Yarn, Books & Roses

Crafting in the time of the Blood Moon

I live in the state of Colorado, which is in the western part of the United States. We are in deep drought here, and it has been hot. There are several, very serious wildfires burning to the south and west of where I live, and I am in the smoke plume. The light outside is… strange. The Rocky Mountains, just west of where I live, can no longer be seen. The strangest effect is the moon.

That crazy red cast of the moon is caused by smoke. Last week was the Strawberry Moon, but here in the area where I live, it was the Blood Red Moon.

Every day another air quality alert is issued: Unhealthy for Sensitives Groups. I’ve been staying indoors with the cats and my air purifier, happily crafting for days. This is what I’ve gotten done over the last week.

I’ve been assembling an art quilt this week that required fusing precut pieces of fabric together to make motifs that are later assembled onto a background to make the larger quilt block.

This the first block of the quilt. Only 5 more to go…

Can you see the individual elements on the finished block? The stuff in the middle is laundry that will be hung on wash line hung between trees that will appear in the future as more of the blocks get done. Do you see the tuxedo cat with the laundry? Obviously, this cat is the one hanging the laundry out, and there will be clothes pins involved eventually. Tuxedo cats are such great help, right? Of course, Hannah was right there the whole time I was working on the quilt block, helping tremendously.

Hannah: The Mother of Cats is so lucky to have me helping her!! More tuna, please…

In addition to the quilting, I also made a lot of progress on my Cloudbreak sweater. I have finished the first sleeve and I plan to cast on the second one as soon as this post goes up. No sleeve island here!!

I spent some time with my rigid heddle loom on a new scarf that I am really liking. The yarn is mostly grey with a little strip of color in it. Look at how fun it is as a woven cloth!!

It has been a pretty productive week! I’m concentrating on the knitting this week so I can get that sweater done as I’ve signed up for a knit-along at a local yarn shop in town and I feel I should reduce the number of works in progress before I cast on that big shawl. Maybe there will be some sewing…

I have been going out onto the catio with the cats in the evenings because you can only expect cats to stay indoors for just so long when there are BIRDS and SQUIRRELS and BUNNIES out there. This week, just for fun, I added a string of fairy lights to the cat netting that makes the walls of the catio. Look at how fun these are!!! We usually sit out there every evening until the kitty lights come on; that’s how we saw the blood moon.

What else happened this week? The baby eagles that I watch left the nest last week (one FELL OUT and accidentally fledged, and the other flew off the next day), spent a couple of days learning how to fly well as their parents fed them, and returned to the nest to hang out together late last week. Yay Sandy and Luna! They are hanging out together now, flying around in the vicinity of the nest while the parents continue to deliver food, mostly FISH!! These eaglets love their fish! Eventually they will learn to catch their own and become independent, but for now I’m still following them in their adventures.

Speaking of adventures, Mateo got his tummy shaved this week, his sides trimmed down, and has been combed every single day no matter what he says. Now every trace of the winter coat is gone, and he is sporting a sleek summer coat. Gosh, look at that white patch on his chest. As it turns out the CoalBear is actually a little MoonBear.

Why does Mateo look a little sad? I had just finished shaving his tummy when I took the picture. Poor guy. Here’s a picture of him in his winter coat so you can see how much fur has come off

He’s a whole new cat, right?!! In the winter I tend to forget that he is actually black under all of that floof!

It is a sad time here, don’t get me wrong. The lawns are all dead (drought) and the county just sent me information on how to prepare for an emergency evacuation in case of wildfire. Fireworks were banned this year. I am keeping the car full of gas. Resources from cities are being send to battle wildfires. I sew for some of the emergency response agencies in my region, and this week I plan to sew a pile of fabric tote bags to go to an agency that will stuff them full of essentials to deliver to people displaced by the fires. Keep us in your thoughts.

It is the time of the Blood Moon.

Hannah and the CoalBear: CoalBear Adventures

Hi. I’m Mateo the CoalBear.

I woke up Thursday morning feeling… not well. I was walking funny, throwing up (I HATE when that happens) and forget eating. I think that Hannah ate my breakfast for me, and I know she ate my cookies!! I felt too bad to even go out on the catio for more than a few minutes. The Mother of Cats called the vet to see if they could take me.

Nope. They were drowning in emergencies. They gave the Mother of Cats some numbers to call of emergency vets (I hate the vet!!) and she started calling. Nope, nope, nope. I went to hide in the downstairs shower while she figured things out, and then in the afternoon she found a place to take me. She loaded me in the carrier and went to get her purse.

