of days ago, I mentioned that I’d had a big flare up with my asthma. I’d been in to my local clinic, where I was given new meds for an infection and an increase in inhaler. What I didn’t know was that it was going to get worse. A lot worse.

(This is a good time to mention that I’ve never had asthma before last year, and that I have more or less assumed that the underlying problem wasn’t really something mild, like allergies.)

If the last blog post could have alternatively been called “pass the oxygen please", today’s post could definitely be called “call an ambulance. NOW".

Monday night involved me struggling to breath; Tuesday night was both struggling to breath and having incredible pain in my shoulder blades. And the most worrying of all: a strange uncomfortable feeling in my left arm, with a little bit of pain on the left side of my chest. Having listened to all those ads on TV giving the warning signs for heart attacks (and knowing full well how unfit I am in general), by morning I was in tears. Luckily for me my mum and I made a quick dial to ‘nurses on call’ (a nurse advises you over the phone so you can get the best advice quickly before heading to a doctor unnecessarily) who basically said “get thee to a doctor ASAP” and even that I should call an ambulance if necessary.

So my day pretty much meant heading to an ER and getting another round of tests, more inhalers, my infection meds, an oxygen mask, etc. The good news: I wasn’t having a heart attack, I didn’t have a blood clot, and I didn’t have a collapsed lung. The bad news: I still have no idea what’s wrong with me. … However, this time around I actually got a referral to a specialist - which I think I should have had a year ago, but anyway… - and yesterday’s little trip was to see them. From there, there’s still more tests to be done, more meds, some pain killers, more inhalers…

The biggest problem is, outside of my usual asthma-related issues, that the current meds I am on make me incredibly shaky. Yesterday I tried working on one of my prototype products, but found it really difficult to make the steady and tiny stitches necessary for what I was doing.

So I think it’s safe to say that the Kukcrafters challenge is most definitely over. I will of course be continuing to work on everything that I have planned, but it’s likely that I won’t be doing any crafting for a little while or at least until I get used to these meds. The good news is that I have plenty to work on which doesn’t involve my hands: character designs to research; solving the problem of rod attachments and other things; developing ideas for kits and similar items; and working on the tweaked web designs. Part of this will work perfectly with one medication problem: for one of my tablets I have to sit upright for an hour after taking it. This makes crafting difficult, but sitting on my computer ideal. And with any luck, I will be able to post blogs on my last two prototypes that I mentioned a few days ago: the prototype for the kit, and a plushie I’ve been working on.

PS. If you’re wondering: I feel much much better now despite what happened on Mon/Tues. I’m still having breathing problems, but at least now they’re not making me feel like I’m about to die.

See previous post about the challenge.

This title would be better as ‘Pass the oxygen please’.

If you’ve been reading since last year you would remember I had a pretty severe cough in July ‘10 - and had been to the doctor, er doctors, about it. It was still troubling me in December and I saw yet another 2 doctors, one of whom put me on some strong asthma inhalers (steroids, yay!). Progressively I’ve been getting worse, culminating in what I can only describe as one of the longest nights of my life last night. I went from my usual coughing/wheezing bouts to being in pain and not being able to breath just standing up. I spent most of the night hyperventaliting, wheezing and coughing - and thank goodness I nobbled one of my parents to take me to the doctor instead of going to work… I really didn’t think I could make it to a bus on my own, even though the bus stop is half a block down my street and the one to get off is literally across the road from the doctor’s offices.

We arrived before the doctors had even turned up for work, so the nurses took my blood pressure and heart rate, gave me some extra inhaler and got me to lie down with an oxygen mask on.

Turns out that what I thought was a little cold I got - thanks to the weather, a severe lack of heat in my room, and my inability to breath through my nose - is actually an infection. Which might have caused a flare up in my asthma. (This says nothing of the fact that as yet not a single doctor has seemed curious to find out what the actual cause is, instead just ‘managing’ the issue. If this is ‘management’ I’ll be even worse off next year )

Thankfully I’m a bit better now, with lots more inhaler, antibiotics, and some good time to just rest.

This is my long way of saying that I have failed the Kukcrafters challenge at least a little, since most of the last few days have been me trying to avoid doing anything - at all - in order to keep breathing. … I have made a little progress on a few things: I made up a prototype idea for a shadow puppet kit, testing out a kid-friendly option for horizontal rods. It was successful to some extent (I used the wrong type of paper and it’s a bit hard to control), and I hope to post up some images when I’m a bit less light-headed. I have also made progress on a tweaked version of my web design, which will better showcase the new products. And I spent most of the weekend migrating content from here to SOP - anything to keep my mind off the wheezing!

As for the rest of the Kukcrafters challenge, that will be less likely to happen. I’m definitely giving myself the next few days to chill out. Although I’m certainly better than I was last night, I am still having a lot of trouble getting more than a couple of hours relief from the asthma. For the moment, feel free to send your oxygen down my way, where I’m definitely lacking some.

See previous post about the Challenge.

Where I left you last was having just completed two shadow puppet prototypes and a test video. Since then, I’ve basically done all craft-wise. I had hoped to begin work on one of my other prototype products, but got into a bit of crafting block; sometimes, your hands just don’t want to do what you need them to do.

Because of that, I’ve needed to take a break from making stuff. I’d like to say I’ve made progress on the SOP web design too, but alas, I’ve hit a wall.

It’s safe to say that I haven’t done much of anything for several days; although really, it’s just me having a ‘weekend’, since I usually do some form of work over the weekends. (Eh, that’s my excuse anyway )

Actually, what I have been doing is a lot of reading, mainly on topics that will result in a few ideas for character designs. I have already narrowed down the themes, so this reading is just about me finding something inspirational enough that fits into those categories. I have split the number of designs in half (22 characters overall, 11 to start with), so that at least I can make a start on developing patterns. I have about half of that already worked out, I just have to find a few more things and I can begin tying up the few last problems before completely building new puppets. (Technically speaking, researching for new character designs counts as my craft-making, but I got severely side-tracked with reading a particularly fascinating - and very long - forum on an unrelated subject… so I didn’t get all that much done)

In other news, my seahorse shadow puppet has been featured in an Etsy Treasury. Check it out, along with some other seahorse related cool stuff: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/ODQ4MjMxMHwzMTg4NDQ2OTg/seahorses-at-play.

See previous post here about the Challenge.

Taking a bit of a mental break from SOP stuff, I decided it was time to work more on the new shadow puppet products. A lot of changes of my original plans has occured: I’ve decided against brooches in its entirety. I find working with plastic at such a small scale to be very frustrating and all of my attempts at making it work have ended in something I’d definitely not be happy selling. … Which, as it turns out, is just fine. Because I have a replacement idea that is ten times better and something I’d be more willing to make. Not much to say on this at the moment, because I’m still thinking it through.

I’ve also decided against wall art. For the moment it’s going in the ‘too hard basket’, although I will be looking at ways of making shadow puppet scenery to go along with the rods and screens I hope to have available as puppet supplies.

However, here again I have a replacement idea. I had hoped to have something to show as an example, but alas today’s little crafting experiment was a major screw up (it doesn’t help that I simply dived right in without thinking things through, and this particular object needs thought). I will be trying again though and as it’s truly a ‘crafting’ item, I hope to post something worthy of blogging before June is out.

The last five photos on this Flickr page is what I have been working on; you can compare the old version of the puppets to the new.

Success in other ways though. I got my white plastic and made up a better version of the girl shadow puppet that I’ve been experimenting with. There’s a video at the end of the post, which shows just how well it works. One thing I absolutely love - other than this solving my clear-edge problem, see above link - is that even though the plastic is quite clearly white, once the arms move behind the body it takes on as much of the colour of the body as the body itself. It’s like liquid colour!

The white plastic is a bit thicker than what I had used for the body, so there is a slight drop in flexibility and fluidity. You can see the photos too, I tried different patterns. It’s interesting in doing this, as I discovered that an all-patterned puppet looks a bit weird; in my photos I just reused the white puppet parts, and so on my wall I have the original all-patterned test stuck up. You can judge for yourself how different the two versions look. (To the right of the puppets you’ll see my mini experiment in wall art; different layers of plastic cut in such a way it’s a boat on an ocean. To the right of that, a little piece of white plastic with words written on: “this works!” I was testing whether or not washable markers would write on the plastic, and that’s a reminder that it does indeed, work.) This discovery has made me develop a few basic rules about the way in which I use patterns/colours, so that the design doesn’t get overwhelming visually.

I have attempted new rod attachments using cable ties. It’s a very simple idea and very effective, I found the ties to be easy to attach, strong, and didn’t rip the puppet. However, it removed any and all ability to ‘reverse’ the puppet - in other words, cable ties weren’t flexible enough to allow the rods to rotate within. I’m still trying to figure out how to upgrade the rod attachment but options are limited; and I’m still trying to find a reasonable glue for magnets and such. (I have considered magnetic tape, which is like sticky tape only magnetic, but it doesn’t look as professional as round magnets)

Besides this, I’m also daily thinking about character designs, and already have a basic theme developed. I’m working through this theme and have picked out a number of good ideas for characters. Once they’ve all been decided on, I’ll get to work on actually making the designs; and from there it’s all about building!