Ha. I climbed out! The side zipper was open. She tracked me down and reloaded me. Ha. I may be sick, but I can move fast if the zipper jams…

Finally, she got me into the car, and we headed off to the horrible Vet ER. THERE WERE DOGS THERE!!!! We waited, and finally I got some xrays. The Mother of Cats was told that I needed emergency surgery (AGAIN!!!), and that we needed to go to ANOTHER ER to have that done. They took more xrays there, and then told the Mother of Cats that I was too unstable for surgery. I got this horrible IV needle in my arm and they gave me lots of fluids.

Hannah: Like, this is a surprise? I already knew he was unstable…

The Mother of Cats went home for the night and LEFT ME ALONE!!! The next morning, she came back and sat with me in the treatment room with all of the people and dogs and machines and everything. It was so scary.

Look at this horrible cage. I was hiding in a corner until the Mother of Cats came to sit with me.

I got an ultrasound at noon and look at what they did to me! All of my beautiful fur got ruined and I have goop stuck in my fur. I smell really funny, and what is up with this horrible tube going into my arm!!!!!!

Guess what, the intestinal blockage was also gone! My intestines are pretty sore and I may have to have a special diet for a while, but they kept me for a few more hours to push fluids and then I got to go home again.

I smelled so bad Hannah hissed at me all night!

The Mother of Cats says I’m getting a haircut next year so this doesn’t happen again, and she is throwing away some of my toys that have strings on them. Life is soooo unfair. Why is everyone being so mean. At least Hannah has stopped growling at me…

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I told Mateo that he is getting shaved next summer and will wear funky little outfits from now on! The clinic where he finally ended up told me that he was saved by the fluid bolus that they pushed at the first emergency vet facility. Once they got him, they could see that things were improving a little on the x-rays, and since he was still very dehydrated and had developed a heart murmur they held him overnight for the ultrasound. That turned out to be the right call.

Do I have more grey hair. Yes, yes I do.

While all of this was going on I also got some knitting done. Look at my Cloudbreak Tee.

I added a couple of inches to the body before I started the lace section, and I think that was a good decision. The cast off for the body was a sewn one that took 2.5 hours to do, but the result is very nice. See that little bit of yarn that I am holding? That is how much yarn was left when I finished sewing. I WON AT YARN CHICKEN, PEOPLE!!!!

The Scleroderma Chronicles: Thoughts on the Night of the Summer Solstice

Yeah. Life has been busy lately. Last week I managed three appointments for testing and office visits, and then I visited three different Kaiser facilities to acquire the new prescriptions. All of this was done while keeping an eye on the barometric pressure; for half of the visits I had to wear my oxygen. I’m a little sad, more than a little exhausted, and somewhat concerned that all the test results are pointing at my heart. Bad heart, bad. It isn’t quite clear what is going on, so my cardiologist is systemically eliminating possibilities as we edge closer and closer to a return to the cath lab. Oh, boy.

Here is the thing about going back on oxygen. My portable oxygen concentrator only supports me for about three hours. For the most part, I am now homebound. Sounds sad, right. I have been loading up on happy crafting projects that I can do at home, but it is hard to face the isolation of going back into virtual lockdown again.

Of course, I’m not really alone. The cats are great companions.

Then my niece contacted me to ask if I would like to join her is a collaborative writing project online. Yes!! Yes, I would. You guys, we will be writing a collaborative book in the epistolary novel format. What a gift that she came up with this right now!

Then a friend asked me if I would like to join her in a shawl KAL being sponsored by a local yarn shop in town. Yes. Yes, I would love to do that with you!!

That bright pink yarn to the right in this picture will become the shawl.

Then my cousin, the fabulous quilter who produced this Rainbow Zebra Quilt for my support group mentioned that she has the patterns for the quilt that I just ordered to start working on. She is considering joining me in the sewing of the quilt. How fun! We will be doing it together even though we live at different sides of the state I live in.

The Wind in the Whiskers Quilt Kit is from Stitchin’ Heaven, and the package is out for delivery as I type this post. My cousin is still considering hunting through her fabric stash, or if she should order the identical fabrics from the shop where I bought the kit, but we are almost certainly going to launch the joint sew a quilt together project. Isn’t that great?

In the meantime, I have been knitting away on my new Cloudbreak Tee. Look at my progress!!

So here I am, stuck at home connected to my oxygen concentrator machine, waiting for my cardiologist to contact me about the results of the emergency echocardiogram that I had last Friday, chilling out with the cats, working on my computer, and knitting on my sweater that uses the happiest color yarn out there. Alone, but connected to other people who reached out to me, connecting to me though things that I love to do, keeping me in the world that they still are able to move about freely in.

That that, scleroderma!!

Hannah: I’d like to connect to that moth up there!!

PS: How lucky am I? I have already been contacted by three people who are offering to drive me to the cath lab appointment if it happens, and another person is going to go with me to my next cardiologist appointment if things don’t sort themselves out soon.

PPS: Just as I was unboxing my new overlock machine, getting ready to sew fabric tote bags, the mayor of my city posted on Facebook that he was spending Friday nights at an innovative center that is designed to move people from homelessness to employed (and housed) independence. Here is an article about what he wrote. I contacted the head of my community service crafting group, and she is setting up a meeting to see what we can do to help. I’m pretty sure that they can use some of the fabric totes with matching zipper pouches…

Did I mention that I am happy these days?

No matter what, choose to be happy!!

How big is the Zebra quilt? Pretty darn big!

Hannah and the CoalBear: June Adventures

Hi. I’m Mateo.

I’m trying to swat the phone in the Mother of Cat’s hand in this shot…

The last couple of weeks have really been busy. Wait until I tell you about all of the stuff that is going on around Casa Mother of Cats. Where should I start…

The new brick entryway to the bunny tunnel is working great. Sure, I don’t get to hang right over the opening so I can lunge at the net the second I see the tip of a bunny ear, but the tradeoff is… the little guys aren’t that afraid of me now. They come right up to the edge of the brick entrance and I get quality bunny watching time. I still think that I would have more fun chasing them, but the Mother of Cats is so mean to me…

Then this happened today! This squirrel decided to come right into the catio, so of course I had to charge up the corner post to meet him, right? Who knew that squirrels had a secret ~~death wish~~ desire to play with me? The Mother of Cats made me get down, but then the squirrel ran around on the ROOF looking for a way in while Hannah and I watched. Come on in squirrel, I can show you some fun tricks with my murder mittens…

Finally the squirrel moved on and the Mother of Cats brought us into the house. Why does she interfere with all of my fun? I mean she literally chases all of my potential playmates ~~meals~~ away before I can play with them.

Okay, enough of the adventures with stuff outside. I should mention some of the other things that have been going on around here. The Mother of Cats is knitting like crazy on her latest sweater, and Hannah really helps her with that. Look at all of the progress that she has made!! She also likes the octopus stitch markers! Do I get to chew on them? Again… no.

One of the Mother of Cats’ friends gave her two Cattasaurus donuts for us to play in. WE LOVE THESE THINGS!!!! We both play/sleep in and on these guys for a part of the day. I especially like to drag myself around in circles inside the grey one, and look at Hannah snoozing on hers!

I’m feeling pretty good about life these days. Great wildlife hanging around. New toys to snooze in. Some special hairball support (whatever that is…) cookies to eat. And… of yeah!! Wait until you see the new flag that is flying in the catio!!!!!

That’s me!!! Hannah is lucky that I share my catio with her!!

Well, that’s all for now.

I’m going to bug Hannah for awhile. Laters.

Notes from the Mother of Cats.

Life has been busy lately. The Scleroderma Walk was last weekend, and I really wanted to participate with my team the Rainbow Zebras. The walk was clearly longer than I could manage, so I finally bought a lightweight mobility scooter that I could put in and out of the car by myself. Check this out!

Did you see the emotional support chicken in my basket on the scooter? Here she is!

She was gifted to a friend in a care home after the walk. Chicken, get busy and support!!

This is Scleroderma Awareness Month, and trying to represent, my scleroderma decided to get pushy with the symptoms. What symptoms are these you ask? I’m still dealing with chest discomfort, shortness of breath, dizziness, edema, a partridge in a pear tree, … It is exhausting. In the last 7 days I have been to Urgent Care, the Emergency Room, and two specialist appointments. The moral of the story is… don’t answer the phone from your medical provider if you are too short of breath to talk. They tend to panic. After all of that testing and running around, they found… NOTHING wrong. Of course. Rainbow zebra here. It is something associated with my scleroderma, of course, and all of the normal causes of the symptoms like I am experiencing are not in play. (Can you hear a zebra braying in the background?) Thank heavens my cardiologist will be back in the office next week and maybe something that can actually HELP will be done.

Did I buy more yarn after all of this?

I also bought a new sewing machine and the kit to sew this very cute quilt. Hey… they said I have to stay home on oxygen, so I need to get in essential supplies, right?

The Scleroderma Chronicles: Thoughts on the Night of the Blue Moon

Almost three years ago there was a blue supermoon in August; it was on the anniversary of my diagnosis, and I wrote about it then. I was feeling pretty good at the time… my concerning autoimmune pneumonia (SSc-ILD) was under control, I had just acquired my portable oxygen and new shoes, and I was full of plans to knit a new sweater. You can read that post here, if you like.

Tonight things are much the same, but also different in important ways. A concerning lung test result a couple of months ago triggered a round of emergency response drugs with follow-up testing. It now appears that my lung disease, always a concern, is stable. Yay! I, however, am not stable. I continue to deal with some concerning symptoms like dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, edema, and low blood oxygen levels. Oops. It is starting to look more and more like my pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is active again, and there needs to be a medical response. My rheumatologist told me a couple of weeks ago that I would be returning to the cath lab to check the pressure levels on the right side of my heart. My cardiologist, who has wanted to start me on an additional PAH drug for a few months now, will no longer be put off, I suspect. Fabulous. These drugs always come with not so nice side effects. Of course they do.

And yet, just like three years ago, under a different blue moon, I am happy. Every day is busy, I’m brimming with plans for my beautiful yarn, there is new life around me, and I am… happy. I have an unusual response to bad news: I immediately spring into action to acquire beautiful plants and yarns. You might equate this with spitting in the eye of the monster. Yep. Thursday, when the latest testing made it clear that my heart was the problem, I headed straight to the local nursery and scored lots of beautiful plants. Take that, monster!!

I brought home large lavender plants (not cheap, but look at that plant!!), snapdragons, dianthus, and a bougainvillea to hang from the edge of the catio. I’m hopeful that bunnies will leave all of these plants alone.

I hung yard decorations on the fence. I tied the roses up onto the trellis. I made the baby bunnies a little entryway to their home under the deck.

Hopefully that brick doorway will calm things down in bunny-land as Mateo waits right above the bunny hole and triggers a panic response/chase across the catio every single time a bunny emerges from under the deck. Mateo is not happy with me right now, let me tell you. So far, I haven’t seen a bunny go in or out, but it is just a matter of time, right? I hope at least the bunnies will be happy!

As I planted and cleaned up this week, I was forced to prune some roses. Did I throw the branches away? No, of course not! I have a rose rooting experiment going right now at two different locations.

Hey, these are roses that I like a lot! The hot pink rose is from a large shrub along my driveway… I could use another one at that location! The lighter pink is an English rose called Princess Alexandria of Kent and just look at it!!! I have five different rooting efforts going, and I do hope to get another rose bush out of this!

Not to be outdone by roses, the one of the orchids in the indoor garden has decided to have… babies! These suddenly appeared on one of the blooming stems after the blooms all dropped off.

There it is, a baby orchid with roots, leaves, and even blooms.

These orchid babies have a Hawaiian name: keikis. I now have three of them appearing on one overachieving plant. How cool is that?

I have made a couple of outrageous yarn stops lately too. You know, when you get concerning news, it is best to load up on the pretty stuff, right? That’s my philosophy, and I am completely unapologetic about it. Look at this haul of superwash merino, silk, and yak yarn:

This yarn was on clearance. It would be criminal to not take advantage, right?

All of that new yarn has found a project. A couple of weeks ago a friend asked me to join in on a shawl MKAL. Ka-bam!! The four skeins of bright raspberry colored yarn had a project. Wool & Pine published a fingering weight version of the Alchemist Sweater: three more skeins found a home. The light grey with flashes of color is already warped onto a loom, and some other yarns not shown in the picture are destined to lives as socks, cowls, and wristers. I put aside a couple of hours every day in yarny project creation, and I’d like to believe that it is helping me manage symptoms.

So, there it is. I’m in a bit of trouble, there are new drugs and a mobility scooter on the horizon, I need to wear oxygen again when I’m out, but I am happy. My support network has already closed in around me, and I’m working out ways to handle my new limitations. My little world around me is teeming with life, my garden fills me with joy, and I spend my days immersed in beautiful fiber crafts.

It has been almost 12 years since my first diagnosis. I am in the 5th year following my dual diagnoses of SSc-ILD and PAH, and I continue to find ways to roll with the punches and to shine. I’ve been doing better than expected for a long time, and I keep thinking that maybe resiliency is related to finding glimmers in your everyday life. Every baby bunny sighting, every robin in the yard, every single new rose, all that beautiful yarn… glimmers and joy.

No matter what, choose to be happy.

Shine on, blue moon, shine on.

I’m on my way outside to check on you because…glimmer!!

The Scleroderma Chronicles: There’s been a little set back…

Okay, I have been gone for awhile. I’m sorry that I caused some concern for people. I’ve been contacted by a couple of people, and one (MR, I’m talking to you) has reminded me that I need to continue to check in from time to time…

Here is what is happening in a nutshell. I caught the flu, I got over the flu, I felt kind of good for a week or so, and then I began to get steadily worse. I was losing weight, sleeping around the clock, my hair was falling out, I hurt all over, and my oxygen was low. I had an appointment with my pulmonologist coming up, so I just hung in there. About a month ago I finally saw him and had my routine lung testing done.

Oh dear. The testing didn’t go well. I had a 20% drop in my ability to move CO2 gas from my lungs into my bloodstream. Not good. A drop like that is considered highly significant and set off some red flags. My lungs are in trouble, but there is a strong possibility that my heart is the underlying cause. I’m a patient with both interstitial lung disease (ILD) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and the two, like the lungs and the heart themselves, are interconnected. My pulmonologist shot off emails to the other doctors on my team, prescribed three new drugs to treat the immediate problem (lungs!), and ordered up future testing to see if I make some recovery after completing the prescriptions. There were steroids involved, which is risky for scleroderma patients, but I was kind of out of options. Sigh. It took weeks for me to get this sick, and it will take weeks to see if I’m recovering.

These pictures are of my front ash tree. Three weeks ago there was a hard freeze, and the new leaves and buds on my tree all died. Feeling just awful, panting with chest pain, I keep looking sadly at the dead leaves hanging off the tree wondering if it was alive or dead. I began to call it Schrodinger’s Tree: simultaneously alive/dead, and only time would tell. I kind of identified with the tree as I dragged myself out to the catio for my morning latte. Then, as you can see, over the last 10 days the tree has gradually begun to regrow buds, and now it is covered with leaves. I also have slowly improved: no more chest pain, and the panting is much better. The weight loss has stopped, and my sleep is returning to normal.

Last week I went for a specialized CT scan of my chest to see how I’m doing now that I’ve completed the course of emergency response meds, and in another week, I will repeat the lung function tests. I’ve been warned to expect a trip back to the cath lab to measure the pressures inside the right side of my heart, as there is a good chance my PAH has worsened and is at the heart (see what I did there… ha!) of my struggles.

So… I’m kind of in limbo. In cases like these, I find it is best to knit. I pulled out my Weekender Crew sweater that had been languishing in a box under the bed, and slowly managed to knit enough to get it finished. Look at how cute the knitted fabric is!

I have also been buying yarn. Don’t these look like happy colors?

I have lots of plans for this yarn: a shawl, a sweater, a woven scarf, and then a knitted cowl and wristers set for the scleroderma charity auction. With yarn like this it is impossible to feel sorry for myself. I managed to get more (deep rosy pink) yarn wound for a new sweater, and a couple of nights ago, at about the same time that I became positive that the tree was going to survive, I cast on my new Cloudbreak Tee.

It’s going to be great, right?

So, here I am, knitting away, in a state of flux, waiting to see how all of this will turn out. I’m doing everything that my doctors are telling me to do, and I have gotten alarmed about some parts of the emerging treatment plan (there is some discussion about big alterations and new drugs…), but I am clearly improving, and in the meantime, there is… YARN.

Hannah: Be like a cat. Eat the best tuna you can find and then take a long nap.

As I told my pulmonologist… no one ever got better by worrying. Do the best you can, take your meds, and sleep like a cat.

I also told him that I’m not doing another lung biopsy!! He didn’t think I was funny…

PS: I have been looking for all the glimmers. The white pelicans have returned to Colorado. A litter of baby bunnies have emerged from under the deck. I went to the garden center and bought huge lavender plants. My catio is awash with potted flowers and the yard is full of birdsong. My trees are covered with feathery new leaves. The baby eagles at Big Bear Lake are getting huge…

The Scleroderma Chronicles: Complicated AF

February was a good month for little ol’ scleroderma me. I was getting stuff done around the house, weaving lots of new projects, attending social events, and enjoying a sense of improvement. I’m doing pretty great, I told myself! I sailed through my routine medical appointments, had my usual heart echocardiogram done, and didn’t think about it too much. I had some cardiac symptoms last fall, but they seemed to be resolving okay.

Feeling positive and joyful, I bought a lots of yarn in the gloom of winter. Look at all of that pink!!!!

Then the echocardiogram report came back. Oh, oh. I have had some fluid around my heart for several years now (a pericardial effusion) that my cardiologist has been following. It is rather common in systemic sclerosis patients, with about 25% of us having one at some point in our journey. This time the effusion has grown, completely surrounding my heart, and large enough to cause symptoms and to be a concern. Oh. That’s why I was feeling dizzy and experiencing some chest discomfort last December. My cardiologist ordered up some blood work to see if I have active inflammation and pericarditis.

Nope. My inflammation markers are normal. Kind of a bummer, as that means it won’t respond to anti-inflammatory medications, and this is something else. Scleroderma, hard at work. The possibility of broken heart syndrome has been raised. Fabulous. My cardiologist scheduled another echocardiogram for early June. I have kind of a concern that there might be some type of procedure that involves a huge needle that will be required to remove some of that fluid. I just have to be complicated, right?

Then I got sick with some nasty respiratory virus…

I’ve been sick for almost three weeks! This was a respiratory virus, and I’ve been on oxygen for two weeks straight and taking all my drugs while following the directions for home care from my pulmonologist, too dizzy to go to urgent care, but not sick enough to dial 911. Worried friends have been checking up on me, and I’ve been faithfully reporting out my symptoms and oxygen levels every day to them. I started using my respirometer again to get my lung volume back up, I was able to start going off oxygen for a few hours each day towards the end of the 2nd week, and my heart slowly stopped having palpitations. Am I still having tachycardia events? Why yes, yes I am. Stupid crazy heart! In spite of that, I have finally started to feel like myself again this week, and my appetite has come back. The cats, who have been very patient, are overjoyed to have me up and about again, and I’m finally able to make chemo hats and knit again. I even got my little rigid heddle loom warped yesterday!

Doesn’t this all sound ridiculous? Like, why wasn’t I in urgent care sooner? Well… I’m complicated. Going to urgent care is risky as I might be exposed to ANOTHER virus. If I have to call 911 the ambulance will take me to the dreadful hospital that is closest and not in my health care network. The doctors in the urgent care and ERs don’t quite know what to do with a patient like me, and going in usually isn’t productive. Ugh. I instead called in and got advice from my specialist nurses, and they clarified where the red lines were: if I couldn’t keep my O2 numbers up in the 90s, or if I developed significant symptoms of cardiac tamponade, I had to get emergency intervention. In the middle of the second week another scleroderma patient sent me this…

Anyway, that is me. Miss Complicated AF. Everything is just fraught when I get sick. Do I stop my immunosuppressive drugs so I can fight the virus? Nope… those drugs are holding my autoimmune lung disease in check, and as soon as I cut back, I got a lot sicker. Should I use the steroid inhaler? Yep, that helped. Saline nasal rinses? Good lord, what is all this nasal bleeding… Decongestants? Only in the morning. Mucinex? Yes, max dose!!! Finally, over the virus, finally off oxygen, still struggling with some cardiac symptoms, I am dealing with crushing fatigue but still starting to dream of knitted wonders with all of my fabulous yarn. My orchids are blooming again, and the bunnies are dancing in the yard. Last night I saw a great horned owl fly across the street in front of me when I brought in the trash cans from the street. The moon and planets gleamed above me, and the evening was warm with a nice breeze. Glimmers continue to appear around me, and I am feeling the joy again.

Today I cleaned out the yarn stash, and I’m ready to start knitting on some fabulous (pink) sweaters. Some really great patterns hit the Ravelry feed while I was sick, and it is time to cast on some joy.

You hear that crazy heart? Time for some joy. Behave yourself.

PS: Do you wonder what the sweater patterns are?

Cloudbreak Tee by Wool & Pine
Hearthside Pullover by Wool & Pine
Dragonfly Sweater by Elenor Mortensen
Hearthside Cardigan by Wool & Pine

Hannah and the CoalBear: Finished Weaving Projects

Hi. I’m Hannah.

The Mother of Cats finished her scarf on the rigid heddle loom (I helped with the weaving) and then cut the fabric off. This scarf is sooo soft and squishy. I wanted the Mother of Cats to give it to me for my bed, but nope. She kept it for herself. This is what it looked like before she finished twisting all the little fringe strings.

Personally I like the strings in the fringe, but the Mother of Cats twisted them all up to become tidy finished fringe last night.

After the Mother of Cat got the scarf off the rigid heddle loom she sat down and concentrated on finishing all of the weaving on the floor loom. Then she cut it off the loom!!! Oh, that was really, really exciting. I just love the smell of wool, don’t you? I moved right in while the Mother of Cats was trying to get the woven items separated from each other. She was using a rotary cutter, but I am fearless!! Also, very spoiled.

The final woven items were two placemats and three table runners. Once again, PERFECT for my bed, but no! The finished items are put away except for one that is now in the living room. I would sleep on it there, but there is a STUPID PLANT in the middle. Why does the Mother of Cats do these things?

The other woven piece that I think should be mine (hello… it is pink!!) is the table runner woven with silk/bamboo. So shiny. So nice to roll around on. So put away in the closet where I can’t get to it…

This is both sides of the runner. Pretty cool, right. I kind of like both sides so it is hard to decide. The Mother of Cats says that this is a feature of overshot weaving, but I’m like… whatever. Can I have tuna now?

The Mother of Cats was really excited to get the rigid heddle looms warped up again, but she got sick on Sunday, and she is still lying around like a big slug ignoring my needs. It’s just some coughy thing, but she sure does sleep a lot, and there isn’t much of anything getting done around here. Hey, Mother of Cats! We need to get weaving again.

Guess I’ll catch a nap myself. Can you tell that I am dreaming of TUNA!!!

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I really gained a lot of confidence in my weaving by taking an online overshot class from The Handweaving Academy. There are so many little subtle things that make it challenging when starting out, but I gained so much practical knowledge along with technical skills that I’m thinking of ordering warp yarn in a dark purple color for more placemats. This will be fun!!!

Some of the changes that I made were pretty basic, but also game changers. Like… label your floor treadles! I wrote on scotch tape that can be easily removed. Other helpful techniques included the mechanics of using two shuttles at once. There are floating warp threads at the edges of the woven piece, and I learned how to use them effectively to create a smooth selvedge. Well… for me, that it pretty smooth. I had learned about “tromp as writ” years ago, but now I understand. I understand how to convert my weaving to adjust patterns to my (rising shed) Baby Wolf loom. I can figure out the treadling sequence from a draft, and I know how to convert it from one pattern type to another. I feel like a real weaver again!!!

The blue marl yarn in the scarf is Marla by Manos del Uraguay; it is a DK weight yarn that is very soft and squishy.

The yarn in the table runner is Noro Silk Garden sock yarn, another DK weight yarn.

The orchid is one of my plants that is reblooming from last year.

I’m considering a doubleweave class next! I already bought this book…

Hannah and the CoalBear: All the Updates

Hi. I’m Mateo.

Don’t you think that my fluff looks nice?

It is nice and warm outside almost every day now and I get to head on out to the catio to check on the bunny. He’s still there!!! I would like to stay out all day but the Mother of Cats forces me to COME BACK INSIDE after she makes her breakfast and morning latte (She tells Hannah that she needs to learn how to make a latte, but does she pay attention? No. Hannah just does whatever she wants, and she never gets into trouble like I do…), and then she usually doesn’t let me outside again. Why is she so mean!!! I watch the bunny from the front window, but it isn’t the same…

The Mother of Cats has been spending a lot of her time weaving downstairs on the big loom. This loom is a little bit scary. She stomps on the floor peddles and pulls the big swingy reed thing towards her while throwing yarny shuttles back and forth at the same time that crashy parts are going up and down. Do I hang out with the loom? No. I do not. I do feel like I should show off what she has been making.

After the Mother of Cats had finished the homework weaving she dug around in her yarn stash and made a woven piece from some sock yarn that she bought years and years ago.

Look at that yarn! Years ago she made those socks with the elephant on them, and last week the rest of the yarn was used on the loom to make a table runner. Personally, I like the socks better, but the Mother of Cats likes the new runner too. It is cool, right? The Mother of Cats was so excited by the look of that yarn she headed back to the stash and got MORE yarn.

This yarn, which is called Silk Garden, is thicker than the first yarn. Wouldn’t that yarn make a nice cat toy? Maybe some knitted mice? The Mother of Cats completely ignored my needs and wove another table runner. She likes the way it looks so much she went back to the yarn stash again and got some pink silk yarn. Yep. You Guessed it. ANOTHER table runner is now getting woven on the loom.

Hannah likes this pink shiny weaving more than I do. Pink is kind of her favorite color.

I do have to mention, the Mother of Cats has been kind of crazy with the pink lately. She went out and bought pink plants. Then she bought pink shoes. Then she bought a pink cricket. Seriously, crickets are for playing with!!! Crazy Mother of Cats, she has it with the plants in the indoor garden.

The Mother of Cats says that the pink makes her happy, so I guess I have to put up with all of this pink silliness.

I’m trying to think really hard about what else has been going on around here. There has been some knitting. Boring. She has made some more hats for the infusion centers. Also boring. She went out and left us several times this month for meet-ups with her friends and some doctor visits. Also very, very boring. I guess I can show off the weaving on her rigid heddle loom:

This yarn is very soft, but not as soft as my fur!

I guess that’s all that I want to talk about. It is about time for the Mother of Cats to feed us our special night time tuna, and then I’m going to make her play with me for a while.

Bye for now,

Mateo

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The first color changing yarn that I used on the loom is Noro Silk Garden Sock Solo, a single ply fingering weight yarn. I wasn’t sure how the cotton warp would work with the wool blend yarn, but it looked great.
The second Noro yarn is Silk Garden Sock yarn, a DK weight single ply yarn that is twice as heavy as the first Noro yarn. It wove in great, and I liked the look of the more solid color blocks.
That pink yarn is also a DK weight called Bamboo Silk (silk/bamboo mix) that was hand dyed by a weaving shop north of me. I’ve had this yarn for years: really special, it was hard to find a good use for it. I’m liking it in this woven piece. I plan to put another warp on the loom in the same threading pattern, but this time in a purple colored cotton, and then I can weave another piece with the same pink yarn. I can’t wait to see how that turns out!
Don’t you like the pink cricket? My new rigid heddle loom is a cricket made by the Schacht Spindle Company. Of course it needs a pink cricket to keep it company!
I’ve been reading convoluted mystery books lately. The two that I am reading right now are set in very different situations, but I am loving the many technical details, cultural themes, and foreign settings that are similar in a spooky way.

Imagine living in a time far in the future. You are the pilot attached to an archeological group recovering artifacts from ancient civilizations on distant planets that abruptly disappeared. What happened? Can a lost alien language be decoded in time to understand these ancient beings who have left behind their poetry, religion, and relics before the catastrophic mechanism that killed them returns? It’s an interstellar crime of cosmic proportions, and time is running out. The key to solving much of this is… a printing press.

Or, almost as foreign as the ancient aliens and their lost civilization, is London 1667. It is the year following the Great Fire, and political intrigue is thicker than the smoke of that great conflagration. The city is being rebuilt, but refugee camps remain. There are children afflicted with scrofula, a form of tuberculosis that presents in horrible swollen tumors grown from lymph nodes in the neck. There is murder. There are royal directives, and machinations by important people to secure power. Nothing makes sense, but everything is connected. There is a printing press involved. Of course.

I’m having fun reading both of these at the same time.

The other big event that happened. That would be Rare Disease Day on February 28th.

I decided to not write a whole post about it this year, but I wanted to make a point or two. There I am, looking much better than I deserve to, flashing my zebra shirt. The decal on my car tells the story. Even though I am told often that “I look great!”, and I suspect that some of those people think that I am faking for attention, the reality of scleroderma is that it is… complicated. I take 22 pills a day in an ongoing effort to slow the progression of the damage being caused by my disease, and almost all of my organs are being impacted. I now have serious lung and heart complications, but to be truthful, the impact to my digestive tract is what causes me the most grief. Scleroderma, especially the systemic form, is rare; the complications that it brings are even more rare.

Systemic sclerosis, the type of scleroderma that I have, like many other rare diseases, is invisible, but the struggle is real.

Whenever you can, support the zebras that you find in your life.

Shuttle Pilot Days

My sister Selma sent me some of my favorite gifts ever. Beautiful plants, cute figurines, rice cookers, and great shirts all arrived on my doorstep sent by my sister. Two years ago, I tried to get back into weaving, but it didn’t go all that well. I used a table loom and even that was too much for my sad little hands. I had to use oxygen. I was feeling pretty down about the whole thing. Selma, forever unwilling to surrender to the hardships sent her way by life, sent me this tee-shirt. I packed it away.

This is a beautiful shirt, very comfortable and in my favorite color. It was a kind of a flop, however, because… scleroderma. I have a great floor loom that hasn’t been used for almost a decade. I can’t remember when I last produced something useful on a loom. I had kind of accepted that my days of weaving were over.

Then Selma died last summer.

Time to channel the indominable Selma, right?!! This Christmas I bought myself a little rigid heddle loom that I thought I might be able to manage while sitting in bed. Good plan, right? I used the practice yarn sent with the loom to learn how to warp and use it, and then I warped it up again with superwash merino sock yarn. Guess what? I can weave like crazy propped up in bed binge watching Netflex. Yay!

I finished the scarf this week and it is great! I am really happy with the feel and the drape. I bought a little fringe maker tool so I can make even twisted fringes with beads. Did I do this propped up in bed? Of course. I’m feeling pretty successful and I have already warped up the little rigid heddle again. Do I have visions of finished scarfs dancing in my head. Yep. Watch out yarn stash, I am coming for you!!

I also, in a moment of determined optimism, signed up for an overshot weaving class that would require me to warp up and use the floor loom. Oh, boy. Getting the loom warped and correctly threaded was… a lot. Just exhausting, actually, both mentally and physically. Eventually the warp was on and I could begin weaving. Yikes. This was a lot of work. There were problems with oxygen levels and sore muscles. I persevered, took a day or two off between weaving sessions, and slowly I became stronger and my breathing improved. I worked my way through the lessons online, clearly behind the rest of the class, and struggled to master the equipment and technical details involved in weaving overshot, a technique that involved weaving two fabrics interlaced with each other at once to create the type of designs in the pictures below.

Today I have finished weaving two of the major projects associated with the class, and I couldn’t be more pleased. These two placemats look different, but they are actually made from the same threading on the loom. The two looks (the left is called “star” and the right is called “rose” in weaving language) are created by changing the treadling sequence. Cool, right? My next assignment is to create a table runner that combines these two patterns together in a creative way. Yeppers! I am so excited to do that and have already half-way figured out how it will happen on the loom. I have new yarn picked out and everything. I am gaining energy and I can weave much longer at a time, and I’m not experiencing too many joint problems. Am I wearing my shuttle pilot shirt? Why yes, yes I am!

Selma would be so pleased to know that I am once again a shuttle pilot!!

After thoughts:

Selma sent me Swedish gingersnap cookies last year for Christmas. I bought another can and I’m now eating those cookies while I work at the loom.
Grief is a tricky thing. So is stress management. I have discovered that working at the loom, creating something beautiful and useful over time using repetitive movements, helps with both.
I’m thinking of joining the local weavers’ guild.
I have a really lush, healthy looking African violet plant that Selma sent to me one year. Is this plant blooming? Nope. This is kind of on point for my sister. When the time is right, I anticipate that it will produce blooms better than any other plant that I own.